List of Scotland wartime international footballers

Tommy Walker (pictured in 1947) played regularly for Scotland during the Second World War.

The Scotland national football team is the joint-oldest international football team, having played in the first official international match, a goalless draw on 30 November 1872 against England.[1] Since then, the team has established a long-standing rivalry with England, particularly in the annual British Home Championship, which Scotland won 24 times outright and shared a further 17 times.[2] The team has enjoyed less success in continental and global competition. Even though Scotland has participated in eight FIFA World Cup and two UEFA European Championship final tournaments,[3] the team has never progressed beyond the first round of any major tournament.[3]

During the First World War (1914–18) and the Second World War (1939–45), competitive football was suspended for the duration of each war.[4][5] Scotland played a number of "Wartime Internationals" against the other Home Nations during each conflict, none of which are considered to be official international matches. They also played Victory Internationals in the immediate aftermath of each war, although two of these (a 2–2 draw with Belgium on 23 January 1946[6] and a 3–1 win against Switzerland on 15 May 1946)[7] are counted by the Scottish Football Association as official matches.

This list includes all Scotland players who appeared in these unofficial Wartime or Victory International matches.[8][9] It does not include appearances in the matches played between Scotland representative teams and branches of the British Armed Forces which also took place during the course of the Second World War, nor the fixtures against Belgium and Switzerland in 1946.

  1. ^ Mitchell, Paul. "The first international football match". BBC. Retrieved 7 March 2009.
  2. ^ "British Home Championship Overview". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. 1 October 1999. Retrieved 3 March 2009.
  3. ^ a b Ralston, Gary (24 November 2007). "Eck: We'd Have Gone Far". Daily Record. Retrieved 3 March 2009.
  4. ^ Brown, Alan; Tossani, Gabriele (31 January 2019). "Scotland - International Matches 1911-1920". RSSSF. Retrieved 15 May 2019. The Home International Championships between 1914-15 to 1918-19 inclusive were not held due to the First World War.
  5. ^ Brown, Alan; Tossani, Gabriele (13 December 2018). "Scotland - International Matches 1931-1939". RSSSF. Retrieved 15 May 2019. The Home International Championships between 1939-40 to 1945-46 inclusive were not held due to the Second World War.
  6. ^ "Scotland 2 v 2 Belgium". Scottish Football Association. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
  7. ^ "Scotland 3 v 1 Switzerland". Scottish Football Association. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
  8. ^ Scotland Unofficial Matches 1902-1919, RSSSF, 24 June 2020
  9. ^ Scotland Unofficial Matches 1939-1945, RSSSF, 23 July 2020