BBC Documentary about Argentina 1978

[TVjohn]

Hey Folks,

I'm a TV director putting an hour long documentary together about Scotland's World Cup campaign of 1978. I hope to make a documentary that looks beyond the 2 or 3 clips that are always shown, speaking to fans, players, journalists....

What I'm looking for are eye-witnesses with good tales to tell....

Who went to Argentina, and can tell their story ? ( I have a few names pulled from newspaper articles but sometimes tricky to track down)

Who remembers the send off ? Who remembers the agony as Iran scored ? Who remembers the blissful moment of Gemmill's goal ?

Does anyone have any cinefilm footage in the attic ? Did anyone get an Argentina tattoo ? Was anyone involved in the plan to buy the submarine?

I'm eager to speak to people who remember what it all felt like At the Time. Who remember the hope, the despair. Lets tell our stories !

Last year we made Glasgow 1967 about the Lisbon Lions - we won a BAFTA and folk seemed to like the documentary - so we're hoping to make something about Scotland that has the same production values, celebrates the moment, football and social history.

Please feel free to answer here or to send an email directly to Argentina78@img.com. Also on twitter as @Allysarmy78doc

thanks to TAMB for letting me put the shout out.

John MacLaverty, Director, Argentina '78. IMG productions for BBC Scotland....

 

[DoonTheSlope]

Hope it's not going to be another 'woe is us' hard luck story about the good old days that never were

We have had more than enough dinosaurs of our game running it down over the last couple of years in various documentaries

 

[TVjohn]

Haven't filmed anything yet Doon, but aye, I hear you

[DoonTheSlope]

2 minutes ago, TVjohn said:

Haven't filmed anything yet Doon, but aye, I hear you

👍🏻

[JECK]

It's been done to death. Everyone knows exactly what happened. Do we really need this? 

[VASCO]

Having been to 13 games at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, I was desperate to go to Argentina. I was interviewed by Thames Television about doing a documentary whereby a film crew would follow me across the Atlantic, down through Coca Cola Land and into South America. The deal was that they would not help me in any way, but it was more or less implied that, if I didn't make it, they'd pay for my flight home.

A guy called Steve Timmins was in contact with me in the early part of 1978, and we'd arranged to meet to discuss the project when, out of the blue, he was informed by his Head of Department that

"we would have to cancel the film we were hoping to make with you and others about the trip to Argentina. The reason for this seems to be particularly stupid, but unfortunately it is out of our hands. It appears that STV are making two films about the Scottish team and their preparations for Argentina and as both of these will be transmitted during the period of the World Cup, there is no room for our film to be transmitted as well."

The above extract is taken from the letter I received from Thames Television, signed by Steve Timmins and dated 20th February 1978. As it transpired I did not make the journey to Argentina.

After searching through all my memorabilia to find this letter, I was amused to find on the next two pages of this particular album a 10 verse poem which I had entered into a Sunday Mail competition "We're On Our Way". This entry is dated 1st February 1978.

I might not have been to Argentina, but a six week jaunt to Russia this summer is part consolation.

Ah, memories!

[McTeeko]

Good wee story Vasco! 👍🏼

[Toepoke]

I was a proud member of the Sunday Mail World Cup Club (until the Peru game anyway)...

[bonzo]

Jeez I joined the world cup club as well. Also remember my panini world cup sticker album, never did get martin buchan 

[Ormond]

3 hours ago, Toepoke said:

I was a proud member of the Sunday Mail World Cup Club (until the Peru game anyway)...

Brilliant pic. Braw memories for you. 

[Ally Bongo]

My Mum and Dad both worked in Daks who made the squad suits for Argentina 78

Have still got the original black and white photo of the squad in their suits on the hotel garden steps before they left 

My abiding memory (i was 10 going on 11) was that at 2-1 Hugh McIlvanney (who was doing co commentary) said to now revealed billy brit spunkstain Archie MacPherson that if Scotland got a third they would go on to get the 4th and qualify

Moments later Gemmill scored the goal of the tournament and i jumped onto my Dad in his chair in celebration

The elation to deflation took 4 minutes and has been repeated on countless occasions in the following 40 years

However the mid to late 70s were the halcyon days (omitting the 5-1 humiliation at Wembley) and a great time to be a Scotland fan and were never to be the same after Argentina  

[Ormond]

8 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

My Mum and Dad both worked in Daks who made the squad suits for Argentina 78

Have still got the original black and white photo of the squad in their suits on the hotel garden steps before they left 

My abiding memory (i was 10 going on 11) was that at 2-1 Hugh McIlvanney (who was doing co commentary) said to now revealed billy brit spunkstain Archie MacPherson that if Scotland got a third they would go on to get the 4th and qualify

Moments later Gemmill scored the goal of the tournament and i jumped onto my Dad in his chair in celebration

The elation to deflation took 4 minutes and has been repeated on countless occasions in the following 40 years

However the mid to late 70s were the halcyon days (omitting the 5-1 humiliation at Wembley) and a great time to be a Scotland fan and were never to be the same after Argentina  

I’ve just been informed that I can do no more upvotes today. Unfortunate as you’d have had a few. I love stories like this.  

[The Black Bra]

On 01/02/2018 at 1:55 PM, JECK said:

It's been done to death. Everyone knows exactly what happened. Do we really need this? 

Agree.

Surely Argentina ‘78 is the biggest disaster in our history (and that’s saying something). It made us a laughing stock. I live in London and Peru, Ally’s army, Iran, etc. still provides great hilarity down here. Do we really need to wallow again?

The hardest thing for me as a Scotland fan is not accepting where we are now, it’s the fact we didn’t make the most of the players we had in the 60s, 70s and 80s. If we’d reached a few quarter finals or maybe better, or at least made it through the groups a few times our current situation would be easier to bear.

[todd]

2 hours ago, The Black Bra said:

Agree.

Surely Argentina ‘78 is the biggest disaster in our history (and that’s saying something). It made us a laughing stock. I live in London and Peru, Ally’s army, Iran, etc. still provides great hilarity down here. Do we really need to wallow again?

The hardest thing for me as a Scotland fan is not accepting where we are now, it’s the fact we didn’t make the most of the players we had in the 60s, 70s and 80s. If we’d reached a few quarter finals or maybe better, or at least made it through the groups a few times our current situation would be easier to bear.

When I first read your post I thought you lived in London and Peru!  That's one hell of a commute! 😀

[DoonTheSlope]

I had a friend who went to the Argentina World Cup with his Mum and Dad

Or to be more precise, he went there with his Dad but came home with his Mum.....

[exile]

Not sure of the benefits of documentary as others have said. But in the spirit of anticipating upcoming Peru v Scotland...

What I remember was that there was somehow an expectation in the adult world that Scotland were the favourites before a ball was kicked, but when the actual game came along, the Peru players seemed big, physically fit and skilful, and it was not a surprise that they played well, came back from a goal down and won the game. 

I am still not sure if Peru were 'overachievers' that year, and/or if they were a bananaskins team we 'should' have got a result against, and/or or if this was the start of never taking anything for granted, etc.

The verdict seems to be that Ally McLeod was underprepared and should have known their strengths, though who can say that giving the opposition greater respect would have done any better?

i note from the stats that captain Rioch and failed penalty taker Masson were subbed on 75 mins - that tells a story of itself? - Peru had taken the lead on 71 and went on to score again on 77. (was it a good substitution? discuss...)

Although Argentina was a 'disaster for Scotland', would you rather it hadn't happened? That we'd simply failed to qualify, and had one of our best WC goals and wins scrubbed?

[fringo]

3 minutes ago, exile said:

Not sure of the benefits of documentary as others have said. But in the spirit of anticipating upcoming Peru v Scotland...

What I remember was that there was somehow an expectation in the adult world that Scotland were the favourites before a ball was kicked, but when the actual game came along, the Peru players seemed big, physically fit and skilful, and it was not a surprise that they played well, came back from a goal down and won the game. 

I am still not sure if Peru were 'overachievers' that year, and/or if they were a bananaskins team we 'should' have got a result against, and/or or if this was the start of never taking anything for granted, etc.

The verdict seems to be that Ally McLeod was underprepared and should have known their strengths, though who can say that giving the opposition greater respect would have done any better?

i note from the stats that captain Rioch and failed penalty taker Masson were subbed on 75 mins - that tells a story of itself? - Peru had taken the lead on 71 and went on to score again on 77. (was it a good substitution? discuss...)

Although Argentina was a 'disaster for Scotland', would you rather it hadn't happened? That we'd simply failed to qualify, and had one of our best WC goals and wins scrubbed?

I read an article about it 10-15 years ago and it seems we knew nothing (or very little) about Peru and probably massively underestimated them.

If only Ally had wikipedia in 1978. A quick google brings this up :

"Peruvian football's successful period in the 1970s brought it worldwide recognition; the team then included the forward partnership of Hugo Sotil and Teófilo Cubillas, often regarded as Peru's greatest player, and defender Héctor Chumpitaz. This team qualified for three World Cups and won the Copa América in 1975. Peru last reached the World Cup finals in 1982."

 

[fringo]

PS, I think any new documentary about 1978 would be good.

[exile]

21 minutes ago, fringo said:

"Peruvian football's successful period in the 1970s brought it worldwide recognition; the team then included the forward partnership of Hugo Sotil and Teófilo Cubillas, often regarded as Peru's greatest player, and defender Héctor Chumpitaz. This team qualified for three World Cups and won the Copa América in 1975. Peru last reached the World Cup finals in 1982."

 

Ally might just have noticed the Copa America in Ceefax? 

On the positive side we qualified for more World Cups since. We just happened to meet them when in their most successful phase (Costa Rica too?)

Another thing I seem to remember, an optimistic journalist asking the Cubans (players) who they saw as danger men in the Scotland squad. Almost all said Willie Johnston...

[exile]

Another thing I seem to remember, an optimistic journalist asking the Peruvians (players) who they saw as danger men in the Scotland squad. Almost all said Willie Johnston...

[The Black Bra]

1 hour ago, exile said:

Not sure of the benefits of documentary as others have said. But in the spirit of anticipating upcoming Peru v Scotland...

What I remember was that there was somehow an expectation in the adult world that Scotland were the favourites before a ball was kicked, but when the actual game came along, the Peru players seemed big, physically fit and skilful, and it was not a surprise that they played well, came back from a goal down and won the game. 

I am still not sure if Peru were 'overachievers' that year, and/or if they were a bananaskins team we 'should' have got a result against, and/or or if this was the start of never taking anything for granted, etc.

The verdict seems to be that Ally McLeod was underprepared and should have known their strengths, though who can say that giving the opposition greater respect would have done any better?

i note from the stats that captain Rioch and failed penalty taker Masson were subbed on 75 mins - that tells a story of itself? - Peru had taken the lead on 71 and went on to score again on 77. (was it a good substitution? discuss...)

Although Argentina was a 'disaster for Scotland', would you rather it hadn't happened? That we'd simply failed to qualify, and had one of our best WC goals and wins scrubbed?

Was our win against Holland really that impressive? People older than me might be able to enlighten me...Was it not the case that Holland got a easier game in the next round if they didn’t beat us, this finishing second in the group,  they just had to avoid losing by 3 goals?

Also, did we not lose McGrain and McQueen to injury before the finals started?

[exile]

20 minutes ago, The Black Bra said:

Was our win against Holland really that impressive? People older than me might be able to enlighten me...Was it not the case that Holland got a easier game in the next round if they didn’t beat us, this finishing second in the group,  they just had to avoid losing by 3 goals?

Also, did we not lose McGrain and McQueen to injury before the finals started?

Even if the Dutch were a little complacent, I think we still have to take the win as an achievement, given the team/nation were in turmoil/trauma, and 'only' had to beat, by three goals, the top seed in the group, one of the top teams of the 70s who had finished losing finalists in the 74 world cup.

Edited February 4, 2018 by exile

[hoofitharder]

Argentina 78 was a disaster but a disaster of our own making a guy i worked with talked me into going over to Hampden for the send off and i have to say by the time we were on our way home i was convinced we would win the thing. But as usual we were brought crashing down to earth. Some great stories though. The guys who were apparently looking into hiring a submarine to get there, taking a centre half who was crocked but the manager seemed to think he would be ok for the quarter final, Arthur graham in the squad picture for an advert for some car and he never made the squad and the lowest point for me in our history a player failing a drugs test. There was also a lot of stories of scotland supporters digging deep in their pockets to help local charities as if i remember right the areas where the grounds were were very deprived. The really sad thing for me was we played against and saw teams play styles of football that were totally alien to us and we learnt bugger all from them. We played Argentina and Peru in friendlies at hampden and we were chasing shadows.

Ian

[davew]

One thing I would be interested in, is how the Dutch preparation for the World cup compared to ours. They didn't have better players than us, but they got better results against both Peru and Iran.

[VASCO]

On 2/4/2018 at 1:19 PM, The Black Bra said:

Was it not the case that Holland got a easier game in the next round if they didn’t beat us, this finishing second in the group,  they just had to avoid losing by 3 goals?

That's arrant nonsense. The round after the first group stage was also a group stage, and I wouldn't have thought that being in a group with Austria, Italy and West Germany would have been played for.