SUMMER OF GLORY
Clarke’s heroes are standing on the shoulders of history as a nation dreams of a Euro 2024 campaign to remember in Germany
THERE’S still more than a month to go. Even so, it feels a little bit like Steve Clarke and Scotland might be standing on the shoulders of history already.
Yes, the recent spate of injuries hasn’t helped. And, true, the national boss might feel a bit better about his chances in Germany this summer if only he had a right-back performing on the pitch rather than lying on a treatment table.
But now doesn’t feel like an appropriate time to start doubting what Clarke and his players may be capable of delivering when they finally get the ball rolling at this summer’s big event.
On the contrary, having qualified for a second successive European Championships with such style and flair, there is reason to believe this Scotland side has the quality and the depth of talent to do what no other has done before. It should have happened in 1974 when Scotland arrived in the same country with one of the most gifted group of players ever to pull on a dark blue shirt.
Somehow Willie Ormond’s Scotland managed to be sent home early from that World Cup despite remaining unbeaten, drawing with Brazil and conceding just one goal.
That set in motion a chain of events that have hamstrung our national side on the biggest of stages for 50 years. Until now.
That same crushing sense of disappointment returned four years later in Argentina when Ally MacLeod promised us the world, only to be left holding his head in his hands as it all went wrong against Peru.
Spain in 1982? Enter Alan Hansen and Willie Miller and the collision which sent Scotland crashing out of a third successive World Cup without making it out of the group stage.
And it was beginning to feel like a nasty, fatalistic habit by the time a team with players such as Gordon Strachan, Charlie Nicholas and Graeme Souness – managed by Alex Ferguson – was booted out of Mexico in 1986 by a bunch of thugs from Uruguay.
So it was no surprise in the slightest when Andy Roxburgh’s Scotland boarded one of the first flights home from Italia 90. And even when Roxburgh managed to buck a trend by qualifying for the Euros two years later, Scotland made an early exit from that tournament too. The image of Paul Gascoigne befuddling Colin Hendry before lashing a shot past Andy Goram still sends a shiver down the spine of this country.
Had Gary McAllister not missed from the spot moments earlier, perhaps Euro 96 might have been our moment. But it wasn’t.
Instead, the agony merely rolled over to France in 1998 when Scotland arrived at yet another World Cup, took Brazil to the brink on the opening day, then exited stage left after a humping from Morocco.
As painful as that felt in the moment, the distress felt across the country would have been tenfold if only we knew what was coming next.
As if failing to get anywhere once our team had clambered on to the big stage was not quite bad enough, Scotland then had to endure more than two decades scrubbing around in the international wilderness.
For generations, watching other countries compete in tournament football became the norm.
These nice things simply were not for the likes of us. Then along came Clarke. And suddenly everything changed. By leading Scotland to the last Euros – albeit through the back door – he shattered this sequence of
screw-ups. It was just our rotten luck that, having waited so long to get there, Euro 2020 had to be put on hold until 2021 after becoming infected by a global pandemic.
Perhaps fittingly, Scotland coughed and spluttered their way out of that one too despite a heroic performance in a 0-0 draw with England at Wembley.
Let’s be frank, the whole event was one huge damp squib, taking place as it did in front of paltry, socially distanced and face-masked crowds.
It certainly didn’t feel like proper tournament football. Not for a single, hand-sanitised moment.
And it might have been perfectly typical if Scotland were forced to wait for another 30 years before another one came around.
But there’s something very different about Clarke and his squad.
Something that doesn’t feel very Scottish at all, even though they would probably bleed tartan in their pursuit of making the country happy. To a man, they have been close to magnificent.
From Angus Gunn in goal, Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney tag teaming on the left flank, and John McGinn and Scott McTominay marauding forward from midfield, Clarke’s Scotland have caught European football on the hop over these last two years.
And even when injury has deprived Clarke of the services of some of these stalwarts, the performance level of his side has remained impressively constant.
Which is precisely why it is not the time to start feeling sorry for ourselves now that the casualty list is piling up ahead of this summer’s finals.
One way or another, Clarke will find a way of making his team fit for purpose all over again. And this time, the manager and his players will arrive at a tournament as a team not simply satisfied just to be there. They don’t just sense that this might be their moment – they’ve been hunting it down ever since exiting the last one at the first hurdle. Now that it is almost upon them, they can be trusted to make the most of it. Three Group A games against hosts Germany, Switzerland and Hungary are all that stand between them and their place in history. Having come so far already, Scotland’s journey might only be about to begin.