WILLIE Waddell, Billy Liddell, Willie Thornton and goalkeeper Bobby Brown were in the Scotland side that took on Switzerland in a friendly at Hampden on May 15, 1946. The players are shown here being introduced to Glasgow’s Lord Provost, Hector McNeill, before the kick-off. It was only the second time that the two teams had met, and, in front of 100,000 spectators, Switzerland opened the scoring but two goals from Liddell and one from Jimmy Delaney saw Scotland win.
The first half, wrote this newspaper’s Special Correspondent, was “crowded with incident” but the second half was “drab in the extreme, with Scotland having an almost monotonous share of the ball.” While Liddell “was sufficient of the opportunist to score two goals,” he had “otherwise an unsatisfactory match.”
Something else did grab the writer’s attention, though - the fact that the referee allowed the Swiss a “very wide latitude” in their tackling. “Pushing and holding of jerseys were a common practice, and a Swiss defender was often seen deliberately obstructing his opponent and, fully realising that he had committed an infringement, immediately retreating into a deeper defensive line.”
The Scotland team was: Brown (Rangers), D.Shaw (Hibs), J.Shaw (Rangers), Campbell (Morton), Brennan (Airdrie), Husband (Partick Thistle), Waddell (Rangers), Thornton (Rangers), Delaney (Manchester United), Walker (Hearts) and Liddell (Liverpool).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here