Scott Brown will win his 50th Scotland cap tonight, and he will join an elite group of footballers to have been given that recognition by this country.
It’s a huge accomplishment, especially when you consider that he will join a mere eight players in Celtic’s history to be capped over 50 times by Scotland.
I’ll write that again so you get it; there are only eight players in the history of our club to have been capped 50 times for the Scottish national team.
I’ll go you one better; of that eight only four got their fiftieth cap whilst they were at Celtic Park.
You’ll read a lot of people attempting to explain that, but one explanation won’t be on the lists of many in the media, and certainly no-one at the SFA … but it’s a fact nonetheless.
Once upon a time, the SFA simply didn’t like putting our players in the national team.
And there were a lot of Scotland fans who didn’t like our players being there.
The list of Celtic legends who never won 50 caps is depressing, and illuminating.
It is, in fact, a little bit shocking.
None one – not a single one – of the Lisbon Lions was capped 50 times for the Scottish national team.
Billy McNeil, the stupendous leader and captain, won a scandalously low 29 caps.
How is that even possible?
Colin Hendry won 51. David Weir won 69, and Christian Dailly – yes, the Christian Dailly – won 63.
There’s something wrong with those numbers, so wrong I had to double check them, but it’s there, in black and white, and I assume it’s a fact.
So how many caps did the Lions get? Here’s a sampler.
Bobby Murdoch won 12 caps.
Tommy Gemmill won 18.
Bobby Lennox won 10.
The greatest player in the history of Celtic, Jimmy Johnstone, the legend, won 23 caps.
There’s no excuse for that.
Back in the 1970’s and early 80’s we were simply ignored by the SFA wherever they could justify it. It’s no coincidence that our most capped players are from an era when Rangers were signing foreigners; Tom Boyd (67 caps whilst at Celtic), John Collins (32 caps at Celtic and 58 overall), Paul McStay (76 caps, the most any player ever won in the Hoops although King Kenny went on to gain 102, most of them in England. His cap count at Celtic was 47), Jackie McNamara (32 caps in Hoops).
Even then, a number of Rangers players were being capped, with predictable regularity, out of all proportion to any talent they possessed.
James McGrory, whose goal scoring record remains the finest in British football history, and is accepted by UEFA as one of the greatest of all time, won six international caps.
Who was making the selections at the time?
The Grand Lodge of Scotland?
For all people bubble about “poor Lee Wallace” no-one ever sings the blues for the geniuses at Celtic Park who were denied the recognition their awesome talents deserved. I doubt there was a media campaign in their favour. I doubt they got much support. I very much doubt that the national coach had to endure reams of criticism about any of it.
But then these were only Celtic players, at a time when another club was the most powerful in the land, with influence in every corner of the game.
Congratulations to Scott Brown, and to young Kiernan Tierney, who will make his first appearance of many, in the famous dark blue shirt.
How things have changed.