Robert Snodgrass will turn 30 before the year is out and Scotland have not managed a single home win against England in his lifetime.
If it is not exactly surprising, it is certainly sobering from a Scottish perspective to consider that a senior player has gone so deep into his career through such a barren period in the Auld Enemy fixture. There have been eight Scotland v England games since Snodgrass was born — he played in two of the last three — and Scotland’s only success came from Don Hutchison’s winner in a Euro 2000 play-off at Wembley. The seven other games ended in defeat.
Snodgrass was born in 1987. Within two years the then 116-year-old annual fixture was stopped because of growing concerns about hooliganism. He is from a generation of Scottish kids who grew up without the England game featuring as a recurring event in their childhoods. That he still recognised and embraced the old rivalry — happily admitting to an “anyone but England” attitude as a boy — was down to his mum and dad. “I love the feeling of playing against them. I love it. The rivalry has always been there, with your parents bringing you up [so that] when England were playing you would get the opposite team’s top on and all that stuff. You would be cheering on the other team. It’s the way we have always been brought up and it’s no different now. When you get the chance to play against them it’s big.
“You are going in there believing you can get a result because you are so up for the game. The passion and drive is attached to it. You don’t even think about anything other than beating England. People will remember you for years if it happens.”
Snodgrass’s two England games were at Wembley in 2013 and last November, the World Cup qualifier which ended in a painful 3-0 defeat. “It was shocking, what happened down there. There were probably only three moments and a three-minute difference between the teams. Had we taken our chances we could have been victorious at Wembley. However, that’s why these [England] lads are at the top at every level in every position because they are guys who can score goals at any minute. But they can be got at.
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“I have never had the feeling of being ‘feart’ of this player or that player. I look forward to it. You have got lads [from Celtic] who have won trebles and the confidence of those lads can’t be any higher.”
Scotland will draw hugely from the precious result secured in their last game, the 1-0 home defeat of Slovenia which maintained the fragile hope of qualifying from Group F. “I thought we were brilliant. We needed Chris [Martin]to pop up in the last couple of minutes with the winner but we created a lot of chances. It was probably the game where I felt we were right back to how we were when the manager came in. We played with no fear and people were taking the ball in tight areas, passing, moving and creating chances.
“Our objective at the start was to qualify automatically, not just fight for second place. We have always believed we could go for automatic but when you take hits you have to take a step back and try to take two forward. We want to get their automatically, we want to beat England and we want to kick on.”