In focus: The famous night Raith Rovers players were name-checked by late German legend Franz Beckenbauer!

Current Northern Ireland assistant gaffer Nicholl, 67, whose Rovers underdogs had beaten opponents from the Faroe Islands and Iceland in the previous two rounds, sensationally led 1-0 at the interval in Munich on October 31, 1995, thanks to Danny Lennon’s brilliant first-half strike as they attempted to overhaul a 2-0 first-leg deficit courtesy of Jurgen Klinsmann’s double at Edinburgh’s Easter Road two weeks earlier.

Nicholl said: “The Germans were all getting a rollicking at half-time. You could hear it in the dressing room and the Raith players were getting a name-check.

“It was as if the Germans were turning round and saying ‘how can you be getting beaten 1-0 by blokes like Sinclair, Cameron and Dair? All my boys were listening for their names to get called out.

“It turned into a farce because I just said ‘listen, look at this, Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness are upstairs giving the Bayern boys a rollicking and they’re mentioning you name by name’.

“I suppose that was the best way for them to go out for the second half, all relaxed and not anxious.”

Although Raith conceded two second-half goals to Klinsmann and Markus Babbel to bow out 4-1 on aggregate, the photograph of the Olympic Stadium scoreboard at half-time emblazened with ‘FC Bayern 0-1 Raith Rovers FC’ remains the stuff of folklore in Kirkcaldy.

Nicholl said: “When I came home after that tie and people heard I hadn’t seen the scoreboard on the night, they were sending me all these pictures of it.

“I got a full-blown picture of it from the Novar Bar and I had to go down and receive it. It was only then that I thought ‘jeez, look at that’.

“If you look back, you think it was just nonsensical – what was all that about?

“It was a generational thing. I don’t think it will ever happen again because it was when the league cup winners represented Scotland in Europe.

“Bayern Munich, who had guys like Jurgen Klinsmann and Jean-Pierre Papin, went on to win the UEFA Cup that season and the least amount of goals they scored against any opposition over two legs was against Raith.

“All the European ties were great nights, and coming home from those games, the supporters in the airport, everybody having a beer and singing, that was great.

“It's a bit like Aberdeen. When I was at Aberdeen with Jimmy Calderwood and we got to Europe, the same thing happened – we were in the airport with Aberdeen supporters, and some of that generation and age group hadn’t gone through the days of Fergie (Alex Ferguson) so this was their time. They weren’t winning European Cup Winners’ Cups and leagues but it gave them something.

“All young Aberdeen supporters had ever heard about was Fergie in the 1980s.”