UEFA Nations League Play-off, Hampden Park, 23/3/25.

After a sterling performance in Piraeus on Thursday Scotland came down to earth with a bump at Hampden in the second leg.

They never looked like matching Greece’s commitment or cohesion. In the end 0-3 rather flattered us.

I fear for the World Cup qualification campaign now. Only the group winners qualify directly – and on this evidence that may well be Greece. It looks like Scotland may have to finish above either Denmark or Portugal (whichever loses their Nations League quarter-final is in our group) even to get a play-off place.

So two relegations in two days for teams close to my heart.

Football is a cruel mistress.

It’s been some week.

Manchester City legend Tony Book left us on Monday, comedian Tony Slattery the day after, and news of the deaths of Joan Plowright and David Lynch came on Thursday.

Then, yesterday, we lost Kenny Wilson and Denis Law (see previous posts.)

Anthony Keith (Tony) Book: 4/9/1934 – 13/1/2025.  So it goes.

Tony Declan James Slattery: 9/11/1959 – 14/1/2025. So it goes.

Joan Ann Plowright: 28/10/1929 – 16/1/2025. So it goes.

David Keith Lynch:  20/1/1946 –15/1/2025. So it goes.

Denis Law died yesterday.

What can you say about the only Scottish footballer ever to win the Ballon d’Or? Simpy magnificent.

He is Scotland’s all time top goalscorer, a record held jointly with Kenny Dalglish.

He played club football for Huddersfield Town, Manchester City, Torino, Manchester United and City again.

He once scored six goals in an FA Cup tie for Manchester City against Luton Town. Sadly these goals do not appear on his record as the game was abandoned with twenty minutes left to play. City lost the rearranged game 3-1! Of course Denis got their goal.

It was with Manchester United that he made his greatest mark in club football, in that great triumvirate of Best, Law and Charlton.

Denis Law: 24/2/1940 – 17/1/2025. So it goes.

The Dumbarton FC website today contained the sad news that Sons’ great striker from the 1970/71 and 1971/72 seasons, and club legend, Kenny Wilson has died.

He scored 67 goals in his short time at the club including 38 in 36 league games in that memorable promotion season of 1971/72 and 4 in the top division the year after before he moved to Carlisle. He and Roy McCormack were the most potent striking partnership I have ever seen. Just sublime.

I noted part of Kenny’s contribution to our promotion in this post. In a later league game against Raith Rovers he scored all 5 in a 5-0 win. One of those he knew little about. He was standing with his back to goal a few yards out and the ball bounced off the back of his foot and over the line. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

My elder brother dubbed him “rubber legs” due to the way he collapsed when tackled illegally. He won more than a few penalties and free-kicks converted by Charlie Gallagher in those two seasons.

In a pre-season friendly against Carlisle United Kenny scored a cracker I always remember as the “£10,000 goal.” Before the game Carlisle were rumoured to be interested in signing him and willing to pay £10,000 as a transfer fee. When Kenny joined them a few months later they paid £20,000.

Sadly his career after he left the Sons was not as successful in terms of goals scored.

He returned to visit Boghead and the Dumbarton Football Stadium (the Rock) often in the years after he retired from football and always had time to spare for the fans.

And so another part of my youth has gone.

Kenneth Malcolm (Kenny) Wilson: 15/9/1946 – 17/01/2025. So it goes.

Dutch football legend Johan Neeskens has died. He was part of that magnificent Dutch side of the 1970s which reached the World Cup final twice in a row but unfortunately did not manage to win the trophy.

Neeskens also had a secondary assist on the superb goal – aided by a sublime pass from Johan Cruyff – he scored against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup .

Johannes Jacobus Neeskens:  15/9/1951 – 6/10/202. So it goes.

Former Liverpool and Scotland footballer Ron Yeats has died.

His arrival at the club, along with Ian St John, was credited by the legendary Bill Shankly as being the turning point to propel Liverpool to the top of the English game in the 1960s. Prior to their signings Liverpool had been jogging along as a middling Second Division club. So impressed was Shankly by Yeats that he immediately made him captain. Promotion followed straightaway, then two Championships sandwiched Liverpool’s first ever FA Cup win. Such was his stature that he was nicknamed “The Colossus”.

Given all that it now seems surprising that Yeats was only ever capped by Scotland twice.

Ronald (Ron) Yeats: 15/11/1937 – 6/9/2024. So it goes.

It is in the nature of things that I have made many fewer journeys to Highland League football grounds than to those in the Lowlands. The Lowland Football League does of course contain several teams which used to be in the SPFL or its predecessor,* whereas the Highland League has only the one (Brechin City.)

I have however visited I think nearly all of the towns/cities which have hosted past or present Lowland League teams and even seen games at some of them though not of clubs in the Lowland League at the time.

The first of these cities/towns would have been Glasgow (Broomhill FC, as BSC Glasgow before they became nomadic, playing in Alloa, Cumbernauld, and now Dumbarton) then Edinburgh (Edinburgh City, The Spartans, Civil Service Strollers, Edinburgh University.)  I have been to games at Edinburgh City’s ground, Meadowbank Stadium, but only when it housed Meadowbank Thistle (since morphed into Livingston FC) and at Spartans ground, Ainslie Park, where Edinburgh City played home games when I watched them play the Sons of the Rock.

It may surprise some readers that I have been familiar with Innerleithen** (Vale of Leithen) for many years. My grandparents (one of them the original Jack Deighton) lived there for a time. I may have been to Galashiels (Gala Fairydean Rovers) in those days. I have certainly driven through it, plus Selkirk (Selkirk) and Hawick (Hawick Royal Albert United.)

In their relevant clubs’ SFL or SPFL  days I have been to Cowdenbeath (Cowdenbeath*,) Coatbridge (Albion Rovers*,) Berwick upon Tweed (Berwick Rangers*) and Falkirk (East Stirlingshire*,) the last of which also landed up playing in Stenhousemuir for a while. Bonnyrigg (Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic) is another town I have only visited to see the Sons play. I have also passed through or stopped in Stirling (University of Stirling) many times.

In my teaching days I sometimes passed through Kelty (Kelty Hearts) on my way to work.

Then we have Cumbernauld** (Cumbernauld Colts – and Broomhill, as above)

I see Motherwell is listed on the Lowland League Wiki page (see link above) as the domicile of Caledonian Braves (formerly Edusport Academy) but their history is complicated, being based in Hamilton and even Annan for a while.

On trips south I have taken in Castle Douglas (Threave Rovers,) Dalbeattie (Dalbeattie Star) and east and south of Edinburgh, Prestonpans (Preston Athletic,) Rosewell (Whitehill Welfare,) and Tranent (Tranent, or is it Tranent Juniors?) where my mother was born.

Bo’ness (Bo’ness United) and Linlithgow (Linlithgow Rose) have featured on this blog more than once. I have had a look at Gretna (Gretna 2008) and East Kilbride (East Kilbride) but I don’t recall ever being to Broxburn (the newly promoted to the Lowland League Broxburn Athletic.)

** The game I saw in Innerleithen was a pre-1966 World Cup warm up game. Vale of Leithen played against France. It was of course a mis-match.  Cumbernauld was to see Dumbarton play Clyde.

And now Stan Bowles, the best football player I have seen live,as opposed to on television, has died. He most famously starred for Queen’s Park Rangers, but it was a Carlisle United player that I saw him dominate the midfield in a pre-season friendly against the Sons of the Rock at Boghead in 1972. He just glided over the pitch and past our midfielders as if they weren’t there. It was sublime.

This video kind of speaks for itself in illustrating some of his skills – but it tends to concentrate on him scoring goals. (I note that the person who titled it had a bit of difficulty spelling extraordinaire.)

I see from his biographical information he shared a birthday with me, though he was some years older.

Stanley Bowles: 24/12/1948 – 24/2/2024. So it goes .

One of the finest Scottish footballers of the post-Second World War era, Ian McMillan, has died, at the age of 92.

He started his senior career at Airdrieonians (the original Airdrieonians) for whom he played for ten years before being transferred to Rangers (the original Rangers.)

In his time at Ibrox he was nicknamed “The Wee Prime Minister” for his performances (and also in recognition of the actual Prime Minister at the time) and was part of that semi-legendary forward line Scott, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson (Later Henderson, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson.) He won six caps for Scotland, four Scottish League titles, three Scottish Cup finals,  and two Scottish League Cups and played in the 1961 European Cup Winners’ Cup final a year after playing in the European Cup semi-final.

It’s lost in the mists of time but I believe I may have seen him play for Rangers in a League Cup game against Hibs in the early 1960s. (I was very young at the time.)

McMillan returned to Airdrie for  one season before retiring but later became manager of the club.

He has a connection to the Sons of the Rock in that his grandson Iain Russell played for Dumbarton FC in two spells.

John Livingstone “Ian” McMillan: 18/3/1931 – /2/2024. So it goes.

Borough Briggs is the home of Elgin City FC.

This is the reason we made the trip up north in April. I had never visited Borough Briggs. And the mighty Sons of the Rock had a game there.

(Of current SPFL grounds the only ones I still have to visit are St Mirren Park, Paisley (I was at St Mirren’s old ground in Love Street,) Victoria Park, Dingwall (Ross County) and Central Park (Kelty Hearts,) though there are some others I haven’t photographed since it was a long time ago.

During World War 2 a pillbox was built on the west terracing (called, I believe, the Bank.) See here. Those nefarious Germans could have attacked from anywhere after all. Sadly it was demolished as part of the conditions for Elgin joining the SFL, as it then was, in 2000.

Borough Briggs from road:-

External facade:-

Opposite view from first above:-

East Goal:-

North enclosure from entrance gate:-

Main stand from east terrace:-

Inside North Enclosure, with west terrace beyond:-

Borough Briggs east Tterrace from North Enclosure:-

Main stand from west terrace:-