My mate Cloudy hadn’t foggiest about his Cup kit
Scotland’s Senior World Cup squad assembled at Glasgow Airport this week and I was one of the lucky 23 heading for Thailand.
The travelling kit was given out a few weeks ago and it provided an insight into the intelligence, or lack of, from some of my team-mates.
New recruit Keith McLeod is on board for the first time and the striker, nicknamed Cloudy, isn’t blessed in the commonsense department as he tried to work out his kitbag.
He was told his three sets of training gear would be located at the bottom of his bag but went on the group Whatsapp to say he couldn’t find his. A few hours later the Eureka moment arrived when he was back on social media to reveal he had discovered a ‘secret compartment’ in the bag and all was well.
Cloudy had worked out there is another zipped bit where your boots usually go.
It’s a voyage of discovery for the Edinburgh joiner and the next revelation saw him blown away as he solved another mystery when he found the rips at either side of his travelling shorts were called... pockets.
The journey to Thailand began at 9.45pm on Thursday night and ended with the arrival at our hotel just shy of midnight the following day.
Two seven-hour flights – first to Dubai, then to Bangkok – before a tortuous bus trip to a beach resort in Hua Hin. Horrendous. An expedition of Marco Polo proportions and one which shows the commitment this team has to play for our country.
This is no meaningless end-of-season international excursion to the other side of the planet. Months of planning and effort have gone into this. Scotland talisman Stewart Maxwell, though, isn’t with us.
The Rob Roy manager has had to fall on his sword due to club commitments but his Rabs coach Kevin Finlayson had put his country first.
The ex-Ross County flying machine is part of the team and he’s done well to shift the pot belly which had his selection in serious doubt.
Kevin’s literally bust a gut to get himself into contention for the group-stage games which start tomorrow.
The base in Hua Hin is known as the Monaco of the Far East but there are few distractions to take anyone’s eye off the task in hand of delivering World Cup glory.
This area is where the Thai Royal Family holiday and it’s possibly that’s why there are armed guards situated around our hotel. Either that or someone’s informed the local authorities that Craig ‘Charles’ Manson is part of our group.
Charles poses little threat these days but his room-mate Craig Meickle did complain that he’s in constant danger of being bored to death.
It’s serious business from now on. The World Cup draw will be made tonight and the likes of England, Iran, Australia and Taiwan could be lined up as group opposition. Let the action
begin.