Andy Roxburgh was a 16-year-old schoolboy on Queen’s Park’s books when Real Madrid met Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European Cup final at Hampden Park in Glasgow. With the game at their home ground, Roxburgh and the other players, including a teenage Alex Ferguson, were able to see with their own eyes one of the greatest matches of all time. Ferenc Puskaś scored four, Alfredo Di Stéfano three, as Madrid put on a masterclass to defeat the German side 7–3. Roxburgh went on to become Scotland manager and then technical director at UEFA – a position he now holds at the Asian Football Confederation – but all this time and many hundreds of matches later the memory of that final still burns brightly. As Madrid and Frankfurt prepared to meet again in the UEFA Super Cup, Roxburgh recalls the game of a lifetime.

“I was a youth player at Queen’s Park and I remember asking our groundsmen if I could get into the training session on the Tuesday night, the day before the game. Hampden Park was our home ground. So there I was on the pitch with the Real Madrid team as they’re warming up. Paco Gento is smoking a cigarette while he’s juggling a ball. And the trainer shouts, ‘Right, sprints!’ Gento is on the halfway line on the left wing. He throws his cigarette down and beats everybody by a mile. He was like an Olympic sprinter. He ran all the way back to the halfway line and picked up the cigarette and carried on. This was my introduction, up close.

“The next night I go to the match. The first thing I remember was this sea of faces. Officially there were 127,000 people there. There were no floodlights at Hampden at that time. It’s a Wednesday night, a 7:30 kick-off. It’s a May evening. It was a great night for football, perfect conditions. And you’ve got this incredible crowd. Everybody’s excited because Eintracht Frankfurt had beaten Rangers 12–4 over two legs in the semi-finals. Their reputation going into that match was sky high in Glasgow. People thought Frankfurt were from another planet. The trouble was, they didn’t realise that Real Madrid were from another universe. Real had won four titles in a row and this was going to be the fifth. I was just desperate to see Ferenc Puskás play live for the first time. He was my hero.

“Our tickets were organised by Queen’s Park in the schoolboy enclosure. It was perfect; very close to the pitch, just behind the dugout near the tunnel. I was a 16-year-old schoolboy and Alex was two years older than me. He was already a first-team player. We spoke about the game from time to time, but we never realised that Alex would end up winning that trophy twice. Out come the two teams, Real Madrid all in white. Right away that made them stand out, but Frankfurt showed their quality from the beginning and even opened the scoring. Everybody took a deep breath, going, ‘Frankfurt are a really good side.’  Then, before half an hour had gone, Real Madrid score twice. The first is an ordinary goal at the back post from Di Stéfano. For the second, the goalkeeper parries and Di Stéfano makes it 2–1. 

“Then comes the moment right on half-time. Puskás steals the ball just inside the left-hand side of the penalty box and he rifles it in with his left foot, right in the top corner. That was when the whole thing lit up. Suddenly there was this moment of magic and it was 3–1. Puskás then goes on to add a second-half hat-trick. In other words, he scored four goals in a row. The next is a penalty, which Puskás scores, and then comes the pièce de resistance… Back to Mr Gento. From a corner for Frankfurt, Madrid win the ball and counter. From the halfway line – that same bit of territory, the same bit of turf on that left-hand side near the stand – Gento runs on to the ball. His sprint is exactly the same as he did at training the night before; exactly that same straight line at full pace. But this time he races to the dead-ball line, whips it in with his left foot and Puskás heads the ball into the back of the net. And, of course, I’m thinking, ‘Is he running back to pick up his cigarette?’