A GAME THAT WILL STIR THE EMOTIONS
McCall takes a walk down memory lane and reveals his rich Auld Enemy history
FROM Gazza’s shirt to a collection of tartan tat, plus one match programme used as Exhibit A, Stuart McCall has collected some interesting memorabilia on his trips to Wembley. We all know what he would like as a souvenir of next November’s competitive sojourn to London. If three qualifying points would trump any Auld Enemy memory he has acquired to date, though, the importance of the fixture — beyond the obvious potential of qualifying for a World Cup — lies in the varying emotions stirred just by talking about days past. Be they good, bad or downright disastrous.
‘People ask me my favourite memory, it’s not from playing,’ said McCall, whose 40 caps and appearances at three major finals for Scotland hardly leave him short of fond recollections.
‘My best moment was actually going down there in ’81, when John Robertson scored. We went on a bus from Leeds, me and my pal, and at every service station I bought something Scottish.
‘I got a See-You- Jimmy wig, which I didn’t really need anyway. Then I got a St Andrew’s saltire to wrap around me, a Lion Rampant to wave... we stopped at about four stations and I bought something at every one. I turned up at Wembley covered head-to-toe in Tartan Army gear.
‘I went in ’83, as well, 2-0 to them and Bryan Robson scored. But ’81 I remember being brilliant. I would have been 17 then, I was at Bradford as a player.
‘I remember getting the bus back at six o’clock that evening, from Golders Green, and I made it back to Leeds in time to pop into my local — it was only quarter to ten.
‘I’m head-to-toe in tartan and flags, and the guy is saying: “OK, give it a rest. All right, you’ve watched it on telly, you’ve won — did you have to come in here dressed like that?”
‘I told him I had been at the game but he didn’t believe me — until I pulled the programme out of my back pocket and said: “There, get it up ye!”
‘We went straight to Golders Green after the game and got back into the pub by the time Match of the Day was coming on. It was a Wallace Arnold, l i ke Parks of Hamilton — a normal bus from Leeds to London.
‘I knew we had to get to Golders Green for six, so I remember jogging down Wembley Way, trying to get past all the Tartan Army. I was there with my pal, who was a big England fan.’
McCall also harbours a few less savoury memories from two years later, when a ‘ban’ on travelling fans — actually a dramatic reduction in tickets made available to Scotland supporters — didn’t work out.
Squads of London casuals turned out, flags were burned — and McCall, whose Yorkshire twang hasn’t flattened much in all his years north of the border, had to put on his best Scottish accent to convince some visiting loons that his best pal was “all right, he’s wae me, big man...”
Having been at the first leg of the Euro 2000 Play- Off between the nations at Hampden when, yet again, casuals from the south turned the surrounding streets into a war zone, McCall stayed away from the return match at Wembley.
If he regrets missing a big nearly night for Craig Brown’s men, their 1-0 win not enough to overturn the 2-0 loss at home, he’s glad that the tone of the fixture has changed completely; anyone who was at last November’s friendly at Celtic Park will testify that the relationship between supporters is now set at nothing stronger than good banter.
Out on the pitch, the balance has never appeared to be more in England’s favour. When it matters, they always seem to beat us. Going back to that Play-Off and, before then, in the infamous Euro ’96 meeting at Wembley.
Gary McAllister’s penalty miss, with or without the help of Uri Geller ‘moving’ the ball during the Scot’s run-up, Paul Gascoigne’s wonder goal, a 2-0 defeat that still rankles to this day. Still, at least McCall outwitted club-mate Ally McCoist when it came to one special memento.
‘I’m always focused on the game, so I’m not one for swapping shirts,’ he insisted, by way of a disclaimer. ‘Before the game, Coisty had asked for Gazza’s shirt.
‘We came off at half-time and Gazza ran down the tunnel, gave his shirt to me and said: “That’s for your wee girl.”
‘I’d done a TV interview the night before and, because my daughter loved Gazza from Rangers, she wanted it to be 3-3 — with me and Gazza getting a hat-trick. I didn’t realise she’d started drinking at such a young age!
‘Anyway, I said she would love Gazza’s shirt — but I’d never have asked for it. England had been booed off at half-time but he still thought about my little girl and how she’d like the shirt. I put it in my bag at half-time and didn’t mention to anyone.
‘After the match, we were on the bus going back to Birmingham and we were right at the back. Coisty had the shirt out and I was asking him how he could take the shirt of someone who had just knocked us out the tournament.
‘He said I was only jealous. But I said: “Jealous? I got a shirt that DIDN’T score against us!”
‘I remember that game for the club battles. I was up against Gazza, team-mates at Rangers. It was Colin Calderwood against Teddy Sheringham, both at Spurs, and Colin Hendry against Alan Shearer, Blackburn.
‘Did Tony Adams give away the penalty? I cut it back for Gordon Durie, I know that much! I get sent pictures to autograph and it’s always the same one of me for Scotland. I ask what happened next, no-one knows — I’ll tell you what happened, I cut the ball back, Durie got in front of Adams and it’s a penalty.
‘And then **** i ng Uri Geller moves the ball...’
All part of the rich tapestry of the world’s oldest i nternational fixture — back once again as genuine competitive fixtures.
An autumnal Friday night at Wembley, pl us a s ummer’s Saturday at Hampden. Memories waiting to be made. With or without actual souvenirs. No, no, put the pitch back now...