Griffiths’ genius

And so still it burns. Stuart Armstrong had merely to successfully execute one last pass of a superb season. Andrew Robertson, who’s spent the campaign diligently pounding up and down the left flank for Hull City, needed to track back one final time.

After a season that was already imbued with a fairytale quality for him personally, Craig Gordon was required to make one last save at his near post. Alternatively, if he had only chosen to come out and grab the last cross he would be asked to deal with before taking a well-earned holiday...

Had just one of these things happened then Gordon Strachan would now be celebrating the best result of his managerial career, better, he later remarked, than Celtic’s wins over AC Milan and Manchester United.

Scotland would have more to cling to than just desperate hope in their on-going bid to qualify for the World Cup finals.

And Leigh Griffiths would have joined a pantheon of heroes in this particular fixture that includes Jim Baxter, Kenny Dalglish and Alex James.

But Griffiths would surely occupy a throne on a higher level. None of these others, legends though they are, conjured up two free-kicks in a matter of minutes to secure a World Cup victory over England at a sun-drenched Hampden Park.

Some things are not meant to be. Some things, it turns out, are a little too perfect to be true.

Aswhenarchiegemmillscored against the Netherlands 39 years ago yesterday, Griffiths’ genius and the rapturous scenes that followed both strikes must be framed by what is ultimate disappointment. Regrets, Scotland have had a few. Strachan’s side still languish in fourth place when ideally, they would be standing on ten points and provided with some wriggle room in their bid to reach Russia. Now it looks as though gaining maximum points from Scotland’s last four fixtures is imperative.

But yet nothing can extinguish the memory of a gilded two minutes in June, when suddenly, and briefly, everything Trafford got England to a World Cup. Griffiths’ first, meanwhile, merely offered hope, while his second, arguably better, effort stoked dreams into a burning flame.

“Beckham kept them going [that day],” said Strachan. “As I remember rightly, they didn’t have much going for them that day. To be able to do that when the whole world is watching you after running about is amazing.

“Some people can do it after 20 minutes when they’re fresh. For him [Griffiths] to dig out these two late on was incredible. I actually thought the second one would go in as well, I really did.

“The work he put in in nicking back and getting people was impressive,” Strachan added. “I asked him to do that. The only problem was in the first half he stayed too far away from us when we got the ball back. Because of that we had to play longer passes.

“But we got that sorted out in the second-half. We didn’t see as many of those longer passes in the secondhalf as we did in the first half.”

Few worked harder than Strachan.