Alan Rough: I never asked for more money

Alan Rough played 53 times for Scotland

Alan Rough was one of Scotland's best ever goalkeepers, playing for the national team in two World Cup tournaments, but his fame never brought him fortune.

The 71-year-old, who stayed with Partick Thistle for 13 seasons, told the BBC's Stark Talk he was never motivated by money.

Maybe it was the fact that he almost lost his arm at the age of 10 that made him feel lucky to just be in the game at all.

Rough told Edi Stark he was climbing on a discarded door at a rubbish tip near his home in Maryhill in Glasgow when he slipped and the hinges on the door took away half his hand, right through to the bone.

"I remember the doctor coming in and saying to my dad 'there is too much damage there, we can't save it. We have to take his arm off'," Rough says.

"Another doctor appeared and said 'let's not be too hasty here'."

A surgeon eventually managed to stitch it back together. His arm was saved and he could return to his boyhood obsession - football.

Rough playing an international against Argentina in 1979

At the age of 15 he was spotted by Partick Thistle and went for a trial at the club where he played most of his career.

He signed a long-term contract that meant he was still earning £40 a week when he was playing for Scotland years later.

Some of his team-mates from the English leagues were on 10 times as much.

"I don't remember ever chapping the door and saying I want more money," he says.

"You were privileged enough to live a life you had wanted as a young boy, playing football every day.

"My biggest kick was that I played for a small provincial club and I'd be standing there for Scotland with Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish of Liverpool and Gordon McQueen of Man United, big big clubs."

Rough himself never asked to move clubs.

When Partick beat Celtic 4-1 in the 1971 League Cup final at Hampden, 19-year-old Rough was immediately the target of a £60,000 transfer from Hull City, big money in those days.

One of Rough's final Scotland games against England in 1986

His manager told him to hold on because there would be better offers.

"I kept hanging on in there for 13 years," he says. "But then you didn't have agents. If someone phoned up and said 'I'd like to buy your goalkeeper', you never found out about it."

There were rumours of offers from Liverpool and Man City among many others.

Despite his lack of financial reward, Rough had a successful career in which he won 53 caps for Scotland.

He was chosen to play for his country by four different managers so they must have seen something in him, he says.

In 1978 he was the Scotland keeper for the World Cup campaign in Argentina which began with euphoria and ended in ignominy.

Rough remembers the team having an open-top bus going round Hampden the night before they left for the competition.

"I think there was about 20,000 supporters in Hampden just to say cheerio to us," he says.

"There wasn't 20,000 cheering us when we came back."

The team did not perform well and Rough describes the 1-1 draw with Iran as "embarrassing".

He says manager Ally MacLeod took the strain on himself and Rough got up one morning to find him on a bench in the foetal position.

Rough himself says he never let failure get to him and played in the World Cup again in Spain in 1982.

He was also in the squad in 1986 and took part in the final qualifying match in Wales at which manager Jock Stein collapsed and died.

Rough being awarded an MBE earlier this year

Scotland won the game but he says he has never experienced such silence in a dressing room as attempts were made in another room to revive the legendary manager.

After Partick, Rough played for Hibs and Orlando Lions in the US before returning to play seven games as cover for Pat Bonner at Celtic.

But after playing football for 20 years he faced financial ruin when a pub he had invested in went bust.

He lost £30,000, all the money he had earned from his testimonial game.

"I had no track record of what it was like to run a pub. I lost a lot of money," he says.

With no savings, Rough had to sell three international caps and a commemorative medal to mark his 50th appearance to pay the electricity bill.

"That just shows you how low you can get," he says.

"That was a really tough time."

Recent years have been happier for Rough who has forged a career as sports broadcast pundit.

Earlier this year he picked up an MBE for services to football and charity.

If he had the chance would he do it all again?

"I certainly would but I would make sure I was playing with Man City and getting £300,000 a week," he says.