We still have a dream, but can your nerves take another 90 minutes?
Scotland’s World Cup dream is still alive this weekend as the national team take on Belarus at Hampden tomorrow afternoon. I have still to calm down after the drama of the Greece game on Thursday night.
The national stadium was as quiet as a library watching the team cling on by their fingertips for an hour before finally going behind. Scotland suddenly woke up and the Tartan Army roared on the team for an unlikely 3-1 victory in the final 30 minutes.
But it’s never straightforward with Scotland. It always seems that we have to do it the hard way. And even when we have qualified for World Cups in the past 50 years, it has been inevitably been an emotional rollercoaster once we get there.
When I was young we almost always qualified, West Germany in 1974 being my earliest memory of Scotland at a World Cup. We were the only unbeaten side in the tournament, but were still knocked out at the group stage. If that wasn’t sickening enough, we drew 0-0 with holders Brazil in a game we should have won and I was punched in the face coming out of the toilet in a Glasgow pub where the TV was mounted just above the door of the gents.
And 1978 was even more nerve-shredding. Scotland had been bigged-up so much by the media that the Tartan Army thought we could win the World Cup. It turned into a fiasco after two games. Peru had tanked us, Willie Johnston was sent home for failing a drug test, we stumbled to a lucky draw against Iran and the manager was bitten by a dog on TV. And then the famous game against the Netherlands. Even fans too young to be alive at the time have seen Archie Gemmill’s goal replayed so often that they have convinced themselves they were there. But the team were were still home before the postcards.
And the same in 1982 although Scotland did take the lead against Brazil. That only annoyed them. We lost 4-1. And so on since, but at least we qualified. Let’s hope we take another step in that direction tomorrow. But can you not leave it so late this time, Scotland? My nerves can’t take another ninety minutes like Thursday night.