ARCHIE GEMMILL is remembered mostly by the Tartan Army for his fantastic goal against Holland during the 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina, but he has another claim to fame that is not as well known…

JAMES (Paisley) – Archie Gemmill is obviously remembered for scoring one of the greatest goals in the World Cup Finals in Argentina 1978. My St Mirren supporting friend tells me he can also lay claim to being the first substitute in Scottish football after they were officially authorised by the Scottish League in 1966. Is this correct?

The first matches played under the new substituting rules for competitive games were the opening League Cup ties on August 13, 1966.

Records show 10 substitutes were used in six of the matches and the unfortunate Jim Clunie of St Mirren was the first to be replaced through injury by Archie Gemmill in the match against Clyde at Shawfield.

CRAIG (Clarkston) – When did John Little join Rangers and how many caps did he obtain playing for Scotland?

John joined Rangers from Queen’s Park in 1951 and made 275 appearances for the club until he moved to Morton in 1962.

He was Canadian by birth and one of the few players capped by Scotland who was not born here.

The only appearance he had for Scotland was against Sweden in 1953 in a 2-1 loss at Hampden.

On retirement from football he became a qualified physical education teacher.

J. GARRITY (Greenock) – Have you heard of any unusual or surprising differences about lengths and widths of football pitches, as compared to our UK rules? I am thinking of all the teams in the Champions League and countries in the World Cup. Are we all using and playing under uniform pitches or are there marked differences? Does that include the ball, ie weight and size, throughout the world?

Based on Fifa rules for International matches, dimensions of fields are: a minimum length of 100 metres and a maximum length of 110 metres.

The minimum width must be 64 metres with a maximum width of 75 metres.

In Scotland our pitch dimensions rules are: minimum length 90 metres with a maximum of 120 metres.

The minimum width must be 45 metres with a maximum of 90 metres.

In the English Premiership, for example, you have a wide variation in pitch sizes.

Manchester City’s pitch covers 8932 square yards whereas West Ham’s pitch is only 7700 square yards.

In the adult game, size 5 balls are used and they must weigh between 410-450 grams.