Steven Caldwell opens up on shocking results in Norway, explosive Roy Keane encounters and playing for Scotland with brother Gary

In the Canadian horror movie Dead of Winter, John Carew looks like he might be dead. Put it this way, he should be dead – there are two arrows embedded in his chest. Then his eyes open and he looms large once more. Maybe only a Scottish football audience is not in the least bit surprised about this.

Scotland duo Gary Caldwell (left) and Steven Caldwell during the 4-0 defeat by Norway in Oslo in 2009.

The film was released in 2014 when Carew was into his second career as an actor, a switch which would bring him a role alongside Angelina Jolie. We remember, though, how he used to be the big guy up front for Norway – and was rarely more effective than in a match against us at Oslo’s Ullevaal Stadion five years previously. Just as two arrows couldn’t stop him, neither could two Caldwells.

Now, Steven Caldwell has made it to Canada too, and having stayed with football and become a pundit, he’s eagerly looking forward to Lionel Messi’s arrival in the MLS, hoping that he might get to “call” the megastar’s first game. Sorry, mate, but that’s not what the Saturday Interview wants to speak to you about. Tell us how it ended up Norway 4, Scotland 0.

“Ouch!” he says via Zoom. “That should be a good memory. If Scotland had won we would have stayed in contention for the World Cup. And it might have been a special game for our family because myself and Gary had been picked to start for our country for only the second time. But we just couldn’t handle Carew.”

Actually the records show that the brothers did handle the steepling striker. Gary was sent off just after the half-hour mark – his second booking in two minutes – for hauling him back. And when Steven was yellow-carded right after the re-start for grabbing a handful of Carew’s shirt the senior Caldwell was quickly substituted. That thumping defeat pretty much ended Scotland’s hopes under manager George Burley of a playoff place for South Africa and – a familiar feeling during the siblings’ national service – we were left on the outside of the 2010 tournament looking in.

It seems like an opportune moment to be catching up with Caldwell, 42, in his adopted home city of Toronto. Burnley have just been restored to England’s Premier League, replacing Leeds United, while Newcastle United are returning to the Champions League. Our man played for all three, and had identical experiences.

And of course this evening Scotland are back in the Ullevaal.

It’s another crucial qualifier, this time for the Euros, with the threat coming from another tribute to strong Norwegian bones and a super-healthy lifestyle. Even those most sunnily optimistic foot-soldiers in the Tartan Army must be hoping that in the countdown to kick-off, a Hollywood studio unveils the newly-retired Erling Haaland as the star of the next comic book-inspired blockbuster franchise.

Caldwell laughs when I suggest, only half-jokingly, that this is our only hope. So how apprehensive would he be, squaring up to Manchester City’s force of nature?

“Do you know, I’d relish it. Like I did all my challenges. A footballer, when he’s matching himself against the best of the best, has got to do that. I was playing for Leeds when [Arsenal’s] Thierry Henry scored four. Folk have said to me: ‘God, that must have been embarrassing.’ Now, I could talk to you for half an hour about what the guy was like that day and I still wouldn’t be able to do the performance justice. He was out of this world and I was hanging on for dear life. Afterwards, we were in shock. Then our manager – the great Scotsman, Eddie Gray – said: ‘Do you know, lads, we didn’t actually play too badly.’ He was right.

“Haaland is obviously absolutely blood formidable. Exceptional in his power and pace. He’s going to terrorise teams for the next decade but right now he’s still at the stage where for one or two games out of ten nothing happens for him. Scotland can’t be afraid.

“Gary and I weren’t afraid of John Carew. I’d already played against him when he was at Aston Villa. I can’t remember what our tactics were that night, which of us was going to try and mark him. Or was it both, with Gary taking one leg and me the other? Anyway: didnae work! That was David Marshall’s competitive debut for Scotland. I felt sorry for Marsh with the defence in front of him crumbling like that. So years later when he saved that penalty [against Serbia] to send us to the Euros I was delighted. After a difficult start for Scotland he deserved that moment.”

The last statement says something about Caldwell and his commitment to both the team ethic and his country. He was never the best player to pull on the Scotland jersey but he always turned up. He won just 12 caps but was part of around 30 additional squads resulting in no further rewards. Twice there were gaps of more than a year between his selections and that Norway qualifier came after a three-year absence from the team. Just 12 caps, but he endured when over the period four different Scotland bosses didn’t.

This is a proud patriot. Though Toronto has been his home for ten years, the first thing visitors see when walking through the front door is a print of the Wallace Monument. He retains the accent despite efforts to soften it. “I’m pleased you think I still sound Scottish because I love where I’m from. But when I started with [sports network] TSN no one could understand me. I was sent to a speech therapist which got me worried I might lose my accent. The coach was a lovely woman who taught me a lot about performance but when she tried to tweak words and get me to say ‘Pree-mier League’ I decided: ‘Let’s just shake hands and move on.’”

Back in the old country, Stirling was where the Caldwell boys began sharing the dark blue dream. “We were pretty obsessed with football. And dedicated. Here in Toronto they’re into kids having a multi-sports outlook. I get that, and Gary and I when we were growing up might have tried tennis during Wimbledon, but to be successful as a footballer you’ve got to kick a ball a million times and that’s what we did.” Though these two didn’t know it, there hadn’t been a set of brothers play together in the national team since Jock and David Shaw back in 1946. For Steven, having the kid alongside him was the all-time career high.

He thanks his parents, Tom and Marylynn, for believing in their sons. In his case, that meant being ferried through to Edinburgh three times a week for training and matches with renowned nursery Hutchie Vale. From there, aged 16, he joined Newcastle. “That was tough. I was a real homebody and missed the family,” says Caldwell, who also has a younger sister, Jennifer. “And then Gary came down to the club. We’ve always been extremely close. Now and again there might be a wee difference of opinion between us, lively discussion and never anything major, and I always find it strange and a bit sad when I hear about brothers who don’t get along with each other or if that’s the basis for a film.

“We were competitive but I never once said to myself: ‘Crikey he’s getting good, he might end up better than me.’ The way our family works is we always want to win – silly games at Christmas and the like – but there’s never any jealousy. Gary achieved everything I did, a little bit sooner too. He did end up surpassing me but I couldn’t be more proud of him. And when he scored that goal against France [Hampden, 2006, another Euros qualifier] I was with our mum and dad in the stand cheering like mad because he’d become the hero of all Scotland.”

Caldwell’s first boss was one of the best - Bobby Robson. “A great manager, a great man, and I was this impetuous kid who wanted to play every week so we had a few disagreements. He could rev up the hairdryer but he also said the right things, the inspiring things, at the moment when they would have the most impact. I think about him a lot and how he helped me lead as a captain and in my role now.”

That debut in black and white stripes came right after his 20th birthday against Man City’s totemic striker of the day, George Weah. “City had a romance about them back then, and the game was at Maine Road, a great old stadium. I’d watched George on Football Italia just a few years before, charging the length of the field for AC Milan, but I did okay against him. [Alan] Shearer scored as he usually did and we won. Remembering the bus journey back to Newcastle is making the hair on the back of my neck tingle. I’d done it, achieved what I wanted so badly. I was a professional footballer. I’d played in the Premier League. I was going to be on Match of the Day that night. Then I thought: ‘Oh no, I’m going to have to do this all again next week!’ It takes time for young footballers to figure everything out.”

Caldwell didn’t get those repeat opportunities often enough for his liking and he crossed the north-east divide to Sunderland. “Maybe I wouldn’t have made that move if I was a local lad but the manager was Mick McCarthy who I thought would be tough on centre-backs which was what I needed at the time. I knew the basics but I was naive. Mick would teach me how to become a hardened pro.” There were great moments, such as when he scored the goal which returned the Black Cats to the Premier – not Pree-mier – League but rather fewer of them after McCarthy was replaced by Roy Keane.

“We didn't have a great relationship. I was captain when he arrived but injured, which was awkward. I came back and got injured again. My contract was running down. There was no new offer so my agent started looking around for me and Roy came out with derogatory stuff about my commitment.

"You know, as a manager he said things which made real, great sense. But sometimes the red mist would tumble over his eyes, he'd become incoherent and a bit sensational. That's what he's like as a pundit now, which is very entertaining, and I think he's better suited to that gig."

Caldwell was better suited to Burnley, to Owen Coyle as a manager, and season 2008-09 with two stirring cup runs, 67 games and the club’s promotion back to the top flight after 33 years was “the best of times”. Next came Wigan Athletic then Birmingham City, his last move where football had been the driver, for the flight to Toronto FC was Caldwell putting family first – wife Angela and sons Will and Robbie. The marriage has not survived and he’s now with his Mexican girlfriend Kimberley, and even though there are no plans to move back to Scotland, he’ll be tuning into Oslo and hoping his successors have better luck.

At club level, it was with Wigan that the brothers eventually walked out onto the park side by side for the first time, though the memory of a game where Gary took a blow to the face, fracturing a cheekbone, still makes Caldwell wince. “I was more worried about Gary’s health because he kept playing than winning the match. Strange as it might sound, as a professional footballer that seemed wrong. I decided after that it would be better if we were in different places.”

But, if this doesn’t seem like a contradiction, he wouldn’t swap the pair of them with thistles on the breast for anything. “I’m proud of all my 12 caps and the game where, with just a few minutes left, Kenny Miller, who was being substituted, handed me the captain’s armband – and I’ve kept it as one of my most treasured possessions. Gary and I played for all the Scotland underage sides together and eventually there was a bit of hype that we might line up for the senior team. There was the time when Gary came off, I replaced him and we were like: ‘So close!’ Then, next game away to Moldova [2006 World Cup qualifier, 1-1 draw], it finally happened. That was another poor result. Berti Vogts was the manager and while the players took some abuse at the airport, he got by far the worst of it. That wasn’t the moment to reflect on me and my little brother having played for our country together but I did later and still do now. It seemed unimaginable. It was the ultimate.”