There was something about the celebration at AFC Bournemouth this week that was evocative of a bygone age.

Seeing and hearing the sheer, unadulterated joy among fans in a city that is bigger than any in Scotland except Glasgow and Edinburgh, but is unique among those in England in being more closely identified with tennis than football, brought the mind's eye back to being a primary school pupil watching the unbridled, innocent glee of the scenes Ronnie Radford's wonder goal sparked as he gave non-league Hereford United the chance to knock Newcastle United out of the FA Cup.

In some ways it is strange that such memories linger in the way they do. I have no emotional attachment to Hereford, never having had any more reason to visit it than Bournemouth, but through the television lens we can share in a community experience on such occasions.

There is unlikely to be anything like that occasion in Scottish football this season, largely because of the nature of the way the promotion race has played out in our Championship and of the clubs that have dominated it.

Admittedly there are parallels between what has confronted Hearts, Rangers and Motherwell with the way Bournemouth were almost put out of business seven years ago before beginning their rise through the English leagues.

However Hearts' title procession meant there was a sense of inevitability long before their destiny was confirmed and there was none of the tension that preceded the explosion of euphoria at Bournemouth. Supporters were pretty much partying for weeks, if not months, before the only automatic promotion spot was claimed.

So to our play-offs and while there is bound to be drama there a couple of factors makes them very different from the sort of underdog triumph we saw this week.

Principally the difference is the relative expectation associated with teams that are very unlike a club whose greatest success in a 116-year history prior to this recent run, was winning the old English third division in the eighties.

Rangers' achievements in particular, but also those of Hibs and Motherwell dwarf that footballing history, while even Queen of the South have been Scottish Cup finalists as recently as the year Bournemouth almost went bust, so their ascension to the top flight could hardly be considered anything like as unexpected.

There is also, however, the two-legged nature of all the matches, reducing the sense of risk for the bigger clubs.

There are no guarantees of course, as we witnessed a year ago when sitting in the stands at both New Douglas Park and Easter Road was an admittedly memorable experience as the underdogs came through with no lack of drama.

The growing anxiety, then anguish of my Hibee chum was quite something to behold as what should have been a stroll for the Premier League side, as a result of a largely undeserved two goal advantage from the first leg, was turned into another psyche scarring trauma for his club as Hamilton Accies' drew level on aggregate in the dying stages of the return, before triumphing in the penalty shoot-out.

For Hamilton and their little posse of supporters who made the trip to Leith it was, of course, a glorious day but, not least because it was on the opposition's home ground, it was all a very far cry from the comparative denouement to the English season for Premier League wannabees.

There are matters of scale to be considered and ironically this will probably be the only season in history that it might have been possible to contemplate filling Hampden for a Scottish play-off final in the way that full houses at the national stadium are guaranteed at the English deciders.

Yet drawing inspiration from a combination of those great Wembley gatherings and this week's Bournemouth decider, attended by around 11,000 people, perhaps it is time to consider a Scottish end-of-season play-off weekend, using a more appropriately sized venue.

Having been part of the organising group that worked on staging the first big rugby match held in a Scottish football stadium in the modern era at McDiarmid Park, when Scotland A took on Italy 21 years ago, the memory of the buzz that tight little 11,000 seater ground could generate means I have a bit of a bias for the Perth ground as a contender.

However the way Tynecastle has come alive this season, in the heart of Edinburgh which has become, to borrow that horrible marketing phrase, such a location city, perhaps provides the ideal solution, giving the capital an annual football celebration that could appeal to supporters from all over the country.

As we try to find ways of giving communities and television audiences events that will create a sense of something special having happened, one-off play-off finals are the short-cut to success.

It will not, of course, be quite the same as seeing a minnow of a home team celebrating automatic promotion in the last week or so of the season as happened at Bournemouth on Monday.

However Scottish football has taken a step in the right direction by belatedly introducing these play-offs that have again guaranteed us some drama at the end of another season when we knew who would win the Premier League title before the campaign began. The opportunity to do that even better in the future seems obvious.