Can We Do It? It's Scotland, Who Knows

THE COVEN – as one of my bra-less, mini-skirt-wearing Sixties Chicks turned Grandmother friends refers to my daughters – have lang syne stopped worrying about my heart condition when it comes to watching Scotland play international fitba.

I have survived:

• Scotland 0 - Uruguay 7

• England 7 – Scotland 2

• England 9 – Scotland 3

• Scotland v Czechoslovakia 1973

• Scotland v Brazil 1974

• The five-goal humping in the Centenary game

• Stuart Kennedy's Wembley nightmare

• Argentina 1978

• David Narey's toe-poke wakening 11 sleeping Brazilian bears

• The Uruguay game in 1986

Those are a mere ten games to be going on with, in seven decades of being let-down by Scotland teams. I have seen Scotland teams: packed to the gun'ales by supposed “World Class Talents” stumble across the line against “Diddy Teams” in both meaningless friendlies and crucial World Cup and European Championship games.

We've been drawn in more “Groups of Death” than the entire funeral industry; we have found more ways to lose games we should have won and throw games away from a winning position than Jay Rayner has had hot dinners and when it comes to saying: “it wisnae me” and rewriting history to make themselves look good – the SFA blazers could give that upstanding member of the Caledonian Diaspora, Donald J Trump lessons.

So, I am not getting myself worked-up into a state around Tuesday night at Hampden. The Tartan Army foot soldiers will turn up, all 50,000-plus of them; they will play their usual pre-match game of “let's beat the band through Flower of Scotland”; they will will the team on with every fibre of their being and maybe, just maybe, this time it will work and 27 years and six campaigns of hurt will vanish and they will get to enjoy another of those rare Hampden nights when we really have something to celebrate.

But, when it comes to Scotland getting to a World Cup Finals Tournament the road has never been easy. Our qualification record does not make for comfortable reading:

• 1950 – qualified second in the Home Internationals, spat the dummy and refused to go

• 1954 – qualified second in the Home Internationals, let Rangers hold back four regulars for a club tour, then dropped more than half the team after being gubbed by England in our final qualifier

• 1958 – qualified first in a three-nation group, but mainly thanks to Switzerland drawing with Spain

• 1974 – qualified first in a three-nation group

• 1978 – qualified first in a three-nation group

• 1982 – qualified first in a five-nation group

• 1986 – finished second in our group but qualified via the intercontinental play-off, by beating Australia

• 1990 – qualified second in a five-nationa group

• 1998 – qualified second in a six-nation group

That's our record in the nine previouis World Cups for which we have qaulified – in only one-third of those tournaments, have we won our qualifying group. The good news is, we tend to do best when in a three-nation qualifying group, as we are this time, but, the Scottish way is usually to take the harder route to the big show.

Mind you, we do have a tendancy to peak a year early, we have been struggling somewhat this season, so, maybe that isn't a factor this time round.

I am a Stevie Clarke fan and not merely because we Ayrshiremen stick together (Aye Right!); I so want him to lead us to the Promised Land, but, I know, and I am pretty sure Stevie knows as well – Tuesday night will be a fraught one.

I am holding out for a Hero, I wonder who that man will be and if, this time, after so-many recent heartaches, we can get over the line.

But, as ever with Scotland – it's the hope that kills.