Oh for our young to savour the magic of a finals
THE rite of passage remains a central force within many tribes, the indigenous Indians of the Americas, in particular. The young man must travel some way from home, don traditional garb, ingest copious quantities of mind-altering elixir and spend days or even weeks in a fluctuating psychological state and a progressively worsening physical one.
We used to have the same kind of coming-of-age ritual here. We called it going with Scotland to a World Cup.
It held many parallels with those journeys towards manhood experienced by the Algonquin of Quebec or the Jivaro peoples of the Amazon. It just involved more vomiting.
Of course, it all stopped a couple of decades ago. Times change. Life moves on and all that.
There are those of us who still pine for its return, though. Those who remember the transformative effect of entering that other world with its group chanting, living together in tents, delirium and excitation.
Those who will not give up on the dream of our own sons, one day, prising open the doors of perception with the guidance of all the attendant spirits. And lagers. And anis.
Oh, the properties of the aniseed-based aperitif. From absinthe, The Green Fairy of La Belle Epoque, to pastis, the life-giving tincture which propelled many of us around all corners of modern France during that last, epic journey to the World Cup in 1998.
It was passed to me in La Rochelle, on the Bay of Biscay, in a smart, blue briefcase — containing five glasses, a water jug and a bottle of ‘51’ — by a sales rep staging a buy-one, get-one-free promotion. A professional man in his thirties, sporting collar and tie, he tentatively agreed to join in a toast to the Auld Alliance.
The last I saw him, many hours later, he had just whacked his head off the side of a table. He had previously been standing on it, dancing with his underpants around his ankles. Wearing a black, curly wig.
Such is the intoxicating nature of being around a World Cup, though.
How could we not wish our young to absorb its magic and the life lessons it brings?
There is orienteering and problem-solving. You are, let’s say, on your second day in Paris ahead of the opening game of the tournament against Brazil. You have lost your telephone. You have woken up in an unfamiliar location.
You left your holdall and all possessions in an acquaintance’s hotel the night before, but you do not know the name of it. You are aware it is somewhere on Rue La Fayette. Unfortunately, your taxi driver has just informed you, in no uncertain terms, that Rue La Fayette is four miles long and he does not have all day to drive you up and down it.
There is the development of the Warrior Spirit. It is a little after 2am, Joe from Aberdeen has appeared in the pub with a football and, before you know it, you are in the middle of a narrow street just off the Gare du Nord with people hanging out of windows waving Saltires and Brazil flags and a 15-a-side free-for-all involving 20 different nationalities breaking out around the parked cars.
You learn to understand different cultures. Large men from Africa playing football in public, for example, may well thump you in the mush. A trait learned as you watch the blood from your nose splatter on the tarmac below like the early raindrops of a monsoon.
These large men from Africa will also, however, enjoy repairing to a nearby Irish pub for a carry-on when the sporrans serving as goalposts have been picked up, strapped back on and opened at the bar.
You will befriend people from across the globe, revel in the feeling of oneness and become emotional over strangers taking you into their hearts, as the citizens of Saint Etienne did on that unforgettable march to the Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium for 90 minutes of ensuing misery against Morocco.
You may also have to look into the dark recesses of your soul, consumed by malady and introspection in a £9-a-night fleapit in Bordeaux’s Red Light District — with two strange men possessing a wardrobe of women’s clothes next door — or when escaping from the window of a first-floor flat in Arcachon during a claustrophobic evening marked by recurring nightmares about biting a Colombian supporter’s face.
All this created by our national sport, our beautiful game, this obsession that will have us all preoccupied again tonight when Gordon Strachan leads his men out in Malta.
Far in the distance stands that shimmering possibility of a return to a major finals. It is easy to see it as a mirage, a mere echo of long-gone times.
Despite everything we have been through as a nation, as a tribe, since France ’98, however, we must enter this new campaign with optimism in our team.
This is your moment, lads. Grasp the thistle. Help bring the old traditions into contact with a new generation.
The time for them to be introduced to the secrets of the ages is long overdue.