Jim Hendry recalls Scotland heartbreak, then McTominay’s joy

Tartan Army stalwart Jim Hendry recounts decades of Scotland’s World Cup pain and late turnarounds, from the 1966 “we didnae qualify” build-up through France 98’s 3-0 defeat by Morocco and the 28-year wait ending with Scotland’s fresh Finals qualification spar

When Jim Hendry talks about Scotland at World Cups, he doesn’t start with tournaments. He starts with the moments that still sting.

He remembers Bremner’s sitter in 1974. The Miller/Hansen collision of 1982. The Costa Rica catastrophe in Italia 90. And the Morocco mauling that ended Scotland’s France 98 campaign with a 3-0 defeat.

The scenes, he says, assaulted his eyes across Frankfurt, Malaga, Genoa and St Etienne—places that became shorthand for heartbreak. Then the story pivots, because the pain never lasts long in his world. The memories are wiped out when the next Scotland storyline bursts back into life.

This time, it came with the men tasked with ending a long wait. Messrs McTominay, Shankland, Tierney and McLean put “the proud Danes” to the sword and secured admission to Scotland’s first World Cup Finals for 28 years.

Hendry insists he didn’t plan any of this around football calendars—“there was zero intention” on his part to head Stateside next month—but sometimes football scrambles the brain. He will now travel with his elder daughter Joanna, Joanna’s husband Darren, and their oldest granddaughter, 15-year-old Macy.

It will be Hendry’s fifth trip to see Scotland on the world stage, but his sixth Finals. “Eat your heart out CR7,” he jokes, denying that he’s simply a football obsessive as he looks back through a lifetime of banners, blunders and belief.

The World Cup odyssey begins in 1966, close to home. “In the words of Andy Cameron, ‘we didnae qualify’,” Hendry writes, describing the way he and a friend—Grahame, his oldest lifelong pal—ended up on the Southport caravan site as short-trousered schoolboys for a fortnight of football bliss.

It wasn’t just a tournament. It was a soundtrack: Paperback Writer by the Beatles. fresh after a moment that had already hooked him as a teen. He had seen the Liverpool lads surrounded by Screaming Sisters in Dundee’s Caird Hall a short while before. And even then, he clarifies, the Screaming Sisters weren’t a trend—“they were a family reality.”.

In 1966 the venues were Old Trafford and Goodison Park. The teams were Brazil, Bulgaria, Hungary and Portugal. When Pele was roughed up from the word go by Bulgaria and eventually kicked out of the competition. Eusebio stepped in as the era’s GOAT contender. But it was the magical Magyars in their cherry red jerseys. white shorts and red and green socks who really mesmerised Hendry’s panel of experts.

Florian Albert, Ferenc Bene and Janos Farkas captured the imagination, and Hendry admits they were convinced Hungary might have lifted the Jules Rimet trophy—if only they’d had a better-than-average goalkeeper.

Hungary’s 3-1 win over Brazil under the lights at damp and drizzly Goodison remains, to him, an all-time favourite.

With Portugal and Hungary both progressing, there was one more treat before he headed back up the fledgling M6. A shock run followed: North Korea’s “shock troops. ” Italy’s scalps dangling from their belt. and a 3-0 lead over Portugal in the last 16 tie—before Eusebio “shifted gears” and dominated the moment almost alone. steering his team to a 5-3 triumph.

Hendry’s 1966 story carries its own stubborn superstition. He says he decided to forfeit a ticket awarded by ballot for the Final because of a fear “they might win it.” He puts it plainly: if he had known Denis Law was golfing that afternoon. he would have walked back to Manchester and carried Law’s clubs.

Then comes 1974, and the World Cup honeymoon he designed around Scotland’s schedule. Marriage to Linda was looming, and, though there was “no great rush,” the wedding had to fit into a busy summer calendar.

The solution was a World Cup honeymoon that also accommodated the second of the lifelong friendships—Alistair, his best man. Alistair’s own role in the story is important later too, because he doesn’t just follow matches; he follows trips that shape lives.

Hendry says the big day clashed with the opener against Zaire, adding a sharp note of regret: “bad planning was deemed responsible.” Scotland did win 2-0 against Zaire, and wedding guests praised the “job done,” but it wasn’t enough. Unbeaten Scotland were out because of goal difference.

That. Hendry recalls. was when a day trip to Scotland HQ at Erbismuhle—above Frankfurt—made the tournament feel closer to the people he had come to support. In the hills, the group sat and chatted with the heroes. Linda even got her chance to play crazy golf with her football heart-throb, Dens Park goalie Thomson Alan.

For Hendry, the meeting mattered beyond the honeymoon glow. It was his first encounter with Hibernian’s John Blackley, who later became a great pal. Blackley had earned the most notable of his seven caps against the Africans. Hendry writes that Blackley was desperately unlucky not to appear again in the Finals. though a suspicion lingered that the Anglos in the squad lobbied boss Willie Ormond for Manchester United’s Martin Buchan to be preferred.

Their honeymoon carried them to Frankfurt for a stalemate against Brazil and then a 1-1 draw with Yugoslavia. In that match, Hendry points to Joe Jordan scoring Scotland’s last-minute equaliser.

Once the adventure ended, Alistair went home while Mrs Hendry and Jim donated their handful of tickets for the next stage matches to a British Army base before heading into the West German countryside to finish the honeymoon.

Next came 1982, and Malaga. A flying visit for a 2-2 draw against the Soviet Union. The defining moment was on the pitch: Willie Miller and Alan Hansen went for the same ball with calamitous results.

Even with the chaos, Hendry says there was one bright spot—another brilliant Jordan goal. He also notes the “trip afforded the chance to chat with Denis Law” at Madrid Airport on the outward journey.

But this time, Scotland slipped into retreat again despite an impressive eight-goal group tally.

By then, Hendry’s family had grown. He writes that, by this point, the group was a family of five, with Louise as child number four not long into the story.

Spain 82 consoled him with one thing that mattered: his two boys, Richard and Alan, had been bitten by the football bug while they watched the later stages unfold.

So Italia 90 became a must.

Hendry, his sons and an old school pal Grahame set off by road for the Italian Riviera, and the trip turned out beautiful—marred only by Scotland being undone by the unknowns of Costa Rica in game one, followed by Brazil in one of the worst games ever seen in the Stadio delle Alpi in sodden Turin.

There was a 2-1 win over Sweden that gave hope. But Scotland’s fate was “all but sealed” after the opening loss to the Central Americans.

The atmosphere, he remembers, carried its own weight: Scots were there in huge numbers. Despite the glorious weather, the mood was sombre as they trudged back to the seafront and their parked car.

And then, in a way that sums up how football communities work, the day gets strange rather than simply sad. Hendry says the Italians imposed an alcohol ban so the four sought refuge and a cool drink in a quiet cafe as the crowd dispersed.

The cafe doors burst open—two foot soldiers. kilts. military jackets. feathered caps. all smiling. each with a Miss Genoa 1990 finalist on his arm. One of the foot soldiers told Hendry. “Well that wasn’t so bad was it. ” a line clearly offered in hope that Costa Rica hero Juan Cayasso wouldn’t be the only one to score that day.

France 98 was next, and it brought another road trip—this time to St Etienne for the must-win Morocco encounter.

Hendry says the boys were fully aware by then that following Dundee and Scotland would never see them classed as glory hunters.

The trip came with panic and odd culture clashes. Hendry recounts discovering that steak Tartare was raw mince with a raw egg on top. He also remembers how no-one in a sleepy northern France village could explain in English what unleaded petrol and diesel were.

St Etienne before the Morocco game felt like it belonged to another world. The city square was awash with tartan and the half dozen or so pubs were rammed full.

He points to Dan Petrescu’s winning goal for Romania against England as a factor feeding anticipation, noting it was live on every pub telly.

“Bring on Morocco!” he writes—then the next paragraph changes the temperature of the entire memory. Twenty four hours later, Scotland were hammered 3-0 by the North Africans.

There was no hard luck story that day. Hendry says the comfort of it was taken away by Morocco themselves—because Morocco also were also the ones claiming the mantle, with their two late goals from Norway against Brazil seeing Scandinavians through to the last 16.

Even the hotel became part of the story. Hendry writes that Morocco were fellow guests at their budget hotel on the outskirts of town. Their French manager, Henri Michel, was “dignity personified” as he sympathised with their group over a late-night beer.

Hendry says he mused that it would be “the last time Scotland let me down,” but the unrelenting enthusiasm of the family battalion pulled him back in.

He doesn’t stop at the past. He connects the old heartbreak to the Steve Clarke era. when Scotland’s performances delivered “some brilliant Hampden occasions.” He caps the memory with the “fabulous night” from last November. Kieran Tierney’s goal pumping euphoria through his veins as the family battalion fell over each other in ecstasy.

The question that follows now is immediate: will that feeling be replicated in Boston on June 14, their wedding anniversary?. Hendry says the “no-hopers of Haiti” are the team standing in the way. and he ends with a simple promise to see what happens next: “We’ll be Coming Down The Road. ” he writes. as they head into the match and find out soon enough.

Scotland World Cup Jim Hendry McTominay Shankland Tierney McLean Pele Eusebio Costa Rica Morocco Kieran Tierney Steve Clarke Boston Haiti