Andy Roxburgh: I really regret my Steve Clarke Scotland decision

Even Craig Brown, no stranger to populist gestures, had his doubts. “Are you sure, Andy?” Brown asked. He clearly had concerns about Roxburgh’s mental well-being after hearing his plan to wear a tartan scarf at the game against Sweden, when Scotland’s World Cup prospects were very much on the line. Like the defeat by Costa Rica, which kicked off at 5pm, this one was due to be played in Genoa. Although it was a 9pm kick-off this time, it was hardly woolly scarf weather.

“The reason behind the scarf was quite simple,” Roxburgh explains from his base in Switzerland. “We lost that opening game when expectations were the opposite, no one expected that to happen. The most interesting week manager-wise I spent was the one between Costa Rica and Sweden. Before the match with the Swedish, I said: ‘How can I tell the fans that we are all fans, we are as upset as they are?’ It was just before we got on the team bus. I thought to myself: ‘The one thing I can’t do is speak to the fans but I can do it visually. I will put my scarf on.’

“Even Craig thought I was nuts: ‘It’s too hot here for a scarf!' But I told him there was a reason behind it. When we won the game, I walked to the centre circle and held the scarf up. It was symbolic. I didn’t wear it again. But it was a way of communicating to the fans that we were as heartbroken as they were after that opening match.”

One upshot of this was that when the Scottish Football Writers’ Association honoured Roxburgh’s contribution to the game in 2024, he was presented with an illustration of himself wearing the same tartan scarf. It has become synonymous with the manager.

“The gift from your Scottish football writing colleagues is up in my corridor downstairs, so I am reminded of it regularly,” says Roxburgh. Something else on display in his house does not have quite the same happy connotations as a victory – Scotland's last, to date – in a World Cup.

A framed photograph of Scotland’s provisional squad for that tournament hangs on a wall in Roxburgh’s office. While it reminds him of the group of talented footballers that he felt so privileged to work with, one face might be triggering. It belongs to a then 26-year-old Steve Clarke, who was included in the 28-man provisional squad for a pre-tournament ‘getting to know each other’ trip to Italy in February. It’s almost as if Roxburgh is deliberately tormenting himself over what he describes as one of the biggest regrets of his career. “I have on my wall right beside me that squad in preparation at Hampden – Stevie is in the picture!” says Roxburgh.

As he knows only too well, all of a sudden the current Scotland manager was out of the picture. Clarke was culled in the process of drawing up a final list of 22 names. Roxburgh decided to take Stewart McKimmie as his only regulation right-back. Richard Gough and Dave McPherson were also able to play there if required due to injury or tactical necessity.

Gough, indeed, started that first game against Costa Rica at right-back with McKimmie coming on to replace him after the Rangers defender picked up a tournament-ending injury. McPherson was deployed there the next game. Back in London, meanwhile, Clarke had slapped in a transfer request at Chelsea, blaming – probably correctly – his lack of action in the final few months of the season under Bobby Campbell for costing him his World Cup dream. As opposed to now, when it appears far less of a problem, not playing regularly for your club side – Clarke had struggled to win back his place following a back injury – was an immediate turn-off.

“In retrospect, you look back and say, well, I actually wish Stevie had been in the group,” says Roxburgh. “But OK, it is one of those where you made what you thought was the right decision at the time. Richard Gough played full-back in that opening game and then he had an injury and didn’t play again. That is one of the variables that you could not control.

“Your judgment, your decisions have implications,” he adds. “I have said this to Stevie, humorously: ‘If there had been a better manager at the time, you’d have more caps!’ He is one that I really regret.”

No 55-man squad back in 1990

How Roxburgh might wish the current protocol of 26-player squads was in place then. As many as 55 players can be named in provisional lists that must be submitted to Fifa in just under a month’s time. Now it’s Clarke preparing to dash the hopes of players as well as offering many others the dream he was denied. He has experience of naming two European Championship squads. He already knows something about excluding players. The process must be handled more sensitively these days. As for 1990? Well, they were different times.

“The players were aware that a squad was announced and that was it,” says Roxburgh. “There was no patting people on the back, there were none of these kinds of exchanges at the time. It was more a case of this is the squad, that is it. If you’re in it, you are in it, if you are not, you are not. We didn’t have to explain that much, you just did it. The managerial style was different back then,” he says. “It was more autocratic than it has to be now. Now you have to influence and persuade, whereas back then it was not quite the same as that.”

Some of the same old problems still apply. Clarke has serious concerns regarding the goalkeeper position. Neither of his frontline keepers, Craig Gordon and Angus Gunn, is first choice for their club. At Italia ’90, Roxburgh had a comparative embarrassment of riches including Gunn’s father, Bryan, who was third choice but playing regularly at Norwich City. However, Roxburgh’s first choice, Jim Leighton, had endured a torrid end to the season with Manchester United. Culpable for a couple of goals in the FA Cup final draw against Crystal Palace, the keeper was dropped for the replay, which United won with Les Sealey in goal. It’s fair to say he was in a low place when he joined up with Scotland. Roxburgh might have been tempted to replace him with Andy Goram, who had enjoyed a good season with Hibs.

“Sometimes just picking them is enough of a vote of confidence, that shows you have faith in them,” he says. “The greatest power that you have as a national team boss is the power of selection. It is not as if you own their contract. You don’t dictate their career but what you do have is the power of selection and sometimes picking them is enough to show your faith in them.

“It is very important in the squad to take not only your big starting players, but also some who are great squad players. My favourite squad player was Murdo MacLeod because he was absolutely fantastic. When he played, he gave everything and when he was not playing he gave everything to the group. He never complained.”

Roxburgh has written to Clarke recently, although not to belatedly apologise for his snub. They remain in gentle contact, as people who share so much history and have as much in common tend to do. “As you know, I had him at youth level,” explains Roxburgh. “He played for the Under-19s against Mexico during the World Youth Championships in front of 100,000 people and scored the only goal of the match. He has been around the block.” Clarke has since described that night in Estadio Azteca as when he knew he could become a professional footballer.

“He was incredibly reliable as a player at both St Mirren and Chelsea,” continues Roxburgh. “And his coaching career is quite fascinating as well. Before he went out on his own, I went to visit him at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was there. He has worked with Jose, Ruud Gullit – a whole lot of famous people. And then in his own right he has had this fantastic career as a manager. He has already created history by being the longest serving Scotland manager in terms of games. Now, after 28 years, he has taken the team back to the World Cup.”

Not to pry, but what had he been so keen to tell Clarke when they last corresponded? “I wrote and said, ‘the next step is to make another bit of history’. In other words, get out of the group. “Every time there is a big moment, I’ll contact him,” adds Roxburgh. “I don’t pester him or anything like that, but every time there is a big moment or something significant coming up we exchange emails.”

There is no residual ill feeling from Clarke towards Roxburgh – all of his six caps bar one were won under him. The little matter of being cut from the Italia ’90 squad is water under the bridge now. In fact, the current Scotland manager sounds almost more peeved about being excluded from the squad for France ’98 by Brown, Roxburgh’s successor. Although his last cap was four years earlier, Clarke was back playing regularly for Chelsea and was part of the side who won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup just weeks before the tournament kicked-off. Despite this, he wasn’t even quoted.

Still, such experiences are now useful to Clarke. He can tell players he knows how they feel knowing they know he really means it. Roxburgh is one of the few living Scotland managers who can empathise. Indeed, he’s one of only two. Brown’s death three summers ago means that now it’s just Sir Alex Ferguson and Roxburgh who have experience of telling players they have – and haven’t – got a ticket to the greatest sporting show on earth. They are the only living Scotland managers who know what it’s like to lead Scotland at a World Cup.

Roxburgh is revered when once he was harshly ridiculed by some as a jumped-up school teacher. Due to commitments in the Far East, he is an infrequent visitor to his homeland these days. One recent occasion was for the funeral of his uncle, Jack Steedman. The former owner of Clydebank FC died late last year at the age of 98. “The man who taught me to play football on the streets of Glasgow,” recalls Roxburgh.

Good genes are clearly present in the family. It’s hard to believe Roxburgh is now 82 and yet is still working in his role as a football guru – not his words – for an entire continent. Although as many as nine Asian countries are due to participate in this World Cup, at the time of writing at least, Roxburgh, in his role as technical director of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), is only scheduled to attend the final in New Jersey on 19 July.

“It is just the circumstances at the minute,” says Roxburgh. “I am not working with Fifa so I am not lined up to be at any other games. AFC have organised us to be at the final and that is it. So no pressure, Steve!”