Sent Off at Gunpoint

2008 is the 30th anniversary of one of the blackest episodes in Scottish football history, when Ally McLeod's tartan army went to Argentina to win the World Cup and returned with nothing but a bloody nose after exiting at the first round stage. The ignominy was all the more because winger Willie Johnston, one of the most important members of the Scottish squad, was sent home in disgrace after failing a drugs test. In this book, Willie Johnston lays bare the truth about what happened in Argentina and how he was made a pariah by the Scottish football authorities. He would never win another cap and was deemed persona non grata for many years.Willie's career as a silky, classy player who jinked his way down the wing to create goal after goal, and score the odd one too, took him from Glasgow Rangers, where he helped the club win the only European trophy in their history, the Cup Winners Cup in 1972, netting the winning goal in the final, to West Bromwich Albion, Vancouver Whitecaps, Birmingham City, Hearts and of course Scotland, for whom he won 22 caps. At all his clubs he became a cult hero. He still commands huge crowds wherever he goes.Johnston he was perhaps the most controversial player of his times. Stricken with a legendary temper, he was dismissed from the field of play on a record 22 occasions in his career, and the Argentina episode hangs over him still. Indeed controversy seemed to follow Willie about the place. He once raced naked around the Hawthorns for a bet, teased opponents by sitting on the ball in matches and was sent off at gunpoint not once - but twice! - in his career. "Sent Off At Gunpoint" tells Willie's incredible story in full for the first time.