WE'RE KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE

FAMOUSLY, John Gordon Sinclair, Gregory himself, Had A Dream. Thirty-nine years on, I feel it was John Souttar who thought he was dreaming. After all the injuries he has had to suffer, to score against Denmark, in his first international for three years, well, could it get any better for a Scotsman?

As the Tartan Army boogied its way out of Hampden last night, they were dreaming of better things to come, as were those of us who had watched the game live on Sky, listened to the BBC Shortbread broadcast, of avoided the game like the plague, ready to watch the highlights on Sportscene.

It could have been a damp squib. We had already secured our place in the European play-offs, other Scotland squads would have gone out with the notion: “Job done, we go through the motions here,” decided to avoid injury or yellow cards and allowed the Danes to complete a clean sweep of the qualifying group.

But, not this Stevie Clarke-led group. They wanted that play-off seeding and the relative security of a home semi-final. Let's not kid ourselves, that will be a hard game, which, if we win it, will get us to an even harder play-off final.

However, having seen the quality of the football the team produced last night, we all now have a dream – suddenly we are all Derek and Rodney McTrotter: “This time next year, we will be in Qatar for the World Cup.”

Those Tartan Army foot soldiers confident enough in taking the time to do a pre-tournament recce, will have noted, you can get a drink in Qatar, but on-street drunkenness is frowned upon. Yes, I reckon the TA's all for one and one for all mentality will see them manage to stay out of trouble, should we get there. However, I cannot say the same about England's Barmy Army.

Steady the Buffs Socrates old boy. Don't get ahead of yourself, we've still got two games to navigate before we can go into full-on dream mode.

Let's simply enjoy the moment. Last night's victory will sustain us through a long hard winter, we can start to get fired-up again come March.

I WAS never a big Bertie Auld fan. In the few fleeting moments I had to deal with him in his later years in management – well, I wasn't impressed. Several former journalist friends, who knew him better, speak highly of him, however.

As a player he certainly earned his place in the hearts of the Celtic family, through his midfield partnership with Bobby Murdoch for the Lisbon Lions. Bertie was from that generation of tricky Scottish wingers who had to transition from being out-and-out wingers to becoming midfield providers, and he managed that better than most.

Off the field, he was a character, up there with Tommy Docherty with his one-liners and quips. On it, he had, however, a dark side, a side which one or two players he later managed have spoken off.

He was one of that number of Celtic-daft fans who got to wear the hoops, but, discovered life at Celtic Park was not all roses, so, he was sold to Birmingham City, where he played in a European club final and is still fondly remembered by the club's older fans.

His second spell at Celtic, capped by that day in Lisbon, was markedly more successful than his first. He is remembered too, for starting-off the rendition of the Celtic Song in the Lisbon tunnel, which somewhat disconcerted the Inter Milan team; while in the notorious World Club Championship kicking match in “The Battle of Montevideo,” he earned the football equivalent of a Military Cross by fighting back furiously in the face of Argentinian provocation. A few of the Racing players learned that day; you don't mess with a Maryhill Man.

He later had a middling managerial career, with Partick Thistle, Hibernian, Hamilton Academical and Dumbarton.

In later years, he was a familiar and much-loved figure with the Celtic Family, through his hosting work at the club, but, unlike team mates such as skipper McNeill or Bobby Lennox, he was, while rightly respected for what he achieved in his career, perhaps too much of a Celtic man to be loved elsewhere.

He had a good innings, 83 years, and my condolences go to his family and friends. With his passing, only four Lions remain: Jim Craig, John Clark, Willie Wallace and Lennox.

OVER THE TOP Tartan Army celebrations last night appear as nothing to the triumphalism of our southern neighbours, going absolutely ape shit following their Lions' 10-0 hammering of San Marino.

San Marino, I reckon Auchinleck Talbot could put three or four goals on them, perhaps the question for Gareth Southgate should be: “Why only ten?” If England are as good as their media cheerleaders would have us believe.

Harry Kane's four goals have suddenly elevated him to the status of “England's greatest striker.” I kid you not. Trouble is, he's behind two other Tottenham and England strikers when it comes to the true measure of a finisher – his goals per game average.

Topping the list is the wonderful Jimmy Greaves – who scored goals at a rate of 0.67 per game over his long career. Greaves' strike partner in the great double-winning Tottenham team of the early 1960s, Bobby Smith, a very-under-rated striker, tucked chances away at the rate of 0.61 gpg, which also puts him ahead of Kane, who scores at a rate of 0.6 gpg.

Kane is maybe England's too gun today, but, he wouldn't get into my England team, if I ever had to pick one. And, if you wanted to pick an English player to score for you, how about a certain Brian Clough, who, during his tragically short, injury-afflicted career, knocked-in goals at the rate of 0.9 per game?

His managerial exploits have made us forget – Cloughie the player was, like Cloughie the manager, something else entirely.

Running Rangers - A Licence To Squander Cash

IT IS SAID: “Madness is doing the same thing over and over again, in the hope of a different outcome;” or something like that. Whatever, last week's news of a £20million-plus loss for Rangers – well, was anyone surprised?

OK, the effects of the Covid pandemic is a big factor in that loss, but, Rangers have been wedded to Viv Nicholson economics since 1986 – if not before. The Lawrence Family, who had effectively ran the club for two decades, they bailed-out because they could no longer afford to run the club. Sir David Murray came and went, spending other people's millions along the way, then it all went tits-up – and there's a great book to be written by the independent-minded investigative journalist who can plough through all the myths, lies, disinformation and rumour of the past decade or so and discover the truth. Good luck to him or her.

Since Murray accepted Craig Whyte's £1 coin, a procession of hooks, crooks and comic singers have come and gone from the hallowed marble halls of Ibrox, notably perhaps Dave King, the man who took spending OPM (that's Other People's Money) to a whole new level. The old club was liquidated, only to be replaced by a new entity, with the same DNA and modus operandi.

And what have we learned from the whole debacle? I would suggest, that The Murphyia are better at running a football club than The Scotia Nostra.

Back in the 1960s, while Willie Waddell, having left Kilmarnock for the then near-omnipotent Scottish Daily Express was running his character assassination campaign on The Boy David, as he insisted on calling then Rangers manager David White, I was told by an Ibrox insider that Waddell would soon be installed as boss.

A friend's father, a local bank manager and Kilmarnock season ticket holder poo-pooed the suggestion, then had a think. He said: Mr Waddell told me personally, when he left our club, his next job would be outside football management. Mind you Rangers has very-little to do with football.”

Plus ca change, etc.

STILL ON Rangers, the best fiction writers in Scotland – the Chief football Writers of our 'Red Tops,' have been positively wetting themselves both before and after Steven Gerrard got the Aston Villa gig. I suppose, being an England legend, who has actually won something – albeit a “Diddy League” like the SPL Gerrard was on Villa's radar. He has now gone to Birmingham, good luck to him. But, Villa, I'm not so sure.

OK, the job will be well-paid; he knows the league, he knows Villa's Chief Executive from their time together at Liverpool. But, does Villa have the budget to compete at the top end of the over-heated EPL? I think not. Also, given the way things seem to operate down there, lose three games and you're out, Gerrard might in time have cause to reflect on the more-peaceful life, even allowing for the pressure to win, he enjoyed at Ibrox.

You never know in football, however. He has taken the job, he will give it a go, and if he turns Villa into contenders for the English title, he will be well-placed to succeed Jurgen Klopp in the job SG really wants – fail, and he gets a nice big pay-off towards financial security. Deciding to leave Glasgow was probably a no-brainer.

The big plus for the “red top rotweillers” is, they can now speculate to their heart's desire as to who gets the Ibrox gig. Be prepared for some of the usual extreme left-field nonsense.

BACK IN the black and white days of long-sleeved, buttoned shirts, knee-length shorts, ankle-high brown leather Manfield Hotspur boots and light tan, Tomlinson T lether balls, thanks to judicious decisions to largely ignore Johnny Foreigner in favour of the Home Internationals – barring the end-of-season continental tour, which was more a jolly for the blazers than serious football – the SFA could convince Terracing Tam and Standite Stuart that Scottish fitba mattered.

Then they decided to rejoin FIFA and immediately fell flat on their faces, by refusing a wild card entry to the 1950 World Cup, before making an absolute dog's breakfast of the 1954 finals and being slaughtered 7-0 by Uruguay.

Hibs won back a wee bit of prestige by reaching the semi-finals of the first European Cup, but, since then, Lisbon Lions, Barcelona Bears and Gothenburg Giants apart, it's been a long, slow descent to the depths.

Scottish football hasn't worked for years. Internationally, in the 20^th century, we reached 69% of the World Cup finals for which we tried to qualify; we reached 25% of the European Championship finals for which we attempted to qualify – giving us an overall qualification record of 52% - 11 finals appearances from 21 campaigns.

In the 21^st century, we have tried and failed to qualify for four World Cups and qualified once from six attempts at the European Championships – giving us an overall 9% qualification success rate from 11 tournaments entered.

That's just to QUALIFY. Once we get there and the real games begin, we fall away badly. We have played in 11 finals tournaments, playing in all 32 games, of which we have won precisely six, that's 18.75% over 67 years. Yet, over all these years of not winning, the SFA has somehow managed to keep the Tartan Army on-board and believing that better days are just around the corner.

Mind you, our international record is stellar when compared to that of our clubs in the various European club competitions – just three trophy wins from over 200 different campaigns. Yes, 21^st century European football competition is loaded in favour of the big clubs from the big leagues, but, if we are as good as football as we like to think we are, we should be doing better than we currently are. But, the fact is, Scottish clubs are decidedly League One, far less Championship class in Europe.

The game's high heid yins up here may occasionally shuffle the deckchairs, but, otherwise, the Sinking Ship Scotland just sails on,bouncing off icebergs left, right and centre. And, until we really grasp the nettle and make the needed changes, we will continue to be also-rans in the race for football success.