HOPEFULLY Santa delivered what you wanted. He usually did for me and the siblings in the Possil of the sixties. This was probably attributable to the fact that a) we did not ask for much and b) our letter to Santa contained a severed ear with the message: “If you do not come up with the goods fatso then there will be an organ in the post and not the one that plays at St Teresa’s.”

We were a hardy bunch but we had to be. Dad had a mischievous sense of humour. The big present one year was blow football which was somewhat of a challenge for three boys suffering from asthma. Our red pusses did, however, mean that not so many shillings had to go into the meter. So it was not all bad, as I told the ambulanceman as he applied the oxygen mask to my gub.

Christmas was simpler then. One received an apple, an orange, a compendium of games (in poorer households on the back of a selection box), a moothie, and a pair of socks. There was no contemporary toys. For example, I only brandished a light sabre on Christmas Day when I was 27 and this was merely the result of an adverse reaction to medication.

Fitba’ gifts were once compulsory. There were no replica strips and no real desire to wear one. One received fitba’ socks, shinpads, boots and a ball. Or one of the above. Fitba’ socks were as rough as the combined workforce after the Christmas party. Shinpads were an affectation. The real tackles that caused one pain would have required for protection not shinpads but a chastity belt. The boots could be rudimentary and the ball as thin-skinned as Sandi Thom on the day that Radio Tay told her she was aff the playlist.

Gifts, of course, have progressed to such an extent that one can put on an Xbox and watch entire armies annihilating entire armies in an orgy of blood, anguished cries and spilling entrails. And we never needed an Xbox for any of this. Just ask Santa about the day he forgot to leave the moothie for oor Roddy.

The joy, pain, humiliation and dizzying sugar rush of Christmas past has left me with one enduring ritual. It is this: this is not only the time of year to be merry but one to posit a hope for the year ahead. I used to do this on Hogmanay but now I put my prayers in early afore the rush.

The hopes on a sporting front are fairly simple. Santa is capable of delivering presents around the world in 24 hours but I believe ensuring qualification of our football team for a major finals is beyond him. Geez, we would manage to cock it up if we were scheduled to qualify as hosts. It may be too ambitious to ask for a Six Nations triumph. So I will ask for a Six Nations triumph, but restrict it to one victory. Against anybody.

Instead, I hope for a good Olympics, particularly for those Scots who have made it their life’s work. I yearn for a golfing major when a Scot channels his inner Sandy Lyle or his outer Paul Lawrie. But mostly I am desperate for the ghost of Christmas past. No, I am not hankering after an asthma attack, merely a return to the days when real fitba’ countries could hope their teams could win on the big stage. There was once a period when the fan in Portugal, the Netherlands or Scotland could dream of a European Cup triumph. Porto, Benfica, Ajax, Feyenoord and Celtic all made this exotic hope a hard reality.

Now teams from these leagues and many others have as much chance of ultimate Champions League glory as I have of telling wee Kylie: “It’s over. It’s not you, it’s me…” Teams are now trapped by geography, they are strangled by regulations that are conspiring to strangle football in areas where it is not only the national sport but the national obsession. We are living in a time when Leicester City are bigger than Ajax and Swansea bigger than Benfica…at least in terms of television revenues and in the possibility of growth. We are existing in an era where the fans in the lands that super TV deals forgot are slowly coming to terms with a reduction in quality and a consequent diminishing effect on realistic ambition.

This does not have to change. After all, FIFA and UEFA are fighting for their very corporate lives and may place this concern so far down the agenda that it is below item 99: compulsory shredding of brown envelopes. But there must be at least an attempt to maintain the competitive viability of clubs that not only contributed to the history of the game but are part of it.

Otherwise, fitba’ will shrivel at the top level to the Big Five leagues and the supporter in other countries will be condemned to watching it all on TV with the poignancy of the wee boy pressing his nose up against the toy shop windae.

I am therefore sending a belated letter to Santa asking for a European Super League or for a deal that allows clubs to play football in leagues outside their borders. It is all nicely written and the envelope is addressed to the North Pole. It just needs a finishing touch. Anyone got a severed ear they are not using? Vincent?