ROOFLESS RUTHLESS
1999 clash got off to horror start as driver couldn’t find camouflage hotel This time round, Scots have to start same way finished against Israelis Kev: Our Faroe horrors can’t be repeated
IT began with the Scotland bus missing the team hotel because it had a camouflage roof.
By the end of the ill-fated trip to the Faroe Islands in 1999, it was the Scots who wanted to go into hiding.
Much has been written about Berti Vogts’ side who slumped to a shocker of a 2-2 draw in Toftir in 2002.
But three years earlier Craig Brown’s side suffered the same embarrassing fate against a part-time team made up of fishermen and tradesmen.
In the wind-swept clifftop village the dream of Euro 2000 was blown way off course with a 1-1 draw that still ranks among the worst in Scottish football history.
The fact that June 1999 humbling came almost exactly a year after Brown’s men opened the World Cup against Brazil in front of a global TV audience of a billion just serves to make it all the more galling for Kevin Gallacher, who played in both matches.
He led the line with Allan Johnston, goalscorer that day, and admits Brown’s boys simply never took the opposition seriously.
And while the current crop will be at a different venue, with a slick plastic pitch, the former striker insists the memory of those torrid trips to Toftir must serve as a warning.
Gallacher said: “It was a case of planes, ferries and buses just to get to the hotel. after all that the bus driver went right past the hotel because it had a grass roof to keep the heat in for the winter. He couldn’t find it because it was camouflaged into the landscape!
“I suppose that was a sign of things to come.
“The pitch on that cliff top was bumpy and it was really windy – a bit like Pittodrie on a bad day. Seriously it was much worse. It was basically a farmer’s cow field.
“They don’t play there now thankfully but Scotland went back to that cow field three years later under Berti Vogts and we’ve never been very successful at it. It was a sorry event and I remember thinking ‘I don’t want to come back here too quickly’.
“We underestimated what the Faroes were going to be like and the pitch was a bit of a leveller.
“It was like a non-league club had drawn a top flight side in the cup. We turned up and our heads weren’t in it. Craig had us prepared as he always did but mentally, individually and collectively we just weren’t at the races.
“Players were frustrated as the game wore on. Big Matt Elliott got sent off just before half-time and despite leading 1-0 we were up against it in the second half.
“We couldn’t break them down and get a second and, of course, they hit us with a sucker-punch equaliser.
“We were there to be shot at. We knew we were going to get stick because there’s no denying we’d had a bad game. It was a lesson of how difficult it can become when you go down to 10 men at international level no matter who you are playing against.”
Despite the Faroes flop, Brown’s Scotland side still recovered to finish second in their qualifying group and set up a play-off with England for a Euro 2000 spot.
Gallacher is confident Clarke’s Scots can clinch the same outcome – minus the North Atlantic horror show.
He said: “Scotland has a habit of doing things the hard way – look at the Israel game – but with the quality Scotland have and showed in the second half on Saturday, if they play to that level I don’t think the Faroes will live with them. “The reaction Steve got from his players in the second half was magnificent. The tempo they played at was impressive and if they can start like that then the game should become easier. “But typical Scotland we do it back to front. I’d like to have seen Lyndon Dykes and Che Adams link up better. Che was quiet and games before that Lyndon has been quiet. “With Che missing I’d like to see Ryan Christie beside Dykes. He can play the No.10 role and can drop into midfield and drive forward. “It’s more the lapses in defence that worry. If we can lock the back door then it’s a right good side.”