On September 10th 1985 Wales and Scotland met in Cardiff for a crucial World Cup qualification game. The tournament was set to be held in Mexico the following year. Both teams were desperate to keep their hopes of qualifying alive. Coaching the visitors was the legendary Jock Stein, the man behind all of Celtic's great triumphs of the 60's and 70's. In theory, things were looking good for them. A draw would see them reach a play-off against the winner of a yet to be held qualification tournament for Oceania. If they were to win, they had a decent shot of winning the group, which also featured Spain, and qualifying directly.
The only thing Stein's needed to avoid was losing to Wales. In that case only a defeat for Spain could help Scotland reach the play-off, but that was extremely unlikely as the only remaining match for the Spaniards was at home to bottom placed Iceland. Problem was, that losing to Wales was exactly what the Scots had done six months earlier. Wales boasted a world class attacking duo in the form of Liverpool's Ian Rush and Manchester United's Mark Hughes. Even the support of 60.000 fans at Hampden Park hadn't been able to prevent Wales clinching victory courtesy of a 1st half goal scored by Rush. If that defeat wasn't troubling enough in itself for Stein, this time around he'd have to take on the Welsh without his captain Graeme Souness, due to a suspension, and his star player Kenny Dalglish, due to an injury.