The day a group of Falkirk schoolboys were mistaken for the Scotland football team by Sporting Lisbon

Scotland’s footballers may have had a swift exit from this year’s Euro championships but 60 years ago a group of Falkirk schoolboys were making headlines after being mistaken for the national team.

The youngsters were on a school trip which saw them travel around the European coast by boat before sailing into Lisbon’s harbour.

During this stopover, a planned visit to the home of Sporting Lisbon saw them invited to play the club’s junior team. But while the Scottish pupils and staff thought they might be having a bit of a kickabout, they were stunned to turn up to discover a huge crowd and lots of media attention.

Six decades later, one of the players in that infamous match says people won’t believe he actually played in the original José Alvalade Stadium or that a group of Falkirk youngsters took on the might of Portugal’s top team, albeit their youth squad.

Gordon Jack, a 75-year-old retired BP worker from Falkirk, recalls the night he and his schoolmates stepped off their coach outside the hallowed ground. “We thought we were going for a kickabout but when we arrived and got off the bus there were all these people,” he said. “There were flashlights going off as they took our photographs. I remember one person saying to me ‘Ecosse’ and I said ‘no, Falkirk High’. It was certainly a bizarre occasion.”

The team wasn’t even the school’s first XI but a makeshift squad of budding footballers from years three to six who were on the trip and wanted to play.

Leading the school trip was Falkirk High’s math’s teacher and Gordon believes this may have been the reason the match took place.

"He was Stanley Frederick Arthur Gillespie and when he signed the form for the planned visit to the stadium wrote ‘SFA Gillespie’. We think that the Portuguese thought he was from the SFA (Scottish Football Association) and that’s were the mistaken identity arose.”

The Falkirk youngsters ran out on to the park unsure what was ahead of them but Sporting Lisbon obviously thought it was a momentous occasion and handed over a pennant before kick off.

Gordon added: “Unfortunately, PE teacher Willie Elder didn’t have anything to hand back. But for many years that pennant was in a glass case in the school’s foyer. I’m not sure where it is now but it’s definitely a memento of that evening.”

The class of the opposition saw them score four goals in the first half against the schoolboys, but the second half was more evenly balanced with both sides scoring a goal to give a final score of 5-1 to the Portuguese team.

However, for one Falkirk HS player the match left a lasting memory.

John Waddell, who went on to be a chiropodist in Falkirk, was in a collision with the home side’s goalkeeper and was stretchered off with a broken leg.

Gordon said: "Many years later after playing a playing a game of golf, I remember talking to John about the time in Portugal and he said that he would never forget it as he still had two plates in his leg from the break.”

A newspaper report the following day gave details of the match and the “incident that would harm the spectacle with Arlindo advancing to the striker Waddell to stop the ball”. After the youngster was carried from the park, the report says: “The dismay from the goalkeeper was so great that he could not continue to play.”

Even how the youngsters ended up with a copy of the report on their game was bizarre. “It was years later and Chris Talman, who was the son of the minister in Polmont and now lives in Switzerland, put a copy of the clipping on social media,” said Gordon. “When I asked how he got it, he recalled how the day after the match we had been down at the beach at Estoril and he saw one of the Portuguese players. They spoke and he handed him the newspaper cutting. It proves the game really did take place.”

Only one of the Falkirk players went on to have a career in senior football. Gregor Abel combined his football career at Falkirk, Clydebank and Alloa with being a PE teacher. When his playing days ended, he went into management and it was when he was assistant to Alex Totten at Falkirk, that Gordon had a chance to speak to him about their Sporting Lisbon adventure.

"He came along to speak at a dinner in the early 1980s and he told of being down at Largs on a coaching seminar where there were players from all over Europe. There was a Portuguese guy and Gregor said he had played at Sporting Lisbon’s ground. After hearing a bit more, the guy said he’d been in the opposition team that night. I’m not sure who it was but apparently he went on to play for Portugal’s national side.”

Now a grandfather of four, Gordon’s family have heard the story of his Portuguese adventure on many occasions but 60 years later he is wondering if any of the others who played in the team that night recall their experience.

He’s also dined out on the memories. “I was in the Black Bull in Polmont watching Rangers play Sporting Lisbon in 2008. I said to the man standing next to me that I’d play at the previous Sporting Lisbon ground. He took one look at me and said ‘give this boy another drink, he’s hallucinating’.”