1984/85 Scottish Cup first round: Stirling Albion 20 Selkirk 0

There are no easy games in international football. Well the recent results of both England's men's and women's teams may have assigned this particular cliche to the recycling bin. As the men won 10-0 against San Marino, the debate reignited about the merits of weaker teams participating in qualification for major tournaments. Hold my energy drink, said the women's game.

The 20-0 annihilation of Latvia saw Lauren Hemp score four goals and Ellen White's hat-trick enabled the striker to establish a new scoring record for the women's national team. Whether these two results are good adverts for the game is questionable. Thrashings will always be a part of sport, but a team scoring twenty possibly should be confined to the preserve of children's football.

Immediately the mind rewinds to hammerings of the past. But putting aside the nines and tens I can recall, there is a match that instantly zooms into focus. Normally the 1984/85 Scottish Cup first round was not extensively covered by English newspapers. But one particular fixture resulted in Selkirk becoming a hotspot on the UK footballing map.

First, a little bit of context. After a successful period in the 1970s - ten trophies and four Scottish amateur internationals on their books - the amateur club of Selkirk had fallen on hard times. With £34,000 of debt, the senior team were forced to withdraw from the East of Scotland League. The junior amateur team Selkirk Victoria effectively took the place of the disbanded club, playing in the second division of a local league.

Despite the club folding, Selkirk were allowed to enter a team into the Scottish Cup, which goes some way to explaining the events of Saturday December 8, 1984. The local amateur team received a bye in the first qualifying round, and may have been good enough to defeat Glasgow University and Annan Athletic to make it through to the first round proper. But an away trip to Stirling was an altogether tougher examination.

Stirling Albion were hardly flying in the Scottish Second Division. Sitting in mid-table, the team managed by Alex Smith had only won one league match at their Annfield Stadium ground. Yet there was little chance of any cup upset as the minnows of Selkirk were paired with them in the draw. 

"We knew we had a difficult job on our hands at Stirling and thought that we might lose by about six or seven," said Richard Taylor, Selkirk's 23-year-old goalkeeper and a man who would become the centre of attention in the week after the match. Taylor had only been a goalkeeper for a year; come full-time he may have been questioning his life decisions.

"The most goals I had ever conceded before in a match was five," he revealed after the dust had settled. At half-time, Taylor must have known that his previous high was going to be passed by some distance. With Stirling Albion winning 5-0 at the break, the majority of fans moved from the open terrace behind one goal to the other end of the pitch to get a better view of the goals that would follow.

 

The few hundred spectators inside the ground would witness carnage in the second half, with a goal scored on average every three minutes. With 15 goals scored, the eventual 20-0 scoreline would thrust Selkirk into the media spotlight. "It's escalated from a sports result to a national news item," 36-year-old player manager Jackson Cockburn indicated, as his phone kept on ringing.

Gallows humour seemed one way to escape the embarrassment as the second half horror show progressed. At one point, the substitutes held up all the substitution boards to indicate that the whole team should be replaced. Taylor would also make reference to the fact that his wife probably wouldn't want him holding their five-month-old child after the match. The keeper may have been less amused though when he returned to his car later in the evening to find his number plates had been ripped off.

David Thompson, a £10,000 signing from Stenhousemuir, would net seven in the demolition, with William Irvine scoring five. "I felt sorry for the Selkirk players but they accepted their defeat in good humour," manager Smith said. "Actually I lost count and thought we only won the match by 19 goals."

"According to their manager, Alex Smith, everything they tried came off," Cockburn said. "We played to the worst of our ability, although the team never gave up." Selkirk's manager also took time to defend his goalkeeper: "He wasn't to blame and if it hadn't been for him Albion could have scored another half dozen."

For Taylor, the attention could have been suffocating. Yet the keeper seemingly took everything in his stride. "To end up letting in 20 was unbelievable - but I blame myself for only three of them. I've still got to explain it all to my wife who was away at the weekend and I've got to face my mates at work." 

If Taylor was worried about the banter at work - he was a mill worker - then at least his mind was put at rest when he attended Gala Fairydean's 2-2 draw against Stranraer in the Scottish Cup on the day after the 20-0 drubbing. "It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared. They were quite sympathetic really."

As the press referred to Bon Accord's 36-0 defeat against Arbroath in 1885, and Preston's 26-0 win over Hyde United two years later, Taylor admitted that it was not an ideal way to make history. But they had made their mark regardless, and the cup run did keep the club alive.

Luckily, the goals from that afternoon are captured on YouTube in this glorious video. Narrated by Archie Macpherson, the clip illustrates the beauty of an early cup tie - the sparsely populated terraces and muddy goalmouths - as the nightmare for Selkirk unfolds. But even in failure there was some glory. 

The border town, with a population of just over 5,000 people, was more famous for their rugby team. Yet even though the rugby outfit had lost 28-0 to Haddington that weekend, there was only one sporting team from Selkirk that was firmly in the public gaze.