We Made Them Angry by Tom Brogan

Author:Tom Brogan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

The 22:

A warm-up in the Algarve

‘Stein went bananas and came on the pitch to slaughter me as he stood in the six-yard box, leaving me cringing with embarrassment because everyone – including some of the Scottish press – could hear his tirade.’

Jim Leighton

OF THE 22 heading for Portugal to prepare for the World Cup, George Wood, Jim Leighton, Allan Evans and Alan Brazil hadn’t played in any of the qualifying games. This was about par for the course as history attested. The squad for the 1974 World Cup contained five players who hadn’t played in any of the qualifiers – Jim Stewart, Thomson Allan, Gordon McQueen, Erich Schaedler and, surprisingly considering the fuss that is generally made about him not playing in West Germany, Jimmy Johnstone. The squad for Argentina in 1978 similarly included five players who hadn’t appeared in the qualifying campaign – Jim Blyth, Stuart Kennedy, Graeme Souness, John Robertson and Joe Harper.

As a piece of trivia, it’s perhaps interesting to note that every player in the 22 was born in Scotland. Not that surprising perhaps, but every other Scotland World Cup squad (with the exception of 1954) including the three subsequent, and indeed the European Championship squads of 1992, 1996 and 2021, contained at least one player born outside of the country. The average age of Scotland’s players was 27.4. The youngest squad in Spain would be El Salvador’s with an average age of 24.2. The oldest squad belonged to England, who had an average age of 28.7. The average age of players at the tournament was 26.9.

‘In many ways it was a better balanced squad in terms of the players and what they could do than the ‘78 team,’ commentator Arthur Montford said in 2010. ‘I think the ‘82 squad looked as if they could do something and there were high hopes for it.’

Leighton spoke with his local newspaper, the Aberdeen Evening Express, before he left, ‘I don’t really expect to get a game in these finals, but I’m here to work as hard as I can. I’m the only player in the pool without a cap, so I can benefit greatly from just taking part. My target has to be the next two World Cup finals. I’m only 23. So if I can maintain and improve my standard then I will be eligible for Colombia in 1986 [at the time of the interview, Colombia was scheduled to host the 1986 World Cup but withdrew and was replaced by Mexico] and again in 1990 when the World Cup returns to Europe.’

Leighton was delighted just to be going to Spain and recalled the moment in the dressing room after the England match when he learned he was in the squad, ‘It was almost impossible for me to take it in that I would be going. We were all feeling down after the result and our hearts went out to Ray and Tommy. But I was honestly so pleased at being named as one of the three keepers that I could have jumped up and down.

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