England To Make Scotland Trip

Photo by Jeff Holmes

Scotland and England will meet at Celtic Park on November 18 in an international friendly. The match was confirmed by both national associations on Monday morning, and follows a Wembley encounter between the sides last August, which England won 3-2 thanks to a Rickie Lambert goal. The game will be England's last senior fixture of 2014 and comes three days after a Euro 2016 qualifier away to Slovenia.

The game will be England's first visit to Scotland since 1999, when a brace from Paul Scholes gave Kevin Keegan's side a 2-0 victory at Hampden Park in a Euro 2000 qualifying play-off. Scotland won the second leg 1-0 at Wembley, Don Hutchison's goal giving them their most recent win over England, but it was not enough to see them into the tournament. The two nations share close footballing ties, with the 0-0 draw in November 1872 recorded as the first official match between two football associations. The confirmed 2014 contest, coming 142 years after the first meeting, will be the 112th time England and Scotland have faced one another. The records remain close, England having won 46 to Scotland's 41 with 24 draws. Their only other meeting in the last 25 years came during the group stage of Euro 96, hosted by England, with an Alan Shearer header and a memorable individual effort from Paul Gascoigne coming either side of a David Seaman penalty save to give the eventual semi-finalists a 2-0 win on home soil. With Hampden Park undergoing renovation work, the game at Celtic Park will be the first game between the two sides not played in the national stadium since 1904. Notably, the match will take place exactly two months after the Scottish public vote in a referendum to determine whether the country should become independent from the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the Scottish Football Association has confirmed that its Euro 2016 qualifier against the Republic of Ireland on Friday, November 14 will also be played at Celtic Park. The two nations have been drawn in Group D along with newly-crowned World champions Germany, Poland, Georgia and Gibraltar.