Sometimes it takes distance and the passage of time to make us realise just how special something is.
Our plans for the summer of 1990 didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, maybe I was preoccupied with the daunting jump from primary seven to high school I was about to take.
Football road trips were nothing new to me. My dad behind the wheel of our redoubtable Ford Granada, me in the passenger seat with my acupuncture wristbands on, trying to focus on the road and keep travel sickness at bay. My older brother Richard in the back seat alongside my friend Colin.
Travelling from Falkirk up to Dens Park every other Saturday. Or Pittodrie, Love Street or Kilbowie.
But this time my dad was driving my brother and I – and his old schoolpal Grahame – all the way to Italia 90. The trip of a lifetime.
An added complication to our 2,600-mile round trip was that, a couple of months before we departed, I was diagnosed with type one diabetes.
Richard and Alan Hendry are all smiles before Scotland’s ill-fated match with Costa Rica
Richard, Alan and dad Jim prepare to begin their journey from Falkirk to Genoa
The Hendrys’ redoubtable Ford Granada leaves rainy Falkirk for the 1990 World Cup
The dynamic in the Hendry house at that point was probably typical of many families in the 1990s.
My dad, the breadwinner, would make sure I was at Hampden to see Kenny Dalglish and Mo Johnston put Spain to the sword in 1984, he’d get me and my brother front row seats to see Dundee winning the Tennent’s Sixes, and he would not rest until the last sticker was placed in every Panini album. My mum? She pretty much looked after everything else.
If she was worried about my dad rising to the challenge and helping me keep my blood sugar under control for four weeks, she didn’t show it.
My dad incorporated a few diabetes-related phrases into the Italian he was learning for the trip. ‘Senza zucchero?’ was the extent of my vocabulary but it helped me establish that Diet Coke hadn’t reached continental Europe by then. The car boot was stashed with ginger nuts and shortbread to provide the snacks I required to match up with my new routine of injecting insulin in the morning and testing my blood sugar before meals.
Qualifying for World Cups was just what we did back then and I recall my dad handing us t-shirts that proudly boasted that Italia 90 would be Scotland’s FIFTH Finals in a row.
For young football fans there is usually a tournament that acts as an awakening. An event horizon that turns a hobby into an obsession.
Italia 90 did all that for me and more. The World Cup that hits you just at the right age and captivates your every waking thought.
Richard Hendry shows off the ‘Scozia’ shaved into the back of his head
I obsessed over the strips (Adidas had a great tournament), the sticker albums, collectable binders and learned the squads off by heart. I knew who Italy’s third choice goalkeeper was, the star players of Colombia, Yugoslavia and Romania, and the capacity of Bari’s Stadio San Nicola and Udinese’s Stadio Friuli.
We covered the Granada with Tartan Army stickers so weren’t mistaken for English football hooligans. My brother had ‘Scozia’ shaved into the back of his head but, with his blue shell suit and Naf Naf jumper, there wasn’t much chance of the Carabinieri mistaking him for one of the Chelsea Headhunters.
We made light work of the journey through England but our progress stalled on the south coast. High winds meant the ferries from Dover were not in operation. Spying a gap in the market, and turning a blind eye to the inclement weather, the hovercraft operators were happy to take us across the channel to France.
With the wind and waves working up a tempest, I took my seat and gripped the armrests. It felt like we were extras in a disaster movie as the hovercraft bounced along on top of the waves, with the inflatable ‘skirt’ slapping off the windows of the tiny passenger compartment every few seconds.
Hovercraft carried the Hendry party across the English channel with ferries cancelled due to bad weather
My brother, a big fan of rollercoasters, enjoyed the first five minutes but the rest of the harrowing journey proved too much for him and his constitution. My acupuncture wristbands were out of their depth too. My dad was so green about the gills afterwards that Grahame had to take over driving duties for the rest of the day. Four years later, the opening of the Channel Tunnel spelled the end for the hovercraft but the four of us still break into a cold sweat at the mention of it.
By the time of the opening match between Diego Maradona’s Argentina and Cameroon we had made our way as far as Remiremont, a town in Eastern France near the German and Swiss borders. Scotland had qualified at the expense of the French but there was still plenty of interest in the opener as the tournament kicked off at the San Siro.
It would be the first time that these four Dundee diehards clapped eyes on the footballing artistry of Claudio Caniggia – Maradona’s best pal and soulmate. Claudio Paul’s blond, flowing locks were a blur as he skipped past the despairing Cameroon defenders until Benjamin Massing resorted to thuggery to bring him to a halt and help secure their shock victory over the holders.
Ten years later, in a scarcely believable turn of events, the World Cup star would pitch up at Dens Park. His turn of pace still in check as he gave Dunfermline, St Mirren and Dundee United defenders the runaround.
Grahame, Alan and Richard enjoy the Swiss Alpine scenery en route to Italy
The story goes that Maradona would instruct the Argentina head coaches that Caniggia was his preferred attacking partner.
I mean, sure, they were decent together but I still maintain that The Son of The Wind didn’t find his perfect foil until he paired up with the elegant Willie Falconer at Dens Park.
The hosts would play their first game 24 hours later, by which time we were over the Italian border in the city of Aosta.
If the game itself was a forgettable grind, the scenes that followed the late winner by substitute Salvatore Schillaci were not.
No one slept in Aosta that night. Or the rest of the country as Azzurri fans took to the streets, car horns blaring in ecstasy as they toasted victory and the birth of a new national hero, the hitherto unheralded Juventus striker.
Schillaci would go on to win the Golden Boot courtesy of his six goals in Italy’s run to the semi-finals. Incredibly, he would only score one more goal in an international career that burst into life for four weeks in an otherwise workmanlike career.
Beaten 1-0 by Costa Rica in our opening game, Scotland left the Luigi Ferraris stadium with many regrets. Why did centre-halves Alex McLeish and Dave McPherson spend half the game repeatedly passing the ball to each other, 80 yards from the opposition goal? I had a few regrets by then too.
Richard, Jim and Alan take to the beaches of Liguria on their World Cup adventure
Scotland and Costa Rica players warm up in Genoa’s Stadio Luigi Ferraris
Costa Rica fans provide the colour in Genoa ahead of Scotland’s Group C opening match
Why did Richard and I bring just two music cassettes for our mammoth trip? ‘Everybody Knows’ the debut album by Scouse teenybopper Sonia (mine), and ‘A Pocketful of Dreams’ by blond boy band Big Fun (Richard’s).
Unfortunately our music taste hadn’t extended beyond the hit factory of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, the pop producers who plagued the charts for much of the 80s and 90s. If my dad and Grahame were bemoaning the tinny fare on offer then they could probably count themselves lucky Rick Astley and Jason Donovan weren’t also on board with us.
Salvation and serenity came in the shape of Fine Young Cannibals’ Raw and Uncooked, provided by Grahame, and my dad’s Swan Lake soundtrack.
The second game against Sweden was everything the Costa Rica game wasn’t.
Scotland manager Andy Roxburgh threw caution to the wind and brought in Robert Fleck and Gordon Durie. Mike Bassett would call it Four-four-f******-two.
The war cries of Jim Leighton and Roy Aitken intimidated the Swedes in the tunnel. Our centre halves actually passed the ball forward and Scotland secured a memorable 2-1 win that sparked our tournament and the Tartan Army into life.
Even Sonia sounded better in the car afterwards.
The Swedes we spoke to at the match were friendly and magnanimous in defeat.. Maybe they had a footballing sixth sense that there were better days ahead for their national team. They would get to spend the next four decades watching the likes of Henrik Larsson, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Aleksandr Isak while we circled various incarnations of dark blue hell.
Jim Hendry poses with a fellow Scotland fan before the Sweden game
Richard and Alan, decked out in Italy colours, meet Sweden fans before Scotland’s second game
While Genoa and Sampdoria’s home was a wonderful arena to experience the highs and lows of our first two matches (think Tynecastle but bigger), the venue for Scotland’s final game was a bit of a damp squib.
Anyone criticising Hampden for its inadequacies has clearly never visited the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin. Seated low behind the goal, but still miles away from the nearest action, we were still able to pick out Brazil striker Muller pouncing on a loose ball to score the late goal that spelled the end of Scotland’s World Cup adventure.
1998 aside, Scotland fell out of the qualifying habit.
In the build up to this year’s Group D decider with Denmark, clips of the Ally McCoist lob against Norway that sealed our place at Italia 90 were trending on X.
I texted my dad: ‘Were we at Hampden that night?’ Of course we were.
I wasn’t in the grand old ground to see Scott McTominay, Lawrence Shankland, Kieran Tierney and Kenny McLean give the Tartan Army the night of their lives but, sat between my brother and my dad, my 12-year-old son was. Part of the next generation that can start to dream again.
