In step with Archie's wonder goal

Archie Gemmill performs his own goal-cracker suite

The goal revered by Scottish football fans as the greatest of all time is to be immortalised as a modern dance.

Archie Gemmill's solo effort against Holland in the 1978 World Cup finals will be celebrated in a modern dance sequence performed by 200 children at Hampden Park, in Glasgow.

The dancers will recreate Gemmill's feints, his turns, his composed finish and the celebratory punch of the air as he sees the ball hit the net.

The diminutive midfielder's balletic moves have been choreographed as a tribute to his 15-second exhibition of 'total football' which illuminated the tournament in Argentina.

Archie Gemmill: 15 seconds of 'total football'

Andy Howitt, artistic director of the Scottish Youth Dance Company, said he hopes to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the goal in June by staging a "dance the goal" event.

He wants 200 schoolchildren to perform the dance at Scotland's National Stadium.

He said: "This goal is helping get hundreds and hundreds of young men who would never think of dance and movement. It's a vehicle".

The movements in Gemmill's goal were translated into a dance using a transcription system called Labanotation and will be published in a book later this year.

Archie Gemmill, now a scout with Derby County, welcomed the concept of his goal being transformed into a dance routine.

The dance is to be performed at Hampden Park

He said: "It's very strange that a goal in football can attract so much attention.

"It's very pleasurable that people are still talking about it 23 years on.

"To be doing it by dance is a great compliment to me and the goal."

Mr Howitt and his collaborator, publisher Alec Finlay, also plan to devise a dance based on Michael Owen's wonder goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup in France.

Archie Gemmill won 43 Scottish caps in his career and played for Derby, Birmingham City and Nottingham Forest.

Scotland beat Holland, the eventual runners-up, 3-2 during the final group match in the 1978 tournament.

But despite the wonder goal, Ally MacLeod's Tartan army were still eliminated having earlier been beaten by Peru and having drawn with Iran.