The incredible story behind Scottish student's iconic £2m Azteca photo - and why Erling Haaland is texting him

Although only 20-years-old and studying for a degree in business studies at Edinburgh University, he was aware that what lay ahead would amount to the biggest day of his life to date. He just didn't know how significant.

What do you call a Scotsman at the World Cup final? At this particular World Cup final, you call him David Eric Yarrow, “the fourth son of a Glasgow business in trouble”, as he puts it.

The well-known Yarrow Shipbuilders firm had hit hard times by the mid-1980s. Yarrow leaned towards art and, like any other enterprising student with a gift for the gab, had a thirst for adventure.

What set him apart was having media accreditation to cover the World Cup in Mexico, giving him access to any game he wanted. “It wouldn’t happen now,” says Yarrow, who turned 60 in February.

He had started covering Premier Division matches for the beloved, if short-lived, Scottish Football Today magazine. “I went over to Mexico on a wing and a prayer but with a letter from Scottish Football Today saying I was their photographer,” he explains. “I know Ernie Walker (Scottish Football Association secretary) put in a good word. The next thing I knew I had this press pass.”

Yarrow walked in the footsteps of the football greats, including perhaps the greatest of all greats. In an unspoken arrangement with Diego Maradona, who looked straight down Yarrow’s camera lens while holding the World Cup aloft in his right hand, he created something that has stood the test of time.

Few sporting photographs before or afterwards have captured a moment in such depth. Amid several thousand faces, Maradona is refulgent. The detail is extraordinary. The outline of the legend’s rib cage can be seen protruding from his shirt. A clue to the scoreline – Argentina 3, West Germany 2 – is glimpsed over his left shoulder. “There is even a Scottish flag in it!” notes Yarrow.

It is perfect. Maradona even looks like he is warmly hailing the student, as if they’d grown up together in a Buenos Aires slum. Every time you look at it, a new element jumps out.

The fact Maradona is extending his left hand towards Yarrow recently caught my eye. A coincidence? Or is it intentional, because that is the hand with which he scored the infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal against England ’keeper Peter Shilton seven days earlier? You can never know with Maradona.

It might be hard to believe now, or maybe not, but the World Cup final kicked-off at 12pm local time. “If you have a game played at midday in Mexico the sun is right above you,” Yarrow recalls. “That makes photographing, certainly in those days, very difficult because the players’ faces are in shade. It was a harsh light. At the final whistle, when everyone was on the pitch, the light was less harsh than it might otherwise have been. There is a symmetry to that picture….The way the stadium frames it. The whole thing has a biblical grandeur to it.”

He was working in colour, which he is glad about. “It is very difficult to photograph that Argentinian shirt in black and white. Some football pictures….I mean, England you can photograph in black and white. But that light blue of the Argentina shirt, you need it in colour…”

Four decades later, with the Azteca set to be centre stage again in the early hours of Monday morning when England face Mexico in a last-16 fixture at the current tournament, Yarrow’s memories remain as vivid as ever.

They have certainly not faded like those impressions left in the dewy turf on the morning of the World Cup final, when he had the chutzpah to bribe a Mexican security guard. A flask of whisky got him early entry into Estadio Azteca to mark his territory - his preferred position was ten yards inside the corner flag. In reality, he couldn’t sleep and wanted to leave his flea-bitten accommodation as quickly as possible.

How Yarrow got his golden ticket

All other Scottish photographers had gone home, with Scotland having made their customary early exit. He therefore had a golden ticket for the final.

“Fifa had a rule than that if your country had qualified for the tournament, one of your photographers was allowed on the pitch, irrespective if you had been knocked out,” he explains. “Because the other Scottish guys had all gone home, and The Scotsman, Daily Record etc were all getting their pictures through AP or Reuters or Allsport, I was given a pitch pass. I was so excited about that. I was also staying in fairly basic accommodation – my room cost about $5 a night. The water from the showers disappeared through a crack from the earthquake six months beforehand. I couldn’t sleep. I was also very excited.

“I got to the stadium at 6 o’clock in the morning. Security in Mexico in 1986 was not like now – I bribed the guard with whisky to let me into the stadium.

“I walked from one goal to the other at 6.30 in the morning – there was a lot of dew, I could see my footprints in the grass. It was an epiphany. I knew then this was the biggest day of my life. Although I didn’t know the enormity of what would unfold…”

Argentina scored first with a header from centre-half Jose Luis Brown, who ran towards Yarrow as he celebrated. “So I already had a good picture in the can,” he recalls. Four more goals followed, Jorge Burrachaga scoring Argentina’s winner with six minutes left. Chaos ensued at the final whistle. Yarrow had to think on his feet.

“I had two cameras – one with a wide-angle lens on it and I had one with a 400mm 2.8 big telephoto (lens),” he recalls. “You could hire your gear from Nikon. I could not afford a 400 2.8 when I was a student, so I borrowed it from Nikon. In every stadium Nikon and Canon had facilities for photographers, because they were both sponsors. I remember leaving the 400 long lens in the net behind the goal that Argentina had just scored the winner in.

"Of course, thousands of Argentinians came on the pitch. Everything happened so quickly. I could see how this was going to unfold. I was leaner and fitter than I am now, but I remember thinking that in order to get close to Maradona I cannot have another camera lens to carry, so l left it in the net….”

Amazingly, it was still there when he returned, after securing his literal trophy shot - or so he desperately hoped. “I thought I had a picture but in 1986 there was no immediacy, it was still film,” he says. “You had to wait two-and-a-half hours…” He spent the time waiting for his photos to be developed sitting sweating on a loo. “I had been in Mexico for three-and-a-half-weeks, since the Scotland v West Germany game, which was the first game I covered.

“I had had no trouble with what they called the ‘Aztec two-step’, which is when you get tummy problems and you have to be within two steps of the toilet. It can be vicious out there. I had been fine and then after the final whistle, it just hit me…”

What came out – so to speak – knocked everyone out. “The press corps can be quite collegiate at times, they were all looking to see who had THAT picture. Lo and behold, it was me!” The lens he had used cost less than £100. It’s something he tells budding photographers to this day. It’s not always about the equipment.

Although he missed the deadline for the Times, for whom he had a loose freelance arrangement, World Soccer used the photograph on their front cover the following month. Yarrow was already back in Edinburgh preparing to resume his studies. He parked dreams of becoming a professional photographer to pursue a steadier career as an investment banker, launching his own hedge fund in the mid-1990s. He sold the fund in 2014 to belatedly follow his passion for fine art photography.

The influential and exclusive Holden Luntz Gallery, founded in Miami, represents the best creators of vintage and contemporary American and European photography. Many of them are now dead. Out of the nine living photographers on their books, three are Scottish – Harry Benson, Albert Watson and Yarrow.

“Scotland punches above its weight in that particular craft,” says Yarrow. In his case, it all comes back to Maradona, nearly 40 years ago to the day.

“The other story I always tell about this picture is that when the Maradona film (by Asif Kapadia) came out about seven years ago, I was watching it on a flight to Los Angeles,” he adds. “My career has now developed. I have a studio in LA, I can fly front of the plane, all that kind of stuff.

“I was watching this movie. We were somewhere over Greenland and my picture comes up halfway through the movie. I had no one to tell! I pressed the button for the stewardess and she comes over. I said: ‘That’s my picture! That’s my picture!’ I had to tell someone.”

Just over three weeks ago at a charity night in Boston, an exclusive print of the same picture sold at an auction for £65,000. It is believed to be the third best-selling sports image of all time.

A more meaningful measure is the impact it has directly had on people’s lives. Yarrow estimates the shot has earned over £2 million for charities, including Street Soccer Scotland.

This social enterprise, the brainchild of the estimable David Duke, was the principal beneficiary of One More Party, the glitzy, celebrity-packed “Scottish night in Boston” event on the eve of Scotland’s World Cup campaign. Organised by the Yarrow Foundation, the evening raised over £1 million.

Yarrow himself was on stage, his shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel on a hot night in the Royale, a nightclub/concert venue in the theatre district. A ball of energy, he whipped up enthusiasm, not that it required much whipping up.

As well as Gerard Butler, the likes of Martin Compston and Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd were in attendance. Clare Grogan and Altered Images later provided the entertainment.

Yarrow is now safely ensconced back in his Devon home, engaged in nothing more creative, he says, than “doing the gardening”. It’s been a head-spinning few weeks. In addition to being the man behind the lens for several Adidas World Cup-associated campaigns, Yarrow took the striking Norway squad photograph in front of Viking longships that created waves on social media before the tournament kicked off after the Norwegian Football Federation approached him.

“They could not have been better to work with,” he says. “I pitched the idea to them. I said it has to be Viking-themed.”

They understood and braced themselves for an online backlash, which duly arrived. “They knew there would be one per cent of people who would see a photograph of footballers dressed up as Vikings from 1000 years ago as potentially having an anti-immigration message. Immigration is a big issue in Norway, as it is here. Of course, one or two people objected. But what I love about the Norwegians is that they just give it back and say, ‘let’s celebrate our heritage!’ Are we really at a stage where we can’t celebrate our past? Now it’s been emphatically endorsed.”

The players certainly seemed happy. He received a text as recently as Wednesday from Erling Haaland, who had the previous day scored the winner v Ivory Coast to set up a last-16 clash with Brazil. “He is such a funny guy,” says Yarrow. “I texted him back. I told him it’s never been a better time to be Norwegian thanks to you.”

They are who Yarrow is supporting now Scotland are out, although his Norwegian assignment does beg the question – could he not have done something similarly striking for Scotland? He says he contacted the SFA but received no reply. Another opportunity wasted, the story of Scotland at World Cups.

“If you are a lover of football and you looked at the teams above Scotland in that third-place table, where we fell and fell and fell…. I do understand why the football world might have preferred for Scotland not to have been one of those top eight teams,” reflects Yarrow. “Because we did not add enough. Our fans certainly did but that is a separate matter.

“Fifa should give an award to the best fans at the World Cup,” he continues. “I think we’d be up there. The Dutch did great, the Norwegians, but we’d be right up there. The Best Supporters at the World Cup. I think we’d deserve that.” And the best photographers.