SEVEN down, two to go; we are nearly at the end of our wee trip to Wembley via Memory Lane.
Today we re-consider what I believe to be our second-best Wembley win; this came on 15 April, 1967 - the day we became "World Champions".
This title was thrust on Scotland by a piece of logic. The Tartan Army reasoned - Sonny Liston was Champion of the World, Cassius Clay (now Mohammed Ali) beat him - to become the new Champion of the World. If it works like that in boxing - why not in football?
England were Champions of the World - be beat them, therefore, surely we were the new champions?
When England had defeated West Germany at Wembley, in July, 1966, it had, although we didn't know it at the time, signalled the beginning of the end of the importance of the Home Internationals. The English suddenly realised there was a big wide world out there in which they could and should play a bigger role; beating the Jocks, the Micks and the Taffs didn't amount to a hill of beans.
Of course, to us up in that small, far-away country of which Middle England knew nothing and cared even less, the fact that they should have won the World Cup, whilst we were on the outside looking in, demanded a response - England had to be put in its place and where better to do it than Wembley.
That World Cup-winning England squad was in truth, not a bad team. Today, nearly half a century on, we can still accept that Gordon Banks is one of the five best goalkeepers there has ever been. He has certainly become over-rated in the intervening period, but at that time Bobby Moore was one of the world's top defenders, ditto Ray Wilson. Bobby Charlton's lofty place in the pantheon of great British footballers is a given, as is that of Jimmy Greaves, the man who didn't play in the final.
The rest,they were good club players, but, England won the World Cup because they had home advantage and Wembley still cast a spell on overseas players, but they won mainly because they had a terrific, bloody-minded manager who came up with a tactical plan to suit his players and stuck to it.
However, Scotland had more great players available to them than England, but, could rarely get them onto the park together and mentally ready to play as a team. In April, 1967, the selectors gave manager Bobby Brown the players, beating the World Champions gave them the motivation.
The Scottish players KNEW they were the better team; they KNEW they were more motivated, but still, they nearly lost it. Denis Law, one of the scarred victims of the 9-3 loss in 1961 wanted his revenge - by thrashing England with goals to spare. Jim Baxter, backed-up by Billy Bremner, wanted to: "humiliate them 1-0" - Baxter and Bremner won the argument; tease and torment them it would be.
Last week, finally getting to watch the flickering BBC black and white pictures of the game, the sheer scale of Scotland's win came back to me. Some of our inter-passing was like watching Barcelona, as Baxter, Bremner, McCalliog and Law inter-changed in midfield.
It was total football as Baxter dropped back to left-back to take the ball from Ronnie Simpson, then, with Eddie McCreadie running interference, as the Americans say, ahead of him, forcing Nobby Stiles and Alan Ball back to cover his run, and Bobby Lennox and Willie Wallace made diagonal runs to draw covering players wide, Baxter advanced, to find Law.
The game was a cup tie, the tackles were fierce - today's referees would have been dishing-out yellow cards left, right and centre, but back then, they got on with things and Scotland were in the driving seat.
Denis Law put us in front in 27 minutes, at a time when we were actually down to ten men, with Tommy Gemmell off the field for treatment. Jackie Charlton injured himself, trying to "do" Bobby Lennox and, while England re-adjusted in those days of no substitutes, we really should have established a three-goal half time cushion.
In truth, we ran out of steam, Wembley's lush turf was stamina-sapping at the end of a long season, but, Lennox made it 2-0, before the injured Charlton Major (as they say at public school), cut the deficit. However, debutant McCalliog had his greatest moment in 87 minutes when he fired home the winner.
Ronnie McKinnon - a true unsung hero on the day, made his only mistake of the day in 88 minutes - he maybe took pity on his immediate opponent and allowed Geoff Hurst out of his hip pocket and the luckiest Knight in the land (think what Steve Redgrave, Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins had to do to get their Ks - Hurst only had to score two goals and be wrongly credited with a third to get his) thanked him by scoring a meaningless second England goal in the last minute.
Cue Scottish joy at the final whistle - we had indeed humiliated the World Champions.
We won, because, on the day our lesser players played better than theirs did. Sure, Baxter's wee bit of keepie-uppie near the end caught the eye. Of course Law was better than Greaves on the day, Bremner out-played Nobby Stiles, new boy McCalliog more than matched Bobby Charlton (Charlton Minor) and John Greig was better than rival captain Moore - but, the real damage was done by our "lesser" players such as full backs Gemmell and McCreadie, who were infinitely better than their more-celebrated (then) pair. Late call-up Wallace eclipsed Hurst as a second striker, Lennox, winning just his second cap, was far, far better than the over-rated and on this day anonymous Martin Peters and Ronnie McKinnon had the game of his life in blotting-out Hurst.
Not even Ronnie Simpson's family would try to claim he was a better 'keeper than Banks, but, on a ground which has so-often been a graveyard for Scottish goalkeepers, the veteran, winning his first cap, aged 36, showed all the calming experience he had garnered in his long career; for once, we were tight at the back.
The score may be down in the history books as 3-2 to Scotland; the truth is, in reality there were at least two, maybe three goals between the teams. Had it indeed finished 5-2, this would have ranked as our best Wembley win, instead, beating the then World Champions, on their own turf, is only worth second place.
And, this being a Scotland story, there has to be a sting in the tail. The match was a European Championship qualifier. The four Home Nations, all entering for the first time, were put in one group, using the Home Internationals also as their qualifiers.
This win put Scotland top of the table, but, a magnificent one-man show from George Best, in Belfast, in the next qualifier, under-mined our hopes and when we failed to beat the English at Hampden in February of 1968, they and not us, qualified - so, in the end, the wonder of Wembley proved to be meaningless.
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