Former Scotland international attacker Colin Stein has challenged Steven Fletcher to score four times in one game after watching the forward become the first Scotland player since 1969 to net a hat-trick.
Stein, pictured below, has waited 46 years for his scoring feat to be matched and was surprised it had taken so long for the Tartan Army to witness another three-goal salvo.
As a passionate supporter of the national team, the 67-year-old was pleased to finally see another hat-trick racked up by someone in dark blue as Fletcher helped Gordon Strachan’s outfit to a comfortable 6-1 victory against Gibraltar.
Having actually netted four times in the 8-0 victory against Cyprus at Hampden in the country’s World Cup qualifier in May 1969, Stein has jokingly thrown down the gauntlet to the current crop of Scotland players to try to match his incredible achievement.
He said: “I’m surprised it’s taken this long for a Scotland player to score another hat-trick – 46 years is a long time.
“But I’m delighted for Steven. Gibraltar weren’t a great team, but neither were Cyprus at the time.
“It doesn’t matter who the opposition are, it’s a great achievement to score three goals for your country.
“Teams still have to make the chances and score the goals, and that’s not always as easy as it seems.
“If you had said to me back in 1969 that it would be another 46 years until there was another hat-trick for Scotland I would have been very surprised, to say the least.
“The longer it goes on, it’s unbelievable, really. Scotland play a lot more games than they used to when I played, so there have been a lot of chances for someone else to do it.
“And they’ve played teams such as San Marino a couple of times along the way.
“They’ve been the whipping boys of international football and it’s still not happened.
“But it’s arrived now, so Steven Fletcher’s next challenge is to score four like I did.”
Stein expected his hat-trick record would have been matched on plenty of occasions through the decades but admits to wondering whether Sunday’s Euro 2016 qualifier would finally be the occasion when the goals would flow freely enough for history to be made. He added: “I did think going into the game it might be one where someone could score a hat-trick.
“Gibraltar had been getting beaten heavily from the other teams in the group.
“That doesn’t give anyone the right to expect to score a hat-trick, though, it’s still got to be done.
“Having said that, Scotland still have to play Gibraltar again away from home, so they’ll have another chance to get another one.”
Stein, who scored nine times in 21 international appearances, considers himself lucky to have been team-mates of some of the greats of Scottish football during a golden era for the national game.
Eddie Gray, Willie Henderson, Billy McNeill and Tommy Gemmell notched the other goals against Cyprus nearly half a century ago, while the likes of captain Billy Bremner, Alan Gilzean and John Greig ensured the country was not short of quality players.
And the former Rangers and Hibernian player is hopeful Fletcher’s hat-trick, the first time the 28-year-old has scored at international level since his only previous goal against Iceland in 2009, can help give the current side’s hopes of qualifying for France next year a boost ahead of the trip to face the Republic of Ireland in Dublin in June.
Stein added: “Scotland are playing well at the moment under Gordon Strachan, certainly a lot better than they did with Craig Levein.
“I think Gordon has put a smile back on the players’ faces and the supporters are getting right behind them – that makes a big difference for any national team or any team.
“The hat-trick will be good for Fletcher, because he seems to have been struggling a wee bit in front of goal.
“Confidence is a big thing for attackers and scoring three will do him a lot of good because he’s always had the ability to lead the line – he’s a good player, with a very good left peg.
“I always watch Scotland and it’s good to see the way things are going.
“It will be a cracking game in the next game against Ireland.
“I watched the second-half of their game and the atmosphere was electric over in Dublin on Sunday night, and it ended up a good result for us.
“That will be a big game because it was a hard game in Glasgow.
“If they can get a result out of that one, with a couple of really interesting matches against Germany and Poland to come, it would take them a long way towards qualification.”