Yes Sir, Scotland really can make us all boogie!
IDISTINCTLY remember the last time Scotland’s men’s team got to a major finals. In 1998, I was a student and had watched every qualifying game religiously with a core group of pals down the pub.
Recent history and the bullishness of youth meant we’d all expected Scotland to qualify, but when it happened, there was a serious discussion about whether we should go to France – even without tickets – to soak in the atmosphere and follow the team.
Finances – the need to work through the summer, and realism that we’d never afford tickets from touts, never mind weeks of accommodation – was probably the deciding factor in not going.
But it was also the complacency that even if I didn’t manage this time, I’d go to the next or the one after that. There was no expectation from my teenage self 23 years ago that I’d have to wait until my forties to see the dark blue jersey grace the final stages of another major competition.
Having followed the national team – both in grounds and down the pub – through the years, the redemption from this iteration of players and managers melts away the pain of the Berti Vogts and George Burley eras.
There is so much to like about this team. Steve Clarke shepherds his players with a quiet determination.
The atmosphere he has instilled in the group is to deny any sort of romance around glorious failure. It is a winners’ mentality based on hard graft, tactical nous and helping each other out.
He has shaped a team greater than the sum of its parts, even when the parts have an edge previous Scotland managers would have given their right arm for.
In captain Andy Robertson he has a player that has come up through the ranks.
Initially let go by Celtic as a teenager before finding his feet in the Scottish Third Division with Queen’s Park, fast forward a few years and he’s a Champions League winner with Liverpool.
He has not just seen it all, he’s lived it, and the leadership he’s shown in welcoming new players, shouldering media responsibilities and even small touches like organising gift boxes for the final group screams class.
A spine of players from the English Premiership – one of the toughest and most physically demanding leagues in the world – adds grit and guile to the graft.
What’s interesting to me is that there have been many times in the past when big name players from teams such as Arsenal or Manchester United would have been at best ambivalent about turning out for Scotland, at worst thinking they were doing the country a favour. Not this bunch.
Both Scott McTominay and Kieran Tierney have said they will play anywhere on the park Clarke wants them to get a game, often taking a role that differs from their club commitment.
And despite the split between those playing in the SPL, English Premiership, English Championship or abroad, the sense of enjoyment and unity is evident. There isn’t a single player that doesn’t know the words to new Scotland anthem Yes Sir, I Can Boogie, and they’re all willing to belt it out in the changing room after a win.
Home advantage has always helped in big games, and Scotland kick off tomorrow at Hampden against the Czech Republic, knowing that a win would put them well on their way to the sort of success never seen before.
The fact that the national stadium will be little more than 10 per cent full tomorrow due to Covid rules won’t matter a jot. The fans there will fill it with their voices. Those not will be tuning in at home in numbers.
A 2pm kick-off on a working Monday might ordinarily hamper fans from tuning in, but with so many still ‘working from home’ what’s the bets on a national Zoom blackout and that email traffic falls off a cliff for the afternoon?
At least one school has said that since none of its pupils were even born the last time we were in this position, they’re being given time off lessons, and the match will be shown to every class.
There is a feelgood factor and a genuine reason for hope. Scotland has never made it through the group stages of a major tournament. This is the team to do it. And yes sir, we’d all boogie.