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It seems curious that despite Jinky's undenied brilliance – which caused him to be voted the Greatest Celt Ever by the fans – he only ever received 23 Scotland caps. Perhaps this is not the place to speculate about the reason for this.
His most famous performance was arguably in a 2-0 defeat of England at Hampden, where he ran captain Emlyn Hughes ragged. He said afterwards " "Scotland beat us 2-0 one year, and I was embarrassed to come off the pitch. Jimmy Johnstone absolutely crucified me. Alf Ramsey came up and said 'you've just played against a world-class player today. He can do that to anybody'".
And when did this match happen? Just days after the infamous "Largs Boat Incident", in which while on Scotland duty, a drunken Johnstone set sail in a rowing boat with no oars at the Largs retreat, and had to be rescued by the coast guard. On his return, he said, with his usual dry wit,"Don't know what all the fuss is about – I thought I'd go fishing!"
Interestingly, Sardine Jardine, the then captain of Rangers, claimed to have helped push the boat further out to sea. "Doing my bit for Rangers," as he put it.
Nonetheless, Jinky's dearth of caps is viewed by some as eidence of the SFA not always acting in the best interests of the Scotland team.
