A brief history of England vs. Scotland

As England prepare to take on Scotland in qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, we look back at the dim and distant history of the oldest international fixture in the world ...

There is something deeply satisfying and appropriate about the fact that international football began with the sport’s signature result, a nil-nil draw. There is also something miraculous about it: back in football’s proto-history, sides played attackers by the fistful. Of the 22 players that lined up at Glasgow’s Hamilton Crescent, 13 were forwards: six on the Scottish side, seven on the English.

But while the match may have been goalless, this game did manage to establish a precedent that has persisted throughout England’s international history. They were physically superior to their opponents. They were heavier and quicker, they were favorites ... and they were frustrated by, as the Glasgow Herald put it, a home team that “played excellently well together.” This can in part be explained by the fact that the Scotland team all played for the same club, Queen’s Park, whereas England were drawn from nine separate clubs. But it has also been suggested that the Scots decided, upon seeing the physical mismatch, to indulge in a dangerous tactical heresy and pass the ball to one another.

England, pacey dribblers to a man, couldn’t quite assert themselves. The Scots and their pattern-weaving football had the better of the game overall and came close to a winner late on, when the ball landed on top of the pre-crossbar tape. Passing eventually caught on in England, too, though the country has never truly trusted it. And the two countries, despite playing this fixture on an annual basis, wouldn’t produce another goalless fixture for almost 100 years.

These days, a particularly notable performance will generate commemorative DVDs, T-shirts, and memes by the hundredweight. Back in the 1920s, it was all about the nicknames. Scotland’s five-goal dissection of England in England meant that the 11 players involved became, with alliterative inevitability, the Wembley Wizards. Though it should be noted that in the wider context, neither team looked particularly magical.

The annual fixture had only remained friendly for 12 years, and in 1883 the two sides were joined by Wales and Ireland for the inaugural British Home Championship, the first international football tournament. But while the early years were generally dominated by either the Scots or the English, the 1927-28 tournament began with England going down 2-0 to the Irish in Belfast and Scotland throwing away a two-goal lead in Wales, eventually drawing 2-2. Wales then beat England and Ireland away to win the tournament, before the Irish beat the Scots in Glasgow. So, when the final fixture came around between the two oldest enemies, it was a playoff to avoid the wooden spoon.

Scotland’s team selection caused some consternation north of the border: eight of the side played their professional football in the English Football League; several regulars were omitted; the man responsible for marking England and Everton’s Dixie Dean, who was in the process of compiling his record 60-goal season, would be a debutante, Tom “Tiny” Bradshaw. Once again, England were physically superior and heavily fancied. Once again, Scotland were the better team. But this time they scored the goals, and in some style, too. According to the Times:

It was not so much defeat that England suffered as humiliation. There was a period in the second half when the football verged on the ludicrous; the Scottish players were taking and giving their passes at a walking pace, underlining with rather cruel emphasis the ease with which they could draw the English defence out of position. Indeed, paradoxical as it may sound, Scotland would probably have scored more goals had England put up a stronger fight … there were moments when the Scottish players seemed to be indulging in the artistic pleasure of playing with the mouse rather than killing it outright.

This third loss put England dead last, pointless, and with a goal difference of minus-7 over three games. It is, by some measures, their international nadir. As for Scotland, Jonathan Wilson has called this game the “last hurrah of the pattern-weaving approach.” For football was moving away from the comically overloaded forward lines of its early years towards something more systematic, and systems don’t have quite as much room for wizards.

England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland had withdrawn from FIFA in 1928, after an argument about player payment, and though the English were invited to the early World Cups in the 1930s, they — as The Guardian’s Scott Murray put it — “couldn’t even be bothered to reply ... snootiness multiplied by xenophobia on the end of a stick.”

English snootiness may never have truly ebbed away, but the home nations rejoined FIFA after the World War II and were awarded two places for the 1950 World Cup, to be held in Brazil. The 1949-50 Home Nations Championship would therefore double up as qualification, which meant that this game, the last of the tournament, was something of anticlimax. England and Scotland had both beaten Wales and Ireland, and so whoever won here, both would go to Brazil.

In theory. In practice, one should never underestimate the particular and rarefied genius of football’s administrators. The Secretary of the Scottish Football Association, George Graham, had announced that Scotland would only attend the World Cup as champions — if they finished second, they wouldn’t go. Obviously, England won 1-0, thanks to a goal from Chelsea’s Roy Bentley and outstanding performances from Wolverhampton Wanderers’ goalkeeper Bert Williams and captain Billy Wright.

Graham stuck to his word, despite direct pleas from his side’s captain, and Scotland stayed at home. Cynics have since suggested that this was less a case of spectacular hubris as parsimony, and that the SFA didn’t fancy funding the team’s journey to South America. It is perhaps notable that four years later, when the Scots finished as runners-up again, they were happy to take their place in Switzerland.

England, for their part, had decided to go whatever the result, and traveled to Brazil with designs on the trophy, and on finally acquiring the tangible proof of what everybody already knew: that England stood above the rest of the footballing world. And those designs lasted precisely one game, a win over Chile. In their second match they were defeated 1-0 by a scratch collection of semi-professionals representing the USA — coached by a Scot, as it happens — then in their third, they were overturned by Spain. Another glorious English footballing tradition, the humiliating early exit, established right from the off.

During the 127 years in which this fixture was played annually, from 1872 to 1989, it has been rare for one side to go too long without losing to the other. Scotland’s most dominant spell came early on: they lost to England just once between 1874 and 1887, and that was by the odd goal in nine.

England’s longest undefeated run came later on. It began in 1952 with a 2-1 win at Glasgow’s Hampden Park, included a 7-2 home win in 1955, and ended with this hammering at Wembley. And while a nine-goal margin suggests that England were pretty good and Scotland, as a whole, pretty lousy, the apportionment of blame fell in the most obvious of places. As the Daily Telegraph put it:

Always the English will believe the genius of captain Johnny Haynes earned glorious victory; Scotsmen will forever blame goalkeeper Frank Haffey’s shortcomings for ignominious defeat.

Precisely how bad Haffey was is a matter of some contention, though everybody agrees that he was at best pretty rubbish. It should be noted that Scotland’s best two goalkeepers were both injured, and that even then, there was some surprise when Haffey got the nod. Bobby Robson, who scored England’s opener, thought the goalkeeper was only at fault for two, and Scottish defender Ian St. John has also spread the blame around:

Defensively, we were awful. I partially blame our manager, Ian McColl. It was only his second game in charge, and, for me, he hadn’t a clue. At halftime, with us 3-0 down, Ian could not sort us out. He was out of his depth.

Despite that, Scotland clawed two back after halftime. The true disaster came just before the hour. Jimmy Greaves was allowed to take a quick free kick, Bryan Douglas took the shot, and the ball went into Haffey’s hands and then out again, and over the line. According to Greaves, who went on to score a hat trick, “That goal knocked the stuffing out of them. They lost all composure, their shape and discipline.”

But even if Haffey’s performance was as bad as the nine shipped suggests, it’s what came afterwards that destroyed his reputation. He had an excellent singing voice and a reputation as an eccentric. After the game, in the communal bath, he decided to serenade his teammates. Accounts differ as to precisely how Denis Law shut him up: Haffey claims it was the mordant “Frank, as a goalkeeper, you’re a great singer.” The Guardian prefer the more aggressive “Don’t you realize you’ve just been responsible for Scottish football’s most appalling catastrophe?” Haffey then invited a hail of bottles from the miserable Scottish fans by waving from the team coach — “as if he was the Queen,” Law said — and was photographed smiling under Big Ben, its hands pointing to nine and three.

Haffey later sustained an injury playing for Celtic and eventually moved to Australia, where he built himself an alternative career in comedy and light entertainment. It’s not entirely a coincidence that much the same was said about many of the Scottish goalkeepers that followed him.

Of all the noted southern raids that Scotland have made over the years, this might be the most lauded. Or at least the most amusing. England were the reigning World Cup holders, after all, and had lifted the trophy in this very stadium less than a year before. Of England’s 11 finalists that day, 10 started against Scotland, with the only change being the return of the brilliant, prolific Jimmy Greaves. But goals by Denis Law, Bobby Lennox, and Jim McCalliog meant that by the principle of winner-takes-all, and by the inherently just rules of both boxing and conkers, Scotland were now the unofficial world champions.

Not that it did them much good. Once again, the Home Nations Championship was doubling up as the qualifying tournament: this time, the 1966-67 and 1967-68 tournaments would be taken together and the overall winner would go to the 1968 European Championships. So, while this win made Scotland the 1967 champions and gave them the advantage at the halfway stage, by the time 1968 rolled around they’d lost to Ireland, and needed to beat England at home. They couldn’t manage it, and a 1-1 draw sent Alf Ramsey’s men to Italy.

As for that title of unofficial world champions, the Scots lost their notional title less than a month later, going down 2-0 to the Soviet Union in Glasgow. Since then, the title of unofficial world champion has made its way around the globe, passing from winner to winner through Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Wales, and is currently held by Uruguay.