I played in the same football team as Kenny Dalglish.

No, I don't mean in some electronic game with an avatar of me on the same screen as Kenny. I mean a real football team, 11 humans against another 11, in the open air on a full-sized pitch.

I hope that's got your attention. This blog is about football. If you're not into football, please don't give up. Maybe my link with celebrity will be of interest.

It's been 1998 since Scotland qualified for any tournament final. A pathetic record for a country with such a proud footballing tradition. Even more pathetic is the lack of outstanding talent available to select. Where have all the Laws, Baxters, Johnstones etc gone?

It's a measure of our plight that our desperate need to gain three points against Ireland in the European qualifier has totally overshadowed the friendly against the Auld Enemy.

I'm surprised football didn't play a bigger role in the independence campaign. It has a special place in our culture. But all the political debate about it is negative and largely restricted to crowd control.

What about a positive vision for Scottish football? There's talk of a penny or two on income tax, the proceeds ring-fenced for health and social care. Some of that could be channelled into sport. What better for the health of the nation than exercise?

And, as the Commonwealth Games showed, what better psychological fillip than sporting success?

In particular, we need to invest much more in football. It's our national sport. Much of our lives revolve around the teams we support. Most of all, we want the national side to be successful.

What we need is a vision for Scottish football, a set of goals and the commitment and wherewithal to deliver them.

So what about this for the main goal? Within 20 years, Scotland wins the World Cup.

Okay, okay, dry away the tears of laughter. Pick yourselves up off the floor. Scornful scoffing cease.

To all the cynics, I say this. Why not? It can be done.

Take rugby. The best team in the world? New Zealand. With a population of 4.5 million, three-quarters of a million less than Scotland. Rugby is their national sport. They do what it takes to keep the country's team at the top globally.

Back to football. Take Uruguay. Population 3.3 million.Twice winners of the World Cup. Twice winners of Olympic gold. Fifteen times South American champions.

Admittedly, the Olympic and World Cup triumphs were a long time ago but they are the current South American champions and finished fourth in the 2010 World Cup.

Take Holland. Sure, a population three times that of Scotland and a super-abundance of talent. But it wasn't always like that.

I remember a sunny May evening at Hampden in 1966. Scotland against Holland. Only about 15,000 others turned up. Holland then had all the football draw of modern day Finland. They had never beaten us. A comfortable Scottish victory was expected.

The Dutch won 3 (going on 7) - 0. Their forwards went through the Scottish defence like the proverbial hot knife through butter. For long periods of the game, Scottish players never touched the ball.

At the time, I raged against the ineptness of the Scottish performance. Now, I like to think I was in at the birth of Dutch total football.

In the early 1960s, Dutch football made the changes which resulted in their club sides winning four consecutive European Cups between 1970-73. In 1974, Holland qualified for the World Cup finals for the first time since 1938...and finished runners-up.

(An indication of how long it took Scots to understand what was going on was the great Jock Stein's alleged assessment of Feyenoord before the 1970 European Cup final - on a par with St Johnstone!)

The Dutch nourish their grassroots for long-term success. Its FA has 1.2 million members (7% of the population). There are 3000 amateur teams and half a million youth players. Over a billion Euros annually is invested in amateur and youth football alone.

The coaching and the facilities for young players are outstanding. The emphasis is on fun and individual skills development. It's a cool activity for kids to get involved in. If nothing else, it sure beats hanging around the streets and computer games.

The likes of Uruguay and Holland point the way forward. It just needs leadership at the top and a national consensus to make the required investment. Football used to - and can again - epitomise Scotland. A wee country that walks big

Oh, aye, me and Kenny?

Unfortunately, the pitches we shared weren't Hampden or Parkhead. We skinned ourselves alive on the black ashes and red blazes of Glasgow schools football in the early sixties.

We proudly wore the blue-and-white quarters of Possil Senior Secondary as we booted the old Mouldmaster balls through icy gales and horizontal hail. (Dutch kids were probably already playing seven-a-side indoors on artificial surfaces through the worst of the winter.)

It's remarkable how impressed people are by my Kenny story. They forget the average school team is made of one or two very good players, five or six good players, and the rest making up the numbers.

Being corrie-footed, my play invited the inevitable quips. "Left-half? It wid hiv been better if ye'd been left aff." "Left-footed? Aye, you've two of them."

Och, I'm being far too modest. Actually, I taught Kenny all he knows. Did I ever tell you about the time...