Neil Cameron: Hampden was wonderful, surreal and a living nightmare - I wouldn't swap those feelings for anything

Nobody was worse than yours truly. I actually found myself leaping up and down – and I’ve got a bad back - before returning to my seat for a cuddle with my colleagues. Utterly unprofessional, of course, but that brief surreal spell between 2-1 and 2-2 was simply magical.

Read more: Gordon Strachan: I wouldn't still be in charge if I didn't believe Scotland could qualify for Russia 2018

I was so happy, so full of fun, that I could quite gladly have ran through a whole field of wheat.

I bumped into a friend later and he unashamedly admitted “that was the best three minutes of his life” and he’s a married man with two kids. And he’s won a BAFTA.

As the fine actor Martin Compston put it on Twitter. “Already watched those free kicks back a considerable more times than my wedding video.” This is completely acceptable behaviour.

Once we hacks sat back down, someone did point out that the game wasn’t over and a feeling came across all of us inside Hampden and those watching around the country that, as this is Scotland, disaster would be lurking behind the next corner with a sledge hammer and some seriously hard mates.

And we all know what happened next. The famous speech in Trainspotting tells us that "it's **** being Scottish." That's not quite true. It's just a bit deflating at times.

But in some ways, Harry Kane’s equaliser didn’t matter. Okay, it does and we probably are not going to the World Cup, something I came to terms with quite some time ago, and Gordon Strachan was right in that it felt like a defeat.

However, I would not swap those celebrations, brief that they were, for anything in the world. The sight of Griffiths wheeling away after his second goal will live with me forever. It’s why I and everyone else goes to football. It’s why this is the greatest game in the world bar none.

Where else do you get such drama? Last minute winners don’t tend to happen in rugby, even in the best games. Same goes for cricket, any of the dreary motorsports, golf or athletics, although tennis when our brave lad plays can give the fitba a run for its money.

Read more: Gordon Strachan: I wouldn't still be in charge if I didn't believe Scotland could qualify for Russia 2018

But nothing comes close to football because even during a dull match, and until the end Saturday up until the 87th minute was no classic, anything can happen. Every so often the impossible occurs and the feelings such moments produce are indescribable – which is exactly what I’m trying to do here.

Only six minutes. That’s how long it was between Griffiths’s first goal and Kane’s tap-in at the back post. What else can you do in such a short space of time which could take you from such a high to a reminder about what country you come from?

I feel sorry for those who don’t like football, who don’t get why so many of us are deeply in love with watching grown men kicking a ball about on some grass. They really are missing out.

Football is not the most important thing in the world but, given the world is such a dreadful place, it’s the best escapism we have.

Because the raw emotions which this ridiculous game can bring out of the most stoic of people are real. It’s not false fun. It is the best kind of bedlam.

And most supporters are good people.

Aside from a couple of completely un-necessary songs, from the Scotland end it must be said, both sets of fans were well behaved and contributed to the best day Hampden as had since it had its facelift 18 years ago.

At the end, the Scotland and England contingent applauded one another as if to say “wasn’t that something else” and the visitors, who numbered just over 5000, actually applauded the police who kept an eye on them while they were forced to stay inside the stadium until it was empty.

Read more: Gordon Strachan: I wouldn't still be in charge if I didn't believe Scotland could qualify for Russia 2018

Watching the Scotland international team is not easy. We don’t win enough, we haven’t been to a tournament for ages, the style of football can be defensive and in fairly recent times we’ve drawn with the Faroe Island and allowed Gibraltar to score against us.

Every manager we've had is a speciality in picking the wrong players, Strachan included, and while we never will be world beaters, being Lithuania beaters should be doable.

However, despite the heartache we will keep going back, never stop believing because for all the 0-0s and defeats by Slovakia, another glorious result will come along and give us one of the best days of our lives.