England v Scotland: Football's oldest enemies renew their rivalry

International football's oldest enemies will renew a rivalry renowned for pride, ion and an infamous pitch invasion when England host Scotland at Wembley on Wednesday.

The game, part of the Football Association's 150th anniversary celebrations, is the 111th meeting between the two nations, who contested the first official international in 1872 and met on an annual basis until 1989.

Their most recent encounter, in the second leg of a qualifying play-off for Euro 2000, took place at the old Wembley in November 1999.

That ended in a 1-0 Scotland win, but it was England who went to the finals in Belgium and the Netherlands the following summer, thanks to a 2-1 aggregate victory.

Down the years, both nations have had many moments to .

Scotland's successes, over opposition they traditionally refer to as "the Auld Enemy", include the "Wembley Wizards" winning 5-1 in 1928, Jim Baxter juggling the ball down the touchline during a famous triumph in 1967 and the invasion of the Tartan Army in 1977 - when fans celebrated victory by digging up the Wembley pitch and breaking the goalposts.

For England, not much can match their devastating 9-3 rout in 1961 or the glory of Paul Gascoigne's spectacular goal and "dentist's chair" celebration during their victory in a vital Euro 96 group game.

Only national pride will be at stake this time but it would be missing the point entirely to term this week's game a 'friendly'.

For many years the perception, in England at least, appeared to be that Scotland cared more. and Argentina were England's rivals, while the Scots only measured themselves against their neighbours. While Scotland were patriotic, the English were patronising. Or so the theory went.

Writing in his 1968 autobiography, England World Cup winner Nobby Stiles, whom Baxter had toyed with in 1967, said: "There are always plenty of vituperative (bitter) comments by the Scots before an international, and if they do win it is played up out of all proportion and we never hear the last of it.

"Sometimes it goes beyond the bounds of partisanship and only points to one thing: an inferiority complex that can only be sated by reviling the English."

The Scots, however, would argue that antagonism and antipathy always existed in equal measure south of the border too.

Scotland's record-cap winner Kenny Dalglish, who ed Liverpool from Celtic shortly after scoring the winner in the famous Anglo-Scottish Wembley clash of 1977, said: "I couldn't understand anyone saying these matches meant less to the English than to the Scots. The English players enjoyed winning every bit as much as the Jocks. That was confirmed when I came south."

The relationship was made more complicated by the fact that, long before imports became the norm in British club football, these international games tended to pitch club-mate against club-mate.

Scottish players and managers have always been entwined in English club success, and talent continues to travel south - Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher and Sunderland striker Steven Fletcher are absent through illness and injury but 22 of Gordon Strachan's 29-man Scotland squad for Wednesday's game play for English clubs and only two players - Celtic duo Scott Brown and James Forrest - have spent their entire careers north of the border.

The movement has not always been in one direction, however. Gascoigne was a Rangers player and Scotland's player of the year when he scored THAT goal at Euro 96. A decade earlier, the Gers had signed a wave of England players including captain Terry Butcher, who won three Scottish titles in four seasons as skipper at Ibrox.

That was not Butcher's only involvement in Scottish football. In 2008, he was interviewed by the Sunday Times after being appointed as Scotland's assistant manager under his old Ipswich team-mate George Burley and said: "I never hide away from the fact that when Scotland got knocked out of World Cups in the past, like in 1982, 1986 and 1990, we cheered the roof off.

"That's what the England team did. But George has asked me to do a job and it's something I want to do."

Butcher, now Inverness manager, did not get an easy ride during the year he spent in the job and later recalled:, external "The English, especially old team-mates like Viv Anderson, Tony Woodcock and Stuart Pearce, they slaughtered me, so I tried to avoid them. I sat next to Stuart at a Wolves game. He whispered to me, 'Next time you're there, big man, take a look in the mirror. How's your conscience"Graphic image of, from left to right, Alex Albon, George Russell, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso and Oliver Bearman. It is on a blue background with 'Fan Q&A' below the drivers " loading="lazy" src="https://image.staticox.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Face%2Fstandard%2F480%2Fsprodpb%2F7ff9%2Flive%2Fd42302e0-34b3-11f0-8519-3b5a01ebe413.jpg" width="385" height="216" class="ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950"/>