HILL of Beath is described by Wikipedia as "a hill and a village in Fife", which may be factually accurate but doesn't instantly convey the contribution this wee place beside Cowdenbeath has made to the world of Scottish football.
There is a classy statue in the village to its greatest football son, Jim Baxter, a maestro whose best-remembered piece was performed at Wembley in 1967. The life-size bronze captures Baxter with the ball at his left foot, chest out, head up, poised to make the next glorious pass. In that iconic 3-2 win over the then world champions 46 years ago he tormented England and impishly did some keepie uppie. Scotland roared its approval at the English being brought down a peg or two. Tonight Scotland return to Wembley and will be led out by captain Scott Brown, another Hill of Beath boy.
"Jim Baxter came from right across the road from me," said Brown yesterday. He wasn't being metaphorical. The statue was erected in 2003 and is literally only a few yards from what was Brown's bedroom window in the family home. "I saw it every morning. People back home are always talking about how he juggled the ball at Wembley in '67 - though don't hold your breath for me doing the same. I've got enough trouble passing the ball five yards, never mind playing keepie-up. . .
"I've seen old grainy black and white footage of him at Wembley in '67. It took some nerve to do what he did in front of 100,000 people. Rather him than me, that's for sure. I looked up to Jim because everyone from my town talked about him, about how Jim did this and Jim did that.
"He went down to Wembley and ran riot against the English and there are not a lot of people in the world who can say that. He is one who could and he was from just across the road from me, so that was a great inspiration and honour. "The older ones talk about 'Wembley weekends' and going on the pitch to nick the turf: you know, the kind of things good Scottish people do! So to be here now and be part of a fixture like this is just about as good as it gets."
Brown is a more confident figure with the media than he used to be and he was relaxed and entertaining at the Scotland captain's traditional eve-of-game press conference yesterday. He was self-deprecating and humorous, but also able to instantly become serious when questioned by some of the handful of English journalists who had turned up at the SFA's team hotel. When one asked if he felt England looked down its nose at Scottish football, Brown replied: "Well could you name a couple of Kilmarnock players?" Naturally the response was negative.
"To lead Scotland out at Wembley against England is special. Doing the same for Celtic in the Champions League was a big moment but there's nothing better than getting the armband for your country. We know them as the Auld Enemy and last time here we won 1-0 so they have to show us respect. Nothing here will overwhelm me. We've been in big Champions League games with Celtic and given as good as we get, so what is there to fear?
"The last time we played at Wembley I was about 14 and watched it on the telly. It was a great game, and a great header by Don Hutchison at the back post for a great finish. We went at it all guns blazing that night and hopefully we'll do the same again."
The wins in 1967 and 1999 are remembered fondly. Whatever happens this time around, Hill of Beath will again watch one of its boys with pride.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article