IT isn't strictly correct to state that Scotland has no competitive footballing history against Gibraltar.

In fact, the Sunday Herald has tracked down at least one Scotsman who has already has scored a couple of coveted winning goals against them during a major continental finals.

Gibraltar is a peninsula, not an island, but that doesn't stop teams from Shetland and Orkney usually doing battle with them biennially in the multi-sport event now known as the NatWest Island Games. The latest instalment arrives this summer in Jersey, where Gibraltar - now recognised by Uefa, if not Fifa, as a nation in their own right - have already pledged to send an Under-19 team. However many goals the likes of Steven Naismith, Steven Fletcher and Jordan Rhodes go on to rack up against them at Hampden today, it should be noted that Michael Williamson, a pelagic fisherman from the remote community of Whalsay, has already beaten them to it.

There have been a total of four meetings between Shetland and Gibraltar in this arena over the years (93, 97, 99 and 2001), with Shetland winning three, while Orkney have encountered them twice (2001 and 2003), losing both. Mainstays of the Gibraltar team which visits Hampden today such as Roy and Joseph Chipolina, Lee and Kyle Casciaro and Liam Walker all cut their teeth here, while history also relates that a Gibraltar squad also encountered a Scotland Semi-Pro outfit - featuring players from the Highland League and the old East and South of Scotland leagues - in Oswestry, Wales, in the final year of a doomed four nations tournament back in 2008, going down 4-2.

Another Scottish side, this time from the Western Isles, participated when Gibraltar won their only Island Games title in Rhodes in 2007 but as illustrious as these events may be for the participants involved, they will be a far cry from the scene at Hampden today. Back in 1993 - fully six years before they began applying to Uefa for independent nation status - a crowd consisting of little more than fellow squad members and athletes, plus random, interested passers-by saw Williamson strike from a suspiciously offside-looking position to condemn Gibraltar to the wooden spoon on their maiden appearance in this competition. The same player then scored two in extra time against them in Gotland in 1999 to get the better of a 10th/11th place play-off.

"The '93 games were the first games that Gibraltar were actually involved in, and I think we were playing to avoid the wooden spoon," Williamson recalled. "I don't know whether we sensed how ambitious they were back then, although I suppose their advancement came after they saw the Faroes consolidate themselves at a certain level. I can't think they can have advanced too much just because of the population of eligible players that they have got.

"I suppose it does make me one of the only Scots to score against Gibraltar, and more than once too," he added. "But hopefully I won't have to wait too much longer for some other Scots to join me in having scored against them! While it was great to get the win against Gibraltar, I didn't think I would be speaking about it 23 years later!"

While the history of Shetland and Orkney football continues in a Scottish orbit, Gibraltar are currently embracing a bright shiny future on the global stage. After 14 years wrestling with the European governing body and the Court of Arbitration for Sport - a process which included some serious sabre rattling from Spanish clubs about withdrawing from Uefa competitions in protest - they were finally admitted as full members of Uefa in May 2013, with only Spain and Belarus dissenting. Uefa also kept Spain and Gibraltar apart in Euro 2016 qualifying, but presumably decided no such political sensitivity was necessary in the Champions League. Let's just say Gibraltar's domestic champions Lincoln Red Imps were never likely to be able to make it past HB Torshavn of the Faroe Islands and all the rest in the Champions League qualifiers to book a moneyspinning tie against the likes of Real Madrid of Barcelona.

Fifa is another story, however, with president Sepp Blatter already slightly miffed about the number of non-independent states in the Uefa bloc. While a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport is currently underway with a view to admitting them in time for the start of the the 2018 World Cup qualifying competition, Gibraltar have already come along way from their baby steps in world football, as reported in the Shetland Times on Friday July 16, 1993:

"The football team at last had some success, winning the 7th/8th place play-off game with Gibraltar 1-0 and avoiding the ignominy of the wooden spoon. Although winning, the game this was Shetland's poorest performance of the week and a better team than Gibraltar would have taken advantage.

"It appeared that it was going to be one of those Games when a team would do everything but score, when Shetland got a stroke of luck. George Watt played the ball through to Michael Williamson who seemed to be a couple of yards offside but the referee waved play on and he advanced to the penalty area before rounding the keeper and netting from an acute angle." Sadly, some more pessimistic members of the Tartan Army would probably just about accept a similar outcome this afternoon.