WINS AND OUTS
Gallacher recalls agony of glorious failure at back-to back Euro Finals
TOO little, too late. So near, yet so far. Two phrases that seemed attached to the Scotland side like a pint to a Tartan Army trooper’s hand in the ‘90s. On this date in 1992 and 1996 Scotland crashed out of the European Championships despite closing out their group stage campaigns with memorable victories. A 3-0 thumping of a star-studded CIS in Sweden ‘92 wasn’t enough for Andy Roxburgh’s side to make it to the latter stages at their first appearance in the Euros. Four years later and a 1-0 win over Switzerland saw Craig Brown’s
BY FRASER WILSON side come within a goal of making it to the quarter-finals of the competition in England.
Kevin Gallacher remembers only too vividly the sense of frustration in both campaigns.
The former Blackburn, Coventry and Dundee United striker was in those squads, starting against Rangers duo Oleg Kuznetsov and Alexei Mikhailichenko’s CIS then playing a supporting role on the bench against the Swiss.
Andy Roxburgh’s side already had their hopes of progressing from an ultra competitive group, also with Holland and Germany, killed off by the time the CIS clash came around 28 years ago.
But for Gallacher, who had been stuck on the bench for the two opening games, the match was anything but meaningless.
He said: “A dead rubber – are you kidding? Guys like me had been sitting on the bench thinking, ‘We’ve come all this way and won’t get a game.’
“When the manager freshened the team up for that final match