Sunday 31 August
 
Like most of Britain, I found out on Sunday morning that the Princess had been killed. As I came downstairs, instead of the usual noise of kids' cartoons on the telly, there was funereal music and hushed voices. The national outpouring of grief for Diana had begun.
   In a previous life, ten years earlier, I had once covered a visit by Diana and Charles to the Middle East. I was editing a magazine in Oman at the time and joined the press pack as they followed the royal couple on their round of visits and even to a polo match where Charles fell off his horse. The fun of those few days contrasted acutely with what was about to hit me.
​​
Monday 1 September
 
I was still living in Perth, house-hunting in Glasgow, so my morning commute was a long one but the news on the car radio gave no cause for concern. The Palace announced that morning that Diana’s funeral would take place on the Saturday, the day Scotland was scheduled to play Belarus in Aberdeen, but a morning funeral and an afternoon match did not seem, to us, to conflict. However, speculation soon started about the viability of the match going ahead on a day of mourning, so the SFA sounded out as many relevant bodies as possible, starting with the competition organisers.
   FIFA's view was that it is not uncommon to be faced with such circumstances, she was not a head of state in any case, so the match should go ahead with all normal marks of respect such as a minute’s silence and flags at half mast.
   Our opponents, Belarus, were already aware from media reports that the match may have to be moved and in fact they contacted us first. Language proved a difficulty, and discussion was done through German-speaking staff members on both sides.  We said we would keep them informed of developments.
   Next up was the Sports Policy Unit of the Scottish Office, to ascertain the government’s view. Remember, there was no Scottish Government at the time, although the devolution referendum was scheduled for later that month. The response came back: 'It is not for the government to intervene or seek to make any arrangements in such matters.' They made it clear that it was entirely for the SFA to make a decision.
   And finally, the Lord Chamberlain's Office at Buckingham Palace, for protocol guidance. This proved a stumbling block, as you can imagine the switchboard at the Palace was constantly engaged. Finally, a fax went through that evening, expressing condolences and requesting guidance.
   I was not involved in these discussions, as at that stage there was no particular media pressure, no cause for concern, and in fact I went to Livingston for a planning meeting ahead of them hosting an Under 21 match the following month. That evening, I drove home at the usual time, and all the signs pointed to the Belarus match going ahead as scheduled on the Saturday afternoon. It was calm. Nobody foresaw the hysteria that would mount so forcefully and quickly.
 
Tuesday 2 September
 
In the office, as we carried on planning as normal. I remember the page proofs for the match programme came in for checking – in those pre-digital days they were cromalin sheets. Then, what appeared to be the final piece in the jigsaw fell into place just before one o'clock. A senior official in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office called Farry and gave his view that, provided the match did not conflict directly with the funeral service (which it didn't), there was no protocol problem with the match taking place. He added, 'life goes on'. In our closeted world, that was the green light we were looking for.
   A fax duly went to the Belarus FA, confirming that the match would go ahead as planned, and this was then announced via the Press Association at about 2pm.
   Matter resolved? Not a bit of it. All hell broke loose. It was the cue for a nationwide outbreak of moral outrage directed at the SFA, and more precisely the person of Jim Farry, for daring to sully the day of mourning. Having tried to play by the rules, a decision taken for logical and administratively sound reasons was portrayed as a treasonable offence. The faxes and phone calls poured in. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the SFA was under siege.
   It may just have ridden that storm, being well used to ignoring public opinion, but there was another unforeseen factor: the referendum for the Scottish Parliament was just ten days away.
   The SFA lost control of events shortly after 9pm when Donald Findlay QC, the vice chairman of Rangers, appeared on the BBC network news to denounce the SFA, and Farry in particular. Findlay may have been asked to give his opinion on a football matter, but he was not just a football man, he was also a leader of the Think Twice movement which opposed the setting up of the parliament. Even though a halt had been called to referendum campaigning that week because of the tragedy, he seized the opportunity to point out, 'this is what happens when Scots try to run their own affairs'.
   He knew the impact his comments would have and he boxed the pro-parliament campaigners into a corner. Late that night Donald Dewar, the Secretary of State for Scotland, phoned Farry to express his 'great concern' about the match going ahead as planned. If that was not enough, he upped the ante by enrolling prime minister Tony Blair's support for a cancellation, and this was quickly echoed by William Hague, the Tory leader. All this was, of course, in complete contradiction to the advice given the day before.
 
Wednesday 3 September
 
Some time during the night, someone daubed the front door at Park Gardens with paint: 'Please call the game off'. Mysteriously, it was done just in time for a photo of the message to be published in the Daily Record. The caretaker Mike Kinrade, who lived in a flat above the office, set to work with wire brush and turps.
   Farry, meanwhile, did his case no favours by joking about the matter. He responded flippantly to Donald Dewar’s call, saying 'Colin Hendry’s out of the game and big Donald might be a valuable addition to the back four.' More sensibly, he pointed out 'We have taken heed of the various viewpoints, but let’s be reasonable about this – life does and must go on. We know stores will open at 2pm on Saturday. We agree with that. It is a mark of sensitivity. We will open at 3pm.'
   His voice of reason, and his argument that there were 'insurmountable difficulties' made little headway in the face of intense political and public pressure. Labour MP Jimmy Hood thundered 'The decision of the Scottish FA has brought shame on Scotland.' And it was not just politicians: Denis Law said 'I would ask not be to be selected if the game was going ahead. The whole nation will be joined in mourning and showing their respect. You just feel the SFA have got to have a rethink.'
   Yet there appeared little room for manoeuvre. Belarus were prepared to move the kick-off back a few hours but that idea was blown out of the water when the Rangers players in the squad - Ally McCoist, Gordon Durie and Andy Goram - told Craig Brown they would not play on the Saturday at any time.
   The Scottish Office had suggested Friday, but the Belarus FA could not play on Friday evening as several of their players were involved in matches in Russia on the preceding Wednesday. And, as they had another World Cup qualifier to play against Austria on the following Wednesday, they said initially that Sunday was not a possibility either.
   There were other significant practical considerations: the host club, Grampian police, the referees, the catering and stewarding, and not least the 20,000 supporters who had bought tickets and made travel arrangements.
   Meanwhile, our main rivals in the World Cup qualifying group, Austria and Sweden, pointed out that Scotland would gain an unfair advantage by postponing the match and playing it at a later date. In any case, there were no realistic dates available.
   Throughout Wednesday, the SFA international committee made efforts to resolve the crisis, meeting at Park Gardens behind closed doors. It proved such an intractable problem that SFA president Jack McGinn revealed that they had even considered withdrawing Scotland from the World Cup altogether.
   Meanwhile, I was oblivious to these deliberations. I had escaped Glasgow to travel up to Aberdeen to be with the Scotland squad, where a press conference was scheduled that afternoon at the team hotel, the Marcliffe. It was ostensibly for Craig Brown to preview the match, but there was only one topic on the agenda. I sat next to him at the top table, still in the dark about the progress of the negotiations, and totally unprepared to face questions. Not surprisingly, I was savaged by the impatient media who wanted answers. The SFA had yet to learn how to explain its decision-making process in a crisis.
   I had also yet to learn that these new-fangled mobile phones didn’t have limitless power. With incessant calls from journalists seeking updates, my battery expired and, rather embarrassingly, I had to spend much of the evening standing at the hotel reception so I could use their phone to keep in contact with head office.
   Back in Glasgow, the breakthrough came when the Belarus FA agreed to accept Sunday, but only after the SFA undertook to cover the additional £25,000 costs of their charter aircraft and hotel accommodation for Saturday night. Finding sufficient bed space in Aberdeen during a major oil conference was just another of many local difficulties! 
   Even reaching a formal agreement with the Belarus FA on this basis was problematic as their president, Evgeni Shuntov, did not speak English. His wife did, but she would not be home until 7pm to act as translator.  Then further difficulties arose with permission being needed from the Belarus Minister for Aviation for the charter flight to be delayed, and this was only achieved after pressure from the Belarus Ambassador to the UK.
   The other pieces gradually slotted together. Donald Dewar agreed that Sunday afternoon would be acceptable. Grampian Police and Aberdeen FC consented. Austria and Sweden concurred, albeit grudgingly. FIFA proved more difficult, as all the relevant people were in Cairo at a conference and could not be contacted, but the message did eventually get through. The referee team from the Netherlands and the Czech delegate were rescheduled.
   Finally, just after 9pm, I took a call from Farry, who dictated a statement to me and five minutes later, having called the journalists and TV crews into the hotel lobby, I read out his words. At the same time, he did so on the steps of Park Gardens: 'The SFA, in an attempt to find a solution, has received a tremendous level of co-operation from Belarus. They have been considerate and helpful. We are proposing to FIFA by fax that the match be played on Sunday, probably at 2pm. If that necessary approval is forthcoming then we have a solution. In satisfying the majority it will be necessary to inconvenience the spectators. We hope for their understanding and look forward to welcoming them on Sunday.'
   Craig Brown answered the follow-up questions in his usual diplomatic manner: 'The SFA has told me the game is now planned to go ahead on Sunday and I will have a team ready. In the circumstances I am sure it was the correct decision to take.'
   Shortly afterwards I headed for home, a three hour drive down the road to Perth. It has been a long day.

​Thursday 4 September
 
Back in Glasgow the following morning, the key issue may have been resolved, but the recriminations continued. 'Go now!' was the Daily Record’s headline advice to Jim Farry, while the Scottish Sun screamed 'Off – and so should you be'.
   The nation was angry and wanted to let us know. This was long before social media, and even email was not yet widespread, so people phoned, wrote or even came to the front desk.
   The limitations of the SFA's antiquated switchboard became abundantly clear: it could only handle six calls at a time, in or out. Only a few senior staff (and certainly not the press office) had direct lines. The calls flooded in, and to keep the lines operating they were spread throughout the office to anyone available. Many of them came my way, and there was little I could do except acknowledge the callers' bitterness, much of it personal against Farry. I remember one call particularly, where the man on the phone backed up his complaint by asserting 'Well he’s no oil painting, is he?' as if to say Diana’s beauty had been defiled by him.
   There was a fax machine which spewed out letters of protest all day long, and even the old Telex sputtered into action, the only time I ever saw it operating. The post arrived with the first wave of sackloads of letters.
   Not all the messages were critical, in fact about a third of them were supportive. It would have been easy to bin them but, in line with Farry’s policy, every one of them got an answer, which of course kept the clerical staff busy for weeks. They are still filed away in boxes somewhere, I believe.
 
Friday 5 September
 
Things were calming down by Friday although Farry, reflecting to the press on what had happened, was clearly aggrieved: 'It seems obvious to me there has been an awful lot of cant and hypocrisy about this matter. Worse, there has been deliberate massaging of reports and clever juxtapositions of truths which has raised media spin to an art form.' He was unrepentant: 'I don’t feel any inclination to apologise. I may feel an inclination to review it with the benefit of hindsight but I don’t think an apology would be an appropriate response at this time.' 
   The staff rallied round and we returned to planning the match itself, with Farry making it clear to everyone round the table that this was one game where every aspect of our organisation had to be perfect. The welcome message in the programme was rewritten, and the date was changed on the embroidered match pennant.
   Some football even got played that evening and I went to see Scotland Under 21s lose 3-0 to their Belarussian counterparts at McDiarmid Park.
 
Saturday 6 September
 
After watching the funeral on TV I went into Perth city centre. It was busy: the shops opened at 2pm, and they were not short of customers. There were many people by that time fed up with the whole affair and wanting to get on with their lives.
   Up in Aberdeen, there was an unreported element of farce. Being a FIFA match, the players had to show their passports to the referee and one player had forgotten his. David Hopkin's wife posted it to the team hotel but by Saturday morning it had not arrived and our security chief, Willie McDougall, had to persuade staff at the local Royal Mail sorting office to wade through the mountain of mail to find the missing package.

​Sunday 7 September
 
Shortly before 2pm, a lone piper stood in the middle of Pittodrie and played a lament, Flowers of the Forest. That was Farry’s idea. The capacity crowd stood in silence, but as soon as the music stopped a roar went up and normal service was resumed. Scotland won 4-1 and Hopkin, armed with his passport, scored twice. Qualification was secured a month later and the following summer we faced Brazil in the opening match of the World Cup Finals.
   The whole affair seemed over in a flash. In my opinion, it was whipped up and sustained by the media, who feared a public backlash against their own hounding of Diana, which had led indirectly to her death. They needed a scapegoat for the killing of the nation's favourite princess, and latched onto the first available target to deflect that criticism.
   Jim Farry not only fitted the bill, he played into their hands as the pantomime villain. He once told me that media relations was his forte, but in that he was deluded. Regardless of the challenging circumstances, he could have handled it much better, displaying not just a lack of sensitivity but an inability to read the public mood until it was too late. He was on borrowed time and two years later he was out of a job.
   For me, it was my baptism of fire, a major learning curve. However, I soon realised that crises and public scorn were common currency at the Scottish FA. Over the next ten years I had plenty of practice dealing with that side of things.

When Scotland meets England, patriotism comes to the fore, so it would take a strong personality for a Scot to wear an English jersey - yet several Scots have indeed played for the 'auld enemy' over the years. Some were due to accidents of birth or emergencies, others are harder to explain. 

Joe Baker spent just six weeks in Liverpool, where he was born in 1940 to Scottish parents, but despite his upbringing in Wishaw, Lanarkshire and a strong Scottish accent, it was enough to qualify him irrevocably for England. In the 1959-60 season, when he scored no less than 42 goals for Hibernian, he became the first player to be selected from a team outside England and made a scoring debut against Northern Ireland. It was the first of nine England caps. He was not the only one of his family to have an unusual international career - his elder brother Gerry was born in New York and played for USA.
   You have to go back to the nineteenth century for more examples of Scots being selected for England. Although one was born in England due to his father’s military posting, the others had no English heritage apart from their residence.

John Goodall was born in 1863 in London where his father, a corporal in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, was serving, but when his father died he moved to Kilmarnock as a boy (via Belfast where his brother Archie, a future Ireland cap, was born). Brought up in Ayrshire, he played for local clubs until moving south in 1883. After initially playing for Great Lever in Bolton, he went on to a glittering career with Preston North End and Derby County, and scored 12 goals in 14 appearances for England.
   Stuart Macrae, despite his fine Scottish name, won five caps for England in 1883-84. He was a son of Duncan Macrae of Kames Castle on the Isle of Bute, but was born in 1855 in Bengal, where his father was serving in the Indian Army. Stuart was sent back to Scotland for his education at The Edinburgh Academy, where he was captain of the school rugby team in 1872-73, and later moved south to Newark where he married into a brewing family. There, having switched to association rules, he played for Notts County and was duly capped by England. He also introduced golf to the town and was a decent cricketer for Gentlemen of Nottinghamshire.

Two Scots played against Scotland in the same match for England in 1877. William Lindsay was born in 1847 in Benares, India where his Dundee-born father was serving with the Bengal Native Infantry; his grandfather had been Provost of Dundee. After his parents were killed in the Indian Mutiny, he was educated at Winchester before entering the civil service. He won the FA Cup three times with Wanderers, and played first class cricket for Surrey, but despite representing Scotland in all five of the unofficial internationals of 1870-72, he was chosen once for England.
   Alongside him in the 1877 team was the only England player ever to have been actually born in Scotland. John Bain was born in Bothwell, Lanarkshire in 1854 to Scottish parents, but the family moved south when he was about ten. He went to Westminster College and Oxford University, where he won his blue at football in 1875, and earned a cap two years later. In the same month he played in the FA Cup final for Oxford – in opposition to William Lindsay.

And finally, two Scots were cajoled at short notice into playing for England during unofficial wartime matches. Jimmy McMullan of Partick Thistle, who would go on to captain the Wembley Wizards, played for England against Scotland in a charity match at Celtic Park on 8 June 1918.  Then on 2 December 1939, when two England players heading for Newcastle were involved in a car crash, the home team needed urgent replacements. One of them was Tommy Pearson, Newcastle United’s Scottish outside left. He later won two Scotland caps in 1947.

When England meet Scotland on 10 June there will be intensive, round-the-clock preparation, with every movement of the players planned and monitored. They are thorough professionals, their focus entirely on the match. They will fly into Glasgow the day before and leave immediately afterwards.
   It wasn’t always like that, though. We’ve been taking a dip into the archives to see how the players used to fill their time before the big match, and have found some surprising diversions which kept them occupied.
   First, Douglas Gorman tells the story of a magnificent signed sheet from the Turnberrry Lighthouse, then Andy Mitchell relates a few anecdotes of past visits.

When the England international team alighted from their train at Mauchline in Ayrshire on Thursday 13 April 1939 they were met by driving wind and rain, and a warning from the stationmaster that they would face 'an awfu licking' at Hampden Park on the Saturday.
   As they quickly transferred to a motor bus, Stanley Rous, FA Secretary, retorted 'We have a grand team and I am confident that we will win' and they travelled the twenty miles to their pre-match base at the Turnberry Hotel on the Ayrshire coast.  Tom Whittaker of Arsenal, trainer to the team, reported that his eleven was fighting fit. At this time the Football Association did not, and indeed would not, appoint a manager for its international team but Rous understood the need for proper preparation and probably worked with Whittaker to get the team together for a full day before the game. In earlier years some England teams had simply arrived in Glasgow on the Friday night.
   However, their preparation did not extend to packing a spare kit. The rain fell so heavily on Saturday that a drenched team needed to change their shirts, and had to borrow replacements from Queen's Park for the second half.
   This was one of the first all-ticket matches at Hampden Park and apparently when SFA President Douglas Bowie travelled from Ayr to welcome the visitors at Turnberry his first question to Will Cuff, Everton Chairman and FA Vice President, was did he have any tickets to spare!
 On the Friday the English team had the opportunity to relax and paid a visit to the Turnberry Lighthouse. We know this as eleven members of the party signed the visitors’ book, including some of the most famous names in English football: Stanley Matthews, Tommy Lawton, Stan Cullis, Eddie Hapgood among them. Also on the page are Tom Whittaker, Frank Broome (a travelling reserve), Vic Woodley, Joe Mercer, Len Goulden, Ken Willingham and Bill Morris.
 Not all the players signed, and perhaps they did not go: the signatures of Willie Hall, Pat Beasley (a late substitute for Eric Brook of Manchester City), Wilf Copping (the other reserve) and Stanley Rous do not appear.  Hall was a keen golfer so that may explain his absence, while Rous would have had administrative details to attend to, and indeed had to provide a late substitute for a talk he was due to give to Glasgow referees.
 Curiously, Stanley Matthews signed the visitors' book for a second time when he returned, this time with his family, in 1947.
   The Turnberry Lighthouse visitors’ book is preserved in the Northern Lighthouse Board archive, which is now held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. The former keepers’ accommodation is now a luxury retreat in the Trump empire, which would take a footballer’s salary to hire at a reported £7,000 a night, while the lighthouse itself remains an important aid to navigation in the Firth of Clyde.

While we tend to think of the cross-border invasion being a Tartan Army thing, it also used to happen in the opposition direction.
   In 1939, over 40,000 England supporters reportedly travelled to the match, with the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) running 33 special trains for 16,000 supporters, including 600 who 'invaded' Ardrossan early on Saturday morning on two excursions organised by Sheffield and Manchester newspapers.
   Each train had two kitchens which served supper on departure, breakfast on arrival at Ardrossan and, after a stroll around the town, lunch en route to King’s Park station near Hampden. It was all rounded off by dinner on the return journey. The on-board darts competition to pass the time seemed a risky endeavour!
   They squeezed into a packed Hampden and had an outing to remember, as England bounced back from a half-time deficit to win the match through Tommy Lawton’s late header. At the time it was a rare triumph for the visitors, but it would be 1962 before the next Scotland win at Hampden over the old enemy.

Saturday 15 April 1939
Hampden Park, Glasgow (149,269)
Scotland 1 (Dougal 20), England 2 (Beasley 67, Lawton 88).
Scotland: Jerry Dawson (Rangers); Jimmy Carabine (Third Lanark) and George Cummings (Aston Villa); Bill Shankly (Preston North End), Bobby Baxter (captain, Middlesbrough) and Sandy McNab (West Bromwich Albion); Alex McSpadyen (Partick Thistle), Tommy Walker (Heart of Midlothian), Jimmy Dougal (Preston North End), Alex Venters (Rangers) and Jackie Milne (Middlesbrough).
England: Vic Woodley (Chelsea); Bill Morris (Wolverhampton Wanderers) and Eddie Hapgood (captain, Arsenal); Ken Willingham (Huddersfield Town), Stan Cullis (Wolverhampton Wanderers) and Joe Mercer (Everton);  Stanley Matthews (Stoke City), Willie Hall (Tottenham Hotspur), Tommy Lawton (Everton), Len Goulden (West Ham United) and Pat Beasley (Huddersfield Town).
Referee: William R Hamilton (Belfast)

The Ayrshire coast remained a popular training base, for both countries, from the 1920s to the 1950s. The English generally stayed at Troon, sometimes arriving as early as Wednesday evening, and trained at Somerset Park in Ayr. The Scotland team base was not far away at the Marine Hotel in Largs, with training sessions at the local junior team’s Barrfield Park.

It reflects an era when internationals were more relaxed, but in the very early days, the England team barely had time to sample the Scottish air. This itinerary from 1906 show that the players travelled on the Friday, catching a train at their nearest suitable station, either on the east or west coast, joining forces at Carlisle, then on to Glasgow. They had afternoon tea in the saloon coach and arrived at Glasgow Central at 6.15pm, with dinner served in the St Enoch Hotel at 7pm prompt.
   There was no time to hang around. The Saturday schedule included lunch at 12.30, departure from the hotel at 2.30, kick-off at 3.30, and the post-match dinner back at the hotel at 6.30. The train south departed Glasgow Central just after 9pm, and dropped people off through the night at various stations en route to London where it arrived at 6.30 am. For those fearful a sleepless night, 'Arrangements can be made for sleeping accommodation to Euston if required, and at the Park Hotel, Preston, for those members who cannot reach home.'
   The next visit in 1908 saw a complete change of pace. The England team stayed at Dunblane Hydro, where former Scotland international Robert Christie (now a local architect) was delegated to look after them and was ‘assiduous in seeing to their comfort and fraternising with them.’ His programme for the guests included a visit to Dunblane Cathedral, where the players and officials were entertained by an organ recital. Changed days! But they must have enjoyed it as the team returned to Dunblane in 1910.

On occasion, the players even socialised together. In 1927, the Sunday Post took the above photo of the Scotland and England players over a billiards table.
   It was not just the players who enjoyed spending time in Scotland. We often think of the Tartan Army excursions down south, but it was the same in the other direction. The mass invasion by visiting England fans started early in the century and continued long after the War. In 1956, for example, there were 16 special trains from England, not to mention 11 plane-loads from London and Birmingham and hundreds of buses.
   As a final comment, have a read of my article about the Scots who felt at home in London, published in the Scotsman in August 2013: http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/scots-footballers-history-with-london-1-3039856

Census returns are a key tool for football historians, but sometimes they can reveal more than simple ages and addresses. This sheet from the Queen's Hotel on Southport Promenade in 1911 reveals a fascinating story about England v Scotland and a bunch of footballers from Newcastle.
   The census was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911, which just happened to be the day after England drew 1-1 with Scotland at Goodison Park, in front of 38,000 fans. Jimmy Stewart gave England the lead in the 18th minute, while Scotland equalised a few minutes from the end through Alex Higgins, who had hit the post in the first half (and claimed the ball crossed the line).
   Both of the goalscorers were Newcastle United players, and instead of returning to the north-east they spent the weekend in Southport, where they were joined by Scotland players Wilfrid Low and Jimmy Lawrence, as well as Newcastle coach James Q McPherson, who was training the Scotland team for the game. Each of the guests in the Queen's Hotel was asked to complete the census return themselves, so an added bonus for historians is that the entries have the players' signatures.
   The obvious question is, why did the Newcastle contingent not return home after the match? The answer lies in the fixture schedule. On Saturday 1 April, their club missed them badly as Woolwich Arsenal came away from Tyneside with a 1-0 win. Then on Monday 3 April, Newcastle had a match at Sheffield United, so rather than taking two long journeys, the players simply enjoyed a weekend by the sea and travelled on Monday morning to Sheffield, where they took part in a 0-0 draw. In fact, they may have stayed away from home all week, as Newcastle also fulfilled league fixtures on Wednesday at Nottingham and Saturday at Bradford.
   It seems extraordinary from a modern perspective that a top division club could be asked to play a league match without four key players. And it does seem to have had a seriously negative effect on Newcastle United: the previous week they won an FA Cup semi-final, yet the loss to Arsenal kicked off a disastrous month of April in which they won just once and saw them lose the cup final. Arsenal, however, benefited from playing weakened opposition as their surprise victory at St James' Park was part of an 11-game unbeaten end-of-season run that took them well clear of relegation.

Over seventy years on, the tour of Britain by Dynamo Moscow retains a legendary status. The four matches played by the Russians in November 1945 enthralled vast crowds, concluding with a match at Ibrox against Rangers.
   Yet there was a real risk the final match might not have taken place, after the Russian team refused to play if Rangers fielded their newest signing, Jimmy Caskie. Guest blogger Douglas Gorman has taken a fresh look at the controversy, and you can read his article here.
   Jimmy Caskie, a diminutive left winger, came to the fore with St Johnstone in the 1930s and after starring for the Scottish League select he joined Everton in 1939. 

There are several instances of footballers claiming to be younger than they were, usually in an attempt to lengthen their career, but I have never found a case as extreme as this.
   The legendary Scottish goalkeeper Jimmy Lawrence, who was capped against England in 1911 and holds Newcastle United’s appearance record, can be revealed as having knocked a whopping six years off his age.
   All documentation including registration forms and travel documents gave his birthdate as 16 February 1885 and that is the date that appears in the record books. However, his deception came to light when I checked his death certificate. He died while undergoing heart surgery on 21 November 1934 in Glasgow’s Victoria Infirmary but his age did not tally with 1885 so I searched further. To my astonishment, while the day and month were correct, he was actually born on 16 February 1879 in Partick, forty-five minutes after his twin sister Margaret, to Mary and Alfred Lawrence.

A tinsmith before he became a full-time professional, Lawrence was a passionate trade unionist and was a leading light in the Players’ Union, eventually becoming chairman in 1921 for the last year of his playing career. He contributed a column to the Yorkshire Weekly Record which helped to put his views across.
   Having hung up his boots he was immediately appointed manager of South Shields (from 60 applicants) but the job only lasted six months. He then had a couple of years with Preston North End, and in 1925 began a successful spell in Germany with Karlsruhe.
   Outside football, there is an episode in Lawrence’s life which is less well known. In February 1913 he secretly married Barbara Murray in Newcastle, not even telling her parents for a while, but within two months she was dead. Her death was reported as appendicitis at the time, but sensationally her body was exhumed that summer and the doctor who treated her, who happened to be her brother-in-law, was prosecuted for performing an illegal operation. In court it came out that she had suffered a miscarriage and when the doctor was called to treat her he had been drinking heavily and seems to have made things worse. However, he was acquitted after a two day trial.
   Lawrence never remarried. When ill health forced his return from Germany he settled in Stranraer and became chairman of the football club there, but angina and heart disease led to his premature death while visiting his sister in Glasgow. After his funeral he was cremated at Western Necropolis, Maryhill.

Given that this is international week, and that Hibs have just celebrated a Scottish Cup victory, I've been researching a man who won a Scotland cap as well as the national trophy with Hibs.  And for good measure, he also played for the team that declared itself Champions of the World.
   His name was Jimmy Lundie, and the fact that he ended up as a labourer in Grimsby docks takes away nothing from his achievements as a footballer.
   He came to the capital from Ayrshire in 1883, one of several Lugar Boswell players who transformed the fortunes of the Edinburgh club. In 1886, Lundie was the first Hibs player (along with James McGhee) to be capped by Scotland.  He strolled through a 4-1 win over Wales at Hampden Park, but unfortunately headed an own goal towards the end. According to the Edinburgh Evening News he otherwise played a capital game at right back.
   It was his only international honour, but the following season he won a Scottish Cup medal as Hibs beat Dumbarton 2-1, the first time the cup came east. And to top that in August 1887, Hibs declared themselves 'Champions of the World' by beating Preston North End  - even though it was really just a marketing ploy as Preston were not the English cup-holders that year.
   At that stage, like so many Scots players, Lundie was tempted by turning professional and joined Grimsby Town. It was not quite the football backwater that it sounds, as the club invested heavily in new players and reached the last 16 of the FA Cup in 1889, where he played again against Preston. Grimsby then became founder members of the Football League Second Division, and Lundie continued in the team until his retiral in 1894.
   He settled permanently in Grimsby, and remained there for the rest of his life, working for a fish merchant, and getting married in 1902.  He died in Grimsby on 16 August 1942 and is buried in Scartho Road Cemetery.
   An early history of Grimsby Town paid him fulsome praise: 'It is exceedingly doubtful when he was at his best whether there was another back in the country to equal him. Cool, gentlemanly on the field to a degree, he scored to take advantage of a foe, and never during his career with the Fisheries was he known to give a foul.'
   One curious thing about Lundie is that his family changed his name when he was a young man, which made tracing his birth details quite a challenge. Although most records quote a birth date in 1857, he was actually born as James Lynden in Kilwinning on 3 September 1861, and retained that surname until shortly before his move to Hibs. His brother John, born 20 March 1865 and briefly a Hibs player, was also born as Lynden. 
​

It never ceases to amaze me that a footballer can play for Scotland yet his name does not appear in the record books. That is the unfortunate fate of Hugh Wilson of Dumbarton, whose cap has somehow gone 'missing'.
   It was a chance discovery when I was reading a report of Wales v Scotland on 23 March 1885, which we won 8-1. It mentioned the Scotland team's selection problems, including this sentence: 'It was anticipated that Keir of Dumbarton would make the special journey to Wales but he scratched.'  This was Leitch Keir, who is credited in every reference book with playing in this match, the first of his five caps.
   But he didn't play. In fact, the Scotland half-back was his team mate Hugh Wilson. 
   This is confirmed by the line-ups printed in all the next day's papers, as well as the following few years of Scottish FA Annuals. Yet somehow Keir has been credited with the cap and Wilson is forgotten, until now.
   I am currently working on the details of his career, but it is clear he was an accomplished player. He started out with Mauchline, and is in the picture above with the team which won the Ayrshire Cup in 1878, its very first season. Wilson is on the far left of the front row. Another famous name in the team is Dr John Smith (middle of back row), who won 10 caps including six against England.
   Wilson remained with Mauchline until 1884, winning numerous county honours for Ayrshire and also playing three times for Scotch Counties. Then he moved to Dumbarton, apparently after finding work in the town, and played for a couple of seasons. I can find no record of him after 1886, the year after he won his cap.
   Who knows if there are more discoveries to be made of 'lost' internationalists. But in the meantime, the record books can be corrected and Hugh Wilson recognised for his Scotland appearance. Leitch Keir, on the other hand, can only be credited with four rather than five caps.


NB: He is not the same man as Hugh Wilson of Newmilns, Sunderland and Third Lanark, who was capped in the 1890s.

A curious obituary appeared in the press in 1936. ‘The death at the age of 64 has occurred in Elderslie, near Paisley, of Mr Bryce Scouller, better known as Tom Hyslop, a brilliant inside forward for Stoke and Rangers.’
   It was a crucial clue to the true identity of a man who was twice capped for Scotland against England, won two Scottish Cups, and was famed for his cannonball shot.
   Born in Auchinleck as Bryce Scouller, and brought up in Renfrewshire under that name, for his football career he called himself Thomas and adopted his mother’s maiden surname of Hyslop. If that was not unusual enough for a prominent footballer, he also had a close association with the armed forces, joining up no less than four times, including a spell on active service in the midst of an erratic football career.
   He first joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1888 under his own name, but disappears from the records after a year. Then in 1890, presumably to cover his tracks, he used the name Thomas Hyslop when he joined the Second Battalion of the Scots Guards. Based at the Victoria Barracks, near Windsor Castle, he came to prominence as a powerful six foot three centre forward in the 2nd Scots Guards football team which won the Army Cup (twice), the Middlesex County Cup (twice), and took part in the FA Cup. He was selected to represent the Army against the famous Corinthians, also scoring seven goals for Middlesex in a match against Sussex.
   Not surprisingly, he was sought by professional clubs for his goalscoring prowess, but equally the Army wanted to keep him. In April 1893 he applied for home leave but instead played a trial for Millwall, and at the end of the game was arrested by the military authorities and taken to Wellington Barracks where he was charged with disobeying orders. Although given a lenient punishment, he was obliged to remain in the army for a further two years.
   This seems to have been a ploy to keep him in uniform, so when Sunderland expressed an interest in signing him it took several months of protracted negotiations before they finally bought out his contract in January 1894 for the princely sum of £18 and he could embark on his professional football career.
   Sunderland was one of the top teams in England at the time and found it hard to fit Hyslop into their side, which would win the league in 1894-95. He played 19 matches in a year, scoring a respectable ten goals, before they allowed him to move in February 1895 to Stoke, where he made a solid impact. With 24 goals over a season and a half, the highlight being a hat-trick from three cannonball shots against West Brom, he worked himself into the international reckoning.
   His timing was lucky, as in 1896 the Scottish FA reacted to a succession of failures against England by using English-based players for the first time. The selectors chose Ned Doig (Sunderland) in goal, Tommy Brandon (Blackburn Rovers), Jimmy Cowan (Aston Villa), Jack Bell (Everton) and Tom Hyslop (Stoke) for the team at Celtic Park on 4 April 1896, and it worked. Bell scored what turned out to be the winner after William Lambie had put Scotland ahead, the English only securing a late goal by Billy Bassett, playing in his last international.
   Hyslop, despite some press criticism for his awkward style, was signed by Rangers that summer and played a key role in the team which won three Cups – Scottish, Glasgow and Charity - in 1896/97.
   It was enough to ensure he retained his Scotland place against England, and while Scotland were given little chance at Crystal Palace, especially after Steve Bloomer put the home team in front, it all changed when Hyslop headed an equaliser from Nick Smith’s free kick. The late winner came from Jimmy Miller, who knocked himself out in the process. England defender Howard Spencer later recalled: ‘Tom Hyslop was a thorn in our side, not because he was a particularly skilful forward, but because he was so deadly in his shooting.’
   The same month he sprinted to victory in the 220 yards race for professional footballers at the Rangers Sports, and went on to another successful season at Ibrox, winning the Scottish Cup again in 1898.
   Thereafter his career slid downhill. He returned to Stoke but had a disastrous run of form, not scoring once in a full season, and although he came back to Rangers in 1899 he was soon out of the team, playing only a small part in the league title win.
   He moved across the city to Partick Thistle in the summer of 1900 but in March the following year he signed up (as Bryce Scouller) to fight against the Boers and saw active service in South Africa with the Scottish Yeomanry. On his return in the autumn of 1902, he was over the hill in terms of top level football and initially signed for Dundee Wanderers, but within a few weeks was on his way back to Renfrewshire and ended his playing career with Johnstone and Abercorn.
   A year after hanging up his boots, in 1906 he emigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a carpet weaver, still calling himself Tom Hyslop. However, in September 1917 he crossed the border to Toronto where he enlisted for the Canadian Expeditionary Force, signing his name as Thomas Bryce Scouller and even knocked a couple of years off his real age (46) to scrape under the maximum age for enlistment. The ruse worked and he served in Europe, but apparently as a reservist and not on the front line.
   After the war he sailed back to Canada on a troopship but in 1922 returned for good to Scotland, where he spent his remaining years, reportedly following Rangers at home and away. He died in 1936 at the Paisley’s Royal Alexandria Infirmary and is buried in the Abbey Cemetery, near Elderslie.
   It remains extraordinary that an international footballer could have played throughout his career under a false name. As far as I can tell it was never noticed at the time, and only in death did his secret come out. 
 
Bryce Scouller, born 20 August 1871 in Auchinleck; died 21 April 1936 in Paisley.

Tributes are being paid today to the former Rangers and Scotland defender Sammy Cox, who has died in Canada aged 91.  He was an immensely talented player who won numerous honours in his career, notably three Scottish Cups and four Scottish League titles with Rangers, but his international career had a mysterious beginning with a 'cap that never was'.
   For over 50 years, Cox was credited with 24 Scotland caps, in the last of which he captained his country against England in 1954. However, he actually won one more than the record books said.
   The discrepancy only came to light when I was working at the Scottish FA and was contacted by a friend of a former Hearts player, Charlie Cox. He told me that Charlie was exasperated at being described as a 'former international' when he had never, in fact, played for Scotland. He was listed in the SFA's own records, and all the reference books, as playing against France in May 1948.
   I decided to investigate and found that in those days, Scottish papers didn't send any reporters abroad and relied on local agencies. So when the team for the friendly in Paris came through on the wires with the unexpected (and uncapped) name 'Cox' it was mistakenly attributed to Charlie Cox of Hearts. And there the matter rested, unchallenged and uncorrected.
   So in the summer of 2003 I called Sammy Cox at his home near Toronto and he told me the true story. He was a travelling reserve with the Scotland team but was not selected to play, so he had lunch and was waiting in the stand at the Stade de Colombes in Paris while the other players warmed up. Then the right-half, Billy Campbell of Morton, came back in with one of his boots coming apart. With no replacement boots to hand, Campbell could not play, prompting a bit of an emergency.
   Sammy recalled: 'George Graham, secretary of the SFA, turned to me and just said 'Sam, you're playing'. I got changed, but my biggest worry was that I had just eaten a large meal and I spent the first half trying not to be sick!'
   Scotland lost the match 3-0 to three second-half goals, and you can see footage on the British Pathe film archive.
   The confusion did not end there, however. Billy Campbell was listed in the SFA's own records as having played, while Eddie Turnbull, who not only played but had Scotland's best goal attempt with a shot that hit the bar, was not credited with an appearance.
   The errors were rectified on the SFA's online database over ten years ago but many of today's tributes to Sammy Cox still claim he only had 24 caps. It's time to set the record straight.