April 15, 1967: Scotland's 2nd Wembley Wizards

April 15, 1967: A soccer shocker at Wembley Stadium in London. England, holders of the World Cup, and using the exact same lineup as in the Final except for Jimmy Greaves at Number 8 instead of Roger Hunt, are beaten 3-2 by Scotland in a qualifier for Euro 1968.

The Scotland team did not include the injured Jimmy "Jinky" Johnstone, later voted the greatest-ever player for Glasgow's Celtic Football Club, about to help them become the 1st British team to win the European Cup. It did include a Celtic player named William Wallace -- although this one wasn't nicknamed "Braveheart." Ronnie Simpson, Tommy Gemmell and Bobby Lennox also came from the "Lisbon Lions" to play for this Scotland team.

Also playing were John Greig, captain of this team and of Rangers, Celtic's arch-rivals, voted by their fans their greatest player ever; Denis Law of Manchester United, about to win England's League, and who famously hated England so much that he played golf rather than watch the 1966 World Cup Final; and Billy Bremner of Leeds United. Law, Lennox and Jim McCalliog of Sheffield Wednesday scored Scotland's goals.

Denis Law

Like the 1928 Scotland team that became the 1st "foreign" team to beat England at their national stadium, these Scots became known as the Wembley Wizards, and Scottish fans said that they were now "Champions of the World." As that 1928 game has faded from memory, while the 1967 match was broadcast on television and captured on "colour" film, it remains in Great Britain's collective consciousness, and thus stands as Scotland's greatest sporting achievement.

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April 15, 1967 was a Saturday. U.S. Olympic swimmer Dara Torres was born. This was also a day when the biggest protests yet against the Vietnam War were held: 125,000 people in New York, hearing speeches, by, among others, Dr. Martin Luther King; and another 50,000 in San Francisco.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at Yankee Stadium. Mel Stottlemyre pitched a 4-hit shutout, to outpitch Dennis Bennett. The only run came in the bottom of the 5th, when Horace Clarke singled Ray Barker home. Mickey Mantle did not play.

This result was an anomaly: The Red Sox went on to win their "Impossible Dream" Pennant, while the Yankees, old and broken down, finished 9th in the 10-team single-division American League.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Jim Bunning outpitched Bob Shaw. Tony González went 3-for-5 with a grand slam and 5 RBIs.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-3 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Joe Torre went 2-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Hank Aaron went 0-for-4. Willie Mays appeared as a pinch-hitter, and singled home a run. Willie McCovey went 0-for-4.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Ernie Banks went 1-for-5. Roberto Clemente went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Willie Stargell went 0-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 7-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Deron Johnson hit 2 home runs, while Pete Rose and Tommy Harper each added 1.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ken McMullen doubled 2 runs home in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Al Kaline and Bill Freehan hit home runs for the Tigers, while Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 13-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Al Jackson outpitched Don Sutton. Lou Brock went 4-for-6 with 2 home runs and 5 RBIs. Orlando Cepeda and Tim McCarver also each had 3 hits.

* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles, 11-3 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Jim "Catfish" Hunter went the distance for the win, while Wally Bunker didn't get out of the 4th inning. Roger Repoz hit a home run, while Danny Cater went 4-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson each went 2-for-4, with Brooks also having an RBI.

* And the Cleveland Indians beat the California Angels, 4-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Fred Whitfield hit a home run in the top of the 10th inning.

American-style football was out of season. The NBA Finals were between Games 1 and 2. The Philadelphia 76ers would beat the San Francisco Warriors in 6 games.

There was 1 game played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2 at the Chicago Stadium. The Leafs went on to beat the Montreal Canadiens to win the Cup.

April 9, 1938: The 1st Televised Soccer Game

Left: Bill Shankly of Preston North End and Scotland.

Right: Micky Fenton of Middlesbrough and England.

April 9, 1938: For the 1st time, a soccer game is televised. On September 13, 1937, the BBC had televised an intrasquad scrimmage by Arsenal, at the Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its neighborhood in North London. But this was the 1st real game to be televised.

The game was broadcast on the British Broadcasting Corporation. To generate the most possible interest, the BBC decided not to make their 1st such broadcast a club match, but the biggest rivalry in the sport in the world at the time: The national teams of England and Scotland, at the national stadium, Wembley Stadium in West London.

The game was the conclusion of the round-robin British Home Championship for the 1937-38 season. England had already won it, having beaten Ireland and Wales, while Scotland could only gain a draw against Ireland and had lost to Wales. (Ireland had beaten Wales.) So this game would be for nothing but pride.

Not surprisingly, the England team had 3 players from North London team Arsenal, who were in position to win the Football League Division One, and did so, 18 days later. All of them on the left side: Left back Eddie Hapgood, now serving as Captain for both club and country, with Scotsman Alex James having retired; left half Wilf Copping, then considered the League's leading "hardman," although he never fouled hard enough to be sent off in a game; and outside left Cliff Bastin, who had already become Arsenal's all-time leading goalscorer, and, through the 2021-22 season, 84 years later, still ranks 3rd on their all-time list.

The other North London team, Tottenham Hotspur, sent inside right Willie Hall. West London team Chelsea contributed goalkeeper Vic Woodley. Birmingham area team Wolverhampton Wanderers, a.k.a. Wolves, sent centre half Stan Cullis, who would manage them to glory in the 1950s. Staffordshire team Stoke City sent outside right Stanley Matthews, "the Wizard of Dribble."

And from Yorkshire: Leeds United sent right back Bert Sproston and inside left Eric Stephenson, Huddersfield Town sent right half Ken Willingham, and Middlesbrough sent centre forward Micky Fenton.

This was not an especially strong era for Scotland's football league: Only 3 players in it made the Scotland starting XI for this game: Right back Andy Anderson and inside right Tommy Walker, of Edinburgh team Heart of Midlothian, a.k.a. Hearts; and left half George Brown, of Glasgow team Rangers. Hearts ended up finishing 2nd in the Scottish league, 3 points behind Glasgow team Celtic, with Rangers in 3rd, 12 points behind their bitter "Old Firm" rivals. Yet no player from Celtic was selected for this team.

Preston North End, of Lancashire, would win the FA Cup 11 days later, also at Wembley, with a starting XI with 7 Scotsmen. They were previously known for having won the League in its 1st season, 1888-89, and also the FA Cup that season, for the first "Double." They played 22 games, winning 18, drawing 4, and losing none, becoming known as "The Invincibles," and that team set the pattern for the 1938 squad to follow, with 5 Scots and a Welshman among their Englishmen.

Of 1938 Preston's 7 Scots, 4 were selected for this game: Left back Andy Beattie, centre half Tommy Smith, inside left George Mutch, and right half Bill Shankly. Mutch would score the winning goal of the Final, against Huddersfield, with seconds to go in extra time, avoiding a replay. Shankly would manage Liverpool to glory in the 1960s and '70s, unsurprisingly with some Scottish stars.

From Middlesbrough came Scotland's goalkeeper, David Cumming; and their outsight right, Jackie Milne. From Blackpool came centre forward Frank O'Donnell, a Scotsman of Irish descent. And from West London team Brentford came outside left Bobby Reid.

As the home team, England had the first choice of kit. They chose their usual home uniform of white shirts and blue shorts. That was fine with Scotland, as it enabled them to wear their usual home colors, of blue shirts and white shorts. A crowd of 93,267 saw them kick off at 3:00 PM.

Only 6 minutes into the game, Hapgood made a rare mistake, with what was described as "a poor clearance." It was knocked back into the box by an overhead kick from Milne to O'Donnell, who passed to Walker. He shot past Woodley, and it was 1-0 to Scotland. England had 84 minutes to find an equalizer, but couldn't. For the 2nd time, the 1st being 10 years and 19 days earlier, Scotland had become "The Wembley Wizards."

Tommy Walker

This Tommy Walker should not be confused with the lead character of The Who's Tommy. But perhaps his goal could be called a "Walker's Crisp." He lived until 1993.

The television broadcast does not survive. But a review does, and it is laudatory: An April 12 newspaper article stated: "The television was described as a triumph for the engineers. Play was clearly shown on the screen, and it was seldom difficult to follow the ball. The elaborate camera apparatus was mounted in the Press box at the rear of the main stand."

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April 9, 1938 was a Saturday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season was coming to a climax, as the Stanley Cup Finals were underway, but this was a travel day. The Chicago Black Hawks went on to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3 games to 1.

March 31, 1928: The Wembley Wizards

March 31, 1928: Every now and then, the English, who endlessly remind the Scots, the Germans, the Americans, and whoever else will listen that they invented "football" (soccer), and only they can truly play it, get a very rude reminder that this is not true. This was one of the earliest such reminders.

From 1884 to 1984, the British Home Championship was contested between the national teams of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland -- and then, after the 1921 Partition of Ireland, between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The tournament was stopped in 1984, due to the rising hooliganism in British soccer.

Scotland had failed to win either of their previous matches in the 1928 Home Championship, losing 1–0 to Ireland and Hampden Park in Glasgow, and drawing 2–2 with Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. (Wrexham? Damn near killed 'em.)

But England had been worse: They lost 2-0 to Ireland at Windsor Park in Belfast, and 2-1 to Wales at Turf Moor in Burnley. England had won only once against Scotland in the 1920s, a 2-1 win at Hampden in the 1927 Home Championship. Still, the belief held that England, as the sport's inventors and evangelists, were the be-all, the know-all, and the end-all of the sport.

Scotland decided to warm up for their Home Championship match with England at Wembley Stadium in London with a special match: "Anglos and Home Scots." In other words, one team of players who had left Scotland to play in England's Football League, and one team of players that had stayed home to play in the Scottish Football League. That game was played on March 13 at Hampden Park, and ended 1-1.

From this game, the 11 players who would play for Scotland against England were taken. But it seemed a mismatch. Of the 5 forwards selected, none was taller than 5-foot-7. Four English players were playing for the top team in the League at the time, Huddersfield Town. Another, William "Dixie" Dean, who played for Liverpool side Everton, was putting together the greatest individual season any player has ever had in the League: 60 goals. And Everton would catch Huddersfield and win the League title.

There were 11 trains hired to take fans from Glasgow to London the day before the game. When morning broke, it was pouring rain, which would leave the pitch soaked, exactly the kind of conditions that would favor the smaller Scots.

The rain kept the crowd down only slightly, as 80,868 people filed into the 100,000-seat Wembley. England wore white shirts with navy blue shorts, Scotland the reverse. Here's the Scotland lineup that would become known as "The Wembley Wizards," keeping in mind that uniform numbers were not yet worn:

* Goalkeeper: Jack Harkness, Queen's Park (Glasgow)

* Right Back: James Nelson, Cardiff City (Wales)

* Left Back: Tommy Law, Chelsea (West London)

* Right Half: Jimmy Gibson, Aston Villa (Birmingham)

* Center Half: Tom Bradshaw, Bury (Manchester area)

* Left Half: Jimmy McMullan, Manchester City, Captain

* Right Wing: Alex Jackson, Huddersfield Town

* Inside Right: James Dunn, Hibernian (a.k.a. Hibs, Edinburgh)

* Centre Forward: Hughie Gallacher, Newcastle United (North-East0

* Inside Left: Alex James, Preston North End (Lancashire)

* Left Wing: Alex Morton, Rangers (Glasgow)

That's right: Of the starting XI, only 3 were playing for teams in Scotland's league. The rest were playing in England's, including Nelson, as Cardiff City were, and remain, one of a few teams in Wales that compete in England's League.

The game kicked off at 12:30 PM, London time, and just 3 minutes in, one of the Huddersfield players scored -- but it was Scotland's Huddersfield player, Jackson, with a header off a cross from Alan Morton of Glasgow team Rangers. (Jackson had played the 1923-24 season in America, for one of the best U.S. sides of that era, Bethlehem Steel.)

Things settled down after that, but Scotland's wide play on the waterlogged grass wore the England players down. Just before halftime, James, the diminutive forward who would later star for North London team Arsenal, put the ball past England's goalkeeper, Ted Hufton of East London team West Ham United. It was 2-0 Scotland at the half.

In the 66th minute, there was a reprise of the 1st goal, as Morton put in a cross that Jackson headed in. In the 74th, Gallacher set James up for his 2nd goal. Jackson scored in the 8th, his 3rd, Scotland's 5th. Harkness had kept a clean sheet in goal for Scotland, until the very end, when Bob Kelly of Huddersfield scored a consolation goal.

Scotland 5, England 1. James said after the game, "We could have had 10." Jimmy McMullan of Manchester City, Scotland's Captain, said:

I want to emphasize that all our forwards are inherently clever... But I wish to say that the English tactics were wrong. The Saxon wing-halves paid more attention to the wingers than the inside forwards, therefore the latter were given a lot of space. It is a common thing in England to let wing halves, and not fullbacks, mark the wingers. It doesn’t pay, and I don’t know why they pursue it.

In a booklet published by the stadium owners in 1945, the story was told as follows: 

English football fans shudder when the year 1928 is mentioned. The traditional enemy, Scotland came to Wembley and gave the Sassenachs a first class lesson in the art of playing football. So much so that, to this day, that Scottish team is still spoken of as "The Wembley Wizards." 

All Scotland seemed to come to town for that match, and the fans actually brought their own scaling ladders to make sure of getting into the stadium. As a result of this, Wembley afterwards became a barbed wire fortress.

Sadly, some of the Scottish players met sad ends. Jackson survived serving in World War II, but hadn't yet been discharged in 1946, when he was killed in a traffic accident in Egypt. He was only 41. James died of cancer at only 52. And Gallacher was despondent over his domestic situation, and committed suicide in 1957, only 54.

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March 31, 1928 was a Saturday. Hockey legend Gordie Howe and country music legend William "Lefty" Frizzell were both born on this day.

Baseball was in Spring Training. American football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins played to a 1-1 tie -- that was possible under the rules of the time -- at the then-relatively-new building that would later be known as the old Madison Square Garden. And the 2 Montreal teams, the Cnaadiens and the Maroons, played to a 2-2 tie at the Montreal Forum.