Scotland Flowering

OH Flower o Scotland, when will we see yer like again? I'm not that bothered about the return of King Robert the Bruce and his coterie of mainly Norman barons, who master-minded Bannockburn and sent Proud Edward's army homeward tae think again. I'm looking more for the likes of Baxter, Bremner, Dalglish, Johnstone, Law, Mackay, Souness and Co - the footballing legends we grew up with.

To be fair, they, wonderful talents though they were, never exactly put the world to rights and put Scotland back to where it hasn't been for well-nigh a century: the best team in the world. Indeed, realistically, we may never take-on Brazil or Italy or Germany in a World Cup final - but we can dream.

And that dream maybe came a wee bit closer last night, when we beat Denmark, at Hampden. OK, it was "only" Denmark, it was "only" a friendly, it was the sort of night which could even define "dreich" to an Englishman - but: WE WON.

Friendly wins have been rare for Scots fans to celebrate lately, ditto competitive wins, although, our record when a game actually matters has long been better than when it doesn't. But, for purely morale reasons, going into the sharp end of the Euro' 2012 qualifying process, this one was a good one.

It, of course, wasn't perfect, Allan McGregor made what might well be his only mistake of the season in conceding the Danish goal; a vote among the members of the Tartan Army would probably find a majority agin playing 4-5-1, but, we are maybe starting to get back to where we want to be.

We won without skipper Darren Fletcher, Scott Brown was forced off early - a couple of years ago without these two, we'd really have struggled. Today, guys such as James Morrison and winning goal scorer Robert Snodgrass are looking as if they belong in the international arena, ditto Stevie Naysmith. We still need a viable alternative to the ageing Kenny Miller, but Phil Bardsley might well have made the number two jersey his own last night, Stephen Crainey looked assured on the other flank while Danny Wilson and the much-maligned Gary Caldwell looked the part in the middle - we have a defence.

Craig Levein has little room for manouevre in the remaining qualifiers, one bad night at the office could still derail us en route to the play-offs; but Private Fraser and Victor Meldrew are now talking to themselves.

And, looking ahead to the World Cup 2014 qualifiers, buoyed-up by the good showing of the Under-21s - we can look forward confidently.

SPL honcho Doncaster was trying to be chipper this week in the wake of the publication of the latest PWC report on the finances of the SPL clubs, which I blogged on yesterday.

He used statistics wonderfully, when he pointed-out that Scotland has the highest "per-head of population" football attendances in the world - because 1 in every 63 persons living in Scotland attends an SPL game each week.

Aye Right. Take away those who attend games involving Celtic and Rangers and the figures don't look so good. Stop trying to kid people Mr Doncaster, without the Bigot Brothers, we'd be a lot lower down the order.

Until the other clubs get their acts together and begin to really challenge the big two, in a manner we have not seen - the all-too-brief flowering of the "New Firm" between 1978 and the Souness Revolution apart - for half a century, we are going nowhere other than down the drain.

The paucity of ideas and ambition in the 40 senior clubs other than the Old Firm is the biggest stumbling block to Scotland getting back among the top football countries in Europe and the world. Until this is addressed, we will struggle.