ON THIS DAY

The 371 souls present at Annfield for Stirling Albion’s Scottish Cup First Round tie against amateurs Selkirk witnessed the highest score in a senior match in Britain in the 20th Century. Eight Stirling players were to score goals – Dave Thompson hit seven of them – the half time score was 15-0 with the score at the final whistle being ‘only’ 20-0. Selkirk’s goalkeeper Richard Taylor was presented with the ball after the match – you would think he would have been sick of seeing it!

Nowadays it is almost the norm for players making their England debut to do so by coming on as a second half substitute, literary hundreds have won their first cap by doing this. But it was only back on this day in 1965 when for the first time a player made his debut for England when coming on as a sub. The player in question was Norman Hunter of Leeds United in a Spain v England match played at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium when in the 35th minute he replaced Joe Baker who had suffered a pulled muscle. England won the match 2-0 and were very close to getting together a side who would win the World Cup a few months later – Norman Hunter was in the squad for the competition but didn’t play in the finals.