JOCK Stein was appointed manager of the Scottish national team in May 1965, and hit the ground running, flying from Renfrew Airport to watch Poland, Scotland’s forthcoming World Cup Qualifying opponents, play Bulgaria in Cracow.
He intended returning home with a good idea of the Poles’ tactics, which he could pass onto his own players when they assembled for a final work-out at Largs in a few days’ time.
The following Tuesday, May 18, he greeted his squad, including (above) Rangers’ players Davie Wilson and John Greig, ushering them onto the team bus for the trip to Largs. He also disclosed that there would be a closed-doors practice match against Queen’s Park at Hampden that very evening.
“I have brought back from Poland,” he told the Evening Times’s football writer, Peter Hendry, “a football of the type which the Poles use in international games. It is polka-dot- black with white spots. We will use it in our practice games and this will give the players their chance to become accustomed to it.”
That weekend, Scotland achieved a creditable one-all draw in Poland, in a game played in driving rain at the Stadion Slaski in Chorzów.
“Scotland is on the road back to football glory,” Gair Henderson began his report in the Evening Times. “In slashing rain ... they suddenly produced the football we know they can play when they are up against it.”
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