Scotland vs England: Old scores lost in sands of time for a new young England breed

Hodgson recalls Scotland’s greatest day at Wembley while Rooney talks of his fondness for Celtic as the visitors from south of the border attempt to cosy up

The England manager, Roy Hodgson, left, and his captain, Wayne Rooney, address the press (Reuters)

Wayne Rooney described yesterday how he had twice slipped into the away end of British grounds to watch matches as a spectator. The first was at Anfield in 2003, when he sat, or rather stood, among the Arsenal supporters to watch a Premier League game for which his friend Francis Jeffers was on the away team’s bench. The second was at Ibrox, to watch Celtic play.

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Asked at Celtic Park yesterday whether it had been a tricky operation to get in and out of the ground without being mobbed, Rooney was blunt. “Not really. I didn’t go in disguise.”

He makes no secret of his fondness for Celtic and, when asked, he certainly did not rule out playing for them one day – an option that he has mentioned before, even if he regards it as some way off for now. It all added up to a very different kind of reception to the one England captains of the past might have expected in Scotland: for one part of Glasgow’s football supporters tonight Rooney is less the enemy, more an object of curiosity.

It was in keeping with a build-up to this game from Roy Hodgson that did not pit the two nations against one another with the old fervour that consumed so many of his predecessors in the job, including Sir Alf Ramsey. When Hodgson was asked whether this game could ever be described as a friendly, he replied, “Why not?” Later, when pressed to recall his most memorable Auld Enemy encounter, Hodgson cited the 1967 victory for Scotland at Wembley. As for asking his players, he said there was “no point – they weren’t even born then”.

He is right on that score. England last played a friendly game away against Scotland in May 1989 before 13 of Hodgson’s 22-man squad were born. That was the last of a sequence of annual games that stretched unbroken for the entire post-war period.

The footage of that sunny afternoon at Hampden in 1989 feels like ancient history. John Fashanu started the game and was later replaced by Wolves’ Steve Bull, then playing in the original Football League Third Division. It was Bull’s debut and he scored the second of England’s two goals in a comfortable 2-0 win. By the final whistle, the ragged concrete terraces had largely emptied of Scottish fans.

That game was less than a month after the Hillsborough disaster, yet there were no black armbands worn by either side, an oversight that would be unthinkable now. Since the abandoning of the traditional Scotland friendly, England have played five against Italy and six against the Netherlands. Changing the opposition has not necessarily improved the tournament performance of the national team but it does mean that the tradition of the Scotland rivalry has been lost to a generation.

For his Auld Enemy memory, Rooney brought up the goal scored by Paul Gascoigne at Wembley against the Scots in 1996, but it was hard for him to muster anything like contempt for the opposition. Of course, that may change if the likes of Scott Brown decide that the best way to deal with the England captain is to try to provoke his temper, but the menace and sense of history are more likely to come from the stands than the young men on the pitch.

Rather, there seems to be more a sense of anticipation at the kind of atmosphere that Celtic Park is likely to create than any old grudges or animosity between the players. Rooney said that his experience taking on Celtic in the Champions League meant that he had told the younger players to prepare themselves for the reception when they stepped into the stadium.

Hodgson is convinced that Gordon Strachan’s team will prove a more open and attacking opponent that will provide some respite from the park-the-bus tactics of the teams encountered so far in Group E of Euro 2016 qualifying, with the possible exception of Switzerland. It is telling that Hodgson even considered Slovenia to be relatively attack-minded but only when contrasted with San Marino and Estonia

He said: “In future, we will play matches against teams who accept we have the better players, so they seek to restrict their attacking movements to frustrate us. In this game, I’m expecting both teams to have the quality to want to win, to create goal chances when they have the ball, and that will lead to some counter-attacking football. I think it will be of a similar ilk to Friday [against Slovenia]. It will be different to the games against San Marino and Estonia, when defeat wasn’t our major concern but scoring goals might have been.”

It will be interesting to see whether Strachan approaches the game that way. The emotional imperative might be to attack England, but the more logical instinct for Scotland would be to keep it tight and try to pick them off. There is no question which side has the better players, the question will be how robust England can be with the changes that Hodgson is expected to make both to the starting line-up and during the game.

Hodgson was still a teenager and trying to make his way in non-league football when Scotland beat the world champions England at Wembley. “I have a lot of memories of this game. The one that sticks out is the painful one just after the World Cup, when Jim Baxter ran us ragged at Wembley.

“I watched it on the television. Scotland came down in 1967 and gave that wonderful display, which was personified by Jimmy Baxter. That would be my residing memory. But does it require a strong Scotland side for the fixture to be reintroduced? Not for me.

“I would say what damaged the fixture was that period of hooliganism, where crowd control was sometimes problematic, and I would guess that is one of the reasons why the fixture didn’t appear so regularly. We should judge the fixture on what happened last year – a game everybody was more than satisfied with – and look forward to another one which should be a replica.”

It was suggested to Hodgson that he was offered the Scotland job in 2002 and turned it down, something that he did not deny completely. There is yet to be an English manager of Scotland, or vice versa, but otherwise it is a very different kind of rivalry that will unfold tonight.

Glasgow belongs to us: Famous Scotland home wins over the auld enemy

Scotland 1 England 0

25 May 1985

Gordon Strachan played in Scotland’s last win over England on home soil as Jock Stein’s side triumphed at Hampden Park. Richard Gough scored the winner, heading past Peter Shilton.

Scotland 2 England 1

15 May 1976

Mick Channon’s header from a Roy McFarland cross gave England an early lead but Don Masson levelled from a corner. Early in the second half Ray Clemence let a tame Kenny Dalglish shot go through his legs as Scotland gained revenge for a 5-1 defeat at Wembley the previous year.

Scotland 2 England 0

18 May 1974

Scotland were heading for the World Cup and England were not as Willie Ormond’s side rubbed English noses in it at Hampden. Joe Jordan gave the Scots a fourth-minute lead before Colin Todd’s own goal wrapped things up.

Scotland 2-0 England

14 April 1962

Scotland under Ian McColl clinched the British Home Championship through goals from the Rangers duo of winger David Wilson and full-back Eric Caldow’s penalty.

Scotland 7-2 England

2 March 1878

Scotland’s biggest win over England – with John McDougall scoring their first ever hat-trick.