Our preparation was a shambles. We didn’t know the first thing about any of Peru’s players
SAYS ALAN ROUGH
Ally was very much: “It’s all about us, not them”
WITH their plane descending into Glasgow Airport and the last leg of an epic journey back from Argentina almost complete, some among the Scotland party mistakenly believed they’d clapped eyes on a welcoming committee.
‘Ally (MacLeod) was saying: “Oh look, there’s a wee reception for us. It doesn’t look too bad”,’ recalled former Scotland goalkeeper Alan Rough. ‘I was thinking: “Wait until we get closer!” And when we did we could see some of the banners. People had lost it completely. It was incredible.’
The same sentiment might well have applied to the scenes at Hampden one month earlier that summer of 1978. Some 25,000 fans turned up to wish the national team good luck as they headed to South America for the World Cup.
The veracity of MacLeod’s alleged reply to an enquiry from an English reporter as to his intentions after the tournament — ‘retain it’ — has long been disputed. But there is no question that a section containing Peru, Iran and Holland was widely viewed as a gimme.
What transpired was both farcical and humiliating. A defeat to Peru, a draw with Iran and the most futile of victories over the Dutch punctuated a misadventure that also saw Willie Johnston sent home for using the banned stimulant Reactivan and endless allegations of the Scotland team hotel resembling the last days of Rome.
There was an extraordinary naivety to the affair that, even 40 years later, makes the nation wince.
‘You would normally know at least two of a country’s players but we didn’t know about (Teofilo) Cubillas and the rest of them,’ Rough said of Scotland’s opening opponents Peru.
‘The preparation for the whole thing was a bit of a shambles. Ally was very much: “It’s all about us rather than them” sort of thing. That’s the way we went out and played the game.’
Rough recalls the first doubts about MacLeod’s
laissez-faire approach to the opener in Cordoba taking all of ten minutes to surface.
‘They looked a bit of a team,’ he said. ‘They had individuals at the back who were comfortable on the ball. They were typical South Americans.’
And yet, there was no indication of impending disaster when Joe Jordan stroked home a rebound off the keeper inside 14 minutes. Even when Cesar Cueto squared the game two minutes from the break, there was an expectation Scotland would prevail.
Rough remembers Don Masson’s missed penalty on the hour mark as the moment it all began to go horribly wrong.
‘It would have been a turning point in any game,’ he said. ‘The momentum can turn.’
By the end of play, Cubillas had ensured his name would never be forgotten in these parts. Having curled the ball into the top-left corner with the outside of his right foot, he repeated the trick from a free-kick. MacLeod wasn’t the only Scot left with their head in their hands.
‘The only people we came up against who hit the ball with the outside of their boot were Andy Ritchie and Davie Cooper,’ added Rough. ‘We just didn’t perform at all in that game.’
As unforeseen as the reverse was, qualification was still in Scotland’s hands.
But it was almost as if they were due to pay a price for the ludicrous optimism epitomised by Andy Cameron’s appearance on Top of
the Pops singing Ally’s Tartan Army. A song which came with the
memorable boast ‘when we win the World Cup’.
Sent home in disgrace, Johnston, then of West Brom, would normally have had the front pages of the red tops to himself. But with Scotland the only home nation at the finals, stories of alcoholic excess among the travelling party were filed from London-based reporters who had been deployed to Argentina under orders to leave no stone unturned.
‘There were stories flying around that just weren’t true,’ insisted Rough. ‘That everybody was out bevvying, everybody was doing this, everybody was doing that.
‘After the Peru game, everybody was taking photos everywhere we went. I can remember one day we were all sitting in a cafe having a drink. I saw a photographer away in a corner taking photos of us. You didn’t mind it. But he did it at an angle and it looked as if there were about four dozen beers in front of us. That’s the kind of stuff that was going on that we had to deal with.’
In those pre-internet times, phone calls back home were inevitably met with awkward questions about an individual’s part in the alleged debauchery.
‘Folk back home kept saying: “What the hell are you doing out there?” recalled Rough. ‘I think it was because the SFA stayed in the same place that we were. They were, as they do, meeting other delegates in our complex. People had picked up on the fact that a lot of drink was being consumed in the place. That wasn’t the case from the players’ point of view, but it certainly was for the SFA.’
Coming four days after the Peru defeat, the prospect of Iran ought to have been manna from heaven. If only.
Despite being gifted the lead through Andranik Eskandarian’s own goal, Iraj Danaeifard levelled for the underdogs.
‘That was desperate,’ grimaced Rough. ‘That was the worst-ever game anybody could play in. The heads were down, nobody could lift themselves for that at all.’
By the time Scotland faced the Dutch in Mendoza on June 11, the equation was clear. Anything less than a three-goal win and they’d be on the first flight home.
Trailing to Rob Rensenbrink’s penalty, the nightmare looked complete until the original episode of undiluted heroic failure began.
Kenny Dalglish equalised before the break before Archie Gemmill hit a double — the second an iconic slalom through the Dutch defence.
Scotland had 22 minutes to find the goal which would take them through. Within three minutes, though, disaster in the shape of Johnny Rep’s howitzer settled the issue.
‘I got a DVD of the game and watched it recently — we could have been 4-0 up by half-time,’ reasoned Rough.
‘Then Rep hit his shot. I remember I got four fingers to it and thought I had enough to get it over the bar, but it went in the net.
‘I was chatting to Archie recently and he said: “I meant to tell you years ago that when he hit that shot it clipped off my boot!” That’s what took it up and away from me.’
For Scotland, Argentina festered like an open wound despite successive qualifications for the next three World Cups.
To a generation that’s grown up without such joy for two decades now, a lynch mob awaiting a side that has only lost one match in a major finals must seem absurd. These, clearly, were radically different times.
‘We were disappointed when we let everyone down,’ said Rough.
As for dear old Cubillas, his Peru side topped the group only to disappear without a trace in the next section — somehow losing 6-0 to Argentina in their final match — just the score Mario Kempes and Co required to make the final.
‘He still is a star in Peru, but today he’d be known worldwide,’ added Rough.
‘When I left Hibs and played in Orlando, the first team we played was Miami and Cubillas was playing for them.
‘We talked about that game and had a laugh.
‘He actually mentions me in his book — he remembered everything about the day.
‘But I made sure he never scored against me that night — I lined up with ten in the wall!’
Alan Rough was speaking at an event to promote Hampden Park, Scotland’s national stadium.
The stories flying around about us bevvying just weren’t true