Scotland down the years

Alan Hansen was poor at international level. Alex Ferguson in his autobiography even insinuated that Hansen was never really all that bothered with international football.

Brian McClair too few caps ? Other way round, he got too many. Talk to any Scotland fans who saw him playing for Scotland. McClair was bloody awful at international level. Thirty caps and just two goals to show for it.

George Graham in his prime at an underachieving Arsenal side was up against too much competition at international level to become a regular. For example .....

Our managers of the late sixties/early seventies Bobby Brown, Tommy Docherty and Willie Ormond could pick from Billy Bremner, Jim Baxter, Pat Stanton, Willie Henderson, Jimmy Johnstone, Davie Hay, Archie Gemmill, Peter Cormack, Asa Hartford and Tommy Hutchinson in midfield amongst others.

killer kilbane wrote: Dave mackay 22 Arthur Graham 11

Dave Mackay actually got a pretty respectable number of caps considering how less friendlies were played then and only one sub was allowed. Should be remembered that with the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia still existing back then, there were obviously less countries to play.

Arthur Graham had the same problem as George Graham. Too much competition. He was up against Gordon Strachan, John Wark, John Robertson, Davie Cooper and Davie Provan for caps.

Gary McKay wrote: Dalglish never got injured. Andy Gray around same time as Dalglish, Joe Jordan, Derek Johnstone, Graeme Sharp etc. Gray very injury prone if I remember correctly. McClair, McCoist, Mo Johnston, McElvennie etc same time. MacKay and Jimmy Johnstone cases are unusual.

Graeme Sharp and Steve Archibald were two brilliant club players. What's a mystery is why they proved totally useless at international level. 

Joe Jordan remains a big TA hero. Always gave it his best and obviously loved playing for his county.

Mo Johnstone was a really good player for Scotland and deserved more caps. Scored some cracking (and important) goals for us. And my Gran still fancies him 

Frank McAvennie was a big headed **** who refused to play in a friendly match circa 1990 and Andy Roxburgh quite correctly never picked McAvennie again.

McG wrote: Andy Gray 20 caps (what a player) Jimmy Johnstone 23 caps (even better) Did they play f all games as a national team? But Kenny D got over 100 caps!

Andy Gray definitely should have got more caps. Both Ally MacLeod and Jock Stein made serious errors of judgement not given Gray more opportunities at international level.

Celtic's Jimmy Johnstone together with Ranger's Jim Baxter were on their day two wonderful, magnificent footballers without a doubt. However with the green tinted specs and the blue tinted specs removed people will tell you that they were both inconsistent at club and international level and not always what you would call "team players". Of course some don't react too well when they are are told the truth like that........

Nae problem McG.

Morton legend Andy Ritchie, Aberdeen's John McMaster and Chelsea's Kevin McAllister are the most frequent names to come up when it comes to the subject of good Scots players who never got capped.

Hell yes. 

Up until about 1970 there was a great debate about whether "too many Anglos" were getting picked. Many old boys on the terraces at Hampden and even some of the Glasgow football press could be scathing about those players based at English teams and wanted a Scots based players only approach. Absolute nonsense when you think about it. A stupid attitude it was.

We only got our first manager (briefly) in 1954 followed by another three years of the infamous SFA selection committee (who picked every single team from 1872-1953) then we had managers attached to the team. Some of them more under the thumb of the SFA than others.

Some members of the SFA selection committee were also childishly petty men who held grudges against certain clubs and their directors or managers or players for various reasons and would lobby against their players being capped. Ridiculous.

Up until circa 1939 there was also an utterly despicable anti-Catholic attitude on the part of some selection committee members who wanted the amount of Catholics in the team kept to a minimum. This is undoubtedly the reason why Jimmy McGrory only got a paltry seven caps.

Finally, before England, Scotland, Wales and what I shall diplomatically call the IFA team re-joined FIFA in 1947, English clubs were allowed to withdraw players from selection by their native countries and face no repercussions. That is the reason why the great Alex James of Preston and Arsenal only got a mere eight caps.

For example, Alan Gilzean scored 169 goals in 190 league games for the outstanding Dundee team which won the title in 1962, reaching the semi-finals of the European Cup the following season, yet only got 4 caps during that time. He mostly played Inside Right for them, yet he was kept out of the Scotland team by Jim Baxter. Baxter later flopped in England, whilst Gilzean joined Spurs at 26, won four trophies with them and played for another 10 years. He added a mere 18 caps to his total. Yet by the time Baxter retired at 31, having done nothing in his last three or four seasons, he still had 34 caps.

And when the maximum wage was subsequently abolished in England and more players went South, there was a bias against "Anglo's". Dave Mackay, for example, was truly world class, arguably Scotland's finest ever player. Bill Nicholson described him as his greatest ever signing, ahead of the likes of Greaves and Jennings etc, he was Footballer of the Year aged 36, playing on for another 2 years. He, too, got just 22 caps.

Charlie Cooke suffered on both counts (provincial and Anglo) and so only got a paltry 16 caps. whilst Scotland capped the likes of Willie Henderson instead.

Of course Dalglish got over 100 caps, but then again, he was a (former) Celt. And Ally McCoist, who flopped at Sunderland, got 61 caps(!) basically for being a Hun.

And people wonder why Scotland never delivered on the international stage, despite having so many outstanding players available to them.

As for Baxter's time at Sunderland and Forest, my point was despite by then being a drunk who was crippled by injury, he still gained another 7 caps.

Meanwhile, Johnstone deserved every one of his caps because they were all gained playing for a great Celtic team - he was never capped again after leaving Parkhead, which was probably right.

ErsatzThistle wrote: Stan Matthews and Pele both rated Baxter very highly but what the feck did they two ever know about football ........

I'll see your Matthews and Pele and raise you my Bill Nicholson, Jimmy Greaves, Johann Cruyff and Miljan Miljanic, all of whom were effusive in their admiration for Gilzean. 

ErsatzThistle wrote: Willie Henderson was an excellent Scotland player. Admired and valued for his consistency, determination and effort which were what led to him being a regular over Cooke and rightly so.

So it's "consistency, determination and effort" you're after?

Cooke played over 500 League games (alone) for Aberdeen, Dundee, Chelsea and Palace in a career spanning 18 years. He got 16 caps.

Meanwhile, his contemporary Henderson got nearly twice as many caps during 12 years, all spent with Rangers.

ErsatzThistle wrote: Dave Mackay was amongst our best players but he was not the very best. That's between Dalglish and Law. As I've said before, Mackay got a fair amount of caps, to complain that he "only got 22 caps" is ignoring the fact that there were fewer friendlies played then, only one substitution allowed and less European countries available to play against.

I'm not saying Mackay was "better" than Law or Dalglish, but he undoubtedly deserves to be mentioned in the same regard as a true great. Yet whilst Law got 55 caps, Mackay got a mere 22 over much the same period.

And Dalglish got a (well-deserved) 102 caps. I don't think Scotland played nearly five times as many games during his era.