I know exactly how Shinnie must have felt — I’ve been there
Shinnie’s misery in Kazakhstan reminds Ritchie of a thrashing that ended his Scotland career
THE verdict on Graeme Shinnie was scathing. Delivered with brutal honesty by Graeme Shinnie. After the most harrowing experience of his professional life and in a soul-baring exercise, the Aberdeen captain did not wait around to discover how deep pundits were plunging in the knife.
He faced up to the reality and shouldered responsibility, admitting there will be no way back into the national team following his personal nightmare on Thursday in Kazakhstan.
That his Scotland career was effectively over following the humiliation of being culpable for goals contributing to one of the worst results in the country’s history.
Paul Ritchie has been that broken man. He recognises precisely what Shinnie was enduring in the Astana Arena.
When reading the 27-year-old’s post-match judgment and searing self-analysis, Ritchie’s haunted mind shot back to the night when he recognised he would never make another appearance for Scotland.
The Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, was the setting for Ritchie’s seventh and final cap in February 2004.
Playing his club football with Walsall at the time, he began the day as a late replacement for Steven Pressley — and ended it an emotional wreck, sitting alone with his thoughts on an SFA bus returning to Glasgow from the Welsh capital.
He alighted at Knutsford, to his home in Cheshire, inconsolable at being at fault for goals in a crushing 4-0 friendly defeat.
‘I know how Graeme Shinnie is feeling,’ said Ritchie. ‘It’s the worst feeling ever.
‘The defeat in Kazakhstan was the worst Scotland result ever and, before that match, I was responsible for the previous worst result.
‘It will hurt him for weeks. The Scottish public and media can be very unforgiving because the national team means so much to so many people.
‘I can’t remember who was on the bus back from Cardiff that night but no one went out of their way to speak to me. It felt like the longest journey ever.’
As in the loss in Kazakhstan, there was an unfamiliar look to the centre of defence for Berti Vogts as Ritchie partnered Steven Caldwell.
Licking his lips was Cardiff speed merchant Robert Earnshaw, aided by Ryan Giggs and Gary Speed. Earnshaw scored after 44 seconds, seizing on a Ritchie slip.
The Welsh striker burned Ritchie and Caldwell for speed to guide in a second goal just after half an hour. Ritchie’s suffering lasted the entire game before Wales declared on four. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be playing,’ recalls the former Hearts favourite. ‘I was there as back-up but then Elvis suffered an injury the day before. ‘If you don’t start the game properly, then it has a snowball effect. You can have positive thoughts in your head, then one mistake and it’s gone. ‘You try to rectify it, then suddenly something else goes wrong. ‘I went to control the ball in the first minute, it ran away from me. Earnshaw picked it up and scored. I’d played against him before in the Championship and nothing like that had happened.
‘But that night in Cardiff, I basically got him his move to the Premier League because a few weeks after scoring that hat-trick, he signed for West Brom.’
Ritchie had scored on his senior debut against Czech Republic and fearlessly taken on a man-marking role on David Beckham in the loss to England at Hampden in 1999.
He had also faced the likes of Thierry Henry and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink when playing for Scotland under Craig Brown.
But, five years on and after leaving Manchester City, Ritchie discovered that excelling for Walsall in a relegation scrap in England’s second tier counted for nothing in the national spotlight.
‘That was the nail in my coffin as an international footballer and I knew it that night,’ he admits. ‘You don’t come back from that. It was that extra level up. If you suddenly feel you don’t have the tactical or technical quality to do it on a given night, then that is tough to take.
‘I was fortunate to gain a number of caps and played against fantastic countries. But what happened that night in Cardiff sticks with me.
‘I hadn’t been at the highest level for a few years, so to be back in there and not perform was awful.
‘But I accepted it. I was grateful for the opportunity. Berti watched me once or twice with Walsall and I was playing particularly well.
‘But I was playing well at a Championship club — that was the difference. Small details count for a lot at international level.
‘And although Kazakhstan are a low-ranked team, it’s international football — and still an unforgiving environment if it all goes wrong.’
A leader of men in a Derek McInnes team of achievers at Aberdeen, Shinnie was a lost boy exposed playing at left-back — in the absence of Andrew Robertson and Kieran Tierney — in a ragged Scotland performance.
How might he have felt as the torrid 90 minutes dragged on?
‘I wanted off,’ explains Ritchie of his Wales hell. ‘That was the only time that I was on a pitch as a professional footballer and didn’t want to be there.
‘I was miles off the pace and it felt a lonely place to be. It was awful. I had taken big beatings from Celtic and Rangers but I felt the world was against me all of that night in Wales.
‘The ramifications are catastrophic for the individual. I never played for Scotland again. Luckily for the country, it was a friendly.
‘The opener for the European qualifiers is bigger. It’s a disastrous start to an already difficult Euro 2020 qualifying group.
‘You have to put your hands up. It wasn’t the wrong attitude. It was just that whatever could go wrong did go wrong for Graeme Shinnie. It can happen.
‘He has not made excuses. He has accepted responsibility, just like I did. It doesn’t make you feel any better but being up front and honest is the only way to be. Then it’s up to them how they deal with it.’
One crucial difference between Shinnie and Ritchie after their nightmare experiences? The Aberdeen man can be presented with a shot at some redemption immediately — tonight in San Marino.
‘I think Graeme has to get another chance,’ stressed Ritchie. ‘He has been fantastic for years for Aberdeen. To crucify him over one game for his country in the wrong position would be criminal.
‘San Marino is the opportunity to put him back in — even coming on as a substitute. That would benefit him as an individual and he deserves that.’