LARGE trainfuls of Scottish fans arrived at Euston station that Saturday morning 53 years ago, singing and sipping light breakfasts from cans of lager. Here and there, there was bravado, defiance. “All we need is three quick goals from Law and we’ve got them,” said a man from Stirling. But there was pessimism in the air, too.

“Perhaps for the first time, Scotland went worried to Wembley,” wrote the Glasgow Herald’s Samuel Hunter columnist. “Tartan rosettes covered hearts half-ready to bleed. They were champions of all the world after a competition in which we had not been fit even to have a kick at the ball. It had to mean something.”

“They”, of course, were England, the Auld Enemy who, just the previous summer had over-run the Germans, 4-2 after extra time, to lift the Jules Rimet trophy. But Scotland, under new manager Bobby Brown, badly wanted to win. They were also eager to avenge a 9-3 humiliation at Wembley in 1961.

For this particular game, on April 15, 1967, they had a strong team - Simpson, Gemmell, McCreadie, Greig, McKinnon, Baxter, Wallace, Bremner, McCalliog, Law and Lennox – though England, with Banks, the Charlton brothers, Greaves, Hurst and Peters – looked invincible.

But, in front of a crowd of 100,000, Scotland defied the odds to win. The headline in that afternoon’s sports edition of the Evening Times said it all. “GREAT SCOTS!”, it fairly shouted. The report began: “Scotland the brave ... and the magnificent. The team, given little chance of victory, beat world champions England by 3-2 in a breathtaking international at Wembley today.”

Denis Law (pictured) gave Scotland an early lead. Bobby Lennox added a second, in 78 minutes, and although England belatedly scored through Jackie Charlton in 84 minutes, Jim McCalliog (pictured) got Scotland’s third goal, three minutes from time. Geoff Hurst claimed England’s second goal moments later. It was by any measure a landmark Scottish victory, with many fans asserting that Scotland were now the unofficial world champions.

Our sister paper noted that Jim Baxter had “recaptured almost all of his old glory in attack”. A well-known piece of footage from the game shows him indulging in eye-catching showmanship.

Samuel Hunter wrote that he and his fellow fans, “desperately tired but taller than when we left”, eventually made it back to Glasgow Central. At the taxi-rank, one older fan looked at his remaining funds – two shillings, all that was left of twenty pounds – and decided he would walk home.

“Just before he turned into Jamaica Street he suddenly did a little jig step and swung the toys he had bought for his three grandchildren over his head. He looked like a man who had suddenly remembered that he also had something to tell them.”

Read more: Herald Diary