June 4th 1977 was the date of a fascinating England v Scotland international. Scotland were well on form and confident at the time, expecting to beat the old foe. The Scots were the Home International champions and only needed a victory over England at Wembley to retain that title. A victory is what they got with goals from Gordon McQueen and Kenny Dalglish, which gave the Scots a comfortable 2-0 lead. A late Mick Channon penalty gave the English a consolation goal, but the final whistle was blown. But it was what happened after the match that made most of the headlines. Many Scots in the 98,103 crowd invaded the pitch, digging up turf and climbing on the cross bars, wrecking the goals. It seems that many a Scottish lawn saw the addition of a bit of the Wembley turf after that Saturday afternoon fixture.
The Scottish victory was the first at Wembley since April 15th 1967 when the Scots became the first country the beat England after they had won the World Cup - and that of course allowed them to claim being the unofficial world champions! 99,000+ witnessed this. Bless them....This was England's first defeat in twenty matches, but it was something of a hollow victory for the Scots, against a team reduced to eight fit players. Jack Charlton hobbled at centre-forward for much of the match with a broken toe, Ray Wilson was a limping passenger after getting a kick on the ankle, and Jimmy Greaves was reduced to half pace by a knock in his comeback match.
Denis Law was at his tormenting best and gave Scotland the lead after twenty-eight minutes, and it remained at 1-0 until a four-goal rush in the last twelve minutes. Celtic winger Bobby Lennox made it 2-0 before Jack Charlton bravely pulled one back. Gordon Banks was beaten at the near post by Jim McCalliog and then Hurst headed home a Bobby Charlton cross. Nobby Stiles, Denis Law's Manchester United team-mate, said later: 'I knew the Scots were taking it very seriously when Denis came on to the pitch wearing shinpads. I had never seen him wear them before.' Four of the Scottish team helped Celtic become the first British club to win the European Cup, the following month. The newly knighted Sir Alf Ramsey said: 'Scotland deserved their victory, but I hope they will accept it as a fact rather than an excuse when I say we were heavily handicapped by injuries.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PtQKVsHB70
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-8M00lpaTY
The second one's longer but contains match stuff.
The first match between the two countries was in 1872 and actually the first official international ever. The score was 0-0.
Including the 1872 meeting, the English have won 48 games and the Scots 41, with 25 drawn.
No comments:
Post a Comment