Five in a Row by Shareef Abdallah – Book Review

By Karl Hornsey

While fans of the Scotland men’s national football team may have felt a little hard done to down the years, and parodied even for agonising World Cup exit after World Cup exit, those who followed them during the 1970s, ‘80s and into the 1990s had actually never had it so good. Here, Shareef Abdallah explores the side’s journey to the 1990 World Cup, which would be the fifth in a row that they’d qualified – with just one finals appearance to follow since.

While my first World Cup was 1982, and it’s become something of an obsession of mine in later life, for many, the 1990 version was theirs, and also one that has become shrouded in legend ever since. England’s agonising semi-final defeat, Gazza’s tears, the spectacular and sometimes violent progress of Cameroon, and the evocative refrain of Pavarotti and ‘Nessun Dorma’ have all been remembered and, in some cases, misremembered, as the quality on offer throughout was really rather dreadful.

But, what hasn’t been remembered or reminisced over anything like as much, is the Scotland team, meaning this offering by Abdallah is very timely and an excellent addition to the books available about the finals. Credit where it’s due, qualifying for five consecutive tournaments was a great achievement, and the author’s in-depth research, knowledge and passion makes this an informative read.

“Familiar tale”

Crucially, there’s plenty of content and context from those involved, featuring interviews with players, coaches and, most excellently, from supporters who made the trip to Italy for the finals, as well as around Europe during the qualifying campaign. This is an interesting read given the social situation at the time, and an era that seems so far back in time from the present day, and also because this was the final World Cup before football changed started to change beyond all recognition, ‘rescued’ from the lows of the 1980s by the influx of money and foreign owners, players and coaches.

Abdallah first takes the reader through the qualifying campaign to begin with, and the gradual realisation that the low-profile and cerebral manager Andy Roxburgh could actually be about to guide a less than star-studded squad into the finals, carefully building up the background to each of the players and starting to add his own thoughts on being a young fan at the time, and how the country got behind the team.

That actually takes up more of the book than the finals, in part due to the fact that Scotland didn’t hang around in Italy all that long, contriving to create another group-stage exit when lesser sides progressed to the knockout stages. A familiar tale to Scotland supporters everywhere and one that merits reading this excellent account of a fascinating period in football history.

‘Five in a Row: Scotland at the 1990 World Cup’ by Shareef Abdallah is published by Pitch Publishing