mcnpauls

This, this, this, this, this. People forget how solid we were at the back in the 80s; in fact, if the players in midfield and up front had been half as dependably effective, we'd maybe have got places.

Alan Hansen's number of caps was not an injustice - he was poor for Scotland, though brilliant for Liverpool. I feel this was partly down to his not being that comfortable in a backs-to-the-wall defending set up we often found ourselves in, as he was used to playing for a Liverpool team that tended to dominate opponents and allow him to link up with attacks. Added to that was the feeling that his heart was rarely in it for us. The last straw was his refusal to give tips on how to mark Ian Rush when we were going into a World Cup qualifier against Wales and Stein asked him for some insights.

I suspect the story about Roxburgh's deploying McInally against the wrong Costa Rican keeper is apocryphal, but I do remember daft bugger Roxy, egged on by certain members of the press, claiming McInally was going to be a sensation in That World Cup until reality set in. The other so-calked world beater Roxburgh was talking up before the opening match was Jim Bett, who was just as ineffective as McInally in the game against Costa Rica.

Peter Vaughan, still brilliant in his 90s, has built his career essentially on TV over many decades and can play any kind of part superbly: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0891092/

Overrated - Primal Scream Underrated - Pilot.

All. The films people have recommended are very good to all- time classics level of quality. The Wind and the Lion and The Name of the Rose are also brilliant.

It's a tough one, because the Japanese military leadership, who were immensely powerful, although they did not quite have total control of the government, were sticking to their "100 million will perish together" strategy to deal with an invasion, ie national suicide, and they had no intention of surrendering. The U.S. had encountered really horrifying mass suicides of woman, children and old people on small islands like Saipan, and really feared the Japanese were willing to commit national suicide if the sacred home islands were attacked. After the occupation, the US authorities were horrified to discover they had many thousands of planes hidden and with massive bomb stockpiles to launch kamikaze attacks on the Americans landing on the home islands. The most nightmarishly pessimissitic American planners had foreseen only a fraction of that capacity. Remember, too, that the Japanese leaders did not surrender after Hiroshima, or after the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, but it was the Emperor himself who took the decision to surrender after those events and Nagaski made him realise the generals' way might actually lead to the extinction of Japan. He thought he would be murdered by his own generals for doing so, or executed by the Americans if he survived, but I genuinely believe his decisions saved at least millions of Japanese lives, and at least hundreds of thousands of American ones.

I only see the point of remaking flawed films that had good ideas but that didn't quite work out.

Have to say I'm with JasMc1973, I thought "Fury Road" was very possibly the best all out action film I've ever seen. I agree with people like Kubrick and Hitchcock that dialogue is a mere complement to visuals, movements, settings, facial expressions and bodily gestures and George MIller is the master of all of these things. I will need to see how the film stands up over the years, though. My own current genre faves: Thriller – The Usual Suspects British Comedy – The Ladykillers (also the best ever film by a Scottish director, but not the best Scottish film) US Comedy – Duck Soup Gangstery/Organised Crime – The Godfather Horror – The Shining WWII – Patton Nam – Souhern Comfort (not set in Nam but the whole film is an allegory of the debacle) RomCom - Hate the genre, so I'll go for Out of Sight as the nearest thing that I love. Action – Raiders of the Lost Ark Scottish – Trainspotting Western - The Magnificent Seven War (non WW2) - Paths of Glory Science Fiction - Stalker

Phenomenal as Arthur Daley, truly one of the all-time great TV performances. There were even some classic episodes with the young guy who replaced Dennis Waterman, and the new cops. Who were anti-Chisholms. - instead of thinking Arthur was a criminal genius, they thought he was a laughing stock. Cole cam from a working class family, increasongly rare in the modern acting profession.

For me it has to be "The Prisoner" with its epic Ron Grainer theme and amazong mini-film that tells you everything you need to know to start any episode: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zE-EMinj69o

Totally predicable, I kno, but the Beatles absolutely have to be contenders. I'm also amazed no-one has mentioned the Who. Little Feat if we're going for Americans; the Band if we're going for Canadians

Steve Archibald has to be one of the all-time disappointments: one of the top scorers in Scotland, when we had a great league, England and Spain, yet dismally mince for us when he was being supplied by some of the finest players in Europe. Although Graeme Sharp was awful for us, I don't count him as a disappointment, as I never thought he was quite up to international level, and I believe the man himself believes this to be the case, too. Similarly, I don't think Duncan Ferguson was that good, either. Alan Hansen was, however, a huge let-down: pish on the park for us while brilliant for Liverpool, heart never seemed to be in it and wouldn't even advise Jock Stein on how to mark Ian Rush in a World Cup qualifier. Joe Jordan was most certainly not a disappointment: his goalscoring record disguies the fact that: a) he was never a prolific scorer, and wasn't in the Scotland team to do that job primarily, and he contributed to a huge number of goals for other people.

The free entry for burgh residents meant we used to go pretty regularly when I was a kid in Stirling decades ago. It's a brilliant castle with so much to see and explore, and with huge areas kids can run around in or folk can have picnics in. The Wallace Monument is also a fantastic visit, especially with kids as it's like somewhere straight out of the Lord of the Rings. By car it only takes a few minutes from Castle to Monument. The Old Military Prison near the Castle. Is also a cracking place to visit, too.

Was actually Ormond's big mistake. McLeod reckoned his big blunder in Argentina was not playing Souness earlier. Stein would never admit to mistakes in 82. Fergie thought his was not playing Steve Archibald more in 86!

A great tradition of Scotalnd Managers in World Cups: McLeod with Masson 78 Stein with McGrain 82 Fergie with Souness 86.

Agreed it was a brilliant time to be a Scotland fan. Not only was Ally infectiously enthusiastic, but he was funny, articulate, intelligent and kind. Did he really think Peru were pushovers, though? Everyone has always said that, but I'm not sure of the source of it, though I believe it might have been players who said that sort of thing rather than him on the night of the draw:Ally MacLeod "The draw gives us a good chance, especially as we have Peru and Iran first. I did not want to play the seeded side first, no matter what group we were in. I could not have asked for better. We will be based in Cordoba and the hotel there is excellent. Only the 22 players and myself can let the country down now and I don't think we will. Scotland have a bit of a reputation for struggling against the so called lesser lights, but the squad this time is very professional." Captain Bruce Rioch said; "It is a marvellous draw... We could be through to the last eight before we meet Holland.", Don Masson added; "Scotland are certainties to go through along with Holland." Rioch had an excellent game in the classic against Holland, but he and Masson had definitely been off form that season.

A very thoughtful post. I do think one of Ormond's strengths in 74 was that he knew what line-up he wanted and pretty much stuck with it. Suspect with added Jimmy Johnstone and less Willie Morgan/Dennis Law, Ormond would have taken us really far. Ally McLeod also knew what line-up he wanted to start with, though hindsight makes everyone say it was a line-up a year or two past its best. For me, the awful start was due to lack of availability at the back: not only had he famously lost McGrain and McQueen, but Sandy Jardine was injured for the first match and Willie Donachie was suspended. Even one of those four playing on the day of Peru might have bolstered us enough for a less damaging result, never mind two or three of them being ready. I know this would not have solved other problems like Bud Johnson's insanity, Macari's treachery, or Don Masson's collapse, but it could have got us off to a more respectable start. However Ally really should have brought Souness in for the Iran game at least, so I can't claim he's our best manager. Stein's defensive selections, as I said earlier were our downfall in 82. Whereas the defence was the only thing Fergie got right in 86. Costa Rica result was a shock, but they were actually a good team and Scotland played well on the day but were unlucky. However, Roxburgh loses points for leaving some of our most talented players at home and fielding plodders like McInally. Most unforgivable though was trying to get no more than a 0-0 draw against one of the poorest Brazil sides ever. We all feared that approach was most likely to lead to a 1-0 loss, and lo and behold... His Euro 92 team played brilliantly and were heartbreakingly unlucky, though, I still think it's our best three performances in a single tournament, but we were jinxed. With a couple of bits of luck we might easily have actually won all three matches against the strongest opposition we've faced in a tournament. Brown never had the players that even Roxburgh had access to, but he did squeeze virtually everything possible out of them. As a fair-minded and thoughtful man, I have a sneaking feeling he might have done better than any of his predecessors if he'd been in charge of their squads.

Interesting stuff. I actually suspect, though, that Stein let the press dictate teams more often than we might think: his loyalty to both Archibald and Hansen was down to the media always raving about them as being the big stars from the English league, even though they were almost always poor for Scotland. McGrain had the traditional Scottish media support for major Old Firm figures, though this was also based on the guy - who had been astonishing in the 70s - having made admittedly impressive comebacks from more than one career-threatening problem. By 82, though, he was past his peak and a huge part of his brilliance had previously been based on great speed and fitness to both go forward and get back and cover. He was no long quick enough, and lots of us suspected he was going to be vulnerable in the heat of Spain. We all wanted Ray Stewart over there. Didn't know about the Leighton book, must read it. I wish Stein had blooded him before that World Cup. Again, I suspect Glasgow-based journalists influencing him, it took them all ages to realise just how excellent New Firm players were, but every unbiased fan in Scotland knew by then Leighton was by far our best keeper.

Interestingly, none of us are talking about Stein, utterly legendary though he was as a club manager. I actually think he was one of the biggest underachievers ever as Scotland boss. With the reputation he had, clout over the SFA, media and players, the fantastic individuals he could pick from, and who formed a pretty united and very well-behaved squad, tens of thousands of us in Spain in 82, great back up staff and facilities then we disappointed at that World Cup, and I put it down to his decisions: sticking with Rough and McGrain when the younger alternatives were clearly better at the time, parachuting in Evans, and insisting on Hansen rather than the Aberdeen partnership, loyalty to Archibald.

I had forgotten about his consecutive qualifications, too. I agree he had better players to work with than Brown as well. For all his blathering about preparation, tactics, research, he was to blame for us not doing well in 1990 World Cup.

Totally agree that Brown overachieved with the players he had.However, Roxburgh actually qualified for consecutive tournaments in 90 and 92 (despite the results, I think 92 might have been just about our best ever play over three matches at a tournament, we were brilliant, but staggeringly unlucky in the first two matches).

My eldest son, who's fifteen, just asked me this one, and I was about to say Willie Ormond right away, but then I got to thinking about it. I think that, given the weaker players available to him, there really is a great argument that Paw Broon did brilliantly in the 90s. I'm also tempted to say that Stein was one of the most disappointing: every time I think of the squad he had for the 82 World Cup, that with some better selection decisions, we could have gone far. What does everyone think?

I seem to recall, too, that there is some amazing statistic like only three forwards actually scored against Scotland in all of the dozens of matches when McLeish and Miller played together. I agree with Jagtag that a Clough led Scotland in the 80s could have been amazing.

To be honest, I'm not sure those three ever even promised that much for Scotland - they were good to excellent club men, but I don't remember anyone ever thinking they were likely to set the world on fire at international level. Archibald and Sharp were more highly thought of, but were both fairly disastrous for Scotland. To be fair to Sharp, I've read him say in several interviews that he knew he just wasn't quite international class anyway. McClair is a more complex case: he scored bucketloads of goals for Celtic, and Man U at the beginning, but was actually rarely used as an actual striker for Scotland, but the fans overlooked this and often complained about him not scoring in quite a few games when he was playing well as a midfielder really. Having said that, he also had a substantial number of underwhelming games for us.