Dignity depends on leaving bad company behind

MALTA, the Faroe Islands, Andorra, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Belarus. If a man is to be judged by the company he keeps, Scotland are in danger of being classified as no more proud a footballing people than the absolute bums of the world game. Aye, it’s just us and the other palookas, propping up the bottom of our World Cup qualifying groups. If Gordon Strachan’s men are to avoid being forever tarnished by this ignominious stain upon a nation supposedly on the upward path of progress, they must surely get a positive result in Skopje tomorrow night. Chances to reclaim some scrap of dignity from a wretched campaign are disappearing fast. This one cannot be allowed to pass. Why does it matter exactly where we finish in the qualifying section for a World Cup long since put beyond our reach? The argument about avoiding the dreaded Pot Five ahead of the Euro 2016 draw was played out for a while, in order to keep interest going. Really, though, it would hardly have made a marked difference to our future qualification hopes if we had plummeted all of one rung further down the ladder. Ranked fourth or fifth in your group, you’ll still be faced with one absolute elite side, one pretty darned good outfit, a middleweight and a couple of also-rans; we know where we fit into that picture at the moment. But it is surely a matter of national pride that we avoid finishing bottom of a qualifying section for the first time since the doomed attempt to reach the 1984 European Championships. That was an inconvenience, a return to form for the ‘lesser’ tournament in the middle of a run of five straight World Cup qualifications. And our group consisted of recognised teams in Belgium (aye, them again), Switzerland and East Germany. There are no such consolations on offer should our boys finish worst among in equals this time around. Coming in behind Macedonia and Wales would not be acceptable. And, if Strachan is hardly to blame for results before his arrival, many of the players surely are. Between them, they simply must scramble away from the abyss. For the sake of national morale, we cannot countenance the possibility that Scotland actually belong in a group long recognised as the lowest of the low. We’re better than that. Winning in Croatia proved as much. So let’s prove it again. And swiftly step away from that bad company we’ve been keeping of late.