THAT GRATE ENGLISHMAN Winston Spencer Churchill (well he grated against the Scots, Irish, Welsh, Indians, South Africans plus a few other “lesser” nations) is credited with the remark: “There are lies, damned lies – and statistics”. So, if you're a fan of old Winnie, perhaps best not to read on, because I am going to be quoting some statistics to you.
These days, we Scots gaze nostalgically back to the supposed “Golden Years” of the 1970s and 1980s, when the National side had a season ticket to the World Cup Finals, and our club sides were forces in Europe.
If you're in this club, I've got news for you – we were shite back then; not as shite as we were in the early years of the present century, but, still shite. I arrived at this not-so-surprising revelation when doing some research into the National tam's wins/losses record since we invented International Football in 1872. I looked at the result of every Scotland game over these 152 and a bit years, collated the results by the decade and came up with a league table of how Scotland has fared over the history of the International Game.
I awarded three points for a win, one for a draw, and ranked each decade by the percentage of games we won in that period. Here is the league table: by decade, games played, won, drawn or lost, percentage of wins, percentage of points won.
1880s: p 26 - w 22 - d 3 - l 1 - games won 84.6% : points won 88.5%
1920s: p 33 - w 25 - d 5 - l 3 - games won 75.8% : points won 80.8%
1870s: p 12 - w 8 - d 2 - l 2 - games won 66.7% : points won 72.2%
1890s: p 30 - w 19 - d 5 - l 6 - games won 63.3% : points won 68.9%
1930s: p 40 - w 23 - d 7 - l 10 - games won 57.5% : points won 63.3%
1960s: p 69 - w 37 - d 12 - l 20 - games won 53.6% : points won 59.4%
1900s: p 30 - w 15 - d 7 - l 8 - games won 50% : points won 57.8%
1940s: p 19 - w 9 - d 3 - l 7 - games won 47.4% : points won 52.6%
1910s: p 15 - w 7 - d 6 - l 2 - games won 46.7% : points won 60%
2010s: p 83 - w 38 - d 12 - l 33 - game won 45.8% : points won 50.6%
1950s: p 68 - w 30 - d 17 - l 21 - games won 44.1% : points won 52.5%
1990s: p 91 - w 40 - d 23 - l 28 - games won 43.9% : points won 52.4%
2020s: p 57 - w 25 - d 12 - l 20 - games won 43.9% : points won 50.9%
1980s: p 87 - w 35 - d 24 - l 28 - games won 40.2% : points won 49.4%
1970s: p 89 - w 35 - d 19 - l 35 - games won 39.3% : points won 46.4%
2000s: p 82 - w 29 - d 21 - l 32 -games won 35.4% : points won 39.8%
You may notice, we have only posted a record of breaking even in matches won, or better, over 7 of the 16 decades. In fact, our game has been in decline since the 1880s, the final decade of Football as an amateur game.
More worryingly, our worst decades have been those since we handed over control of the Scotland team, from the butchers, bakers and candle-stick makers of the SFA Selection Committee, to a full-time. Paid National Team Manager.
It gets worse for our football professionals. Bobby Brown, when he was appointed in 1967, was the first Scotland Manager who also picked the team. Prior to his appointment, while the Manager had some input, the team was picked by the Selection Committee. Brown made a terrific start, beating England at Wembley, then taking a less-than-stellar group of players on an unbeaten World Tour. Since then, we've been going downhill faster than a Jamaican bobsleigh team.
Using the same template as above, our record under Selectors and Team Managers is:
Selectors:
p 325 : w 188 : d 62 : l 75 : 57.8% wins : 64.2% points won
Managers:
p 511 : w 214 : d 116 : l 181 : 41.9% wins : 49.4% points won
OK, I know the Football landscape has changed greatly since even 1967, we now compete on a European rather than the British Isles stage where we strutted our stuff during the greater part of the reign of the Selection Committee.
Today, it is very-hard for a Scottish player to even get a game with one of the “Diddy Teams” in Scotland, but the fact that even the part-time amateurs of the old Selection Committees could pick national teams, which “player-managers” such as Jimmy McMullan or George Young could lead to wins over good, managed sides, while today, for all the good work of Stevie Clarke, we struggle, has to be a concern, somewhere, if not apparently along the sixth floor management corridor at Hampden.
But: “facts are chiels that wanna ding” and the facts are:
We are, under the omnipotent control of a National Team Manager, winning 28% fewer games and accruing 23% fewer points than when picking the team was down to a Selection Committee.
I have heard of managed decline, but, this is ridiculous.
The old Blazerati did manage Scottish Football rather well – from their point of view, from 1929, when we first ventured outwith the British Isles, they managed to mostly avoid the European heavyweights, disregarded the rest of the world, and persuaded the fans we were still good.
For instance, of the 13 nations who competed in the inaugural World Cup, in 1930, we had only played – and beaten – France, who finished seventh.
Of the 16 nations who contested the 1934 World Cup, we had been hammered by winners Italy in 1931, lost and drew with Austria, who finished fourth, lost to seventh-placed Switzerland and beaten ninth-placed France.
Four years later, 15 nations convened in France, and, of course, the four Home Nations were still above that sort of competitive World cup nonsense, Scotland had, however, beaten tenth-placed Germany and fifth-placed Czechoslovakia, in friendlies.
Fast forward to 1950, when we not only entered, but qualified – except, we said we would only go as British Champions and Roy Bentley's goal at Hampden denied us that chance.
Of the 13 nations who did go, the only ones we had faced in a post-war game were Switzerland, who finished sixth in Brazil and had beaten us in Berne in 1948 and England, who finished eighth in Brazil and who had of course forced our non-appearance by winning at Hampden. We had also played a USA team in what is – to the Americans a full internationa, to us a non-cap game, in 1949. After beating England in Brazil, they finished tenth.
Finally going to a World Cup, in 1954 was a reality check. We ended up in a “Group of Death”, lost narrowly to Austria, who finished third, before being absolutely walloped 0-7 by holders Uruguay, who finished fourth.
Since then, we have repeatedly been put in our place on the world stage and it hurts. So, perhaps we should say thank you to those long gone administrators, who came pretty close to proving old Abe Lincoln wrong – they did fool us into believing we were better than we thought we were.
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