I ONCE worked under a very unflappable Glasgow-Italian Deputy Editor, who had swapped the frenetic days of the Evening Citizen v Evening Times circulation battles of the 1960s, for the calmer waters of North American journalism.
I met him when he briefly came home,before he became one of the first experienced Herald hands to take a deal and decamp to Dubai to top-up his retirement pot.
When, as frequently happens on a Daily newspaper title, the smelly stuff hit the fan big style, he would smile and say: "Hey guys - shit happens".
I commend his stance to those members of the Tartan Army, who are still moaning, wailing and gnashing their teeth in the wake of Thursday night's events at Hampden.
The way the game against Poland surprised me. I knew we would blow participation in Euro 2016 in France next summer. I rather fancied we would scrape into the Play-Offs, there we would be drawn against a "big" nation that had misfired and under-performed in their pool. Suddenly, faced with the might of Scotland, this other nation would rediscover its mojo and skelp oor earses good style.
Going out to a 95th minute toe-poke from less than a yard; nope, never saw that one coming.
But, it's not as if we are not used to non-qualification. Mind you, no matter how we contrive non-qualification in the future, we will surely never reach the heights of absurdity reached by Sir George Graham and the SFA in 1950, when they knocked-back what was in effect a free ticket to the World Cup Finals, in Brazil - because it wasn't what they had signed-up for.
When we entered for that World Cup, we knew the Home International Championships of season 1949-50 was doubling-up as a qualifying group. The Winners were going to Brazil, the other three nations were staying at home.
However, with the finals just weeks away, FIFA were suddenly faced with a whole raft of European nations, which had qualified, suddenly discovering they couldn't afford to travel to South America. So, they offered the nation which finished second in the Home Internationals, a wild card entry to the event in Brazil. This was Scotland.
But, in a decision which still defies logic, the SFA said: "No". They justified this by saying they had signed-up to a system whereby only the competition winners would go, and they were not prepared to alter their stance.
A triumph, perhaps, for Victorian values of fair-play and sportsmanship, but, common-sense, nope!
Anyway, compared to that decision of 65-years ago, this latest method of non-qualification is fairly average.
I was asked this week if the 1970s was the "Golden Age" of Scottish Football. I said no. I have long held the 1870s was indeed the "Golden Age". But, given those warm memories we have of West Germany 1974, and the fact, forgetting the fact it all went tits-up in the end, the 1978 World Cup campaign was great fun, I can see why we like to remember the 1970s.
We should remember, we had one or two more disasters than just Peru and Iran back then, you don't believe me:
This was the decade in which manager Bobby Brown was forced to plead with players to turn-up for an end-of-season trip to Denmark and USSR which included a European Championship qualifier in Copenhagen; the one during which England thrashed us 5-0 at Hampden, then 5-1 at Wembley; in which then unrated Belgium gave us three beatings in European qualifiers - and that's leaving aside Peru and Iran.
If we assume we will beat Gibraltar in our final 2016 qualifier, and, let's be honest - if we cannot beat them, we should immediately withdraw from international football - we will finish the 2016 campaign with a record which reads:
played 10 - won 4 - drawn 3 - lost 3 - 15 points from a possible 30 - 50%
our 1970s European Championships record reads:
played 12 - won 5 - drawn 3 - lost 4 - 18 points from a possible 36 - 50%.
We first entered the Euros in the 1968 qualifying campaign. This was run over two seasons' Home Internationals, during which we became the first team to beat reigning World Champions England, at Wembley in 1968. This put us in the box seat for qualification, but, next time out, we lost to a virtuoso one-man show of genius from George Best, who just about beat us on his own at Windsor Park.
England then came to Hampden in the final game, and got the draw which took them through at our expense.
That was the start of a difficult relationship with the Euros. Mind you, we took 61% of the available points back then, the fourth-best result we have had in 13 campaigns - during which we have qualified a mere twice, in 1992 and 1996..
We have to stop kidding ourselves. Scotland is now one of the weaker European nations. We are better than the real minnows - Gibraltar, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and Malta - but, we are a lot closer to these small nations than we are to the nations we aspire to compete with - Belgium, Holland and Sweden for example. And we are nowhere near where some of think we should be - competing head-to-head with England, Germany, Spain and Italy.
Scottish football is going backwards, it isn't working and needs fixing. But, do we really believe the SFA is capable of fixing things?
I know I am not a believer.
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