Why Scotland must play like ‘poet warriors’ to make an impact at the football World Cup qualifiers

I was 13 years old when Archie Gemmill scored his iconic goal against Holland in the 1978 men’s football World Cup in Argentina. The words of English commentator David Coleman remain etched in my mind to this day: “A brilliant individual goal by this hard little professional has put Scotland in dreamland.”

The dream, sadly, only lasted three minutes before Johnny Rep scored for Holland to make it 3-2. The ball deflected off Gemmill’s outstretched leg, flying past Alan Rough’s despairing dive.

It was a formative moment in my early teenage life. I stood up and swung my head, my John-boy Walton glasses flying off and smashing against the wall next to the television set. It was a strangely symbolic moment in my developing ideas of Scottish national identity and its love-hate relationship with football.

Today, Scotland’s national game is in crisis, and with it, some argue, the nation’s sense of who it is and what it has become. After Scotland’s humiliating exit from the 2024 Euros, Steve Clarke’s team left their hotel to the skirl of a Bavarian piper playing Scotland The Brave. There may have been no irony intended from the German musician, but the cultural paradox unfolding was clear to anyone watching. The team wasn’t brave. And it was in Poundland, not dreamland.

In their 2009 study Power Play: Sport, the Media and Popular Culture, cultural policy researchers Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes note: “With its visibility and focus on symbols, winning, competition, partisan fans – and in team games the necessity of collective struggle – few other cultural forms lend themselves as easily as sport to being used as an indicator of certain national characteristics and, by extension, of being representative of a national identity.”

Scotland’s stereotype, of course, is that of the Braveheart terrier, a perpetual underdog with a never-say-die attitude. As the nation gears-up for its opening Uefa Nations League campaign against Poland at Hampden on September 5, we could do worse than listen to many voices within the “Tartan Army” who still believe in the “get into them” football philosophy – a no holds barred aggression in midfield with two wide wingers and a giant centre-forward.

For Scotland fans, it’s less about losing, but rather how the team lose. Do they want to lose like poet warriors or like players who would rather be in the dentist’s chair than truly put themselves on the global footballing battlefield?

For sports coaching researcher Stuart Whigham: “Whether through the mythology of Scottish ‘national sports’, the existence of independent Scottish teams, or the evocation of ancient Scottish history and warfare – the symbolism of Scotland’s pre-modern existence as an independent, ‘old nation’ remains abundant in the context of Scottish sport, and beyond.” For Scotland to fully empathise with its sporting self it must find a way to revisit its own cultural history.

Scots need to symbiotically connect their sense of traditional self with the aspirations of their own sporting and cultural institutions. Clearly define its national identity and build its chosen football style accordingly.

Put simply, the Tartan Army is correct when it represents itself as Braveheart foot soldiers – the next step to achieve a rounded relationship with its national football team is to directly translate this identity onto the field of play.

Before the Hungary match at the 2024 Euros in June, Scottish football manager Steve Clarke told the waiting media that Scotland could win the game by playing with caution. He got it wrong. That wasn’t what the Scottish public wanted. They wanted Scotland to play like Coleman’s “hard little professionals” and they wanted the passion of poet warriors to represent the heartfelt love they have for their families and communities across the nation.

It didn’t happen, partly because a communication vacuum exists between Scottish intellectual life, theories of Scottish national identity, the public and the Scottish Football Association. One look at social media explains the growing dichotomy that clearly exists. “What annoyed me most about Steve Clarke at The Euros,” said one Reddit poster, “wasn’t necessarily the tactics or the line-ups but it was the attitude we had”.

Gemmill’s goal against Holland encapsulated the true definition of Scottish sporting romanticism. We were down and out, virtually dead, with no chance of progressing after disastrous results against Peru and Iran. Gemmill fought back, giving us a short, shining moment of hope in the face of adversity. Yes, it was cruelly quashed, but it still existed, even for the briefest of spells.

Unless the nation can come together to define its sense of Scottish sporting identity ahead of the 2026 World Cup in Canada, the US, and Mexico, I fear that glimmer of hard little professional light may never be seen again.

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Kenneth Pratt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.