Scotland Under-23 Match

[Steve Bell]

The Scotland Under-23 team played a match against a Scottish Second Division XI on Wednesday, 18th January 1961 at Brockville Park, Falkirk. The match was originally scheduled to be played on the previous Wednesday but was postponed due to bad weather. The Under-23 team won by 10 goals to 2. Does anyone have further details on this match, team line-ups, goal scorers, etc.?

[scottish]

All the details here on page 11.

[Steve Bell]

Thanks. I didn't realise that the details were so readily available.

[Steve Bell]

Does anyone know if there were any further Under-23 matches against club or representative sides?

[scottish]

The U-23's operated from 1955-1976 and played 44 international matches against other U-23 sides, including one abandoned game. But if you mean other than internationals then I'm sure they must have played a few during that time. The one I recall is the match at Hampden on Jan 10th 1972 v the West German Olympic XI. I was one of the 5,903 who bothered to turn up to see Scotland win 1-0 thanks to a Willie Donachie goal.

The teams were:
Scotland U-23: Hewitt (Dundee), J Hansen (Partick), Donachie (Man City), Kelly (Arsenal), Philip (Dundee), Buchan (Aberdeen), Brown (Leicester), Jardine (Rangers), Dalglish (Celtic), Steele (Dundee) - sub McQuade (Partick 65) -, Connolly (St Johnstone)

West German Olympic XI: Bradler (Bochum), Baltes (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Bleidick (Bor M'Gladbach), Mietz (Bor Dortmund), Habermann (Eintracht Braunschweig), Bitz (Kaiserslautern), Halb (Eintracht Frankfurt), Hoeness (Bayern Munich), Wunder (Duisburg), Nickel (Eintracht Frankfurt), Stegmayer (Nuremburg)

As for accessibility it is only recently this site became aware that the Glasgow Herald 1937-1962 was (partially) available online and free. There is a list of online sources here

[ScottishFA]

There were a couple of trial matches against club sides in season 1955-56, as the very first Scotland U23 match in February 1955 ended in a 6-0 thrashing from England and the SFA wanted to avoid a repeat.

So, Scotland played Clyde at Shawfield on 14 December 1955, winning 5-1, then played Hibs at Easter Road on 11 January 1956, losing 1-4. It did seem to help calm their nerves, as the England game at Hillsborough in Feb 1956 was 'only' lost 1-3.

Apart from these, and the two matches already mentioned in this thread, the only other U23 match I know of was against the British Army on 13 February 1961 at Fir Park. Scotland won 3-2.

[scottish]

1955 game Page 4

1956 game Page 7

1961 game Page 10

Note also the item on the Scottish Youth team to the left of that last match report. A few famous-to-be names there.

[John Meffen]

I have in my notes that Alex Parker & Eddie O'Hara played for a Scotland U-23 side v Rangers in 1956/57, can't elaborate more at this moment [at work], but I'll go and check at the soonest chance!

[prorege]

I am sure Scotland Under 23s played two public matches against club sides in the mid 70s.

They played Leeds United at Hampden, around 75/6, and Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, possibly in 76/7.

The Leeds game was midweek and towards the end of the season and drew a crowd of around 6-7000.

[scottish]

The words 'Kilmarnock' and '76-77' should, with the exception the match on October 30th 1976, never be mentioned in the same sentence, paragraph, page, chapter, book, volume, series etc.

AFAIK the last U-23 game was v Holland at Easter Road on Mar 24th 1976 when the Dutch won a European Championship quarter-final tie on penalties

[John Meffen]

Re: Yesterday, I have notes of 3 other unnofficial Scotland U-23 Matches from the time

Scotland U-23 XI v Rangers @ Ibrox, 23rd Jan 1957 Page 4
Scotland U-23 XI v Division II XI @ Brockville, 11th Apr 1960 Page 9
Scotland U-23 XI v Division II XI @ Brockville, 18th Jan 1961 Page 11

knew ah wisnae going mad!

[Snuff]

Some interesting names in the line-ups in the various Under-23 matches flagged-up in this thread.

Four future internationalists in the Rangers XI for instance and what exactly Matt Watson and Frank Beattie did to never win a full cap has long been a mystery to those of us who follow Killie.

I know Matt Watson's timing in being a contemporary of Eric Caldow was unfortunate, but even one cap - lesser players have one. Ditto Beattie, although, again, competition was intense.

Interesting breadth of sports coverage also, today it's wall-to-wall football plus American sport taken off the wires.

I'm in the Mitchell Library a lot these days doing research work and am amazed at the stuff covered which these days never gets near the papers - the depth of covderage of Scottish football alone was greater in the past. Today, if it's not: the Old Firm, Scotland, the rest of the SPL, the English Premiership - it barely gets covered.

[Steve Bell]

I have just come across another Scotland Under-23 match. It was played on Wednesday, 19th January 1972 against the Scotland Professional Youth team at Firhill Park. The Under-23's won the match 5-2.