Scotland and England Heritage Match a far cry from infamous Leeds United 'international incident'

Officially recognised as the first international match, Scotland welcomed their 'Auld Enemy' in November 1872 when England visited Hamilton Crescent, home of the West of Scotland Cricket Club.

Tuesday's friendly will feature two sides on the verge of qualification for Euro 2024 and thanks to the foot injury sustained by Liam Cooper earlier in the season, it will go ahead without Leeds representation. Only Kalvin Phillips, a Leeds-born Leeds supporter who played an integral part in the club's 2020 promotion to the Premier League before eventually being sold to Manchester City, will carry the Whites' interest in the latest meeting of the two countries.

It's a far cry from the club's most glorious era when many of the best English and Scottish players called Elland Road their home.

Don Revie's success was built upon the so-called 'Scottish Mafia' including Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray, Gordon McQueen, David Harvey, Bobby Collins, Peter Lorimer and Joe Jordan, alongside England counterparts like Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Paul Madeley, Terry Cooper and Allan Clarke.

Many of the Revie Boys have spoken over the years of the bond they shared as team-mates and the collective willingness to go into battle for one another, but fierce national pride was always bubbling under the surface, particularly for Bremner and the Scots.

A 2016 interview of Gray and Lorimer by BBC Radio Scotland revealed how that bled into every day life for the club's captain.

"We used to go for lunch every day and we'd toss a coin to see who paid for lunch," said Gray.

"There could have been 14 of us. If you lost you'd pay for the lunch. If one of the Scottish boys lost, Billy would have a cup of tea. If one of the English boys he'd have a three course meal, two KitKats and two KitKats to take home for the kids."

Lorimer continued: "Disaster day for us was '66 when England won the World Cup. We all went to a hotel in Leeds and sat and watched it. It was a disaster, the worst possible thing that could happen."

Revie once famously attempted to harness the cross-border rivalry in first team trainin with a small-sided game that pitted the Scots against the English players. The legendary manager was quickly forced to abandon the experiment for fear of an international incident that cost him a star player.

"Within a few minutes, Don realised he was making a big mistake as the tackles were flying in and he had to cancel straight away or else he knew there would be trouble," said Lorimer.

"Although we were great team-mates and friends, the rivalry came to the fore and Don had to call time after a couple of minutes of the match – otherwise he would have ended up with injured players.

"Our team alone had six or seven and all the big clubs such as Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United had at least two or three Scottish players. So the day-to-day rivalry was there."

A host of club managers across England and Scotland will hope that this week's latest installment of the rivalry bears little resemblance to the Leeds training ground 50-odd years ago.