Cup glory, a nose for goal and a couple of pints. The fairy-tale year of Raith Rovers.
“Unthinkable surely for the skipper to miss.” It’s funny how things work out sometimes. The next words were, “But he has!” Jock Brown, commentating on the 1994 Scottish League Cup Final at Ibrox, uttered that particular harbinger of doom for Celtic’s captain Paul McStay in the penalty shootout that decided the game. McStay saw his shot saved by Raith’s goalkeeper Scott Thompson and the Kirkcaldy club, managed by Jimmy Nicholl had secured the unlikeliest of cup triumphs.
The unlikeliest? Well, of course it’s always a major coup for any club outside of Glasgow’s top two to land a trophy and for a second tier club to do so, only added to the lustre. But there was more to it than that. A series of coincidences, links and cross-cutting threads about the game and various subsequent events, marked the game out as a watershed moment for both clubs. Continue reading →
The political football – British Prime Ministers and the beautiful game
Home of the person who plays the number ten role..
Back in 1966, with the country basking in the glory of being World Champions, Prime Minister Harold Wilson took the opportunity to fold his political party into the celebrations by declaring that England only win the World Cup, when Labour are in power. Four years later, England were knocked out by West Germany at the quarter-final stage in Mexico. A few short days later, as the country voted Wilson out of office, he was at great pains to say that ‘the result of a football match does not affect the governance of the country.’ Whether that’s true or not, there’s a bit of a history over the past 50 years between those in residence at 10 Downing Street and the beautiful game. Continue reading →
Gary Thacker 