Did you hear about the Scotsman who captained a club to back-to-back European Cup wins but never earned a cap for his country? Of course you did. The tale of John McGovern is well-documented and probably carries more resonance in these fallow times for the national side which has led to Scotland slipping so far into the international wilderness they’ll soon be appearing on an episode of Extreme Survival with Ray Mears.

Industrious, inventive, two-footed, driven, resilient; McGovern was Brian Clough’s captain in a shimmering Nottingham Forest side which conquered Europe twice. Scotland could certainly do with a McGovern these days. “I think I’d get one cap,” said the 67-year-old with a wry smile.

The failure to earn international recognition is something that clearly irks Montrose-born McGovern, who remains a fiercely passionate Scot even if the accent has the tones of a man whose career was forged in the north east of England and then flourished in the Midlands. Being inducted into the Scottish Hall of Fame has at least gone to some way to soothing a wound that was opened almost 40 years ago.

“I played a couple of times for the Scotland under-23s when Tommy Docherty was the manager but the manager changed and when I was at Forest, Ally MacLeod was the manager,” reflected McGovern. “After we beat Man Utd 4-0 at Old Trafford he said all the Scottish players at Forest were in his squad for Argentina (World Cup 1978). Somebody asked him about that when I wasn't picked and he said, ‘I didn't know he was Scottish’.

“That was told to me by the photographer who hired kilts and had John Robertson, Archie Gemmill, Kenny Burns and I in kilts and got a picture taken with Brian Clough. We found out the photograph was useless when the squad was announced and I wasn't in it. Maybe the manager didn't see me fitting in but when the photographer told me he didn't know I was Scottish? I mean come on. I had played for the under-23s for Christ’s sake.

“We had a wealth of talent in midfield in those days. Willie Carr, Asa Hartford, Graeme Souness, Billy Bremner, Don Masson, Kenny Dalglish. They would walk into the side now.

“I gritted my teeth but I was bitterly disappointed and it was something that bitterly disappointed me during my playing career when at times I was playing against the best in Europe and we were beating them. I would have walked up the M74 with bare feet over broken glass to play for Scotland I was that proud to be a Scotsman.

“I looked at players like Ray Wilkins playing 70 times for England and I thought, 'he can't outrun me, he is a slow as I am. And he can't out-tackle me and can't out-head me and he can't out-pass me but he has 70 caps for England?’.

“So there is something not quite right there. There is an inequality there that I definitely detested for a long time. I suppose that I had slight deformity, a bent left shoulder, my style of running was poor and I was the slowest player I played with or against.

“But if someone called Clough says I am in his side, I don't get in there because of luck or favouritism, I get in there because I know how to play football.”

In a sense, McGovern embodied one of Clough’s great managerial strengths; the ability to spot an undervalued talent and harness it to a new cause. The charismatic Clough had his own way of expressing his unique kind of affection for his players. “Before I played for the Scotland under-23s at Swansea, I got a phone call from him,” recalled McGovern. “He said, ‘don't let Willie Carr run the game and if you get injured I'll f***ing kill you. Good luck’. That was Cloughie. Clough used to say, 'I put you in the side to pass the ball so go and pass the ball or I will find someone else who will'. There was always praise but a latent threat."

Praise, plaudits and prizes came in wild abundance for Clough’s Forest in those glory-laden years. “Someone asked what my preparation for the European Cup final was and I said we went to Majorca for a week with no training and no curfews,” recalled McGovern. “But we won. And nobody questions you when you win.”

McGovern’s induction into the Hall of Fame has gone some way to righting a wrong. “When I called my mum to tell her she said, 'do you get any money?’ and I said 'Mum, this is much bigger than that, this is phenomenal for me to win this',” he said. “I am so pleased for my mum because my dad died when I was 11 and he never saw me even play football. When the girl rang me up to tell me about it (the award), I didn't believe it so she had to send me an email. I had to ring her back and apologise. I told her I played 40 years ago and she said ‘better late than never’. That’s a nice way to put it.”