Since Scotland's first international association football match on 30 November 1872, [1] 34 players have scored three goals (a hat trick) or more in a game. The first player to do so was John McDougall, [2] [3] in a match against England on 2 May 1878. [1] The most goals scored by a single player in a match is five, scored by Hughie Gallacher in a 1928–29 British Home Championship match against Ireland on 23 February 1929 [4] [5] and Joe Harper in a friendly against a Canada Olympic team on 13 June 1967, [6] although some reports credit at least one of their goals to other players. [7] [8] Denis Law is the only player to have scored four goals in a single match more than once. Robert Smyth McColl, Gallacher and Law are tied for the most hat tricks for Scotland's international team, with three hat tricks each.
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The most recent player to score a hat-trick for Scotland was Ché Adams, in a friendly against Liechtenstein on 9 June 2025. [9] Steven Fletcher (twice), Robert Snodgrass, James Forrest and John McGinn [10] and Adams have all scored hat tricks for Scotland since 2015. [11] [12] [13] [14] [10] The first of those ended a long wait for a Scotland hat-trick dating back to 17 May 1969, when Colin Stein scored four goals in the 8–0 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifying win over Cyprus. [11] [15]
Scotland have conceded eight hat-tricks in total, with the first scored by England's Fred Spiksley in 1893 – this does not appear in all records, with the last goal of a 5–2 scoreline being mistakenly attributed to Jack Reynolds for some time. [16] The second instance, 62 years later, featuring four goals by Dennis Wilshaw of England on 2 April 1955 in a 1954–55 British Home Championship match, [17] remains the highest individual player total for either team in the fixture and the only occasion an opposing player has scored four times in a match.
Nico Claesen of Belgium was the first player from outside the Home Nations to score a hat trick against Scotland, in the UEFA Euro 1988 qualifying match on 1 April 1987. [18] Scotland had only conceded five hat tricks until the 2003–04 season when the feat was achieved against them in successive matches, first by Ruud van Nistelrooy for the Netherlands in a UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying playoff match against them, and then by Robert Earnshaw for Wales in a friendly. [19] The most recent hat trick conceded by Scotland was in May 2012, when Landon Donovan scored three times in a 5–1 win for the United States in a friendly. [20]
