England and Scotland, who meet at Wembley on Friday in only the fourth competitive fixture since annual encounters were abandoned in 1989, are the two oldest international teams in the world. They have played each other more often than anyone else, took part in the first ever international fixture in Glasgow in 1872, and enjoy – if that is the word – one of the most ancient and grudging of rivalries.
Or they used to. These days the Scots would rather take on the Auld Enemy in a referendum than a football match. The sad decline of Scotland as a force in the game has been reflected in an almost complete lack of interest in cross-border skirmishes in recent years, not helped by the fact that the last time Wembley staged a qualification game between the two countries Kevin Keegan’s England produced a performance of such staggering lifelessness that they managed to get beaten by a Don Hutchison goal even as they limped toward a predictably brief visit to Euro 2000.
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