Gallus E-Book

Michael McEwan

• Herausgeber: Polaris
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 522

Beschreibung

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who insist that football is just a game, and those who know better. Take the April 1967 clash between England and Scotland.  Wounded by their biggest rivals winning the World Cup just nine months earlier, Bobby Brown's Scots travelled to Wembley on the mother of all missions. Win and they would take a huge step towards qualifying for the 1968 European Championship, end England's formidable 19-game unbeaten streak, and, best of all, put Sir Alf Ramsey's men firmly back in their box.  Lose? Well, that was just unthinkable.   Meanwhile, off the pitch, the winds of change were billowing through Scotland. Nationalism, long confined to the margins of British politics, was starting to penetrate the mainstream, gaining both traction and influence. Was England's World Cup victory a defining moment in the Scottish independence movement? Or did it consign Scotland to successive generations of myopic underachievement?  Michael McEwan, author of The Ghosts of Cathkin Park, returns to 1967 to explore a crucial ninety minutes in the rebirth of a nation. 

Leseprobe

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Text copyright © Michael McEwan, 2023

ISBN: 9781913538972eBook ISBN: 9781913538989

The right of Michael McEwan to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Designed and typeset by Polaris Publishing, EdinburghPrinted in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

For Juliet and Sadie.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

1: SO MUCH BICKERING

2: THE WINTER GAME

3: BROWN AMATEURISM

4: EURO VISION

5: WEAK, PUNY AND BESPECTACLED

6: AN IMMOVABLE OBJECT, AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE

7: THE KNIGHT ACROSS THE TABLE

8: HAVIN’ A HAFFEY

9: SEND FOR A SAINT

10: QUIVERING FAULT LINES

11: THE PROMISED LAND

12: RUNNERS & RIDERS

13: THE BIRDS OF THE COWDENBEATH PALAIS

14: MR BROWN’S BOYS

15: FAITHER

16: A BOY AND THE DOC

17: ORIGINAL WIZARDS

18: ‘WE CAN DO IT!’

19: AND SO IT BEGINS

20: WILLIAM WALLACE

21: SMOKED SALMON & ROAST BEEF

22: JIMMY CLITHEROE’S SON

23: THE RESURRECTION OF HARRY LAUDER

24: SOME PEOPLE ARE ON THE PITCH

25: THE OLD JOCK AND HAGGIS BIT

26: A CAT CALLED WEMBLEY

27: GLORIOUS FAILURE

28: STOP THE WORLD

29: WHERE THE GREEN GRASS GROWS

30: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX C

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Former Rangers goalkeeper Bobby Brown took charge of Scotland for the first time against England at Wembley. Getty

England’s World Cup-winning coach Sir Alf Ramsey. In 12 senior international matches in which he managed England against Scotland, he won six, drew three and lost three. Getty

From left to right: Jim McCalliog, Denis Law, Billy Bremner and Bobby Lennox take a breather during training. PA

After getting a goal on his debut against Northern Ireland at Hampden in November 1966, Celtic’s free-scoring forward Bobby Lennox was picked to face England at Wembley in 1967. PA

Captains John Greig and Bobby Moore lead out the teams. Alamy

Billy Bremner narrowly fails to connect with a cross in the England penalty box as Jack Charlton and Nobby Stiles look on. Alamy

Denis Law reacts quickest to give Scotland the lead. It was the Manchester United man’s 27th goal for his country and third against England. Getty

Ronnie McKinnon (5) wheels away in delight after Law gives Scotland the lead at Wembley. Getty

Bobby Lennox turns away to celebrate after slamming Scotland’s second goal past Gordon Banks as England captain Bobby Moore watches on. Getty

Ronnie Simpson and Billy Bremner combine to clear an England attack. Getty

Willie Wallace (7) and Jim Baxter (6) celebrate with Lennox after his goal made it 2-0 to Scotland. Getty

Jim Baxter, with his socks around his ankles, celebrates with Jim McCalliog (9) as the Scots take control. Mirrorpix

John Greig stops another England attack, with Tottenham Hotspur forward Jimmy Greaves (8) lurking. Getty

Bobby Moore slides in on Willie Wallace. The Scot was an 11th hour addition to the side following Celtic teammate Jimmy Johnstone’s injury. Alamy

Alan Ball is thwarted as John Greig (4), Ronnie McKinnon, Ronnie Simpson and Billy Bremner – with the ball at his feet – repel another England attack. Alamy

Acting as a makeshift centre-forward, the injured Jack Charlton sweeps the ball past a lunging Ronnie McKinnon to pull a goal back for England. Alamy

Alan Ball (7) claims for an England goal as the hosts press for an equaliser. Mirrorpix

(Above and below) Jim McCalliog slides Scotland’s decisive third goal underneath Gordon Banks, before rushing away to celebrate. Getty

Scottish fans lay siege to the Wembley turf after seeing their side defeat England, just nine months after the hosts had won the World Cup on the same pitch. Mirrorpix

(Above and below) Jubilant Scotland fans pounce on Jim Baxter and Denis Law at full-time. Alamy

A dejected Jimmy Greaves and Gordon Banks trudge off the pitch. Mirrorpix

Debutants Simpson and McCalliog celebrate Scotland’s victory. Mirrorpix

‘Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry.’Samuel Johnson

‘The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.’J.M. Barrie

FOREWORD

IN SEPTEMBER 2016, exactly two years after a referendum on Scottish independence came down narrowly on the side of the Union, a YouGov poll attempted to define – at once, if not for all – what it is that makes a person ‘Scottish’.

According to the Scottish Government, all British citizens born in Scotland as well as all British citizens habitually resident in Scotland would, at a stroke, be considered Scottish in the event of independence. Beyond that, anybody with a Scottish parent or grandparent, or who had lived in Scotland for ten years and had established an ongoing connection to the country, would be eligible to apply for citizenship.

The study discovered that most Scots believe ‘being Scottish’ is a birth right and not something that can be applied for. Just over a quarter (28%) added they consider themselves to be Scottish, not British, as compared to only 6% who feel more British than Scottish.

Whilst broadly interesting, the study failed to account for some of the more abstract ideas of national identity. The intangibles, if you will. Identity, many believe, is a combination of who you are and who you feel you are – and it is a concept that varies from country to country. The UK is an object example of this.

‘United’ in a legislative sense if nothing else, the country is split into four nations, each with its own sense of identity, and often multiple different interpretations thereof. It is clear that these differences have intensified in the post-war era. A shrinking empire, combined with a struggling economy and a dwindling status in world affairs – not to mention greater scrutiny of a political structure which, as an example, has seen Scotland governed by multiple Tory governments, despite not voting for one since 1955 – has weakened the historic conceptualisation of ‘Britishness’.

Regardless of your viewpoint, the consensus is that, by the mid to late 20th century, Britishness had declined in tandem with the advent or rebirth of ‘historic’ nationalism.

Whilst there were multiple social, economic and political factors that contributed to this, as we will come to, football played an irrefutably significant role in this pivot. The union was on fire and football was a jerrycan of petrol.

You see, unlike many other sports – and, for that matter, the Olympics – football in the United Kingdom was contested by teams representing the constituent parts of the country. The very first international match (more of which later) was contested by England and Scotland in November 1872. A decade later, the British Home Championship was established. As Matthew Taylor acknowledged in his book The Association Game, football fostered a series of singular national identities at the expense of the all-encompassing state.

This rang particularly true north of Hadrian’s Wall. In Sport and National Identity in the Post-War World, Adrian Smith and Dilwyn Porter argued that Scotland’s political evolution ‘has been refracted through the prism of sport’. Bert Moorhouse, a sociologist at the University of Glasgow, went even further, arguing that sport had ‘nurtured a continuing sense of national resentment against England’, with parallels drawn between victories on the pitch and, say, the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. As the great sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney once put it: ‘There’s only one thing better than beating England, and that’s having to sit with nine Englishmen at the post-match dinner.’

Call it whatever you like – Anglophobia, xenophobia, bigotry, nativism, jingoism, prejudice, patriotism or harmless banter – there is no doubt that rivalry is one of the bedrocks of national identity.

Bobby Charlton and Denis Law, two men central to this book, illustrate the point perfectly. Close friends and teammates in Sir Matt Busby’s all-conquering Manchester United side of the 1960s, they were fierce opponents – strangers, almost – whenever Scotland played England.

‘If I had to pick a single, dominating aspect of [Denis’s] character, apart from the tremendous commitment which marked his play, and which set him apart as much as his dramatic talent, it would be his sheer Scottishness,’ wrote Charlton in his autobiography.

‘Whenever we [Charlton and his brother Jack] played Scotland, Denis made sure to kick us both and call us English bastards within the first minute or so. It was as though he had been obliged to make a statement and having done so, he could then get on with the game.’

‘I know all Scots aren’t the same,’ he added, ‘but I do love the way so many of them see a love of their country as something at the heart of their existence and how it has always been so passionately expressed on the football field. Often, there is a show of toughness and quite a bit of bluster but you have to be so perceptive to see that at its core is deep pride in their people and a tough view of the world.

‘I believe that it is part of the Scottish education in life, if not officially in the schoolroom agenda, to compete with most determination against England.’

That much is certainly true. The Scottish school history syllabus covers everything from the Battle of Bannockburn to the Jacobite uprising and the defeat at Culloden. The English school history syllabus does not.

Charlton recounts a story of his first time travelling to Scotland to represent England. ‘I remember the bus journey from Troon up to Glasgow. It seemed that there was scarcely a house where someone wasn’t hanging out of a window shouting the Scottish equivalent of, “You’ll get nowt today.” Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t, but there was always one certainty: if there was ever a Scottish deficit, it would never be one of the heart.’

In his own memoir, Law acknowledged the importance of beating the ‘Auld Enemy’. Due to his career coinciding with the aforementioned British Home Championship, Law faced England on a regular basis. Nine of his fifty-five Scotland caps, indeed, came against the ‘Three Lions’.

‘Those games were the be all and end all for many Scots,’ he wrote. ‘Some would save up for two years in order to attend the Wembley game. When I was a kid, the fixture was the highlight of the season. We were brought up on tales of the “Wee Blue Devils”.’ Those stories of the legendary Scotland team of 1928 that beat England 5–1 at Wembley ‘were embedded in your brain,’ said Law.

He added: ‘If there was one thing any young Scot dreamed about, it was to watch Scotland beat England at Wembley; when you became a player, you dreamed of playing in one of those games and scoring the winning goal. It might not have meant as much to the English but to us it was everything. For me, as a player, it lived up to everything I had dreamed of.’

Of course, something else happened that intensified the enmity between the two nations. In 1966, England won the World Cup. It was as seminal a moment in the history of Scottish football as English football. It intensified a colonial inferiority complex that has long been recognised as an identifying feature of so-called ‘submerged nations’. At club level, FC Barcelona is another prime example, their successes routinely hailed as victories for Catalonia.

England’s rise to world champions bruised the pride of most Scots. Knocking them off their perch became a mission. As Ian Archer wrote in The Herald in 1974, beating England became a Scottish ‘virility symbol’ that ‘brought hope and stature to a nation so often insecure and concealing of its own insecurity’. It’s a mentality that Neal Ascherson identified as the ‘St Andrews Fault’ in his excellent book Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland.

Which brings us back to the central question of national identity. What does it mean to be ‘Scottish’? For some, it seems the answer is quite simple.

It was this sentiment that, depending on your perspective, added a layer of small-minded triviality or critical importance to the April 1967 clash between the two sides. It may have been just any other game for an English side with nothing left to prove and in possession of the Jules Rimet Trophy but, for many Scots, it was a perfect and timely platform upon which to right a wrong, to settle a score, to prove a point, to stand against them, to be a nation again.

To rise now.

A matter of life and death? No, no. It was much, much more important than that.

PROLOGUE

AS THE RAIN HAMMERED AGAINST THE WINDOW, Britain’s most expensive footballer picked up his phone and dialled the number. It was a little after 10 a.m. on the morning of 30 July 1966 and Denis Law wanted revenge. Distraction, too. But mainly revenge.

A few weeks earlier, one of the Manchester United forward’s best friends, a local businessman called John Hogan, had beaten Law over eighteen holes at a local golf course. This, despite the fact that Law was the better player of the two (and by some distance).

Oh, how Hogan had revelled in what was a rare win over his old pal. ‘Any time you want a return game,’ he had crowed, ‘just give me a shout.’

The words rang in Law’s ears as Hogan answered.

‘Remember how you said “a return match any day, you name it,’’’ Law reminded him. ‘Well, I will name it now – today.’

Hogan was as incredulous as he was crestfallen, and it had nothing to do with being a fair-weather player.

‘But Denis . . . today’s the World Cup final.’

Not just any old World Cup final but the first World Cup final to feature England. A 2–1 win over a Eusébio-led Portugal in the semi-finals had earned the Three Lions a shot at the title, and on home soil, too. Ninety minutes. Ninety measly minutes were all that stood between Alf Ramsey’s men and the right to hear their names echo in sporting perpetuity. The country had ground to a halt, intoxicated by an irresistible cocktail of anticipation and expectation. Shops closed early, alternative plans were cancelled, street parties were convened, and Hogan had been looking forward to joining in the fun.

Law had other ideas. A £25 wager managed to persuade Hogan and, in short order, a tee time at Chorlton-cum-Hardy Golf Club, just a few miles to the south of Manchester city centre, was booked.

Law was grateful for the diversion. Two years earlier, he had received the Ballon d’Or, the gilded trophy awarded to Europe’s ‘Footballer of the Year’. He was the first Scot and only the second Brit – following the great Stanley Matthews in 1956 – to land the prestigious honour.

Since then, though, his form and fortunes had taken a dip. The season just ended had finished in abject disappointment on all fronts for Law and his United teammates. Partizan Belgrade had beaten them 2–1 on aggregate in the semi-finals of the European Cup. Three days later, Everton denied them a place in the FA Cup final, a late goal from Colin Harvey settling a scrappy contest at Bolton’s Burnden Park. Their league title defence finished on a note every bit as meek. Having won the old First Division for a sixth time twelve months earlier, the ‘Red Devils’ could do no better than fourth in 1965/66. Worse, they had to watch as fierce rivals Liverpool took the title – for a record seventh time. All of which is to say nothing of United’s other major adversary, Manchester City, winning the Second Division to seal promotion back to the top flight after a three-year absence.

And yet that wasn’t even the worst of it. At the end of the season, Law found himself transfer-listed by the Old Trafford club after asking for a pay rise. In a letter to manager Matt Busby, he outlined his desire for an extra £10 per week, explaining that he would look for a transfer if his demands weren’t met. Busby, a shrewd operator, was less than impressed with his fellow Scot. ‘Law has issued an ultimatum by letter that unless he receives certain terms and conditions, he wants a transfer,’ he told the press. ‘The club is certainly not prepared to consider it and has decided to put him on the transfer list.’

The news caught up with Law on a golf course in Aberdeen. He was in his hometown awaiting the birth of his second child when a reporter from the local Evening Express newspaper found him on the links and relayed Busby’s bombshell.

The frenzied reaction forced Law to go into hiding for a couple of days to, as he would later put it, ‘avoid the glare of publicity’ but before the week was out, he flew to Manchester for showdown talks with the boss. It took them around an hour to thrash it all out. Busby privately agreed to Law’s terms and took him off the transfer list. In return, he wanted to make an example of his star man, lest anyone else in the squad suddenly start feeling brave about his own situation. Busby opened a drawer and pulled out a pre-prepared written apology that was almost ready to be shared with the press and the public. All it needed was Law’s signature. Busby handed him a pen and his comeuppance.

It was a humiliating end to a miserable year in which Law had nursed a bothersome knee injury that restricted him to only fifteen goals in thirty-five league appearances.

So, sit at home and watch England play in the World Cup final, potentially even win the bloody thing? Not today, thank you very much. The thought alone made Law’s insides boil. It would be much more fun, he decided, to put Hogan back in his box.

At least, that was the plan.

* * *

AROUND THE SAME TIME, in the Hendon House Hotel in North London, Law’s Manchester United teammate Nobby Stiles was making a phone call of his own. His need was different but no less urgent.

The night before, England boss Alf Ramsey had taken Stiles and his teammates to the cinema to see Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, a film about an air race set in 1910. Stiles, though, had accidentally left a cardigan behind and he wanted – no, needed – to get it back. This wasn’t just any cardigan. It was his lucky cardigan. He had worn it before every big game he had ever played, and it had never let him down. The prospect of going into the World Cup final without it was precisely the kind of cosmic drama the twenty-two-year-old didn’t need.

After what seemed like an eternity, somebody at the Hendon Odeon finally answered Stiles’ desperate call. He waited as the person on the other end of the line rummaged through the lost property, but to no avail. Nothing had been handed in. Superstitious Stiles would need to tackle this one without his beloved knitwear.

Elsewhere in the same hotel, another Manchester United star was sizing up wardrobe issues of his own. Bobby Charlton had become accustomed to big games and occasions since making his debut for Matt Busby’s Red Devils a decade earlier. League deciders, FA Cup finals, the latter stages of European competition – you name it, Charlton had first-hand experience of it all. Well, nearly all. The World Cup final was new territory for the twenty-nine-year-old. A notoriously early riser, he found himself pacing the room he shared with Everton left-back Ray Wilson and that just wouldn’t do. He needed to do something to distract him from the date with destiny he had lined up at 3 p.m. that afternoon.

He convinced Wilson to join him in getting out of the team’s hotel HQ for a short while. A couple of days earlier, Charlton had bought a new shirt from a local shop but, on reflection, it wasn’t really to his liking and so, hours before the biggest game in the history of English football, he decided to return it.

Off the pair went, down Parson Street and into Hendon town centre, forcing stunned onlookers into a succession of double-takes. Some stopped to wish them luck. Most, though, left them to go about their business, perhaps sensing that this was the players’ way of normalising a most abnormal day.

After around an hour, they returned to the hotel where their teammate, Fulham full-back George Cohen, was reading – and, at Ramsey’s insistence, replying to – some of the fan mail that had been steadily piling up.

It had been a broadly successful shopping trip. Charlton had managed to get his shirt changed and had also bought some cufflinks, a gift for his friend José Augusto, the tricky Portuguese winger, whom he would see at a banquet hosted by FIFA that night. More importantly, the trip had helped kill time.

It was just after 1 p.m. when Charlton and his teammates boarded the team bus and set off for Wembley. A police motorcycle escort accompanied them on their way as fans banged on the sides of the coach and roared their encouragement. As they passed the Hendon Fire Station, the freshly polished bells rang out in support.

This was Charlton’s third World Cup. His first, in Sweden in 1958, had ended in heartache when the Soviet Union defeated England in a playoff to advance to the knockout stages. In Chile four years later, he scored in a 3–1 group stage win over Argentina as England made it to the quarter-finals only to lose 3–1 at the hands of eventual winners, Brazil. This, though, was different. The quiet groundswell of optimism that had been building behind Ramsey’s men in the months leading up to it had gathered momentum as the tournament had worn on. A goalless draw in the opening match with Uruguay had been followed by back-to-back 2–0 wins over Mexico and France as England breezed through the group stages. A bad-tempered quarter-final with Argentina was settled by a late Geoff Hurst goal, which set up a semi-final with inspired debutants Portugal. Charlton bagged a double only for a late Eusébio penalty to set up a tense finish. Portugal, who would finish the tournament as top scorers, threw everything they could at Gordon Banks’ goal as they searched for an equaliser. But it wasn’t to be. Full time: England 2, Portugal 1.

And so here they all were, sitting on a coach, getting ready for the biggest day of their lives. West Germany awaited. Immortality beckoned.

Charlton’s mind drifted back to a conversation he’d had with a farmer from Herefordshire a few days earlier. ‘Bobby,’ he said, ‘you and your teammates are playing for all of us. You’ll win the game and collect the trophy but all over the country, in towns and villages, amateur players like me will be able to puff out their chests and say, “We are the champions of the world.’’’

On an unfamiliar day, Charlton took comfort in familiar habits. He and Wilson had long since developed their own pre-match ritual. Their kit was always in the same bag and always brought from the hotel by Wilson. He would hand Charlton his boots – one at a time – before giving him an ammonia inhaler to clear his nose. Finally, when the buzzer sounded inside the dressing room, summoning the players to line up in the tunnel, Charlton and Wilson would turn to one another, shake hands and wish each other luck. Today was no different.

As the two teams emerged onto the pristine pitch, the screams of 96,924 spectators melting into one cacophonous roar around them, Charlton’s mind wandered again, this time back to his debut at Wembley as a fifteen-year-old playing for England schoolboys. The memory made him smile. So, too, did the sight of older brother Jack – playing behind Bobby in the centre of defence – going through one of own pre-match rituals. Jack had to, had to, score before the match kicked off. That was his thing. So long as he blootered a ball into the net, everything would be fine. As the other twenty-one players on the pitch loosened up in their own ways, Jack found a ball and sent a shot sailing over the goal. Panicked, he quickly grabbed another ball and tried again. In it went. Phew. One less thing.

As Siggi Held and Wolfgang Overath made their way to the centre-circle, ready to get the match started, more than thirty-two million people across the UK settled down behind their television sets, eyes trained on Charlton and co.

At precisely 3 p.m., as scheduled, Swiss referee Gottfried Dienst blew on his whistle. BBC television commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme took over.

‘The rain has stopped; the excitement is intense. The ground in many places is soft and the 1966 World Cup Final is under way.’

* * *

AT CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY, Denis Law’s plan was unravelling. Fast. Pre-occupied by wondering how the game was going, he found it hard to focus on golf. One poor shot followed another. And another. And another. And it was still raining. John Hogan, meanwhile, was enjoying the round of his life.

With several holes still to play, Hogan had established an insurmountable lead. Twenty-five pounds down the drain, just like that. But Law’s day was about to get worse.

As the pair rounded the corner of the dogleg eighteenth hole, the clubhouse beyond the final green came into view. The cheers and celebrations from within spoke for themselves. Spotting Law, jubilant club members held up four fingers on one hand and two on the other; their grins as wide as the first fairway, their pint glasses as full as the bunkers.

You didn’t need to be a codebreaker to crack their cipher.

England four, West Germany two.

Alf Ramsey’s men had won the World Cup.

Law shook his head, sighed and muttered the only word he could muster.

‘Bastards.’

ONE

SO MUCH BICKERING

JOHN PRENTICE landed at Prestwick, got off the plane and walked straight into trouble. It was 4 October 1966 and the Scotland national team manager was returning from New York where he had spent the last few days holding talks with the owners of Vancouver FC, a new franchise with ambitions to join the North American Soccer League (NASL).

A North American audience of more than one million had tuned in to the 1966 World Cup giving opportunistic entrepreneurs both the idea and the confidence to launch a first-ever professional league in the hitherto soccer-sceptic States.

One of those was to be in Vancouver and owned by Brigadier General Ted Eakins. With the inaugural NASL season set to begin in the spring of 1968, Eakins was hard at work building the foundations for his new football franchise. One of the first items on his agenda? Appoint the right manager.

After Coventry City head coach Jimmy Hill had rebuffed his advances, Eakins’ focus drifted north to Scotland where he quickly identified Prentice – picked for the national team job only four months earlier – as his man.

The Shotts man’s credentials were impressive, for sure. Between 1944 and 1960, he had enjoyed an impressive career as a wing-half for Heart of Midlothian, Rangers, Falkirk and Dumbarton. In addition to two league titles, he had also won the Scottish Cup with Rangers in 1953, a trick he repeated four years later as captain of Falkirk. With his playing career winding down, he was appointed manager of Arbroath in 1960 aged just thirty-three.

In November 1962, only two months after he resigned from the ‘Red Lichties’ – apparently in protest at Arbroath Town Council’s refusal to allocate him a house – Prentice was appointed manager of First Division Clyde. The Glasgow outfit were relegated that season but, in his first full campaign in charge, Prentice guided them straight back into Scottish football’s top flight and consolidated their position the year after that.

His relative success with a group of part-time players made him a man in high demand and, when Willie Waddell and Eddie Turnbull both turned down the chance to succeed Jock Stein as Scotland manager in 1966, the Scottish Football Association (SFA) turned their attention to Prentice.

He was appointed in March and, little more than a week later, took charge of the country for the first time in a British Home Championship title decider at home to England. A more intense baptism you would struggle to imagine.

Most pundits made Scotland favourites for the match. The received wisdom was that Alf Ramsey and his English side already had one eye on the upcoming World Cup they would host that summer. Combine that with their poor recent record against Scotland – three defeats and a draw in their previous four matches, no victories at Hampden since 1958 – and it was hard to argue a case against the Scottish optimism.

As it so happened, England ran out 4–3 winners, claiming the British Home Championship title for a third successive year and consigning Prentice to a debut defeat. Further losses followed at the hands of the Netherlands in May and Portugal in June, before a 1–1 draw with reigning world champions Brazil provided the beleaguered new boss a first ‘result’ of any significant note.

It was around this time that Vancouver made their move. Prentice had been Scotland manager for only three months and four matches but Eakins was confident he could tempt him to cross the Atlantic. For one thing, he was prepared to offer him full managerial control. At this time, the Scotland team was still being chosen for him by an SFA selection committee and, so far, talk of that changing had amounted to nothing more than just that: talk. There was also the promise of a return to club football and the cut and thrust of matches every week, not to mention the prospect of being part of a potentially huge new project in the shape of the NASL. The £5,000-a-year salary – more than Prentice was making in charge of Scotland – was no doubt a juicy carrot, too.

Events of that summer caused the landscape to shift dramatically, however. England’s historic World Cup victory, masterminded by the soon-to-be ‘Sir’ Alf Ramsey, finally convinced the SFA powerbrokers that it was time for the Scottish national team to operate in a way that mirrored the new world champions. Whilst deeply envious of the Auld Enemy’s success, the powerbrokers at Park Gardens in Glasgow swiftly concluded that if England could win the World Cup, so could they. Let them have their moment. We’ll get ours in Mexico in 1970. Scotland had the players and now, thanks to England, they had the blueprint. All they had to do was follow it to the letter. Finally, in September 1966, they handed Prentice the autonomy he wanted. Going forward, he and not a selection committee would choose the Scotland team.

Vancouver, though, were not for giving up. While the SFA dithered and delayed, they persuaded Prentice to fly to the United States for further talks.

Ten days after agreeing to the SFA’s new terms, he did just that, returning on 4 October to a media storm. The suggestion was that he was not fully committed to the job with Scotland and that he had travelled to the USA without the permission of the SFA.

Not so, countered Prentice who insisted that he made the trip with the blessing of association president Tom Reid.

‘When he heard the story, he said he would not stand in my way,’ an indignant Prentice told the reporters who had gathered to greet him at Prestwick Airport. ‘The only crime I have committed is to try and better myself. All I want is security for myself and my family.’

The original approach from Vancouver, he added, had come amidst continued uncertainty over his position with Scotland and that reports he had been handed a deal to lead the team into the 1970 World Cup were wide of the mark.

Nonetheless, he was not prepared to discuss his future on the runway. He said: ‘I’ve already made up my mind about the offer [from Vancouver] but I wanted to discuss it with my wife and inform the SFA before announcing it. There is no point in wasting time, although the Canadians have given no deadline for my answer.’

The newspapers had just gone to print with Prentice’s remarks when the SFA’s selection committee raced to convene a meeting. Less than forty-eight hours after Prentice’s plane touched down, his future as Scotland boss was being thrashed out inside Hampden Park. Many in the room articulated their disillusionment at having been kept in the dark over their manager’s trans-Atlantic dash, adding that it was humiliating to learn of it through the papers. Others who had supported the appointment of the country’s first full-time and autonomous manager felt let down. It didn’t take them long to reach the inevitable conclusion.

No sooner than he was in, Prentice was out.

In a 121-word statement, SFA secretary Willie Allan confirmed the news. ‘We appreciate that a young man, especially one with a wife and young children, is entitled and can be expected to look to the future,’ read the missive. ‘Nevertheless, having in mind the nature of Mr Prentice’s position as team manager, they do feel that when he freely reached agreement with them on 13 September as to his position with the Association, he should, in fairness to them, have disclosed that he was at that time interested in an appointment elsewhere.

‘Those present when the committee met on Thursday were unanimous in the conclusion they reached.’

Prentice was en route to Roker Park to take in Sunderland’s home match with West Bromwich Albion when his sacking was announced. In a Sunday Mail cover story that weekend, he gave his version of events. Speaking from his Edinburgh home, he said that he had been offered the chance to resign but had refused. ‘There was intrigue going on while I was in Canada,’ he said. ‘I thought a smear campaign started against me a few days after I went away.

‘I am now finished at the SFA. I won’t go back next week. I didn’t even have an office. It was not an easy job and the road was rough. I did not want the job initially but after several approaches I eventually took it because someone had to do it.

‘This is an unfortunate conclusion to the whole affair. I’ve enjoyed the six months up to a point but there were difficulties and snags which I’m not prepared to talk about.’

Whilst SFA secretary Allan resisted the opportunity to respond to Prentice’s remarks, insisting he did not ‘wish to become a party to any mud-slinging’, the association’s president made no such concessions.

‘John had little to complain about,’ Reid insisted. ‘He had the full support of the selection committee and me. He had the complete say in team selection. He had absolute power. That’s more than Andy Beattie ever had in 1954 when I was chairman of the selectors.

‘All these things Prentice has complained about are petty things. He talked, for instance, about being offered a room in the basement or a room upstairs. The room in the basement was only a temporary affair. The alternative room upstairs was mine, and I was quite willing to give it up.

‘Surely the main thing was to build Scotland a team we could be proud of.

‘Prentice was quick to come and ask me at 10 o’clock at night for permission to go to Canada. But he didn’t have the courtesy to phone me when he came back and tell me what happened. Fair’s fair.’

If anybody was surprised at the mess the Scottish national team found itself in, they shouldn’t have been. Less than a year earlier, Jock Stein had vacated the post – which he had occupied on a part-time basis – after enduring stinging criticism following his failure to lead Scotland to the World Cup finals in England. A 3–0 defeat away to Italy in the qualification decider in December 1965 proved to be the last straw. In a parting shot, Stein remarked: ‘If they were to give me the entire gate of the Scotland-England match, I would still refuse to be manager.’

There was an increasingly wide-held belief that the position had become a poisoned chalice. Prentice had been the fifth person to occupy the post in just eight years, following Andy Beattie, Matt Busby, Ian McColl and, most recently, Stein. Between them, they had taken charge of only fifty-three games.

In his report for the Aberdeen Evening Express, James Forbes called the Prentice saga ‘just another sorry chapter in the history of Scottish international football’.

‘How can good playing results be expected when there is so much bickering off the field?’ he asked. ‘To most people, it appears that Prentice, having got permission to investigate the prospect of another job, finished up being sacked for doing so. Under the circumstances, he may feel that he is better out of it.’

Compounding Scottish misery was the fact that the national team’s turmoil was diametrically opposed to the glow of success their counterparts south of the border were basking in. It was not that the English had better players, as such. There was a widely held belief that players such as Denis Law, Billy Bremner and Jim Baxter were, at the very least, the equal of anything that Ramsey’s men had to offer. It’s just that their undisputed talents were being woefully compromised by rampant mismanagement. And for that, you could blame the SFA.

‘Despite England’s success in the World Cup under the sole control of manager Alf Ramsey, there are still plenty of Scottish officials of the opinion that a full-time manager isn’t necessary,’ added Forbes. ‘No doubt their view of the Prentice affair will have convinced them that they are right.’

The situation prompted the Daily Record to conduct a multi-part investigation that it sensationally branded ‘Soccerprobe’. With the national team in disarray yet again, its reporters canvassed the opinions of some of the shrewdest and most highly respected managers in the game.

Leeds United boss Don Revie called on the SFA to resist the temptations to resist regressing to old habits. ‘The first step to making Scotland great again must be to appoint a full-time boss,’ he said. ‘A supremo, a man with the powers and strength of conviction and character as Alf Ramsey.

‘Surely Alf proved during the summer that a one-man boss is the only way to succeed in football now. If Scotland could find someone like him, give him the same complete control, I’m sure that in a couple of years Scotland will be a really great side. There must be plenty people around who’d give their right arm to be in charge of a team who could call on players of the class of Jim Baxter, Denis Law, Billy Bremner, Bobby Lennox, Willie Bell, Eddie McCreadie, Willie Henderson and so on.

‘When I run over these names, I’m convinced that potentially the talent which Scotland has available is second to none.’

Tommy Docherty, the Chelsea manager and former Scottish international, agreed. A no-nonsense, uncompromising disciplinarian, Docherty made the difficult task of maintaining order amongst the London club’s galaxy of £100-a-week stars look easy. That was a quality he believed the next Scotland boss would need.

‘I’m 100 per cent in favour of Scotland having a full-time manager,’ he said. ‘But he’d need to be a hard man. He’d have to make it perfectly clear from the start – both to the SFA and to the players – that he was boss.

‘One man in complete and utter control is, in my opinion, the only cure for Scottish football’s international ailments. We have the players, no doubt about that, but they need to be moulded. The wonderful talent we have would need to be channelled in the right direction.’

Docherty called for the new boss to be given a long-term contract – four, perhaps even five years – as well as sole responsibility for team selections, freedom to appoint his own staff and closer contact with the international set-ups at all age grades, from schools upwards.

‘In my view, he ought to visit clubs, train with the players for a couple of days, arrange full co-operation with the club managers and really get to know everything that’s going on that affects his job. He’d also need to travel abroad, get into the swing of things at every level, make every Scot who’s playing top-class football anywhere feel that he is part of the plan to make Scotland’s international team the best in the world.’

Grimly, Docherty added: ‘Although it hurts to say this, Scottish football is 100 years behind the times. Change has to come and it’s too bad if some people have their feelings hurt. It’s an old saying but it’s true: there is no place in football for sentimentality.’

Since standing down from the Scotland manager’s post due to ill health, Matt Busby had taken over at Manchester United, where he had an embarrassment of riches at his disposal. He had led the Old Trafford club to four First Division titles, two FA Cups and four Charity Shields. Even better was to come. When it came to maximising the potential of players such as Bobby Charlton, Nobby Stiles, George Best and Scots like Denis Law and Paddy Crerand, he was a man almost without equal.

‘If Scotland want to compete in the big time – and it’s really big time these days – then the obvious thing to do is appoint a full-time manager,’ said Busby. ‘If the SFA don’t realise the job means working twenty-four hours a day, they might as well give up any ideas of serious competition. In my opinion, anything less than full-time in modern football is just playing at it. Any managerial job means a lot of time and effort but a national manager must be prepared to devote more time than anyone.

‘He needs to be continually on the move, keeping in touch not only with the established stars but also with up-and-coming youngsters. Scotland is still producing the raw material. In the hands of the right man as full-time manager, I see no reason why Scotland, come the 1970 World Cup, should not have an extremely good side.’

Liverpool manager Bill Shankly – like Docherty and Busby, a proud Scot – echoed the sentiments of his counterparts. ‘A full-time manager is a must,’ insisted the man who had led the Anfield side to First Division glory for the seventh time in the season just ended, despite having only fourteen players in his squad. ‘His main task as I see it would be to go to any lengths to find every possible piece of international material. Not only the Denis Laws and the Billy Bremners, but all the promising youngsters. Then he’d need to find the blend. A lot of good youngsters with a few auld heids is the answer. But the only way to get a good international blend is to have a man working full time on the job. Half-measures are no use.’

The consensus was unmistakable. And yet fears persisted that the SFA, stung by the Prentice affair, would retreat to familiar ground. They had fallen at the first hurdle in their attempts to emulate the English and each minute that ticked by was a minute closer to Mexico . . . if they even made it that far. And as Revie had been quick to point out, it could take up to two years for the new man’s ideas and tactics to pay dividends.

Of much more immediate significance was an upcoming clash with Wales at Ninian Park in Cardiff, the opening fixture of the 1966/67 British Home Championship, which would form the first half of the qualifying stages for the 1968 European Championship. Introduced in 1960, the pan-European contest was the brainchild of French Football Federation secretary-general Henri Delaunay and was designed to fill the competitive international void created by the World Cup’s four-year cycle.

None of the home nations had qualified for the first two editions of the championship and so 1968 represented an opportunity for Scotland to both one-up their UK rivals – England, most notably – and restore some of the national pride that had been wounded by seeing Alf Ramsey’s men win the World Cup in ’66.

Getting off to a winning start against Wales was essential, so not having a manager in place was less than ideal. No sooner had Prentice been relieved of his duties than a host of big names were linked with the job. Tommy Walker, recently sacked by Heart of Midlothian, was one of the first. Dundee United boss Jerry Kerr, as well as Willie Cunningham, the Irish manager of Dunfermline, and former Third Lanark gaffer George Young were also rumoured to be in the running.

Complicating matters was the fact that the Scottish job wasn’t the only high-profile open vacancy in Scotland. Rangers, indeed, were rumoured to be looking for a new coach to assist manager Scot Symon and, with the financial clout of the Lawrence family who owned the Ibrox side, they would surely win any bidding war with the SFA for the top talent.

In the end, the SFA appointed Kilmarnock boss Malky Macdonald on an interim basis. He had proven himself to be a safe pair of hands months earlier when he had taken charge of the Scottish League side that beat England 3–1 at St James’ Park in Newcastle. He didn’t want the job full-time, though. Not then and not now. As well as being under contract with Kilmarnock, he had no ambitions to be the Scotland boss. But sure, he’d happily help in the meantime. And ‘helping out’ meant taking charge of a team picked for him for Wales by the selection committee.

The onlookers’ worst fears looked like they were coming true.

Prentice, meantime, turned down the Vancouver job and, shortly thereafter, said no to an £8,000-per-year offer to take charge of the New York Football Club. Talks with St Mirren and Dundee also broke down before finally, two months after his sacking by Scotland, he took over at former club Falkirk. The ‘Bairns’ were scrapping it out at the wrong end of the table and believed former captain Prentice was the man to help preserve their place in the top flight.

The Brockville dugout was reoccupied as the one at Hampden continued to lie empty. A sorry situation for any country – not least one harbouring hopes of becoming world champions within the next four years.

TWO

THE WINTER GAME

THE FIRST FORMAL MATCH BETWEEN England and Scotland also has the unique distinction of being the first such contest between any two recognised nations.

It took place in 1872 at the home of the West of Scotland Cricket Club in Partick, a bustling community on the north bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow.

Five different fixtures contested by teams representing the two countries had been staged between March 1870 and February 1872, the first of those at The Oval, which resulted in a 1–1 draw. However, most of the players selected for the Scottish side were ‘internationals’ from the London area, which was met with a mixture of resentment and indignation in Scotland. There was, they argued, a far deeper pool of talent north of the border than these matches had showcased.

The man responsible for the scheduling of the games, Football Association secretary Charles Alcock, tended to agree. However, he was adamant that he had done his best to make the contests as competitive as possible, placing adverts in leading Glasgow and Edinburgh newspapers for players to take part.

In an open letter published by The Scotsman, he reiterated his position.

‘I must join issue with your correspondent in some instances,’ he wrote. ‘First, I assert that of whatever the Scotch eleven may have been composed, the right to play was open to every Scotchman, whether his lines were cast North or South of the Tweed and that if, in the face of the invitations publicly given through the columns of leading journals of Scotland, the representative eleven consisted chiefly of Anglo-Scotians . . . the fault lies on the heads of the players of the north, not on the management who sought the services of all alike impartially.’

He added: ‘To call the team London Scotchmen contributes nothing. The match was, as announced, to all intents and purposes between England and Scotland.’

Nonetheless, he ended his missive by offering another challenge, this time to be staged in the north of England – but with one significant condition. Taking issue with the size of Scottish football teams at the time – many of which were rumoured to exceed the 11-a-side line-up preferred in England and which would become the internationally codified standard in 1897 – Alcock wrote: ‘More than eleven, we do not care to play as it is with greater numbers. It is our opinion the game becomes less scientific and more a trial of charging and brute force.’

This time, Alcock’s bait caught a bite. In the absence of a Scottish Football Association to sanction the match, Queen’s Park, Scotland’s oldest football club and by common consent its finest, took up the gauntlet instead. As a gesture of goodwill, the FA consented to the match being played in Glasgow ‘in order to further the interests of the Association in Scotland’.

A date for the game was set – 30 November 1872, by coincidence (or perhaps not) St Andrew’s Day – with the West of Scotland Cricket Club selected to host ahead of the Glasgow Academical Rugby Club, who offered their ground at Burnbank free of charge. The Queen’s Park Recreation Ground at Crosshill, where Queen’s Park played and from which they took their name, was not considered and it wouldn’t be until 1873 that the original Hampden Park would open.

The Scottish side for the match was chosen by goalkeeper and captain Robert Gardner. He picked a line-up comprised entirely of his Queen’s Park teammates having reportedly been unable to obtain the services of two English-based Scots – Arthur Kinnaird of The Wanderers and Henry Renny-Tailyour of the Royal Engineers – for the clash. The side also featured siblings: twenty-eight-year-old James Smith and his younger brother Robert.

Alcock, meantime, chose the English XI from nine different clubs. It included Reginald Welch, part of the all-conquering Wanderers side that had won the first-ever staging of the FA Cup earlier in the year. Harrow Chequers’ Monty Betts, Alec Morten of Crystal Palace and another Wanderers player, Thomas Hooman, had also been chosen but were forced to withdraw due to illness. Alcock might even have been tempted to pick himself but for an injury he was carrying.

Anticipation for the match reached a crescendo as the day dawned and, as the 2 p.m. kick-off approached, close to four thousand excited spectators had crammed into the ground on Hamilton Crescent, each of them paying a shilling for the privilege – approximately £6 in today’s money.

Finally, after a twenty-minute delay to the scheduled start time, the two teams emerged under heavy skies. The Scots wore dark blue jerseys (originally the colour of Queen’s Park) adorned with a Scottish lion for a badge and accompanied by white knickerbockers, blue-and-white striped stockings, and red cowls. Their guests, meanwhile, were as resplendent in their white jerseys – each of which featured the arms of England by way of a badge – with dark blue caps, and white trousers and knickerbockers.

The Scots won the toss and elected to make England shoot up the brae of the ground in the first half. It was the visiting captain, twenty-two-year-old Cuthbert Ottaway of Oxford University, who got proceedings under way, launching the ball deep into Scottish territory, and, in so doing, he quite literally kick-started international football as we know it today.

Alas, this match would not be remembered were it not for its historical significance. These days, commentators might be inclined to refer to it as ‘one for the purists’. A classic, it was not. The conditions had much to do with that. Despite dry weather on the day of the game, torrential rain in the days leading up to it rendered the ground extremely soft and it didn’t take more than a few minutes for it to start carving up.

Despite the best efforts of both sides, the game ended in a goalless draw, Robert Leckie’s late shot that landed on top of tape strung between two posts in lieu of a proper crossbar the closest either team came to breaking the deadlock. As it turned out, there would not be another scoreless game in the following 85 matches between the two nations, the April 1970 clash at Hampden the next 0–0 draw they would contest.

The lack of goals, however, was of little consequence to those who were there to witness the occasion. The Aberdeen Journal reported that ‘it was allowed to be the best game ever seen in Scotland’. Sport magazine The Field wrote that ‘the result was received with rapturous applause by the spectators and the cheers proposed by each XI for their antagonists were continued by the onlookers until the last member of the two sides had disappeared’. The same report added: ‘The match was in every sense a signal success, as the play was throughout as spirited and as pleasant as can possibly be imagined.’

That’s not to say every major news outlet in the country covered the fixture with such gusto. The Manchester Guardian, for example, published a 124-word match report, which ran on the same page as a far more substantial feature on the Birmingham Cattle Show. The Times, meanwhile, dedicated most of a page in its next edition to the cattle, with the football overlooked completely.

Despite that, the match had proven both interesting and stimulating enough for a return fixture to be arranged for March 1873, this time at The Oval in south London. Again, a large crowd turned out – approximately three thousand in all – and, within minutes of kick-off, they were treated to the first goal scored between the two sides. A shot at goal by Charles Chenery of Crystal Palace forced Robert Gardner in the Scottish goal into a mistake which Wanderers’ William Kenyon-Slaney capitalised upon to give the English the lead. His clubmate Alexander Bonsor doubled their advantage soon thereafter, only for Scotland to hit back through Henry Renny-Tailyour and William Gibb.

Second-half goals from Kenyon-Slaney and Chenery thwarted the Scots’ endeavours and handed a first victory to the hosts. Once again, however, the real winner had been the game itself. A match report in the Bell’s Life and Sporting Chronicle noted: ‘If any proof were necessary to evince the growing popularity of the winter game of wielders of the willow, there was sufficient evidence on this occasion to convince the most sceptical that football, if only aided by fine weather, is a game that could take its place among the leading pastimes of the day.’

And so it proved. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, there had been twenty-eight official matches between the two nations, England winning nine, Scotland thirteen, and six ending in a draw.

The success of the fixture even emboldened the various football associations of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom to create the world’s first international football tournament, the British Home Championship, which debuted in 1884 and continued to take place for the next hundred years.

Crucially, the turnstiles kept on spinning, forcing organisers to take the now-annual fixture to venues that were bigger and better equipped to satisfy demand. Hampden Park (the first) made its debut in 1878. Sheffield’s Bramall Lane did likewise in 1863. Ibrox Park and Celtic Park in Glasgow each got their shots. So, too, the Athletic Ground in Richmond, Ewood Park in Blackburn, and Goodison Park, the Liverpool home of Everton FC.

All the while, the attendances went up and up and up. By 1880, an estimated 15,000 watched on. That had doubled to 30,000 by 1890. In the final match of the century, more than 40,000 eager fans squeezed into Villa Park in Birmingham to see goals from Gilbert Smith of Old Carthusians and Bury’s Jimmy Settle cancel out an effort from Rangers’ Robert Hamilton to give the hosts a 2–1 win.

Suffice to say, The Times and The Guardian had also started to pay more attention by this point, the former gushing about the ‘high traditions of excellence’ and ‘the finer arts of football’ the match had demonstrated.

Changed days, indeed. And they were about to change some more.

THREE

BROWN AMATEURISM

IN THE FINAL YEARS OF THE 20th CENTURY, football experienced a sudden, seismic surge both in its popularity and its global reach.

The first club outside of the British Isles, Kjøbenhavns Boldklubb, was formed in Denmark in 1876. Switzerland and the Netherlands followed suit three years later with St Gallen and Haarlemse FC, respectively. Belgium got its first club in 1880 (Royal Antwerp), France in 1881 (FC Girondins de Bordeaux), Argentina in 1887 (Gimnasia) and Germany, also in 1887 (SC Germania, better known today as Hamburger SV).

With that increase in formal domestic competition came clamour for more international competition. Initially, the Olympic Games satisfied that demand. Football made its debut on the programme at the second modern Olympics in Paris in 1900. However, this tournament, along with that of 1904 in St Louis and the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, were contested by various clubs and so-called ‘scratch teams’. It was not until the London Games of 1908 that a ‘proper’ international tournament