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"They Could Have Played For Us"


ErsatzThistle

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3 hours ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Surely we'd have qualified for the 1962 and 1966 World Cups with Joe Baker and Denis Law up front ! 

Yes I've said the before, a real tragedy those two never got the chance to play together. Would've been dynamite!

Bonkers eligibility rules back then, Joe's brother Gerry had to play for the USA!

 

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3 hours ago, Return of Yermaw said:

He was never the same player after the attack. :)

:-))

Just as well Barnes never played for us after the racial abuse he took at Hampden.

 

Trevor "McGregor" Steven could've played for us if the grandparent rule was applicable at the time. What a player he would've been to call on. And coming from Berwick he was virtually Scottish anyway.

Nigel Spackman actually did get picked, until his eligibility was quashed (nowadays there would be no problem however).

 

 

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11 hours ago, adamntg said:

Isn't Henrik Larsen's boy eligible?  Although he's quite rightly chosen Sweden.

Born in Holland and didn't go to school here for long enough so I'd say no.

 

Bruce Grobbelaar could've been considered too! Amazing what google throws up, an article from the late Jim Reynolds...

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11977893.Bruce_wants_to_join_the_foreign_legion/

Edited by Toepoke
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12 hours ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Forgot to add Aberdeen born Stuart Holden who won twenty five caps for the USA. He looked a good player when he was at Bolton. Sadly, injuries have ruined his career and he announced his retirement a couple of weeks ago. 

Two from long ago that definitely should have played for Scotland, and what's more wanted to, were goalkeeper Gordo

Surely we'd have qualified for the 1962 and 1966 World Cups with Joe Baker and Denis Law up front ! 

baker was my auld boys hero

scored 4 goals on his debut against the big team

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13 hours ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Surely we'd have qualified for the 1962 and 1966 World Cups with Joe Baker and Denis Law up front ! 

We had Ian St John and Alan Gilzean up front alongside Law during that period, so dont think Baker would have made that much difference. 1962 - lost in a play-off to Czechoslovakia who went onto play Brazil in the actual final. So it was already a great Scotland team. DIdnt qualify for 1966 because of a stupid defensive final five minutes against Poland at Hampden. Two very,very narrow defeats were reasons we didnt qualify - nothing to do with a lack of qualities in the forward department.

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John Herkes. - Dundonian father if I recall correctly. I have lived in Guernsey for over 25 years. When Le Tiss story came out about potentially playing for us, SFA said he was not eligible as no Scottish parents nor grandparents. As far as I am aware he didn't have any English either

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16 hours ago, scotland1967 said:

Scott  mcdonald  scottish parents

How the hell did I forget him when starting this thread !

I distinctly remember him on the radio a couple of years back claiming that Berti offered him a place in the Under 21s, Probably around the time McDonald joined Motherwell. He turned it down obviously but McDonald did say he would have seriously considered switching to Scotland if he had been offered a place in the senior team.

Can't believe how badly he did with Australia. Twenty six caps and zero goals :blink: And they play against nations such as Oman, Indonesia, Irag and Bahrain.

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It was Brown who tried to get Johnson.... Showed up at Heathrow Airport with a camera crew in tow to shake on him joining us.... He wasn't in the next squad, and was talk he would be in squad for the play off game... Then all talk of him playing for us died down.... Much later it was discovered that the link that we thought made him eligible for us was not the case.

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17 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

I remember a news report (1998ish) about the real Ronaldo having a link to Scotland. They had some goofy guy on claiming to be his cousin or something :lol: Obviously complete bollocks but I've always remembered it. 

That was a April fools joke by the Record that STV picked up on.... It was a good one right up until folk pointed out he had 30 odd caps for Brazil

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Darren Anderton was one that got away (and by accounts wanted to play for us).

he had said a number of times that while lining up at Wembley at Euro 96 v Scotland that it should have been for Scotland he was playing for that day.

Roxburgh called him up for a training camp in 1992 and played him out of position in a game, where he had a stinker..... Got the "don't call us we will call you" reply.... Only for England to come calling not long after.

 

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On Saturday, February 20, 2016 at 4:25 PM, wanderer said:

Darren Anderton was one that got away (and by accounts wanted to play for us).

he had said a number of times that while lining up at Wembley at Euro 96 v Scotland that it should have been for Scotland he was playing for that day.

Roxburgh called him up for a training camp in 1992 and played him out of position in a game, where he had a stinker..... Got the "don't call us we will call you" reply.... Only for England to come calling not long after.

 

Nickname was Sick note, career played with injuries.

Never new he was that close to becoming a Scotland player.

 

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On 20/02/2016 at 0:59 PM, Hertsscot said:

Bizarrely Craig Johnston never played international football for anyone except England u21.  I found that quite perplexing as he was a very decent player in a strong Liverpool team, kind of get the feeling that he wasn't too bothered.

Apparently he once said that playing international football for Australia would have been a bit like surfing for England!

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On 2/19/2016 at 9:45 PM, ErsatzThistle said:

 

Did Jonathan Gould qualify for Scotland through his mother or was it his father, Bobby Gould ? The latter was a journeyman forward (played for Coventry, Arsenal, Wolves and West Brom) during the sixties and seventies.

 

Bobby Gould mothers side of the family are from Blantyre area.

When he was manager of Wimbledon in the 80's, not long after winning the FA cup he brought the team up for a tour of Lanarkshire for games against Accies and Airdrie (plus a game against Morton also) 

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5 hours ago, scotlad said:

Thought of another one this morning.  Kevin McKenna, the Canadian defender who played for Hearts in the '00s, had Scottish parents.

The guy that writes for the Guardian?  He's fair put the beef on then. 

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6 hours ago, scotlad said:

Thought of another one this morning.  Kevin McKenna, the Canadian defender who played for Hearts in the '00s, had Scottish parents.

Think he was already playing for Canada before he came across to Germany and then signed for hearts and probably wasn't good enough anyway 

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On 2/19/2016 at 10:02 PM, adamntg said:

Not sure you're right about Rooney's family back to grandparents being English.  His wee brother John has hawked himself to Ireland but they weren't interested. 

Pretty sure I read that Sebastian Coates has Scottish parents.  Wasn't Steve McManaman eligible, or does he just sound it?

 

Wayne Rooney   had Irish Grandparents  ( not sure if all 4 of them were irish ...but a couple of them were im pretty sure).....but despite whatever nations his family come from.....he views himself as very english

Below is a quote from him given to the press last year just before we played them in a friendly in Dublin..

 

 

"I have Irish grandparents, so if they wanted to play for Ireland I'm sure they could have, but it was never something I thought about.

"I was born in England, I'm English."

Edited by Green_Tide_Rising
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11 hours ago, Green_Tide_Rising said:

 

Wayne Rooney   had Irish Grandparents  ( not sure if all 4 of them were irish ...but a couple of them were im pretty sure).....but despite whatever nations his family come from.....he views himself as very english

Below is a quote from him given to the press last year just before we played them in a friendly in Dublin..

 

 

"I have Irish grandparents, so if they wanted to play for Ireland I'm sure they could have, but it was never something I thought about.

"I was born in England, I'm English."

I think you are right.

Sure this story of Vogts asking him resurfaced after years during the build up to the Scotland v England game at Celtic Park where the press actually did interview Rooney about it and said something like Walter Smith (where the story seems to come from originally) and Vogts spoke to him one morning about playing for Scotland, but he was sure he didn't qualify as the only non-English part of his family he was aware of were all Irish.

Edited by wanderer
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