MY relationship to arithmetic is akin to that of Donald Trump’s to rationality so I may be as wrong as a beret on the Dalai Lama. But I believe anyone born in the year Scotland played in its last major football finals will now be able to drink legally. This is good news only in that alcohol consumption has increasingly become a necessary accessory to supporting the national team.
There will be a constituency of Scotland fans – and it includes this deluded and shambolic observer – who views tomorrow’s match against the might of Malta will all the joyful optimism normally reserved for an appointment with the dentist for root canal treatment on the day he has been told his wife is leaving him. For a bald sportswriter.
It is impossible to look at a Scotland non-qualification campaign without wincing in pain. If it were at all possible, I would be a late pull-out from the Tartan Army, citing a heavy strain on my emotional stability. The withdrawal of Leigh Griffiths is, for example, typically Caledonian. He turns up regularly for squads with all the enthusiasm of Charlie Sheen at a Las Vegas bachelor party. But is rarely picked to start. Now that he is our saviour, our last best chance at scoring goals and even Wee Gordie seems to agree . . . he succumbs to injury.
This, of course, is so par for the course for a Scottish international weekend that Peter Alliss should be supplying commentary.
The received wisdom – though I hesitate to use such a word in a Setterday column – about Scottish football is that once we were kings, once we completed qualifications with a smoothness that suggested we were George Clooney in Oceans XI. But these campaigns of old were as smooth as me dancing at my son’s wedding. I know all this because I was there. At the Scotland games and at my son’s wedding. I sneaked into the latter.
I remember just how tough times were in that glorious age of qualifying for major tournaments. These memories are seared on what passes for my brain though I cannot tell you where my car keys are. Though why you would want to gain access to a 10-year-old Ford Fiasco is beyond me.
I digress.
The point is that this period of non-qualification may be vexing but it is not without precedent. The history of Scotland’s World Cup triumphs – available from all good bookshops on a single sheet of A4 – reads as follows: could not be bothered turning up; turned up and were turned over; failed to qualify for 16 years; qualified regularly but made excuses and left after initial stages. Since 1998, of course, said record has been as blank as the tape of Great Speeches by Donald Trump.
This is hardly mystifying. We could not qualify with Ian St John, Dave Mackay and Jim Baxter in the team. We barely qualified with Kenny Dalglish, Denis Law and Danny McGrain in the side. It is surely reasonable to accept that qualification was always going to be difficult with Grant Hanley and Gordon Greer in blue, perfectly decent chaps, no doubt, but not likely to trouble the organisers of a World Football Hall of Fame, unless they were looking for bouncers for said lobby.
My only irritation is that Scotland did not qualify for this year’s Euros. This was a competition that could be successfully accessed by filling in a short questionnaire. Scotland, of course and inevitably, filled in the wrong boxes.
It is this fecklessness that worries me about the campaign that stretches ahead. I can accept failure, as long as it is reasonable. Indeed, this motto is so personally apt it should be on my coat of arms.
It is perfectly rational to expect that Scotland will not qualify from a group that includes England, who are as ruthless in qualifying as they are desperate in finals, and Slovakia. Indeed, matches against Lithuania and Slovenia are as likely to be as comfortable as taking on the Tour de France on a tandem with Christopher Biggins.
But first there is Malta. This is a must-win game for a team that has recently excelled in can’t-win games. It carries its own peculiar risks. There is much talk of parking the bus but, in truth, parking a small hatchback would be enough to confound Scotland.
There is, though, finally a realism about the national team. On the day of the draw for the Euro 2016 qualifying group, I was patronised when I formed an opinion that suggested Scotland faced a tough, even insurmountable hurdle.
This mood of gung-ho optimism has largely dissipated. There was massed singing when Scotland won a meaningless match against Gibraltar. There will noises of a more vexatious nature if Wee Gordy cannot pick a team to wrest three points from Malta.
Qualification has always been tough. Failure is sometimes acceptable, even inevitable. But it is not only the 18 years since a major finals that frustrates the supporter but the growing fear that no progress is being made. That, at least, must change.
And one does not have to be an expert in arithmetic to realise that this adds up to a testing day tomorrow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here