Three other Scotland players were on the same pep pills that got Willie Johnston sent home from the World Cup in Argentina in June 1978. I know who they are and I know they brought the stuff with them from their clubs. It’s not my job to expose the trio more than 25 years later and I have no inclination to cause them any embarrassment, but I hope they have had time to consider the dreadful damage they might have caused Scottish football and learned the error of their ways.

I’m glad it’s not a guilty secret that has ever cost me any precious sleep. It’s all water under the bridge, much like the evidence, which was flushed down the toilets when we returned to the team hotel in the wake of a dreadful 3-1 spanking by Peru. It was like Niagara Falls, there was so much rushing water that night. Any casual guest would have thought we were all suffering from Montezuma’s revenge after a spicy South American supper.

We’d been kicked in the guts anyway by a Peru side written off by manager Ally MacLeod as ‘old men’. After that, Willie’s positive drugs test left us reeling. The fuss kicked up was bad enough, as he was sent home, reputation in tatters. What the outcry would have been if four Scottish internationals had tested positive and landed back together at Glasgow Airport doesn’t bear thinking about.

The drug was Fencamfamin which, apparently, contained similar properties to amphetamine and cocaine. Willie whined about innocently taking a flu tonic and some stuff to combat hay fever. He was banned from playing for Scotland for life although his professional career continued for some years with various clubs.

Yet the 1978 World Cup had started on such an upbeat note, with MacLeod beating the drum so loudly that I’m sure many legions of the Tartan Army were genuine believers as they sang: ‘We’ll really shake them up when we win the World Cup.’ Even a 1-0 home defeat by England in front of 88,000 fans in our final match before flying off to the tournament couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm and national fervour. Scotland’s team for the game against England on May

20 was: Alan Rough, Stuart Kennedy, Kenny Burns, Tom Forsyth, Willie Donachie, Bruce Rioch, Don Masson, Asa Hartford, Kenny Dalglish, Joe Jordan and Willie Johnston. I got on for the last 15 minutes as a substitute alongside Graeme Souness as we chased victory only to fall to a late goal from Steve Coppell.

Also in the party itching to get to Argentina were Sandy Jardine, Martin Buchan, Gordon McQueen, Jim Blyth, Lou Macari, Derek Johnstone, John Robertson, Bobby Clark and Joe Harper.

MacLeod had pumped everything up to a crescendo and there must have been over 30,000 people at Hampden the following Thursday, paying 50p for a seat and 30p to stand on the terraces for a gala farewell show complete with comedian Andy Cameron, massed pipe bands and majorettes. Andy went from being a club comic to appearing on Top of the Pops with his catchy anthem, ‘We’re on the March with Ally’s Army’. Hours after we drew with Iran, a fan in Dundee was reputedly selling that single for one penny and the free loan of his hammer.

The send-off was terrific, a once-in-a-lifetime experience and, to some, it must have felt as if Scotland had already won the World Cup. MacLeod had every reason to believe Scotland would put on a show in Argentina, considering the players at his disposal. It was an extremely talented squad, by anyone’s standards.

But things began to go wrong on the coach from the airport when we landed in Buenos Aires. It broke down and we were left to walk the last leg of our journey, carrying our bags half-a-mile to our hilltop hotel in Altagracia. We arrived hot, bothered and thirsty after a journey of virtually 24 hours to discover painters in residence, dabbing here, there and everywhere. It was a joke. Ally did appreciate that our chances of getting some sleep were about zero and informed us that there was a casino next door where we were welcome to wind down for a few hours with a beer or two.

It was sheer laziness that prevented us walking out the main entrance and instead taking a more direct route over a wire fence. No sooner had this plan of action been put into effect than the place was swarming with a dozen or so guards armed with machine guns. They burst out of the bushes, pointing their guns at us. It was like a scene from a James Bond film. Ally was summoned to vouch for us and the guns were reluctantly lowered.

To make matters worse, the facilities at Altagracia were not very good at all. There was no water in the swimming pool and the painting and decorating never ceased. The hotel was a shabby two-star job. Tempers were not improved on arriving at the training pitch. It was rutted, like a ploughed field, and rock-hard. Shocking! The little matter of a dispute over bonuses arose. To my mind, that business should have been done and dusted before any of us set so much as a foot out of Scotland, but here we were, on the eve of the World Cup, arguing the toss about money. Led by Dalglish, Macari, Rioch and Buchan, the lads kicked up a stink when the SFA officials told us we weren’t going to get anything like the amount we’d been led to believe we would receive. After a couple of days in the heat, working hard, Ally suggested we might like to take ourselves down into the village for a glass or two of cold beer. Nine or 10 of the lads, myself included, took the manager up on his kind offer. We settled in the square and were just having a beer in one of the bars when a handful of pretty girls came and sat round our table with us. The next thing it’s flash, bang, wallop, what a picture. Some photographers appeared from nowhere and fired off a load of shots. We had been set up good and proper but the pictures on the front pages back home revealed only footballers, women and beer.

Given the disastrous build-up we desperately needed to start the World Cup with a decent display, not to mention victory, against Peru in Cordoba. Scotland played particularly well to start with, Joe Jordan scoring after 15 minutes. It was 1-1 at half-time but then Masson missed a penalty and I replaced him for the final 20 minutes. The next thing we knew, Teofilo Cubillas weaved some magic, scoring twice, and we ended up losing 3-1. Kenny Dalglish and I were selected to provide a urine sample straight after the final whistle, but when you’re dehydrated after expending a lot of physical energy on a hot day it takes a good while before you feel the urge. I was struggling to oblige the testers and after six or seven minutes Willie Johnston walked through the door into the specimen cubicle.

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