Notwithstanding the vagaries of the London transport network, the biggest insult to an already beleaguered Scotland support at Wembley last November was not delivered on the pitch. As English fans vacated the premises in their thousands with plenty of time to play, their team 3-0 ahead, it became tricky to distinguish this occasion from the visit of Lithuania.
If this seems a strange scenario to highlight, consider the reverse. Should Scotland, by some miracle, find themselves coasting to victory against England at Hampden Park on Saturday there will be no rush to join the nightlife scene. Precisely the same desire to stay put and celebrate applied when the Scots recorded a famous home win over France in 2006.
Perhaps the fact that Scotland no longer pull off the kind of uplifting, surprise results when huge underdogs breeds desperation. If it has always appeared the case Scotland place more significance on a meeting with the Auld Enemy than the English – see Wembley 1977 as a case in point – respective attitudes have surely never looked more contrasting.
England’s supporters are perfectly accustomed to qualifying for major championships as a bare minimum. While Gareth Southgate can hardly be classed as a blue-chip manager, his players collectively operate at a level from which the Scots have long since been removed. But, intriguingly, as far as professionals are concerned any notion that Scotland actually care more about a fixture with England than their opposition is flawed.
“That idea is completely wrong,” says David Weir, who won 69 Scotland caps and spent a significant chunk of his career at Everton. “They might play it down beforehand – like they are not bothered and it’s not that important a game because they are a big country who play against big countries all the time – but they’ll happily rub your nose in it afterwards.
“It gets painted as Scotland’s World Cup final but the reality is if England get a result they like to enjoy it and stress the importance of it. They might even say how easy it was to beat us. It definitely means plenty to England, albeit they try to downplay it. There is always still an edge to that game”.
For England the stakes are, of course, higher in one respect. “We are talking about qualification for a World Cup,” says Weir. “England are in a decent position but that can change quickly. The English players also know the stick they get if they don’t win any international.”
There are many background factors that are pertinent here, of course. Scotland is the smaller neighbour, for starters. For so long, the production of top-class football players north of the border meant Scots loved causing embarrassment to the English – and could. The negative depiction of England, particularly when it comes to sport, in Scotland would always involve arrogance.
It is a truism throughout football that some fans would take one-off success over age-old rivals before more tangible reward. Scotland’s problem is, without a major tournament appearance since 1998 and a world ranking of 61, this rivalry exists on grounds of history alone. It is difficult to link battles for land dating back centuries as a motivation for people attending a football game in 2017 but the current political landscape – where an independent Scotland is very much part of the equation – fuels attitudes on both sides. “They want it badly too,” insists Craig Burley who, like Weir, was a Scotland international based in England.
“We tend to convince ourselves it means more to us as a mechanism to overcome [football] class deficit, particularly now. They’re depicted as caring less because of salaries and reputations. I can’t speak for individuals but as a whole the English lads I knew wanted it badly. This ‘they’re not bothered as much as us’ does not wash with me.”
For a spell in the late 1980s Ray Wilkins was the reverse of Weir and Burley – a decorated England international who enjoyed a club period at Rangers. “I always felt the rivalry was equally intense at both ends,” Wilkins says. “What I remember was hilarity when we came to play at Hampden, with some of the antics from the supporters towards us when we were on the bus or before kick‑off. We used to be in absolute fits on the coach.
“ You do tend to get the impression that it means more in Scotland. Most of the time when I played, Scotland were the underdogs, so there was that little bit of added intensity on their behalf. But believe me – if there was one fixture we wanted to win, it was that one.”
Jim Baxter enjoyed a superb club career but is best known as the player to do keepy-uppys in a Scotland shirt at Wembley in 1967. So much of the Tartan Army’s chosen verse involves barbs, putting it mildly, towards England. The trouble is, evidence that a sense of significance works both ways is increasingly difficult to find; off the field, at least.
Great tartan triumphs
1967 England 2 Scotland 3 Goals from Denis Law, Bobby Lennox and Jim McCalliog lead to the world champions being beaten on home turf
1977 England 1 Scotland 2 The Tartan army invade the Wembley pitch following a deserved Home International win by the visitors
1985 Scotland 1 England 0 Jock Stein’s men win the short-lived Rous Cup after Richard Gough’s 69th‑minute goal at Hampden Park
