A true English patriot, captain of club and country, a towering, totemic, charismatic figure who has made Scotland his home. And an absolute gentleman to boot. There are few more deserving appointees to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame than the legendary Terry Butcher.
An Englishman, a couple of penalties away from taking his country to the 1990 World Cup Final, captain of the Auld Enemy in our Hall of Fame? Absolutely. And he shouldn’t be the only one.
Just a generation ago, the cream of the England’s international crop were plying their trade in our Premier League. Talents like Walters, Hateley, Woods and the criminally under-rated Trevor Steven forming the backbone of the best side in the country, and (for a fleeting moment) one of the top sides in the whole of Europe.
And neither is it a relatively contemporary phenomenon, 1950’s Hibs legend Joe Baker becoming the first of just two England internationals to be capped without ever having played in England. Trivia fans, you may like to note, the other one was crocked Canuck Owen Hargreaves.
And it’s not each and every club in Scotland that’s had an Englishman at its heart, it’s the national team too.
Whether it was Don Hutchison’s piggyback at Wembley in 1999, the admittedly Anglo Stuart McCall poking the Tartan Army to within a glimpse of the promised land of the Word Cup’s Last 16 in 1990, to that berk Matt Elliott getting him self sent off during Faroes-gate Mk I, they’ve been at the centre of the national team for years. And do you know what, yes, some have been limited. Every one’s of them’s been committed. And with Mackie, Morrison, Commons and Mackail-Smith shaping up to be very tidy players on the international stage, there will be an Anglo spine to the team for years to come.
So who else? Up in the north-east, as a personal indulgence, mercurial prop-centre forward Dean Windass may have warranted a place solely for his three red cards in three minutes meltdown live on Scotsport for Aberdeen in 1996 before (fellow Englishman – yes you can check it yourself) Davie Bowman’s magnificent eight for Forfar a few years later, although I suspect 50s forward Jack Hather or even dynamic 90s midfielder Paul Masson may be more credible nominees for at least the Dons Hall of Fame. Nigel Pepper on the other hand should be immediately expunged from all records. And down on London Road, although poor old Wayne Biggins and Carl Muggleton were unfairly emblematic of the travails on London Road in the early 90s, the likes of Chris Sutton and Alan Thompson (the only Celt capped by England by the way) were key to Celtic’s and indeed Scottish club football’s European renaissance in the mid-2000s.
I can only hope Sir Terry Butcher’s promotion to the Hall of Fame is a symbol of the game’s hierarchy’s gratitude to the enormous contribution our neighbours have made to our beautiful game. The English have no issue in recognising how much poorer their game would be without the Caledonian connection, and neither should we be shy in doffing our caps to the neighbours.
So who else should we recognise?
As a former goalkeeper and a connoisseur of the beautiful game, step forward the one and the only John Burridge. Keeper of Hibernian Skol Cup winning vintage, almuni of Falkirk, Dumbarton, Aberdeen and Dunfermline, he was still playing for Queen of the South (his 25th of 29 league clubs) on his 46th birthday. A legendary figure, tapped up by Uday Hussein for the Iraqi national team coaching job in 2000, the same Burridge who wore a superman suit under his goalkeeping kit at Wolves, the first keeper on this island to wear gloves and who escaped signing for Derby County by jumping out of manager Arthur Cox’s first floor window. And anyone who was checked into the Priory by Kevin Keegan so distraught was he by being released by Blyth Spartans, is all right by me.
But alas, despite being the original ‘The Goalie‘, he may be pipped at the post for recognition by a Peer of the Realm, President of the YMCA, Cambridge graduate and the tenth son of Baron Kinnaird of Perthshire, Arthur Kinnaird, the 11th Lord Kinnaird. And not just because of his name.
A London born aristocrat of Perthshire nobility, Lord Kinnaird won his first and only Scotland cap in the second international every played, against England at The Oval in 1873.
Credited with the first ever own goal, Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland, five time FA Cup winner and founder of Barclays Bank, his legacy to the game was his key role in establishing The Football Association and thereafter ultimately unifying the laws of football. Ironically enough as a 19th century Kevin Muscat, he was renowned for his somewhat liberal compliance with the unified code, his wife bemoaning that his love of hacking (of the Ayrshire Juniors, rather than News International variety) would wind up with his return from a game with a broken leg.
“Alas, if I do” he replied, “it will not be my own”.
When will we see your likes again?
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About the Author
Raised by wolves on the wild Lincolnshire coast, Gordon has been Scotland’s 53rd best stand-up comedian for a record six years.
On the scene since 2007, he has been a staple of The Stand’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme, performs across the country with his own unique brand of sociopathic misanthropy and biting political comedy and has supported some of the biggest names in UK comedy.
After an unsuccessful football career, culminating in an extra-time defeat in the 1996 U16s Lincolnshire Cup Final, he has been trying unsuccessfully to get a Football Banning Orderfor three years now to stop him spunking any more of his limited disposable income on following his beloved Grimsby Town in the Vauxhall Conference for three years now. He also follows Queen of the South, crack Bundesliga 2 outfit Erzgebirge Aue, Crvena Zvezda and Portland Timbers.
Gordon is a ‘ground-hopper’ and bloody proud of it. His favourite stadia are the Stadio Nereo Rocco in Trieste and the Erzegibrgestadion in Saxony.
“…Character creation Father Alexander was hilarious, taking a satirical lump out of Salmond’s Scotland with a sermon for the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi…” Brian Donaldson, The Scotsman
“Gordon Alexander eulogies were a highlight….clever, fun and deserving of a bigger audience” Barrie Morgan, The Skinny
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