May 1976, Scotland v England at Hampden Park. In the 49th minute, with the score 1-1, Joe Jordan rampages down the left wing and crosses to Kenny Dalglish. As a nation holds its breath, Dalglish shimmies past an England defender and fires a shot.
To everyone’s surprise, the normally reliable Ray Clemence lets the ball slip between his legs and trickle into the net. From Kirkwall to Kirkcudbright, Scots respond with the kind of collective roar usually reserved for the likes of Bannockburn.
This seminal moment in sporting history is played endlessly in a video loop at the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden, which Live Football Tickets has just named the third best football museum in Europe. Bettered only by museums in Greece and Serbia, the Hampden museum was streets ahead of the National Football Museum in Manchester, which limped in at ninth. Another historic win for Scotland.
For the full Hampden experience, the museum manager, Andy Kerr, leads hour-long tours behind the scenes, through players’ and match officials’ dressing rooms and into the tunnel leading to the pitch, followed by as long as visitors like in the museum.
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The original Hampden was built in 1903, and three decades later a world record crowd of 149,415 crammed in to watch Scotland beat England 3-1. It was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a downsized modern stadium.
The dressing rooms are smart and functional rather than luxurious, allowing players representing club or country to focus on what they are here for. But they are helped to feel at home with national and club emblems on the walls of their respective rooms.
The atmospheric climax is walking through the tunnel towards the Hampden Roar, which must make a few hairs rise. I can only imagine the thrill.
Every year two teams emerge hoping to win the oldest association football trophy in the world, the Scottish Cup, which has pride of place in a glass case here at the museum. It is a handsome trophy crafted by silversmiths in 1873 for 56 pounds, 7 shillings and 11 pence, now estimated to be worth an eye-watering £1 million.
For this reason it never leaves the stadium. After being presented to the winning team and paraded in a victory lap, it is returned to the museum for safekeeping and the team is given a replica.
The stars of the collection are undoubtedly the portraits of dozens of players, managers and personalities. Dalglish is prominent among them, along with Denis Law, “Slim Jim” Baxter, Graeme Souness and Alex Ferguson.
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There are surprising names among lesser-known lights of the game, notably Robert Smyth McColl, who scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 victory over England in 1900. He became known as “Toffee” Bob a year later when he founded a newsagent with his brother.
There was also a licensed-to-kill secret agent by the name of James Bond, aka Sean Connery, who played for Bonnyrigg Rose juniors for a couple of seasons in the 1950s. “Big Tam” is remembered for a fashionable brown corduroy jacket and an entourage of doe-eyed local girls, though he was offered a trial by the Manchester United manager Matt Busby, which he wisely declined for an acting career.
A set of 1903 iron and wood turnstiles leads to a motley collection of historic football strips, medals, posters and clunky leather boots that look as if they were designed for coalminers.
Speaking of which, the exhibition From Pit to Pitch: A Story of Coal Seams & Football Dreams, running until the end of the year, investigates the mining communities across central Scotland that incubated great footballers and managers, including Bill Shankly, Jock Stein and Busby.
One exhibit brought back fond memories of my early career as a trainee sports reporter, showing a section of the old press box with a phone booth that adorned the roof of the old stadium. I still remember climbing a spiral iron staircase and the smell of an old wooden corridor leading to our eyrie overlooking the field of dreams and much of Glasgow, as far as Ben Lomond. The thunderous roar of the crowd still rings in my ears.
Entry to the Scottish Football Museum is £8 for adults and £3 for children; entry plus stadium tour costs £16/£9 (scottishfootballmuseum.org.uk)
