If you haven’t watched it back in a while, you might have forgotten the sheer, frenzied insanity of it all.
It’s the 90th minute at Hampden Park and Leigh Griffiths has just scorched his second majestic free-kick past Joe Hart in the space of three minutes. Having trailed 1-0, Scotland are suddenly heading for their first 21st century victory over England, and maybe, just maybe, the World Cup finals in Russia the following summer.
Hart crash-lands and buries his head in the Hampden turf for a moment, as if trying to find a trapdoor he can escape into. Christophe Berra and James McArthur accidentally bump into each other around about the six-yard line and do a spontaneous leaping hug straight out of the title sequence of a 1970s sitcom.
Chris Martin meets the ball as it bounces back out of Hart’s net and gleefully blooters it over towards the tenement back courts of Mount Florida.
Meanwhile, Griffiths, the hero of the hour, is so overwhelmed that he can’t seem to decide which direction to run in, tearing off towards the Scotland fans in the corner before a sharp handbrake turn behind the goal, perhaps having decided – as the black belt in shithousery he was back then – to noise up the England supporters massed behind their Millwall and Bristol Rovers flags in the West Stand.
Some Scotland fans in the lower rows seem to be trying to follow the wee No. 9 round there, sprinting full-pelt after him like the kids chasing Rocky Balboa up those steps in Philadelphia.
Other than a few with their hands on their heads, the English mostly stand stock-still, arms huffily folded on chests. But the scenes in the rest of the ground are akin to what you might see seconds after a beehive has fallen from a great height and burst open. Many are shirt-less, making the most of the sunshine that finally broke through on that June afternoon after a rainy morning; many others sporting the garish pink away top Scotland had worn at Wembley when England smashed them 3-0 the previous November.
Then, as the cacophony finally begins to dial down ever so slightly, Gary Neville, Sky Sports co-commentator that day, says the words: “I haven’t seen a celebration in a football ground like this for a long, long, long time.”
This is a preview of Scott Fleming’s full article, published in Issue 38 — the Free-Kick Issue — of Nutmeg.
You can order your copy now to read it in full, including:
- Unfiltered memories from inside every corner of Hampden
- The real story behind the free-kicks: who was supposed to take them, what Griffiths said, and what went through the players’ minds seconds before history was made
- Exclusive insight from then national manager Gordon Strachan — including what happened in the dugout during those wild minutes
- Joe Hart’s reaction, straight from the man who picked the ball out of the net twice in three minutes
- The reaction of English journalists who had swaggered into Hampden expecting an easy win
- The press box erupting in pure, shocked joy
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