It was arguably the greatest triumph in the history of Scottish rugby, a victory over arch rivals England to clinch the Grand Slam.
But rather than the result reflecting superior skill, courage and tactics, the Scots were fired up by anti-English bigotry and hatred over the imposition of the poll tax by the Thatcher government, according to one of the team's southern opponents that day in 1990.
Brian Moore, the former England and British Lions hooker, said the Scotland team's tactics for the Five Nations decider were to urge the home crowd to antagonise them with jibes.
He also said the players were fired up by a perceived bias against Scotland by the Conservative government. The nation had been used as a testing ground for the hated "community charge" in the year prior to the match.
Moore, who was nicknamed "Pitbull", claimed the nationalistic fervour got to his fellow players and, coupled with some tactical errors, contributed to the Scots winning 13-7.
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In his newly published autobiography, Beware of the Dog, he writes: "Scotland's tactics were simple. They would use their home crowd to pressure us throughout the game.
"Allied to these tactics, the easily generated anti-English fervour was reinforced by the genuine political antipathy felt by the country towards the Thatcher government, particularly as it had been trialling its new system of local rates, known as the poll tax, north of the border."
Moore maintained the English were more talented and it was only the encouragement of the crowd that helped the Scots win after a "defensive" performance. He described the fans' taunts to England players as "invective" and "hostile".
He dismissed accusations that the Scotland team's march on to the pitch intimidated the English players as "bollocks", and told of his "torment" at having to mix with gloating Scotland fans at a rugby function in Edinburgh the following week.
"For every second of the experience, and I exaggerate not, at the back of my mind was repeated the phrase, 'I would rather die than allow the Scottish to do this to me again'," he said.
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In the book, in which Moore admitted for the first time that, as a child, he was sexually abused by a primary school teacher, he takes several other swipes at Scotland.
He says he has only two Scottish friends and claimed Scots were obsessed with labelling the English as arrogant, saying: "I remember a perfect example of this bigoted attitude coming from a Scottish caller to a radio phone-in programme; he gloated over the England football team's exit from the 2002 World Cup in Japan. 'The trouble with yous is that yer all sooo arrogant; before the cup started yer manager said yous thought yous could win it.'
"If he (then England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson) had not said this, he would have been criticised for not expressing confidence in his team."
Moore, a qualified solicitor, also expresses his dislike for the England rugby anthem Swing Low Sweet Chariot but said it was still preferable to Flower of Scotland.
The 48-year-old has long been regarded as a hate figure among Scottish rugby supporters. A rugby club in Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, even set up a website poll entitled Is Brian Moore the Anti-Christ? He said he regarded it as a backhanded compliment.
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Scotland rugby supporters this weekend accused Moore of being a bad loser. Roy Comfort, chairman of the Forum of Scottish Rugby Supporters, said: "It is just Brian being Brian and a bit of a sore loser. England came with one of their best teams for years, expected victory and were sent home empty-handed."
"Scotland being used as the guinea pig for Thatcher's poll tax may have added a little piquancy to the occasion, but more relevant was the television footage of Will Carling telling the English team that they were better than their opponents."
Gavin Hastings, who played on the winning team and won 61 caps for Scotland, said: "Brian is entitled to his opinion but there's no merit in getting involved in a debate about it."