Having witnessed fellow Scot Paul Lambert’s Champions League success with Borussia Dortmund, forward Scott Booth decided to embark upon an intriguing journey on the continent that eventually led to the Dutch league with three different sides.
- By David Lee Wheatley
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Booth spent nine years in the colours of hometown club Aberdeen, coming close to the Scottish Premier Division title on three occasions as runners-up during that period. However, a catalogue of injuries hampered him severely and therefore his thoughts turned to a fresh start.
An offer came in from new European champions Borussia Dortmund for the Scotland international to try his luck abroad, where comrade Lambert had just scaled glorious new heights in his own career.
It was back in the early days of the ‘Bosman’ free transfer system, which allowed players greater freedom of movement between clubs and opened exciting avenues for footballers who fancied a foreign challenge. Booth wasted no time in accepting the opportunity to perform in the Bundesliga and gladly signed for Dortmund in 1997.
Unfortunately, due to mighty competition for places and further niggles, the Aberdeen-born striker got sadly restricted to just nine league appearances, scoring a solitary goal.
Though his stay in Germany officially lasted two seasons, he spent a year of that in Holland with a pair of loan spells firstly at Utrecht and then Vitesse, introducing the Scot to a whole new set of football fans.
Regular starts with Utrecht helped Booth secure a spot in the Scotland World Cup squad of 1998, as he struck 5 goals in 14 Eredivisie matches to prove his worth to national team manager Craig Brown.
A year later, the talented forward was still struggling to get a look-in for his parent club, so returned to the Netherlands with Vitesse Arnhem. Booth notched 4 strikes in an 18-game stay and did enough to pique the interest of FC Twente, leading to a permanent move into Dutch football in the summer of 1999.
Despite a limited amount of chances at Borussia Dortmund, skillful striker Booth left Germany with an Intercontinental Cup winners’ medal safely tucked away in his back pocket. That accolade also meant he stood out as the first Scotsman in history to lift the trophy.
Booth excelled at Twente and became a firm favourite with supporters during a largely productive four-year stint. He’d finally found a second home where he featured in most games and got on the scoresheet fairly often.
The absolute high-point arrived in 2001, when underdogs Twente sensationally claimed the KNVB Cup in a penalty shoot-out win over Eindhoven giants PSV. It was only the second time in Twente’s history they’d held aloft the Dutch national cup trophy and Booth revelled in being a key protagonist of that unlikely success.
Unfortunately, it all went wrong for the organisation as a whole over the following two campaigns, as they were unceremoniously dumped out of the Dutch knockout competition early in their bid to retain that title and finished in the disappointing lower mid-table league position of 12th. It had been the team’s opening year in a new stadium, but fan protests were frequent and the ill-feeling got even worse the next season when financial meltdown ensued and Twente came extremely close to bankruptcy; all the while, Booth continued to be a revered figure with the locals.
Having seen the The Reds saved by a new owner, he went back home to Aberdeen for one last season in the serene knowledge that the future of Twente was in safe hands, before cutting short his career through injury problems aged 32.
The Scot remains a cult hero at both Aberdeen and Twente to this day and will always be remembered for his part in the Cup-winning team of 2001. A goal record of 21 in 103 games doesn’t place him among the most prolific of strikers, but his outstanding link-up play and decent ratio of a goal every five appearances made him an important member of the Twente line-up throughout a happy relationship with the Enschede side.