'I got away with it': Angus Gunn relives his Scotland fright despite a perfect day

Angus Gunn made his debut for Scotland and kept a clean sheet.

It was, though, a day that produced one almighty fright for debutant keeper Angus Gunn. As the 27-year-old Norwich City no.1 readily admitted as he relived his slip in dealing with a seemingly inconsequential through ball around the half-hour mark. A calamitous outcome averted by Gunn falling on the ball as it threatened to roll behind him. “There were quite a lot of players slipping today and that was a bit of a worry when it happened,” he said. “Luckily, I looked down and it was between my legs so I got away with that one. Time slowed down a little bit. I was delighted to see the ball there. After that I was even more concentrated on my footing and making sure my balance was right.”

Gunn’s introduction to the Scotland fold this week could pave the way for him to cement himself as the No 1 for the nation of his father, Bryan Gunn, who earned six caps in the 1990s. That is the opportunity afforded by 40-year-old Craig Gordon’s being sidelined for the season by a double leg-break. The opportunity that has opened up for Gunn isn’t lost on him. “Yeah I think so,” he said when asked if the shirt was now his to lose. “You have to take it squad by squad and game by game. You have to keep the form up for club and take care of that. It’s a really good start today - 3-0 win, clean sheet and we move onto Spain now. But I’ve not thought too much about the future, to be honest. I came in this week and had never met some of the lads before so I was just trying to fit in there and push myself.”

A scenario that followed his father pushing him towards his home country, the keeper initially declining the invitation to join Steve Clarke’s set-up after he became Scotland manager in May 2019. “My family are really proud,” he said. “They’ve all come down today to see it and that’s probably one of the biggest things for me – to make my family proud. The fact I have done that today means a lot. Obviously I grew up in England and the way it happened when I was growing up I was in the academy there and through the age groups so it was natural.

“Dad has always mentioned Scotland. Probably more jokingly pushed it on me. But in the last few years I’ve not played enough regular football to warrant an international call-up. So the fact I have taken care of my performances for Norwich gave me the opportunity to make this decision. I’m really happy that I did.

“I only found out I was playing on Saturday morning, the manager left it quite late. We’d had a really good week of training and all three keepers pushed each other very hard, so the manager said he had a difficult decision to make. So he told us in the morning and I was delighted to hear it would be me.

“I was calm this morning waiting to find out, it was more on Friday night I didn’t sleep much … Once you have the training week out of the way you’ve done all you can to get into the team and it’s up to the manager after that. I was able to let my family know but wasn’t able to speak to anyone. The day was perfect really, we’re here at Hampden with all of them watching.”