JIM BETT might be best described as an Icelandic-Scot. Or, more accurately, the only footballing Icelandic-Scot this country has produced. A Lanarkshire upbringing, career-defining spells at Rangers and Aberdeen, and 25 Scotland caps won between 198
2 and 1990 ensure he will be as one-eyed as any compatriot when he sits himself down in front of the box to watch George Burley's side take on Iceland this week. Yet he could be forgiven if his loyalties were even the teeniest slither divided.
Reykjavik, the setting for Wednesday's World Cup qualifier, is what the 48-year-old calls his "second base". It is where he hopes to flit permanently from Aberdeen before long; where as a teenager with Valur he found his feet in the game and found his wife Audur; where he returned in his footballing dotage; where his sons Baldur and Calum were born; where the former now plays his football, and just north of where the latter now plies his trade in the game.
But Reykjavik also just happens to be the city where Bett's contribution to the Scotland cause proved most telling. Memories of the cultured midfielder in dark blue are forever framed by his crashing finish four minutes from the end of a pivotal World Cup qualifier away to Iceland on May 28, 1985. Without his only international goal that evening, Scotland would have required to go to Wales and win to leapfrog their fellow Celts for a play-off place behind Spain.
"I did well that night but Jimmy (Jim Leighton] was the man with his penalty save," says a modest Bett. "It just shows you how your mind plays tricks over the years, though, that I thought there was about 15 minutes left when I scored. At the time there was talk of the goal causing splits in my family, but Audur was delighted for me."
Bett attributes the success – the last achieved by Jock Stein before his death at Ninian Park only 14 weeks later – to a certain Rous Cup rouser at Hampden three days early. "We were really buoyed by a 1-0 win over England," he says. "It might not have seemed to mean much, with the Rous Cup looked on as a couple of friendlies, but a victory over England could never be that. It gave our play an edge."
Too much of an edge, Siggi Jonsson would argue. The midfielder's leg was mashed by a gruesome challenge from Graeme Souness that now is an obligatory clip in those egregious "football's hard men" DVD compilations. "Graeme wouldn't pull out of anything and, though it looked bad, there was no malice in it," Bett says. That qualifier in Reykjavik is also notable for the fact Andy Gray earned his last cap as the result of Kenny Dalglish being otherwise engaged preparing for Liverpool's European Cup final against Juventus in Heysel the following night. As much as Bett struggles with the fact that close on 25 years have passed since his one net-bulging moment for his country, he cannot escape the rawness still felt by those in the game over the mayhem that cost 39 supporters their lives in Brussels that dreadful evening.
The loss of one life probably caused his international career to skew significantly. The Iceland win might have been the last in which he truly felt at home in the Scotland midfield. Bett vied with Paul McStay, Gordon Strachan, Roy Aitken, Davie Cooper and Souness to earn a place there. But Stein was a respecter of studied talents that allowed him to switch play and knit together passing moves with precision and intelligence.
Only days after Bett's return from Reykjavik, it was officially announced he had signed for Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen. It ended a second spell with Belgian club Lokeren – during which Belgium manager Guy Thuys expressed regret Bett was not eligible to play for him – that sandwiched three years at Rangers between 1980 and 1983 wherein his cerebral talents weren't always appreciated. Ferguson admired Bett's craft, but was reluctant to utilise it in the 1986 Mexico finals he led Scotland into as interim manager, following Stein's fatal heart attack as Scotland earned a play-off clinching 1-1 draw against Wales on September 10, 1985.
"I had so much time for big Jock, he really made me feel part of things," Bett says. "He gave me my chance for Scotland and when I was in Belgium he would ring to see how I was getting on, which I really appreciated. I'll never forget too how he treated me after we played France in Marseilles. We lost 2-0 in June 1984, a month before they won the European Championships with a great side. But he took me aside afterwards and said: 'Son, you held your own against the best tonight'. My great times with Scotland, beating Holland 2-1, Yugoslavia 6-1, were under him, playing in the middle in a 4-3-3 with Coop (Davie Cooper] in front of me.
"And my greatest regret is that after playing in all the group qualifiers, I didn't see a minute's action in the Mexico finals"
Bett's omission from the team in 1986 set the tone for his peripheral status under Andy Roxburgh. The Scotland manager never played the midfielder after he went on the razzle with Mo Johnston on the night of the criminal Costa Rica defeat in Italia '90. Following those World Cup finals, at the age of only 31, he asked not to be considered for selection.
"I really didn't enjoy playing wide, which was where I tended to be used with Paul (McStay] in the centre," he says. "I wanted to get on the ball all the time but out wide you have to depend on other people passing to you. I didn't like that. But I am proud to have played so many games for Scotland during an era when a cap was really something when you think about who you were in competition with."
Scotland and Iceland do not compete for his football affections. Bett knows the Icelandic scene through keeping tabs on son Baldur's career at Valur, where he is poised to earn a fourth championship medal, and his other footballing son Calum's efforts with HK.
"Iceland are a strictly average international side, have no chance of qualifying and every chance of finishing last in the section," he says. "Strangely, though, they might be more dangerous on Wednesday than they were when Scotland played them in 2002. Then they were favourites to win and that was a big game for them, being beamed live on Sky across Europe. They couldn't handle that pressure, but there is no pressure on them this week. They still play everything through (Ediur] Gudjohnsen but, though they have a trio of Premiership players and half a dozen who play at a good level in Scandinavia, Scotland should have a better class of performer."
Bett didn't perhaps enjoy the career his talents warranted. He feels he may have been a man out of time. "When I went to Rangers, I thought I had a good chance to be a league winner," he says. "But the club was going through a transition period and weren't spending any money. I had a couple of offers to go back after Graeme Souness started to splash it around, but I was settled in Aberdeen."
Following a season coaching and playing for Reykjavik in 1994, he was tempted back to Scotland by Hearts manager Tommy McLean, despite having decided to retire. "I had problems with my cartilage but wee Tommy was persuasive and wouldn't take no for an answer," he says. "I recovered my fitness under him and really enjoyed my eight months at Tynecastle."
He then helped Dundee United earn promotion with a 10-game cameo the following season, before injuries ended his active interest in the game. Apart from coaching youngsters at Aberdeen a couple of years back, he has since satisfied himself merely watching games and . managing a series of properties. His properties as a footballer, meanwhile, might have been better suited to the way the game is now played in his homeland.
"Two decades ago, punters didn't always have the patience for midfielders who were willing to take their time and slow the play down to look for openings," he says. "But the foreign influence means fans are now more understanding of that style."
If he goes through with selling up his Aberdeen home, Scotland will soon be a foreign land to Bett. But never in his head. That would cut no ice.
The full article contains 1466 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
