Let’s savour a spell where football is the focus for once and so many fairytales just might become real

THE plot lines are drawn, the most spectacular character arcs forming, the prospect of legendary campaigns carved out against all odds growing stronger and the reputations of leaders old and new ready to be raised up, restored or ripped apart.

The game in Scotland is never, ever short of stories. Generally, though, they tend to revolve around botch-ups, bust-ups, wind-ups and assorted nonsense such as club mascots challenging each other to a square-go in the car park or the co-commentator on Hamilton Accies TV telling you what he just did in the toilet.

This year, it’s different. This year, at long last, it’s about the football. All about the football. The small matter of an impending civil war at Rangers notwithstanding, of course. And it makes for the kind of month or so we haven’t seen in these parts for a long, long time.

If the SPFL bothered marketing the game, it would be ripe for a no-expense-spared trailer, full of moody profiles, panoramic shots of stadia under brooding skies, men, women and children facing their collective destiny from behind their bar scarves. Maybe with the bloke who used to do X-Factor coming out of retirement for the voiceover.

Sky Sports will have their usual half-hearted shot at it, no doubt. Getting a few badges mixed up. Having Dundee United playing at Dens. And cutting to the adverts before anyone has had a chance to make a proper point.

No matter, after a decade of title races that were over with months to spare and a growing obsession with the absurd in the absence of the exceptional, this is something to revel in.

What’s so delicious about it all is that there are bona-fide stories unfolding that have the potential to echo down the generations, to genuinely become part of common folklore and serve as proud landmarks both in the histories of clubs and the game as a whole.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst, amid much tumult, has Rangers homing in, incredibly, on a European final in the club’s 150th year, close to the 50th anniversary of their last triumph on that stage and 10 years after financial Armageddon.

Ange Postecoglou already has a trophy in the cupboard with one hand on the Premiership and would move closer to a most unlikely Treble by winning today’s Old Firm Scottish Cup semi-final — nine months after turning up as Celtic manager with no real reputation, filling a gap after Eddie Howe said ‘no’, and inheriting a team that had imploded with all the destructive force of a collapsing star.

Then, there’s Dick Campbell (below). Who could forget Dick Campbell? Just over a decade after recovering from kidney cancer, now aged 68, he still has part-time Arbroath battling to win the Championship and, take a deep breath here, somehow gatecrash the top flight.

Playing into howling gales off the seafront in a rickety old ground full of punters just out of Tuttie’s Neuk after half-a-dozen pints — with an old guy in a bunnet leading the charge while rambling on about Fife’s coalmines — is not exactly the administrators’ dream of where the modern game is going, but that’s all the more reason to hope the Lichties make it up by hook or by crook.

We have tales of redemption for you, too. Graham Alexander at Motherwell was booed off the park by his own fans just seven games into the season after a League Cup loss at Dundee. Now, he has the Steelmen involved in an almighty battle to go back into Europe. Robbie Neilson had the punters on the cobbles, calling for his head, with some reason, at Hearts last term, too.

Yet, to his great credit, he currently has a side with far greater dynamism third in the table, back in Europe and in a Scottish Cup final with a 39-yearold keeper in Craig Gordon, whose career was supposed to be over 10 years ago, largely responsible. Gordon, of course, finds himself at the centre of countless blockbusting storylines. Not so long ago, his Scotland career looked done and dusted. Now, he is preparing for his 67th cap in what will surely be a poignant World Cup play-off with Ukraine at Hampden — hopefully, the first step towards Steve Clarke ending the nation’s 24-year wait for a return to the finals.

While Gordon is hot favourite for the player-of-the-year awards, take your pick of who is going to be manager of the year if all, or even some, of this works out. Give yourself three days in a dark room with a calculator, a cold compress and a large flagon of grape or grain as you try to work out all the angles and reach a conclusion.

Van Bronckhorst can’t really be a contender unless he wins a domestic trophy, but there is no question Rangers reaching another European final — never mind winning it — would be a yarn without equal.

It was remarkable enough that they should get to a UEFA Cup final in 2008 whilst clearly downsizing. To make another one just five years on from Pedro Caixinha standing in a bush in Luxembourg, shouting at passing traffic, would be the stuff of unbridled fantasy.

Rangers have spent big on wages, but they have nothing like the finances of upcoming opponents RB Leipzig. Or fellow semi-finalists West Ham United and Eintracht Frankfurt, for that matter.

Yet, anyone who has watched their home wins over Borussia Dortmund, Red Star Belgrade or Braga cannot rule them out. There is a special alchemy present on those European nights at Ibrox. They have also shown everything good about the club, free from the petty domestic hatreds and vendettas that, unfortunately, still shape the outlooks of so many there from the boardroom to the East Enclosure.

The Europa League has been a showcase of what the modern Rangers — this phoenix from the flames — can truly be and it is to be hoped everyone there can take that forward.

Of course, the league is still a live interest for them with five games remaining, although it will take a win at Parkhead and at least one other favour along the way. That Celtic are in such a strong position, given where they were a year ago, speaks volumes for the job Postecoglou has done.

Sure, he has had strong backing, but he had an entire squad to rebuild and his key signings have delivered. His style won the hearts of the fanbase early on, a remarkable achievement given the protests of last term, and have bought the directors breathing space.

If he wins a Treble, it will be, arguably, the most fantastical and unexpected one in history. Maybe even more fantastical and unexpected than Arbroath having a place in the Premiership resting in their own hands with just two fixtures to go.

Throw in the best Scotland team in years — confident, settled and assertive under Clarke with so many individuals now performing at a high level — just two games against beatable opposition from Qatar and you have a whirlwind few weeks in the offing.

It is brilliant, refreshing and exciting — with something for everyone. Seasons like this don’t come along often, so let’s enjoy it.

Laughing at the unvarnished madness of our national game passes the quiet hours most years, but there is nothing to rival watching players and coaches aim for greatness.

That’s where we are right now. And that is what should always be celebrated most.