The last man to score a winner for Scotland against the Auld enemy is on the tube from Hammersmith to Epping.
Don Hutchison’s accent has always been closer to Estuary English than broad Glaswegian and these days he resides in Essex, depriving him of the chance to walk into any bar north of the border and dine out on his famous Wembley goal in 2000.
“I don’t get across to Scotland as much as I’d like to so I don’t think I’ve ever been shouted a free pint for the goal,” he admits. “But I consider myself a proud Scot and that header means so, so much to me.”
It’s now been 23 years since an England in transition under Kevin Keegan drew Craig Brown’s wily Scotland in a Euros play-off qualifier.
A Paul Scholes double at Hampden put England on a seemingly comfortable route to the finals in the Netherlands and Belgium. But Hutchison’s Scotland were an altogether different prospect at Wembley, comprehensively outthinking and outfighting England.
“What a night it was. One of the best atmospheres I’ve played in,” Hutchison recalls.
“It started with the anthems. When they played Flower of Scotland there was like this sea of boos from 90,000 odd at Wembley and I could feel my chest getting puffed out. I used to love those kind of atmospheres, being in the lion’s den.
“Derby games were my favourite and the more hostile it was the more I got wired in. I just really fancied us to do it and there was no deflation about being 2-0 down from the first game.
“Craig Brown said to us ‘If we score one, England will collapse at Wembley’. That was England’s mentality at the time and there’s always been that big fear when they play Scotland because they’re supposed to beat us.
“But like the current side we were a good team and my recollection is that no matter where you looked on that pitch, every single Scotland player outperformed England in that game.”
Hutchison relished his running battle with Paul Ince, a player he regularly clashed with at club level.
“There was needle all over the place, I was getting into [David] Beckham. Pierluigi Collina was the referee and he had his work cut out all night,” Hutchison says.
“Me and Ince had a thing going on for years. I played for West Ham or Liverpool when he was at Manchester United and we both loved a tackle.
“We both went into a tackle that night, I can’t remember who lifted who, and we both got up to scrap. Collina was right bang in the middle of us, bald head, bulging eyes and bang – it was two yellows for each of us. Nobody wanted to take a backward step.”
Scotland were well on top when Hutchison scored in the second half with a header from a fine Neil McCann cross. His one regret about that moment? The celebration.
“When the anthems were going off I could see the Scotland fans in the corner behind the goal. I thought ‘If I score here, I’m going to leg it, go over and wind them up by going mental shaking the fence’,” he says.
“But the Scotland subs were warming up in that corner when I scored it so they grabbed me and sort of piled on. It wasn’t the iconic celebration I’d hoped for!”
England somehow clung on and made it to the final whistle with aggregate lead in tact. Despite the deflation of missing out on the finals Hutchison remembers his Dad Douglas, a 6ft 5ins miner from Nairn who never really showed much emotion, embracing him in the Wembley tunnel afterwards with feeling.
“He had a tear in his eye which was something really special,” he says.
Hutchison senses history could be in the making at Hampden on Tuesday night.
“Steve Clarke has done an unbelievable job and this Scotland side can give anyone a game,” he says.
“It feels like a long time since we looked at the Scotland side and wondered how we were going to get our two left-backs Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson into the side. Now they’re a proper side.
“They’re going to the Euros and I think they’ll do well there as well. I think we’ve got a real chance against England.”
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/k7ZRyQv
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