AS most of Scotland's sportswriters were focused on events at Celtic Park, an old colleague and I were in the capital enjoying a wee Squeeze.

To be a little more precise, while Scotland and Republic of Ireland were squaring off in the Euro 2016 qualifier, we were, among others of a certain age - mostly male, it must be said - welcoming on to stage at Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, two more of similar vintage by the names of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook.

The creative drivers of Squeeze, one of the most lyrically ingenious bands of the 1970s and '80s which also launched the career of Jools Holland, provided an unapologetic nostalgia-fest. They featured a big-screen backdrop which showed footage of their early days together, which invited us to draw comparison between how we will always view them in our mind's eyes and how they look now.

The great blessing is that, unlike many others of our generation, their voices and musicianship have been unaffected by the ravages that have, let us say, taken their toll elsewhere.

There was also footage of earlier stadium gigs when, having once had U2 as their support, they played in front of thousands. Doubtless, then, as we looked at the remnants of this great band pondering what time and excess have done, they were also surveying these few hundred survivors from their fan-base and undergoing a pretty similar thought process.

The potential was there for bitterness to overwhelm the sweetness of the evening, since it is not too difficult for those of our age group to start feeling as if we are somehow paying for the headiness of our youth.

All the more so in our case as Difford and Tilbrook are, during the tour, promoting new work they have done for a football-themed TV project called The Beautiful Game, at which point in the show the backdrop changed to show footage from a football match which was partially fuzzed out but still only too readily identifiable.

These Londoners can be forgiven for having chosen to illustrate their work with highlights of the England-West Germany 1966 World Cup final, but how jinxed might we have felt had we found out later that, while we were watching that, Scotland were recording what could prove to be one of their most important wins for many years.

Fortunately, however, these old lads realised that their constitutions and ours could not cope with an unrelenting 2½ hours of entertainment so, rather than endure an endless procession by audience members, they took the necessary comfort break.

Our decision to decamp to the pub next door, rather than the packed venue bar, proved inspired, not least in its timing. Our drinks arrived just as Shaun Maloney set off on his journey from corner flag to penalty box before delivering that bending shot of which Messi would have been proud.

No jinx us, then - quite the opposite - and we could return to the gig in fine spirits, particularly once, ahead of an encore that was Labelled With Love, an anxious check of a phone confirmed that the Scotland lead had held.

It was, as they say, a time to take stock and my pal did so, saying he felt happy in a melancholy sort of way and had an overwhelming urge to contact his daughter whom I once met when she was a wee blonde poppet and now a university student.

Next day he showed me the message he texted her. "At the risk of sounding profound/a bit crazy, can I say whatever you feel passionate about now, be it music, sport, anything in fact, be proud of it as in years to come you will continue to meet like-minded people who shared your passion as I have just done at a Squeeze concert with my friend Kevin. Shared memories about something you loved as a teenager are wonderful, even at my old age of 48," he wrote.

More than 40 years after Tilbrook answered Difford's advert looking for a guitarist in a South London shop window, those memories are of a time unencumbered by the damage done to the Scottish psyche by football and politics in the late 1970s and the subsequent discovery of all the empire-building and patronage that holds this wee parcel of land back.

We can only hope that, unlike Archie Gemmill's wonder goal which had its potency neutralised within a couple of minutes as Argentina '78 knocked the stuffing out of us ahead of the 1979 Referendum, there is time yet for wee Maloney's strike to make a real difference in helping this would-be nation feel a bit better about itself.

Nor did Tuesday night's defeat by England significantly change the mood because I, for one, have now reached the stage of achieving an ambition once attributed to the late and wonderful Margo MacDonald when she is supposed to have said that she longs for the day when Scottish people will say: "Oh, England won today . . . " much as they would about any other team.

It really was only a friendly. The Ireland game mattered and so, were we still in our teens, we might almost be signing up to get on the march with Gordy's Army in the belief we can get out of Group D.

We are a bit past it for such national service but, to borrow from another London musical genius of the Seventies, it is nice at long last to see Scotland's most important sports team again providing us with reasons to be cheerful.