Scotland at the Euros - A Retrospective

[Binos]

In fact anything involving Graham Taylor was a nice moment

[ArabGaz]

1 hour ago, Binos said:

In fact anything involving Graham Taylor was a nice moment

Basile Boli planting one on Stuart Pearce was the highlight of England’s campaign.

[Shandon Par]

Went for a pish during the England game with not much happening. Could hear much cheering and yelling, followed by much less happy yelling. Missed the penalty award, subsequent miss and Gaza’s goal. 
 

Remember being pleasantly surprised at ‘92 with us not stinking the place out and giving a decent showing. 

[Gordopolis]

Went for a pish during the England game with not much happening. Could hear much cheering and yelling, followed by much less happy yelling. Missed the penalty award, subsequent miss and Gaza’s goal. 
 
Remember being pleasantly surprised at ‘92 with us not stinking the place out and giving a decent showing. 

Must have been a monster pish that.

[Binos]

8 hours ago, G51 said:

Can’t imagine being old enough to remember Scotland at a European Championship. Fair play to you all for surviving this long.

Being old enough basically means seeing the good bit

82, 86, 90, 92, 96 & 98

Scottish clubs mostly competitive in europe plus every decent english club side scots playing for them

[Ian38018]

12 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Absolute nonsense about the Germany game.  We were really excellent and extremely unlucky.  The deflected goal was freakish, but I think Goram might have had a chance of getting near it, had he not just given up and sort of knelt down. 

Seaman didn't save the penalty with his leg.  It hit his arm.

Calm doon   -  the original poster did ask for memories.  I never claimed any of mine were facts.

Just the dregs of what remains in my rapidly popping-with-age brain cells.

[Monkey Tennis]

7 minutes ago, Ian38018 said:

Calm doon   -  the original poster did ask for memories.  I never claimed any of mine were facts.

Just the dregs of what remains in my rapidly popping-with-age brain cells.

Stop getting Bond wrong.

[Ian38018]

1 minute ago, Binos said:

Being old enough basically means seeing the good bit

82, 86, 90, 92, 96 & 98

Scottish clubs mostly competitive in europe plus every decent english club side scots playing for them

I can go back to Germany, 1974 - In fact, I can vaguely recall watching the highlights of Scotland v West Germany in the 1970 WC Qualifiers ("Murdoch ends the Great Hampden Siege", ran the next day's Record.)

Although I am sure another poster will say I am talking pish.

[HalfCutNinja]

1 hour ago, Ian38018 said:

I can go back to Germany, 1974 - In fact, I can vaguely recall watching the highlights of Scotland v West Germany in the 1970 WC Qualifiers ("Murdoch ends the Great Hampden Siege", ran the next day's Record.)

Although I am sure another poster will say I am talking pish.

I watched Scotland-Brazil from 1974 last year when they showed it. 

I tell you what Scotland were decent like, pretty much every bit as good as them in every department on and off the ball a match for them. And they were reigning world champions it must be remembered. Changed days from now.

Also what's his name the wee b*****d.......Billy Bremner he was fuckin brilliant. I always thought he was just a wee hatchet man but he could really play like. Technically excellent, easily our best player imo.

Also he had no chance with the chance he missed, it wasn't a bad miss. It just came at him a bit too quickly and he couldn't close his foot in time, nothing he could do about it.

Watching games like that you always notice how fat and unfit and especially slow the players look compared to today. With one exception, the boy Jairzinho was electric. He looked like you could just pluck him out of that team and drop him straight into Man City's front three right now and he wouldn't look even slightly out of place. Fantastic player.

My first memory of watching Scotland at a tournament was 1990. Costa Rica and all that. Painful. We were spoiled back then though when we just expected to qualify for things and usually did, I also remember the goal McCoist scored against France the year before to get us there, big lob over the keeper at Hampden.  

Could be a long time before we're back at a WC as the qualifying is deeply unfair to smaller European countries, they are heavily discriminated against with the way its set up. Watching Scotland against Brazil in 1998 was amazing, just an incredible day. Opening the WC in Paris against the world champions  the most famous national side on earth with about a billion people watching bright sunny day it was just astonishing. Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Cafu. And we really gave them a game. Ach well maybe one day.

[Sugar_Army]

Euro 92...

Gave a good account of ourselves in a difficult group.

Euro 96...

Dutch... Cannot believe ref missed John Collins save. Cracking trip to Blackpool then on to Birmingham. 

England... Incredible half time in Scotland end.  The penalty miss changed the whole complexion of the game.  Carnage all over London after the game.

Swiss...Typical Scotland.  Glorious failure.

As somebody said earlier, us old farts were  spoiled watching Scotland (and in my case Dundee United) in 70s, 80s and 90s.   I was at Hampden to see us qualify against the Czechs for 74 and many more qualifications and saw my club team reach Uefa cup final and European cup semi final as well as win cups and the league.

Sadly I have suffered more than I have enjoyed since those heady days.

[Lobby Dossar]

See the normal pish has started with regards to a young Old Firm player (Nathan Patterson)

Teenager played half a dozen first team games for Rangers and 4 games for the U21s 

Now we must get him in the team … … if the press are going to clamour to get a young player into the team it should be David Turnbull who has been consistently better than either McGregor or Christie in the Celtic team this season 

[TheScarf]

The CIS game is the first international game I can remember watching.  Would've been 7 at the time.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

13 hours ago, Binos said:

Being old enough basically means seeing the good bit

82, 86, 90, 92, 96 & 98

Scottish clubs mostly competitive in europe plus every decent english club side scots playing for them

This was my run as well. Just too young for 78 (would have been 6 but can’t even remember it being on or any of the Tartan Army hype of that time).

I was a student for 92 and watched the games by myself (flatmates had fucked off home) on the flat roof of a house on Blackness Road with a bag of cans.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Melanius Mullarkey

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

We gave the CIS such a hiding that they decided to disband immediately afterwards.

[Binos]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

The CIS game is the first international game I can remember watching.  Would've been 7 at the time.

Only game Brian mcclair ever showed up in

Even then he needed a deflection off someone's arse to score

[Monkey Tennis]

13 hours ago, HalfCutNinja said:

My first memory of watching Scotland at a tournament was 1990. Costa Rica and all that. Painful. We were spoiled back then though when we just expected to qualify for things and usually did, I also remember the goal McCoist scored against France the year before to get us there, big lob over the keeper at Hampden.  

That McCoist goal was against Norway.

Stop getting Bond... etc.

[Savage Henry]

On 05/04/2021 at 13:17, invergowrie arab said:

Euro 92 was probably the high point of following Scotland.

Yes, papped out in the first-round as per usual but remember it was an 8 team tournament and I think most people agreed we were the best of the bunch that went out.

So, 5th best team in Europe and no Costs Rica or Iran performances. Thats about as much as you can ask.

Euro 96 was feels like an amazing time to be young and following the football and was an amazing summer although if I remember correctly the tournament was dreadful. 

Yes, we managed to Scotland it but I would say 4 points from that group was a decent return 

I seem to recall either Brian McClair orPaul McStay getting credited with a goal that hit the post and came off the back of the keeper’s head in that CIS game.  

I also remember Andy Goram being flat out brilliant in both 92 and 96.  He had his issues, but he was a genuinely top class goalkeeper.  I seem to recall Scotland giving a pretty good account of themselves, although there was a very big dose of “who else but us” excuses.   Scotland’s World Cup performances were not such great accounts.

[KingRocketman II]

On 04/04/2021 at 21:46, Ian38018 said:

The Holland match in 1992, I don't really recall much about - other then at one point thinking - a point here would be a steal.  Bergkamp scored a late winner.

Scotland were poor against Germany in 1992.  A bright-ish start, but I don't remember us ever looking like snatching a draw, after Riedle's opener.

I may be getting the next bit mixed up with Mexico 1986, but towards the end of the game Plan A become firing crosses in the direction of Richard Gough.  Two Germans finished the match sporting head bandages as a result of clashing heads with RG.  (Although, as I said, this may have happened in Queratero??).

  

made me laugh about the "wee shite" comment re Broon but as someone pointed out above, we were excellent against Germany and it was a cracking end to end game, with Germany completely fluking their second. But we still kept having a go at them. Despite the defeat it was a truly fantastic Scotland performance against the tournament favourites and built on an excellent performance against the Dutch. 

Think you need to go back and revisit this game. Scotland's performances against the Dutch and Germans were that good that a Daily Mail columnist, in a largely non-patronising way, compared the entertaining, attacking and open approach of Scotland to the dull dirge that England had served up in the group stages. 

[Anfield 1977]

Well if I wasn't already I am starting to feel really old now as I attended our six previous games at the Euros - I willl ber happy if I get a ticket for just one of this summers matches.

For me the biggest achievement was reaching Sweden by finishing top of a group with Romania, Bulgaria, a good Switzerland side under Roy Hodgson, ond - okay - San Marino. Only the group winners qualified for the finals with the eight competitors split into two groups.

This was at a time when it looked as though Scotland would never qualilfy for the Championships and there was a theory that we only peaked every four years which was used to explain the then regular appearances on the World stage.

Fot the opener I thought we got what we deserved. Roxburgh played negative football to try and stop the Dutch performing and we deservedly lost to a late goal.

My view of this changed slightly when watching the BBC Scotland rerun last year as we were just a little more adventurous than I thought at the time.

Frustration for the German match as, knowing we had to get a result, we tried to attack from the start. Why hadn't we done this in the first game was the view of msot fans.

Yes the second goal was a freak but the Germans hit wood twice in the game so it would be wrong to say we had no luck.

The CIS game was a contest to see who finished last of the eight competitors and this time luck saw McStays long range  shot - worthy of a goal - come back from the post and enter the net from the goalkeepers back.

There was a feeling ahead of the tournament that if Brian McLair failed to score in the block of four games (we played in Norway en route) then surely Roxburgh would finally drop who many percieved as his blue eyed boy but who had failed to score in any of his previous internationals.

I can recall muted cheers when his first half effort took a German style deflection and sailed past the keeper. Pleased that we had establised a two goal lead but despair that we were likely to be stuck with him for the forseeable.

Nice to go out with a victory and afte all unlilke the 1970s noone had been under any illusions Scotland had been anything other than there to make up the numbers. Like I said qualification from that group was a major achievement.

We rode our luck against the Dutch at Villa Park four years later but as the game entered its latter stages I had a strange sense we were going to hold out as it seemed it was not the Dutches day.

Whilst most people had been willing a Switzerland win in the tournaments opener at Wembley I thought the draw was the best result for our hops of progressing. I did however consider it hindered our chance of winning the next game. After all how likely was it England would fail to win  their first two consecutive `home' games?

All looking good at half time but England looked a better side after the restart.

It is often said we would have gone on to win the game if the penatly had gone in but I can't help but think Brown may have tried to play for a 1-1 result with the Swiss game to come. We'll never know for sure.

Of course many blamed Seaman for our exit for conceding as England led the Dutch 4-0 whilst McCosits strike defeated the Swiss.

A draw would have safely seen both teams through at Wembley that night and one goal from three outings was never going to be enough for Scotland and yet again we fell at the first hurdle.

I think history has been rewritten when we look back on those times as a goldne age. Going back to the 1950s we have taken part in ten tournaments and failed to get out of the first round each and every time.

We used to speak of the second round as the promised land when realistically it is not a big achievment.

Wales have taken part in three tournaments and reached ane semi and one quarter final whilst Northern Ireland and the Republic have sailed into the second phase without fuss whilst we used to talk about this time we CAN make the second round.

Our last exit in St Ettiene was just as painful as the others (Don't Come Home Too Soon) and going home `early' was always devastating. I travelled to six tournaments from 1982-98 and never once returned feeling good about the team - always a feeling of `what if....?'

Strange to think that Scotland took part in four major tournaments during the 1990s yet for me the best of times were the 1970s when there was genuine belief we could achieve something,

Edited April 6, 2021 by Anfield 1977

[Ian38018]

55 minutes ago, Anfield 1977 said:

 

Strange to think that Scotland took part in four major tournaments during the 1990s yet for me the best of times were the 1970s when there was genuine belief we could achieve something,

A major aberration apart, at Wembley in 1975, between 1974-77 Scotland were superb.  Certainly the best Scotland side I ever saw.

The Argentina World Cup came just a year too late for us - Masson and Rioch were past their Play-By-Date, and manager McLeod not quite having enough faith in Graeme Souness as the obvious replacement.  A refusal to play 40-goal Derek Johnstone at the finals hardly helped us either.  

Still - we are talking 'bout Euro's here.