Return Ticket

 

Walking across a rubble-strewn wasteland, a no man’s land – a dead area short-cut between the buzz and buildings around the island of Bridge Street subway station carpark and the shiny brick, smooth pointing and warm welcome of the new-build flats and townhouses of the Gorbals – and my pace is hindered, as I climb a scrambler-friendly tufted incline of mud, by a buzz on the phone in my jeans pocket.

Robert’s just seen the photo. I’m five minutes from his house but he’s texting now to know if I’ve seen it too.

A season of horrible government statistics off the field ameliorated, for the chosen few, by gorgeous stats on it. And now, on the day of the final game – on the day when champions will be crowned but records will be lost or set – fate has reminded four of us who are meeting up again today for the first time in too long, of a specific time, date and moment in which we were all drinking to avoid an inevitable calamity.

Well, when I say “fate” reminded us …

“Check your Facebook memories for today.”

I already had. First thing that very morning Facebook had notified me of what I both looked like and was up to, nine years ago. I was going to wait til I got to Robert’s before I mentioned it to him and the girls. I have a penchant for coincidences which others don’t always share – which I can take too far - so I was glad it had gripped him too.

We can’t have posted the photo quickly enough nine years previously. Given my own levels of technophobia, there’s a chance I was still using those huge late-1980s yuppie brick phones on the day of Rangers last home game of 2011-12. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t posted instantly on social media: The photo of us four, plus a German, taken group selfie-style by Robert in the branch of the Louden Tavern formerly known as the Stadium Bar, during our traditional Last Home Game of the Season session, after the 0-0 with Motherwell on 5 May 2012, hadn’t gone up onto the platform until the 15^th.

Now, today, with the last digits of that year reversed, Rangers last home game of this very different season would see us all meet up again.  Facebook Memories indeed. May 15, 2009 we wondered if we’d ever see our club again. May 15, 2021 we were just beginning to see our friends, our families –anyone – again.

My only “partying” of the last fourteen months had been sitting in our front garden on a little deck chair I tucked into the corner between the hedge and the front of our house, tunes on the headphones, sinking a can or two of something like Kronenbourg 1664, looking at the space and light – and the space, so much space – amid the clouds above.

Once or twice I’d had a whisky in the house but lockdown took a hold of both me and the bottle, at an angle which made pouring – into glass and down throat – frighteningly easy. What had sustained me in a healthy fashion was Rangers. That is, Rangers just never, ever, losing. I don’t know how non-Rangers fans coped but to watch my team embark, in this hardest of times, on its greatest league campaign since Queen Victoria was on the throne, created a sanity-saving equilibrium. It was as if the hellish unreality of everyday life was being balanced out by the heavenly unreality of football life.

That the stadiums were empty. as I watched us live on laptop or telly, became strangely, perfectly apt. It provided an aesthetic and a soundtrack that somehow joined it all up to make its own sense. Two clanging outliers – attendances and Rangers form - balanced each other by both acknowledging and averring that life wasn’t normal but that football was indeed operating in that abnormality.

Football’s always been its own self-contained world. That it was now more so felt right for Rangers too. We’d gone under in financial chaos and now, amid global chaos, my club fully emerged again, flowering more beautifully than ever.

Today we’d celebrate this season and that achievement and the beginning of the end of the abnormality.

I hit the big Co-op. San Miguels or Kronenbourg for the main supply but also a wee bottle of whisky for the hosts and, as I traipsed round the low-lit aisles, inspiration hit as coincidentally as Facebook Memories earlier that morning:  A four-pack of a McEwan’s lager I had never seen before.

The association of the brand with the Rangers shirt may have aided the choice, but the 7.3% proof was as much a reason not to buy it. But what truly got it in the basket was the name of this particular product – McEwan’s Champion. That it came in packs of four, with the German long returned to Germany, made it all the more perfect. We were not train station alcoholics in need of super lager – but we were champions, and that needed celebrating.

Robert had the strip on as he came to the door. He had the laptop rigged up and the tables and chairs in his drive and the studio wired for sound, with the windows open to let it all flood out.

We’d all had our first jab. I had mine the previous Friday and felt flattened for half a day. Slept through most of it. It was worth it. The best medicine lets you know it’s working on you by giving you a taste of what you’re being saved from, and this was medicine a fat man in his fifties needed in the spring of 2021.

We’d scored before the girls even arrived. Of course we did. This is what Rangers did this season. It was all magic. It was 2-0 just after the half hour – as if Rangers were letting the girls arrive and giving us enough time to say hello like people who hadn’t seen each other all season before they distracted us again with more goals.  They saved the next two for the second half so Robert’s partner could arrive back in their place at half-time and we could rant to her like over-excited school kids trying to explain to a very patient adult why exactly we were all so over-excited and at no point did she ever say, “Look, I’ve been hearing this all year from him. Gie’s peace”. That takes class.

And so, as the cans got sunk and the dull sky lifted into nascent sunshine and the girls’ wee dog hid from Robert’s big cat, we went into the second half knowing the 100 points mark would be breached and all that remained was for us to keep a clean sheet for that all-time British defensive record.

Aberdeen proceeded to miss goals as open as those Livingston had fluffed on Wednesday when, again, just one goal conceded would have taken it away. But it wasn’t going away. The magic wasn’t going to be lost now. This season would forever be preserved in a particularly decadent frame of sumptuous invincibility.

Steven Gerrard was the hope – he was the vaccine. Our first jab was Europe, our second was turning the Old Firm games in our favour and the third was making us champions of Scotland again. Unpleasant side-effects? Oh aye, we’d had plenty of them over the course of our treatment, from missing a penalty to lose the 2019 League Cup final to an offside goal and ten Celtic players, to losing at home to Hamilton Accies in the last league game any of us had attended.

And, even now, as League Title No. 55 confirmed Rangers immunity was completely rebuilt, we still had visiting goalkeepers forcing a penalty shoot-out in the 122^nd minute of a Scottish Cup exit to ensure we were in absolutely zero doubt this medicine was properly kicking in.

But when Professor Chris Whitty confirms Covid is over, that life can return to normal, it will only be the day you know you’re free again; it won’t be the day you feel it. You can celebrate the end of the contagion. And we will. But there will be another day when you properly realise, a day in the future when the return of the old life, made all the sweeter for how close we came to losing it, fully kicks in.

My emotions were all over the place from the moment I’d got on the underground. Half the Rangers support was off to George Square to watch the game on devices and celebrate in the city centre. One guy in plaster cast, Castore and crutches refused to take my seat but gladly explained to the train how he’d done his ankle in falling off a bench in March, at the title-winning celebrations. He was headed back for more.

Me? I wept like a wean when seeing the scenes filmed from Steven Gerarrd’s car as he approached Ibrox the day before Celtic officially handed us the league title. But I’d stayed away from crowds. I’d celebrated with my wife. I’d drunk a lot on my own that Sunday evening into that Monday morning in early March. So now, in mid-May, stepping onto a tube carriage full of blue jerseys and celebratory lyrics, was my first properly normal match day experience since Bayer Leverkusen turned up in Govan 14 months earlier.

A normal Ibrox match day experience which ended without me having been anywhere near our stadium.

But, with friends and beer, I watched Rangers doing that thing which brought it all home.  Roofe made it 3-0 on the hour, Jermain Defoe made it 4-0 with four minutes left and there was no way Aberdeen were ever going to score because this game was flying past in a rocket ship that had been building up speed since that last home game of 2011-12. Rangers were back, yeah. Rangers were champions again, definitely. But now a new record had been set. Even that we were out the Scottish Cup ensured there were no games left to threaten the magical end to this magical season.

Unbeaten. An entire league season unbeaten. Fewer goals conceded than any other club in the history of top flight British league football.  And all these stats became the flourish which took it beyond mere stats. We’d known since March things would never again be as bad as they had been over the last nine years. At full-time on Saturday 15 May we knew things could be even better than they’d been before that.

We’d had the jag, now the doctor had given us our lollipop. All better.

All across the world, any let up in the pandemic had allowed people to see loved ones again. The grandparents were reunited with the grandkids and the rush of joy was too much, the surfeit of emotion overwhelming. I knew we were champions. I’d drunk to it and talked and podded and Tweeted and cheered and blogged about it for two months. We’d been champions for two whole months already. We had the glory - anything else was magic.

And then the question we’d been laughingly putting to each other all day “Who’s presenting the trophy (Coz we know it won’t be the SPFL)?” was answered in a way I’ll never forget.

We knew our captain was lifting it. James Tavernier was waiting by the hastily constructed podium on the pitch. But when the cameras cut to the mouth of the Ibrox tunnel and the Premiership trophy was being carried out by John Greig… by the bricks and mortar of Ibrox made flesh, by the pounding heartbeat of Rangers entire history – by the man whose dedication my aunt and uncle would cite when trying to get me to go to bed when they babysat me in the 1970s (“John Greig is in his bed by 9 O’Clock every Friday!”) … yeah, that was too much for me. That was magic multiplied. That was something beyond stardust. That was a lineage going straight back to William Wilton, our first ever manager – the man who employed Struth; Struth who signed Waddell; Waddell who managed Greig; Greig who was now about to honour Tavernier:

 If John Greig’s in the stadium, every bluenose is in the stadium. The Greatest Ever Ranger was carrying Rangers’ greatest ever league title. Friends were reunited. All had been made whole again.

For the full-time whistle and for the lifting of the trophy, Robert had poured us all a whisky. We needed it. 

The coverage from Ibrox ended. The real socialising began. Robert showed me the Tinie Tempah video for “Glorious 55^th”. I’d had no idea about this but it just seemed to fit in perfectly. We sat in the sun that was never too sunny and the grey that never turned to rain and other nice friends of Robert arrived by bike and by foot and neighbours stopped for a beer and a chat and crisps were opened and I got one white cat confused with another and the beer was paced easy and the whisky was kept occasional and the tunes… oh, the tunes: The host knows more about music than most – hell, he is music – and the set list for the day, lilting out his studio window, had been curated to perfection. From Marley’s “Three Little Birds” to a beautiful piano solo I didn’t recognise – it was Robert. It was a recording of himself playing. Amazing. A tune by who, I asked. By Robert. He’d written the thing too – everything and everyone just floated in a balm of harmonic perfection, wondrous relief and joy absorbed through pores into souls.

We toasted with the 7.3% beer of Champions. We asked a lovely St Mirren fan to stand in for the long-gone German and we retook the photo from the last home game of 2012. Facebook Memories aligned and balanced with Facebook Now.

I only left because I knew I would stay all night and because I wanted to see my wife before I wasn’t worth seeing.

I didn’t take the wasteland short cut. I can’t even remember the Subway ride. But I bet the SPFL Championship trophy didn’t feel as beautiful in the arms of James Tavernier as the hamburger supper with gravy and two pickled onions I collected betwixt Subway and home felt in my hands, on my lips, in my gut.

A long, uphill walk past kerbside diners only happy to be socialising again; the sun setting behind the roof of the houses opposite ours. I quickly grabbed the wee deckchair and sat it on its far too usual garden spot and took the last few Kronenbourgs from the fridge, sank them in the fresh air as the street went dark. The tunes were all about Rangers, even when they weren’t.

I know she’ll have asked me “How was the game?” I hope I said “Champion.”

She definitely asked me how my day was. I hope I said it was Simply The Best.

Because it was.

Sir Walter

 The day after Walter died Aberdeen came back to Ibrox and got those two goals – the two goals and the one point they needed on the last day of 1990-91 - as if to say, imagine what would have happened without him.

A week after the cortege was besieged with love on Edmiston Drive, Steven Gerrard left Rangers. We all wanted his assistant, Michael Beale, to take over. Because when a European Cup-winning former Liverpool captain ends a decade of hurt at Ibrox it should lead to his assistant becoming the most successful manager in our modern history. That’s what Walter taught us.

And when Giovanni van Bronckhorst agreed to become our seventeenth permanent manager, red tape around work permits meant, on the day of Walter’s memorial service at Glasgow Cathedral, that room with that phone at the top of that marble staircase was as metaphorically empty as the manager’s office at Auchenhowie. And that’s as should be. Because, unless you remember Struth and Waddell, there is only one manager of our club:

It still leaves them plenty of room to be successful, but any successor is destined to fall a long way short of Walter Smith.

You don’t call him “Smith”. You want to question his tactics – even his ability – that’s fine. Go on; make a fool of yourself. But you will call him Walter or Mr. Smith – anything else is just downright disrespectful.

…is what I meant to say, boldly, staunchly: like a man wearing brown brogues. What actually came out was something more like “Stop calling him Smith! Stop spitting out his name like that!”, in a kind of whinny descending into a mew, followed by a lot of mumbles about Walter’s managerial statistics, as I turned back round and re-aimed my faltering glare at the brown Adidas Frankfurts already ten years too young for me and responsible for a future bunion, having realised the younger dude who sat behind me could probably hospitalise me without breaking sweat.

I don’t get into arguments, far less physical fights, at the football. Especially not with fellow Rangers fans. But during our last home league game of 2008-09, against Aberdeen, with yet another Old Firm title race destined to go to the final day, a fellow season ticket holder went too far. He wasn’t happy that we weren’t winning. Go figure. But he was particularly unhappy with what our manager was doing about it.

Yet nowhere near as unhappy as I was with how he was expressing that dissatisfaction.

Amazingly, he saw my point. We debated the tactics more calmly and Rangers won the match. We became pals after that and, without even knowing it, even if it was just an interpersonal one in the stands, Walter Smith had yet again resolved a potential Ibrox crisis.

This grizzly bear cub probably didn’t remember our Nine-In-A-Row as clearly as me. The three straight top flight title wins which began the following week did more to educate the young fellah on Walter Smith’s ability than I ever could.

But when I was at it again two weeks later, I knew my real point was about gratitude and affection – two things often in suicidally short supply among large segments of the Rangers support, and two things Walter Smith deserves more of than any other Ranger I remember.

Hampden this time: The Scottish Cup final. We’re 1-0 up on Falkirk with two minutes left and Northern Irish striker Kyle Lafferty is brought on for Scottish utility man Christian Dailly, leaving scorer Nacho Novo the only recognised Rangers striker on the pitch:

Guy in Rangers top, three rows from the back of the North Stand: “Christian Dailly?! To play up front?? What the fu** are ye doin’, Smith??!!”

Me, in the back row of the North Stand: “He scored a hat-trick on his debut for Dundee United”

(Turning round) “Whit?”

(Making eye contact) “Dailly started his career as a striker at Dundee United”

“Aye, but that was a hundred years ago!”

“Aye, but we won the league six days ago.”

An animated shrug of contempt in front of me, but End of Conversation.
 
I’m not even sure my hat-trick stat was correct. However, my new-found brevity of expression came not just from the fact this guy was almost as old and fat as me (and one of those “complaining makes you cleverer” tourists – he and his pal left before the trophy presentation) but because I knew sealing the SPL title with the previous Sunday’s Tannadice thrashing of Dundee United – confirmed by Kris Boyd becoming our ninth and final player to touch the ball when he converted a length-and-width-of-the-pitch move – demanded far more respect than this chap had afforded our manager over the previous 88 minutes.

And I was confident I’d be backed up by the majority of a crowd who now knew, beyond all reasonable doubt, Walter was back – and even better than before.

In many ways I was shouting at myself. Perhaps these rare moments of me calling stuff out were pure Lady Macbeth, protesting too much - simply covering up my own, historic lack of faith in the man. Maybe I felt criticisms of Walter Smith more keenly because I too had needed telling. I’d required some re-education when Walter took over - three times:

I’m a xenophile. Not as bad as a xenophobe but with a lot of the same patronising, generalising ignorance involved. Walter put me right, in terms of both club and country, when it came to my belief foreign must always be better. Berti Vogts won a World Cup with Germany as a player and the Euros as a manager. Surely he was exactly what Scotland needed.

Berti’s first game was a 0-5 friendly embarrassment in Paris. His competitive reign started with us lucky to be only 2-0 down to the Faroes at half-time. Walter Smith came in to save the day and soon had Kenny Miller scoring with a header against the defence of Cannavaro and Nesta, in the qualifiers for a World Cup Italy would go on to win. (This was also just one reason why no Rangers fan should have been singing about sticking Miller up any kind of arse when Walter mooted re-signing the striker for Rangers in the summer of 2008. What he went on to achieve in his second spell for the club shoved every negative opinion of Miller up more back ends than ever parked in the bucket seats of Ibrox. Yet more proof that Walter, declared hater of the “We Deserve Better stuff”, always knew what was best for us).

The France team Italy would defeat on penalties in the 2006 World Cup final? The France who’d taunted Scotland in Vogts’ first game in charge? Walter’s Scotland beat them at Hampden in the next qualifying campaign, for Euro 2008. The Trezeguet-Henry-Ribery onslaught on our goal, as I stood near the front row of the West Stand that day, was relentless, frightening and World Class. But so too was the belief Walter instilled in his teams:

Scotland one, France nil.

When Walter took over from Graeme Souness at Ibrox in 1991 I was unenthused, my head turned by the glistering array of foreign and English stars arriving under our high-profile, Nietzsche-moustachioed, suntanned and permed, signed-from-Serie A, psychopathic-tackling gaffer. Walter had worked under Jim McLean, taking Dundee United to within a cheating referee of facing Graeme Souness in his last European Cup final as a player. Walter’s aggression was, like his hair and good looks, more natural, honed and focussed.

He took Nine-in-a-Row away from Celtic as a record, took the fight for ten to the wire and was a better-squared Pieter Huistra pass in the Stade Velodrome from taking us to the very first Champions League final. Walter beat the champions of England home and away. He engendered an esprit de corps in that 1992-93 squad, in that 44-game unbeaten, treble-winning run, that left us all knowing Rangers would have dealt with Milan in that Munich final in exactly the same way as eventual champions Marseille who, despite bribing their way to the top, couldn’t beat Walter’s Rangers in two attempts.

Walter made so many Rangers dreams come true in his first stint as Rangers gaffer that it made me too protective of him.

When he returned to Ibrox in January 2007 I declared we’d win the league again but Europe would be a bust. Walter’s latter Champions League campaigns of his first Rangers tenure had seen us ship a lot of goals and gain very few points. The man he now replaced, Paul le Guen, had made us the first Scottish side – club or national – to win on Italian soil. Le Guen had become the first Rangers manager to qualify us from a UEFA group stage with a game to spare.

It didn’t matter that the Italian side was lowly Livorno or the competition the UEFA Cup, I was more than happy to lose a league title if it meant such improvement in Europe. If we could win on the continent, the domestic stuff would surely follow (as I say, xenophile – big, fat, toxic xenophile).

Getting Walter in again was surely a sign Rangers were literally going backwards and, apart from anything else, I didn’t want him to spoil his phenomenal 1990s domestic legacy with an unsuccessful second coming:

Eight domestic trophies in four full seasons, including three straight league titles. Oh and - just in case I wasn’t getting the picture - Rangers only European final of the last fifty years; All done on an ever-decreasing budget. Walter made dreams come true, because he knew how to deal with reality.



In his eleven full seasons in sole charge, Walter Smith did not once field a Rangers side that couldn’t win the league. Please be sure you understand what I mean here. I’m not claiming that, in my personal opinion, the quality of his squad meant he had no excuses for finishing second to Celtic in 1997-98 and 2007-2008. No. What I mean is he only ever actually lost a league title race on the final day of the season. When he took over from Le Guen, half-way through a season, he got us through another round in Europe and, with us already out all the domestic competitions, he beat Celtic home and away in the remaining Old Firm fixtures.

For this alone he deserved at least the longest, happiest retirement of any Rangers hero. Knighted or not, to us he will always be Sir Walter. And when I say he should have been our Sir Matt Busby I mean he should have been the face in the directors box which, for at least another decade, the cameras pick out during a pause in any particularly - we’ll never forget all those interviews dotted with “particularly” – meaningful match at Ibrox.

It’s the role his former adversary and one-time boss, Sir Alex Ferguson now fulfills for lazy directors of outside broadcasting units. But I can’t use Ferguson as my example of resting legend as reassuring touchstone because Sir Alex is the very example of what Sir Walter was not - of why I loved the latter so much. Ferguson, on paper, is the greatest Scottish manager of all-time. But, for me, he lacks class.

As when Jurgen Klopp needed to walk away from a live video link interview the night Liverpool won their first league title in 30 years, to prove he was crying – in case we didn’t get that he was crying and therefore emotional and therefore a real, proper legend – those managers who engender the cult of personality, always magnanimous in victory and cheated in defeat, don’t deserve to sit on the same pedestal as Walter.

Minutes after we lost 4-1 at St Johnstone one midweek, an eager BBC Sportsound reporter asked what would have happened if he’d made earlier substitutions.

“We’d have lost 4-2”.

 Sir Alex Ferguson, ahead of a Rangers Champions League game at Old Trafford, quipped with an interviewer that he remembered Walter kicking him during Glasgow schools football: The reporter then put this to Walter who merely stated he didn’t know how that was possible when Sir Alex was at least six years older than him.

His Rangers team, worth about a 100^th of Manchester United’s, took a point back up to Govan.

But it wasn’t just the self-deprecation and the cheeky one-liners. Walter found what Hollywood scriptwriters call the third way when asked, on Radio Scotland, about the referee’s strike of 2010. Instead of laying into Celtic manager Neil Lennon, whose deliberately paranoid rantings had sunk Scottish football to one of its lowest ever moments, Walter simply stated, of the referees, “They haven’t said why they’re striking. I don’t even know why they’re going on strike,” with an air of simply having to get on with things despite his puzzlement.

But what Walter was doing was delineating this as an argument between Celtic and referees. Rangers would keep their powder dry. We wouldn’t do the refs’ publicity for them. We saw how Walter later pulled Ally McCoist away from Lennon in the aftermath of the 2011 Scottish Cup replay at Parkhead – like a hardy auld dad telling an over–enthusiastic son that the annoying wee nyaff at the wedding do genuinely isn’t worth it. He knew the treacherous Old Firm landscape like few others and how to navigate it without losing your soul.

Peter Lawwell’s Celtic had zero qualms about manipulating competitions through skulduggery. Walter, our front line amid the “sporting integrity” off-field onslaught of 2007-08, was telling the refs they had to stand up and fight properly, stand their own ground. For him that was how you ensured, no matter the result, you kept your dignity.



Every time I drive through the Clyde Tunnel from south to north I have a Proustian recollection of the anguish of Radio Scotland yet again somehow managing to go to post-match interview with Walter Smith precisely as I hit the airwaves-free zone of the car tube under the Clyde. This pained me so much because, good news or bad, no-one told it better than Walter.  

I must have had better timing when it was the great man himself who first confirmed our forthcoming financial troubles, while also taking the heat off the players after a 1-1 Ibrox draw with Hibernian, in October 2009. We won that league title - and the next one – with a support who now knew exactly what miracles his team were performing.

It wasn’t just the trophies. It wasn’t just the glory. It was the class. It was the honesty. It was the integrity. Benchmark? Walter Smith was the blue ribbon, the gold standard – as a manager, yes – but firstly as an exemplar of the very best humanity has to offer. He’d have a stand-up physical fight with anyone – including the downright massive Hibs manager Mixu Paatelainen one sleepy Scottish Cup Sunday in Govan – but he never goaded anyone on or off the field. Nor did he use the media to engage opponents in what we used to call mind-games but we now know as gas-lighting.

And, if you think there’s too much dangerous, delusional deification going on here, you only have to think of a beloved grandparent to get what I really mean.

Walter Smith was only twenty years older than me but when Brian Laudrup opened the scoring during the 1996 Scottish Cup final and my sister and I, in the suited and polite corporate section of the old Hampden Main Stand thanks to two complimentaries from her job, went utterly ballistic, leaped into the air instantly hugging as you always do when Brian Laudrup scores, and turned to the directors box behind us to see only one other person going utterly ballistic in our immediate eye line of double-breasters and ties and nice coats, he saw us because, hell, we were the only other people on our feet between him and the pitch, and we screamed his Christian name at him and he winked at us and my sister and I, both well into our twenties, turned to each other and screamed, “Walter winked at us! Walter winked at us!” as we began our celebrations again like a pair of toddlers running up the path to a grandpa we utterly adored and will forever be besotted with.

Walter winked at us and it meant more than that famous game, that cup being lifted or many other things that happened to me in my life as a Rangers fan. Or in my life full stop.

He’s one of the few men to teach Ronaldo humility and make Messi fume. The Hearts players of the Scottish Cup final two years later, taking a present of a crate of Champagne for the bus back along the M8 after their famous victory at Parkhead, will tell you he’s one of the football people who take as much credit for how he lost as how he won. He was a pillar of integrity and intellect at modern Ibrox. As the French said when Sartre died, who will tell us how to think now?

Walter winked at us all and it felt as much of a bloody privilege to have him in our lives as it felt like a warm embrace and arriving at the hearth of a welcoming homestead. Walter just made you feel safe.

We have every reason in the world to deify and admire and respect Walter Smith – some had plenty reason to fear him. But what’s left behind on his passing is just pure affection – total, unambiguous, heart-felt love.

Rest easy, Sir Walter. Thank you for everything.

2018-19: The List

Following hot on the heels of my summer smash, 2019-20, comes the prequel, Games I Attended the Previous Season (complete with a major revelation about my Junior games quota that campaign): 

On holiday and/or disinterested for pre-season home friendlies v Bury and Wigan – seen both clubs before.

RANGERS 1 – 0 SHKUPI (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 1st Qualifying Round, 1st leg, Thur12/07/18)

RANGERS 1 – 1 OSIJEK (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 2nd Qualifying Round, 2nd leg, Thur02/08/18)

RANGERS 3 – 1 MARIBOR (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 3rd Qualifying Round, 1st leg, Thur09/08/18)

RANGERS 2 – 0 ST MIRREN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun12/08/18)

RANGERS 1 – 0 UFA (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, Play-off, 1st leg, Thur23/08/18)

SCOTLAND 0 – 4 BELGIUM (Hampden; International Challenge Match, Fri07/09/18)

SCOTLAND 2 – 0 ALBANIA (Hampden; UEFA Nations League C, group 1; Mon10/09/18)

RANGERS 4 – 0 DUNDEE (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sat15/09/18)

RANGERS 5 – 1 ST JOHNSTONE (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun23/09/18)

RANGERS 4 – 0 AYR UNITED (Ibrox; Scottish League Cup quarter-final, Wed26/09/18)

RANGERS 3 – 1 RAPID WIEN (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, Group Stage, Thur04/10/18)

RANGERS 3 – 1 HEARTS (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun07/10/18)

MOTHERWELL COLTS (Under-21s) 2 – 0 SLIGO ROVERS (Fir Park; Scottish Challenge Cup, Third Round, Sat13/10/18)

SCOTLAND 1 – 3 PORTUGAL (Hampden; International Challenge Match, Sun14/10/18 [Lower South Stand with my nephew])

RANGERS 0 – 0 SPARTAK MOSCOW (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, Group Stage, Thur25/10/18)

ABERDEEN 1 – 0 RANGERS (Hampden; Scottish League Cup semi-final, Sun28/10/18)

RANGERS 1 – 1 KILMARNOCK (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Wed31/10/18)

RANGERS 7 – 1 MOTHERWELL (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun11/11/18)

QUEEN’S PARK 1 – 2 CONNAH’S QUAY NOMADS (Hampden; Scottish Challenge Cup, quarter-final, Fri16/11/18)

SCOTLAND 3 – 2 ISRAEL (Hampden; UEFA Nations League C, group 1; Tue20/11/18)

RANGERS 3 – 0 LIVINGSTON (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sat24/11/18)

RANGERS 0 – 0 VILLARREAL (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, Group Stage, Thur29/11/18)

ALBION ROVERS 1 – 1 COWDENBEATH (Cliftonhill; SPFL League 2, Sat01/12/18)

RANGERS 0 – 1 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Wed05/12/18)

RANGERS 1 – 0 HAMILTON ACADEMICAL (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun16/12/18)

RANGERS 1 – 1 HIBERNIAN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Wed26/12/18)

RANGERS 1 – 0 CELTIC (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sat29/12/18)

RANGERS 4 – 0 ST MIRREN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sat02/02/19)

RANGERS 0 – 0 ST JOHNSTONE (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sat16/02/19)

RANGERS 5 – 0 KILMARNOCK (Ibrox; Scottish Cup Fifth Round Replay, Wed20/02/19)

RANGERS 4 – 0 DUNDEE (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Wed27/02/19)

RANGERS 0 – 2 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; Scottish Cup Quarter-final Replay, Tue12/03/19)

RANGERS 1 – 1 KILMARNOCK (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sat16/03/19)

RANGERS 3 – 0 HEARTS (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Wed03/04/19)

NEWMAINS UNITED 3 – 3 MUIRKIRK JUNIORS (Victoria Park; SJFA West Region League Two, Sat13/04/19)

PRESTON NORTH END 4 – 0 IPSWICH TOWN (Deepdale; EFL Championship, Sat20/04/19)

RANGERS 2 – 0 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun28/04/19)

RANGERS 1 – 0 HIBERNIAN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun05/05/19)

RANGERS 2 – 0 CELTIC (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership, Sun12/05/19)

SCOTLAND WOMEN 3 – 2 JAMAICA WOMEN (Hampden, friendly, Tue28/05/19)

SCOTLAND 2 – 1 CYPRUS (Hampden, Euro 2020 qualifier, Sat 08/06/19)

SUB TOTALS:

Rangers: 30
Europe: 7
League: 19
Scottish Cup: 2
League Cup: 2

Scotland MNT: 5
UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers: 1
UEFA Nations League group games: 2
Friendlies: 2

Scotland WNT:1
Friendlies: 1

Miscellaneous: 5
Junior club fixtures: 1
Scottish League 2: 1
English Championship: 1
Scottish Challenge Cup: 2

TOTAL: 41

Venues: Ibrox x 29, Hampden x 8, Fir Park, Cliftonhill, Deepdale, Victoria Park (Newmains).

Let Me Count the Ways (2019-20; The List)

Pfizer and AstraZeneca aren't the only life-saving shots in the arm. But, when it comes to attending football matches, a double vaccination has never been enough for some.

On Saturday night, at Hampden Park, the National Stadium, I attend my tenth game of the season. Or, should I say, my tenth game since vaccination, reduced crowds and mask-wearing allowed us to start hitting the football grounds again.

Not saying I missed the sport during the last season of closed grounds but, since the Scottish turnstiles began moving again this summer, I've attended two matches at the delayed Euro 2020, an SPFL Premiership game, a Scottish League Cup match, a Champions League qualifier, a Europa League play-off, two West of Scotland League matches and a Saturday 3pm friendly, arranged on the Friday night, between Forth Wanderers of that West of Scotland League, Conference A, and Stirling University of the Lowland League.

I even went down to Bradford for my first ever Rugby League match.

Had it not been for this burst of ground-attending, the ankle I somehow managed to damage in a twist as cruel as a sprain afflicting my physical movement just as a pandemic loosened its hold on my leisure time, would probably have cleared up by now.

More annoying, the sprain prevented me achieving ten (soccer) matches before September. A Monday night non-league game, between Saturday and Wednesday outings, couldn't be medically justified as I found it increasingly difficult to get from couch to kitchen. 

But it was a long 17 months without live - properly live, in-the-flesh, breathing-the-same-air-as-the-players - football watching. As I sat with raised foot in ice, looking at overly-familiar living room walls between forlorn glances at the West of Scotland League Twitter page, the term "medical" became increasingly expansive:

The financial and physical traumas of Covid have, so far, missed me. However, an increasing fixation with the council's bin-emptying schedule and passing fantasies about petrol bombing the "outdoor gatherings only" barbecues organised by the people down the road who get increasingly loud until I can't hear my television and then, when we go to bed, and they're more pissed, their kids start running up and down the street shouting every 20 minutes until three in the morning because they're oh-so fucking liberal in how they look after their kids aren't they the attention-seeking private school utterly fascistic plastic hippy bastards... persuaded me I probably hadn't completely escaped the pandemic's effect on an individual's mental health. 

As I began gleefully racking up the games again, I looked forward to last Sunday's Old Firm game by Tweeting that I would be, whatever the on-field result, maintaining my record of having attended every Celtic visit to Ibrox, to play Rangers, in the 21st Century.

I found this notable only because the last Celtic visit to Ibrox to play Rangers which I had missed was the very last one of the 20th Century. But it was only as I woke up on the morning of the game, lamenting Sunday football - not even a 17 month break has made me like attending a game on a Sunday (Even if indulging in a bit of Ford Super Sunday, it's prmarily a day for the sofa, chocolate and period dramas - Hebrews 11:24-25) - that I realised the truly notable aspect of this claim was the fact it was utter bullshit.

Rangers hosted Celtic three times last season. I attended none of those matches. Yet, somehow, the fact no-one else did - that no-one else other than press, officials, players and strangely large ball boys attended any matches in Scotland last season made me feel that the fact I'd paid to watch every single Rangers home match of 2020-21 on television or laptop - that I'd paid my season ticket for the Covid season - put me there, in that ground, more effectively than all but the other 40-odd-thousand who'd done likewise.

But I wasn't there. And the following list explains how I cannot escape that reality.

Because, for me, every match I attend is a privilege and an honour and a moment in time rarefied by the fact I am, ye know, there.

In the season Covid intervened, in the truncated 2019-20, I was two games from registering the biggest number of matches attended since, probably, the marathon Bluenoses know as 2007-08.

I didn't attend all of the record 68 competitive games Rangers played that season - I missed around 20. But chuck in a few friendlies, Juniors (Scottish non-league) and internationals and was easily approaching 60 all in. 

While I always remember a new ground or team - I'm always painfully aware of who and what I've never seen in the flesh - the slight dubiety, a few years later, about whether or not I made a couple of away games that season encouraged me to begin noting every game I attend. For about ten years now I've composed lists of all the games I go to.

What the hell. yeah, it's incredibly anal but it's the closest I'll ever come to a diary and, as the creatives of the world crumbled under the influence of a global pandemic confining them to barracks in a way they once dreamed of, I soon realised simply noting down a game you've been to is the start of writing more. The unexamined life and all that.

Last season I had nothing to examine other than the fact the two games I was about to attend in March 2020, on the Friday Sturgeon and Johnson stopped the football, were Juniors side Royal Albert at home in Stonehouse on the Saturday and an Ibrox Old Firm derby on the Sunday. That would have taken me to 44 & 1/2 games for that season (oh aye - sometimes I only see a fraction of a game. But I'll note the fractions).

Although I would have had at least a couple of further games to attend if 2019-20 had been concluded with fans in attendance, 44 and one half would have taken me past 2014-15's total by 20 minutes (Rangers v Hearts postponed after 25 minutes due to snow).

Damn. So close. And yet I've had not one word of sympathy from a nurse, doctor or any care home staff. 

Like most of the planet lucky enough to avoid the worst of Covid (again, so far), I've spent a year and a half fantasising about what I would do first when this horrible pandemic finally lost its grip on our lives. Right beside visiting to LA for the first time (I watched every series of Bosch on Amazon Prime) was returning to Hohe Warte, but this time to actually see First Vienna FC play, rather than just wonder open-mouthed around the history-laden old bowl imagining it rammed with 85,000 for Austria v Italy a century ago.

At the present moment in time, for all sorts of obvious reasons, these remain fantasies.

However, in the weekend just past, on Saturday 30th August 2021 I saw Royal Albert and their adopted home, Tileworks Park, in the flesh, for the first time ever; the day after that I was present, in the Bill Struth Main Stand - its listed facade built the same decade as Hohe Warte opened - as Rangers beat Celtic at Ibrox for far from the first time but in an atmosphere wildly celebrating the victory almost less than it warmly celebrated the return to the communal life for everyone present. 

I met my pal at full-time. We went for a pint. I limped home elated, to my sofa, wondering if re-watching a recording of a tight Old Firm game counted as enjoying a period drama. There would certainly be chocolate consumed.

Covid isn't finished with us. But I've got another list to start typing - for 2021-22, another season in which I attended football matches.

2019-20:

(On holiday for Rangers pre-season friendly v Oxford United – disappointed as I’ve never seen them before; and couldn’t be bothered with friendly v Marseille – seen them three times before and we were just back from hols and wanted to watch the Cricket World Cup final on telly. So we did.)

NORWAY* 0 – 5 NETHERLANDS* (Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals, Group A; Tue16/07/19)

RANGERS 6 – 0 St. JOSEPH’S* (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 1st Qualifying Round, 2nd leg; Thur18/07/19)

SCOTLAND* 0 – 4 NORWAY (Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals, Group A; Fri19/07/19)

RANGERS 1 – 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS* (Ibrox; Pre-season friendly; Sun21/07/19)

FRANCE* 3 – 3 NORWAY (Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals, Group A; Mon22/07/19)

GERMANY* 3 – 1 NETHERLANDS ((Firhill; UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship semi-final; Thur25/07/19 [4pm])

RANGERS 2 – 0 PROGRES NIEDERKORN (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 2nd Qualifying Round, 1st leg; Thur25/07/19 [7:45pm])

RANGERS 1 – 0 DERBY COUNTY* (Ibrox; Pre-season friendly; Sun28/07/19)

RANGERS 6 – 1 HIBERNIAN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun11/08/19)

RANGERS 3 – 1 FC MIDTJYLLAND* (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, 3nd Qualifying Round, 2nd leg; Thur16/08/19 [7:45pm])FIRST HALF ONLY (sale of house fell through, saw e-mail at half-time and went home with score at 2-0)

RANGERS 1 – 0 LEGIA WARSAW* (Ibrox; UEFA Europa League, Play-off Round, 2nd leg; Thur29/08/19)

RANGERS 0 – 2 CELTIC (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun01/09/19)

SCOTLAND 1 – 2 RUSSIA (Hampden; Euro 2020 qualifier; Fri06/09/19)

SCOTLAND 0 – 4  BELGIUM (Hampden; Euro 2020 qualifier; Mon09/09/19)

RANGERS 3 – 1 LIVINGSTON (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sat14/09/19)

RANGERS 1 – 0 FEYENOORD (Ibrox; Europa League Group Stage; Thur19/09/19)

LIVINGSTON 0 – 1 RANGERS (The Tony Macaroni Arena [Almondvale]; Scottish League Cup quarter-final; Wed25/09/19

RANGERS 5 – 0 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sat28/09/19)

RANGERS 5 – 0 HAMILTON ACCIES (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun06/10/19)

[Sun 13/10/19: Gave away my ticket for Scotland 6 – 0 San Marino in Euro 20202 qualifier as I was on holiday in Minard, however I gave it away for free; Doesn’t count as a game on the Attended list but I “supported” Scotland that night]

RANGERS 2 – 1 MOTHERWELL (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun27/10/19)

RANGERS 3 – 0 HEARTS (Hampden; Scottish League Cup semi-final; Sun03/11/19)

RANGERS 2 – 0 PORTO (Ibrox; Europa League Group Stage; Thur07/11/19)

RANGERS COLTS 2 – 0 WREXHAM AFC* (Ibrox; Scottish Challenge Cup ¼-final; Sat16/11/19)

SCOTLAND 3 – 1  KAZAKHSTAN* (Hampden; Euro 2020 qualifier; Tue19/11/19)

RANGERS 5 – 0 HEARTS (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun01/12/19)

RANGERS 0 – 1 CELTIC (Hampden; Scottish League Cup final; Sun08/01/19)

RANGERS 1 – 1 YOUNG BOYS BERN* (Ibrox; Europa League Group Stage; Thur12/12/19)

LANARK UNITED 2 – 0 KELLO ROVERS (Moor Park**, Lanark; SJFA West League One; Sat21/12/19)

RANGERS 1 – 0 KILMARNOCK (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Thur26/12/19)

WISHAW JUNIORS 2 – 0 KELLO ROVERS (The Beltane**, Wishaw; SJFA West League One; Sat28/12/19)

MARYHILL FC 2 – 6 ARDROSSAN WINTON ROVERS (Lochburn Park, Maryhill; SJFA West League One; Sat04/01/2020)

GARTCAIRN JUNIORS* 1 – 3 WHITLETTS VICTORIA (MTC Park**, Airdrie; SJFA West Championship; Sat11/01/20)

RANGERS 2 – 0 STRANRAER (Ibrox; Scottish Cup Fourth Round; Fri17/01/20)

RANGERS 1 – 0 St MIRREN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed22/01/20)

JOHNSTONE BURGH 4 – 1 YOKER ATHLETIC (Keanie Park**, Johnstone; SJFA West League Two; Sat25/01/20)

RANGERS 2 – 0 ROSS COUNTY (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed29/01/20)

RANGERS 0 – 0 ABERDEEN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sat01/02/20)

RANGERS 2 – 1 HIBERNIAN (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed05/02/20)

RANGERS 1 – 0 LIVINGSTON (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Sun16/02/20)

RANGERS 3 – 2 SC BRAGA* (Ibrox; Europa League Last 32, 1^st Leg; Thur20/02/20)

RANGERS 0 – 1 HAMILTON ACADEMICAL (Ibrox; SPFL Premiership; Wed04/03/20)

THORNIEWOOD UNITED 2 – 0 MUIRKIRK (Robertson Park**, Viewpark; SJFA West Region, League Two; Sat08/03/20)

RANGERS 1 – 3 BAYER LEVERKUSEN (Ibrox; Europa League Last 16, 1st Leg; Thur12/03/20)

****************************************
Covid-19 intervenes. Football in Scotland stops.
****************************************

SUB TOTALS:

[Rangers: 26.5]
Europe: 8.5
League: 14
Scottish Cup: 1
League Cup: 3

[Scotland: 3]
UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers: 3

[Scotland Youths: 1]
UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals: 1

[Miscellaneous: 13]
UEFA Women’s Under-19 European Championship finals (in addition to the above Scotland WNT U-19s match): 3
Scottish Challenge Cup: 1
Scottish Juniors: 6
Friendlies: 2

TOTAL: 42.5

Venues: Ibrox x 26.5, Hampden x 5, Firhill x 4, Tony Macaroni Arena, Moor Park**, The Beltane**, Lochburn Park, MTC Park**, Keanie Park**, Robertson Park**

*  New Team (to me, i.e., first time I’m seeing them)
**New venues.

Forever Gerd

To continue celebrating the life of footballing icon Gerd Müller, who passed away on Sunday after a long illness, here's another of the short pieces I've written about him over the years. This one appeared on the When Saturday Comes website in the first week of September 2013.

It seems almost insultingly trite to mention the great man died on the first Bundesliga weekend of 2021-22 or that Robert Lewandowski finally took his record for a single Bundesliga season, by a single goal, scored in the final minute of the final match in Bayern's final completed league campaign of Der Bomber's life.

But I hope this piece demonstrates such symbolism, perhaps inevitable when a player sets standards as historic as Müller’s, helps guarantee - and celebrate - the legacy of a lovely man with a seminal talent.

  

First Lionel Messi beat his record for goals in a calendar year. Now Gerd Müller’s German international scoring record will be equalled if Miroslav Klose nets in Friday’s World Cup Group C qualifier. The game takes place in Munich, where Müller became a Bayern legend. The opponents are Austria – against who Müller scored a pivotal winner, also in Bavaria, en route to Mexico 1970. Such symbolism is crucial as Müller, a humble man familiar with hardship, is finally feted in a manner commensurate with his achievements.

While chasing down those 85 goals in a year, Messi failed to score against Celta Vigo last November, on Müller’s 67th birthday. Now his most famous record – 68 goals for Germany - is about to go in his 68^th year.  Klose’s first international goal, like Müller’s, came at home to Albania. Both managed 14 goals in World Cup finals tournaments, both have won the World Cup Golden Boot.  Yet Klose is 35 years old, his next international appearance will be his 129th - Müller retired after his 62nd cap, aged 28.

Müller’s  tallies are being caught but it’s questionable whether his stats are being truly equalled, and it’s almost certain his prowess isn’t being matched.  Messi hasn’t won any World Cups or Copa Americas and has a “mere” 35 goals in 82 internationals. Müller has World Cup gold and bronze medals and a European Championship. It took Pippo Inzaghi approximately 40 more games than Müller to equal his 67 goals in all European club competition.

Müller is still regarded as the poacher par excellence, renowned for his phenomenal reactions, killer instinct and unstinting bravery in the box. Yet in his history of German football, Tor! , Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger explains "Der Bomber", probably coined by a British journalist, is the most famous but least appropriate of Müller’s  nicknames.

Post-war xenophobia and footballing jealousy saw him often regarded abroad as clinical in the pejorative sense – coldly merciless. He certainly hated waste, being born into an unfriendly world, just months after Germany lost the Second World War and then quickly losing his father.

But despite 365 goals in the Bundesliga he claims he was always as clueless as the poor goalkeepers about where he’d put the ball. When he ran down his career in the USA he struggled with English, business deals then alcohol - he split from his wife. Müller is one of life’s innocents, a man who lived off his key skill.

His two strikes in the 1974 European Cup final replay against Atletico Madrid  - a long-range lob and a trigonometry-defying volley -  proved he could do  the spectacular. His versatility was proven in the following year’s final against Leeds, when he switched to midfield after Terry Yorath put Bjorn Andersson out the match early on (Müller still scored the winner though).

But the 21st century’s expanded competitions and extended careers have inadvertently instigated a sustained celebration of the game’s greatest ever striker. When Brazil’s Ronaldo scored against Japan in the 2006 World Cup to equal Müller’s finals record, and then against Ghana a few days later to beat it, both games took place at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalen stadium, yards from where Müller opened his account against Albania in 1967. The symbolism sharpened the comparisons. Ronaldo’s total required an extra tournament and six more finals games.

The more his records are threatened and overhauled, the more valid they become. Arriving at Bayern in 2003, Dutch goal machine Roy Makaay seemed a possible challenger to Müller’s 1971-72 feat of 40 goals in a Bundesliga campaign. The most he managed in any season was 23. 

When Müller set that record his strike partner Uli Hoeness chipped in another 13 goals. This allowed Wolfsburg’s front pairing of Edin Dezeko (26 goals) and Grafite (28) to claim they were the biggest scoring partnership in Bundesliga history at the end of the 2008-09 campaign. Mostly, Müller’s stats are “toppled” tenuously. But he’ll be first to congratulate the topplers.

Update, August 2021: Klose indeed scored Germany's opener in what turned out to be a 3-0 win over Austria that night. He failed to score in his next two appearances for Germany but finally surpassed Müller's total with international goal no. 69 making it 4-1 in a 6-1 friendly win over Armenia, in Mainz, in June 2014.

And Brazilian Ronaldo took Müller's World Cup finals record against Ghana, in Germany? Well, eight years later Klose equalled Ronaldo's record against Ghana in Brazil, and took the overall record back to Deutschland when scoring the second - his sixteenth in World Cup finals and the 71st and final goal of his international career - in Germany's historic 7-1 win over Brazil themselves, on their home patch, in the semi-final.

That'll teach them to mess with a Müller record.

Forever Gerd. Gerd forever.

Auf Wiedersehen, Gerd.

Olympic Stadium, Munich. 7 July 1974. ITV’s Hugh Johns:

“Oh, that's the way that little man gets them! That’s the way he gets it"

Hundreds of them he got.  Literally hundreds.

And he got them every way. Every way imaginable.

Stealing it off Schwarzenbeck's toes for his second in the Euro 72 final.

Slashing it into the top corner from a ridiculous angle plus the most outlandish lob you've ever seen, the night Bayern first became Champions of Europe.

The control, turn and daisy-cutter into the bottom corner at Wembley in the Euros quarter-final (That celebration! A rhapsody of joy in long-sleeved green).

The ghosting run to the front post versus Leeds in Paris, 1975.

The poach, pen and header versus Bulgaria at Mexico 1970 then the perfect hat-trick - right, left, header - versus Peru... in the next game. The next bloody game. Straight hat-tricks in a World Cup finals.

What does he do for his first in extra-time versus Italy in the semi? Does anyone know? I still don’t and it’s still my favourite.

It's Being There, timing, harassment, fortitude, technique, spatial awareness - penalty box scoring boiled down to its very essence. That it looks like a clumsy car crash when it's actually the most genius, minimalist touch ever imparted on a football; that he has found the way to unravel the defence which outlawed scoring the previous decade: that the touch of the toe of his boot – a boot made by the company owned by the man who put the studs in the soles of his hero Max Morlock to help him score to help win the 1954 World Cup final in rain-soaked Europe - locates, in sun-drenched Central America, the millimetre click of not the housing, not the chamber, not the cylinder but the very pin required to open the lock that cracks Catenaccio, makes it the apogee of poaching.

The man wearing Morlock's 13 in the Azteca Stadium, one month before my first birthday, is the Master Key.

Half the global army of Gerdy zealots didn't see him play yet we ranted and ranted until he eventually began appearing in more “All-Time World” XIs (Exactly How many international tournaments did Cruyff, Eusebio and Di Stefano win??).

The spectacular slide-and-slash onto Uli Hoeness' electric run versus Yugoslavia in the Rheinstadion.

The miscontrol that isn't a miscontrol on 7th July 1974...

... The twist that is actually a contortion Cronenberg would deem too grizzly for the big screen ...

... the entire Dutch defence, and most of the watching globe, sent the wrong way as Gerdy wins the World Cup with the 68th goal of his 62nd international...

... his last international because the DFB wouldn't let the players' wives into the post-match party.

He stopped at 28. Which, like the fact there were so few internationals played in his day, is just as well for Ronaldo, was acknowledged by Miro Klose when he took his Germany total and was respectfully complimented by Messi, sending him a framed, signed jersey when he took Gerd's record for goals in a calendar year.

It was like Jimmy the Gent paying Paulie his tribute after the Lufthansa Heist. When you beat a Mueller record you know you're a legend. Or you check your stats.

He split with his wife because he moved her and their daughter to the States and couldn't settle in, wasn’t comfortable speaking English, and took to drink - all while scoring in the NASL. Always a scorer – always a painfully humble man.

Grew up, without a father, playing on bomb sites. Grew out on his mother's potato salad.

Had to borrow boots for his first trial. Had to listen to his first Bayern coach call him a bear among racehorses - and the Little Fat Miller.

And I bet that when he won three straight European Cups, the Cup-Winners Cup, a World Cup, the Euros and the Ballon d'Or, Gerdy still wished he was as good as Max Morlock.

I met him but I'd never seen him play. He was retired long before I heard about him. But I read about him. I learned that poaching, the only thing I'd ever been good at on a football pitch, the thing that got me a fair few slaggings as a kid, from peers, wasn't just permissable - it was necessary.

 It wasn't just about the stats, his totals exciting some geek to memorise some data. It was his example, his life-story, inspiring some Ayrshire gonk to actually go out and find a way to make my one limited skill worthy of a place in a football team despite my total lack of athleticism or ball control.

He won everything - and it probably wasn't enough. I twice finished top scorer for a team that finished bottom of its Sunday League - and it means the world to me. And it’s thanks to him.

The man who took the most explosive move of the Euro 72 final  - Beckenbauer surging forward, Netzer off the bar, Heynckes' vicious swerving volley parried by the Soviets - and turned it into one of the most spectacular goals of all time, by putting the thing in the bloody net.

Ronaldo demands unconditional worship and Messi wants our condolences because he's living a life of luxury in Paris. The greatest Gerd Mueller legacy isn't that he won more World Cups than those two combined but that he inspired by eschewing the limelight. He genuinely just wanted to score lots of goals, have a beer with his mates, some potato salad with his mum and a dance with his wife.

Rest easy, Gerdy. Rest easy, my hero. And, for the first time since November 1945, the defenders and goalkeepers of the world can rest easy too.

Scotland: This has to Change.

In 1996 the Euros only consisted of 16 teams. The previous tournament saw Scotland, strictly speaking, reach the last eight. But tonight it's about reaching the second stage of a major tournament, and just changing the fucking record. And, no, I'm not talking about "We're on the March with Ally's Army".

My particular favourite is fellow Scots mocking my belief that Scotland can win games like tonight’s. It’s not that they’re forgetting all the times we have won the hard games – France home and away in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, the republic of Ireland at Parkhead eight years later.  It’s that they’re assuming I’ve forgotten all the times we came disastrously, painfully short. As if. That’s what I was born into.

The first big summer tournament I remember is Argentina 78. I remember the final and the odd second round game. But I vividly recall all the Scotland games. My keenest memory is not the all-time low of the Peru opener or the dashed high of the closing game with the Netherlands. Rather it’s being sat at the coffee table in front of the telly fashioning a pennant from paper, felt tip pen and Sellotape, declaring Scotland the Greatest Team in the Universe, just as Iraj Danaeifard scored in the Cordoba stadium later named after tournament Golden Boot Mario Kempes and my dad confirmed that this time an Iranian player had scored for Iran… rather than for my country.

And here we are again, 43 years later; two games into the group, a point on the board but me sat in a different Scottish living room and Scotland not needing to beat the last World Cup runners-up by three clear goals – but still needing to beat them. As I sit cobbling together more delusional crap – this time on a laptop to be posted on a blog no-one will read rather than on paper my gran and a few aunties will feel obliged to admire hanging on my bedroom wall – Wullie Johnston hasn’t been sent home for using banned substances, but Billy Gilmour is isolating after a positive test for Covid-19. 

Where you come from infects where you are now.

Forty three years before Argentina 78 Scotland would still have solid claims to be, whenever we beat England, the greatest international side in the universe. Argentina had recently lost the first World Cup final to Uruguay. On our continent Italy and Austria were putting together serious claims to domination.

Yet the Wembley Wizards’ 5-1 triumph felt as recent then as Scotland’s lauded West Germany 74 campaign was to my first World Cup memories. So the temptation towards arrogance was as rich in the Scotland support of the late 1930s as the temptation towards abasing self-mockery is now.

Both mind-sets were/are equally inaccurate.

Long before Covid shut the stadiums, people were scared to invest in the Scotland national team, emotionally or financially, because they think they’d become part of the Tartan Army’s ongoing self-parody. But that perma-stag-do, here-for-the-beer delusion is merely a corollary of a country too scared to demand anything of the sport it’s obsessed with. The genuine frustration of 1974, when Scotland became the first team ever to exit a World Cup finals without losing a game, should indeed have been tempered by a belief we’d do even better in 1978.

The West Germany campaign was a great starting point to rebuild a national side who hadn’t been to a finals since the 1950s. But the fear of heroic failure – the worry that Culloden, Flodden and the Darien scheme were national traits rather than historical events – led to a compensating over-confidence about the Argentine World Cup. Disaster there ensured optimism was outlawed in Scotland by the time, later that same year, Jock Stein took over the national team, from our latter day Charles Edward Stuart, Ally MacLeod.

The Scottish national motto is basically “Don’t come the big man with me, pal” and MacLeod had committed the worst sin of all - making us think we were the big man. The downside to being a famed toppler of bullies is you don’t know how to bully. Thus we went out of World Cup after World Cup because we couldn’t quite put away Zaire, Iran, New Zealand or Costa Rica. Thus the Tartan Army – once a terroriser of away venues in the same way we forget Barcelona were once the most thuggish team in Europe – developed a perverse form of “winning” suited to a support where belief and hope were again synonymous with arrogance and hubris: we took the piss out of ourselves before anyone else could. We defused losing.

This isn’t about party politics. Football, for me, is the only place where nationalism is acceptable. And it should indeed be a sense of football community rather than any kind of grandstanding. I detest the SNP but I’m a unionist in denotation rather than connotation. I’m about unity rather than division. I’m old Labour.  Watching Scotland now is a thoroughly middle class endeavour, where working class humour has been objectified, bastardised, patronised and adopted like a trope rather than felt as a reality. Much like the kilt.

Yeah, I believe there are ways in which Scotland could be more independent but “committing financial suicide” isn’t one of them. Yet I attend Scotland home games and I see little or no SNP propaganda. To be honest, I see little or no collective identity outside the wearing of the kilt and no sense of common purpose past a general, lazy unhappiness with the team losing. Mostly, long before Covid, I see endless empty seats.

There’s a feeling Rangers fans are detested by the Tartan Army. The Rangers support used to be the Tartan Army. The Rangers support knows about winning and success, however. There’s only so much acceptance of international failure they could take before our own problems – and our own problems with the SFA – left the national team free to be the big club of everyone else who wasn’t regularly part of a big support.

Some of them celebrated hating Rangers because there was fuck-all else to cheer. I was always safe in the knowledge I loved the Scotland national team far more than they ever had.

Scotland start winning, the Scotland support I grew up with returns. It’s right that so many families go to Scotland games now. It’s wrong that they see it as some sort of training exercise for the real thing.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I share the fear mind-set. I’m Scottish. It’s instinct. It’s where I was born – it’s what I am. For example, I knew the only way we’d get something from Wembley on Friday was if there was a setback in the Czech game last Monday. Now, after the 0-0 with England, we go into a game on a bit of a high which is always dangerous for us. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m pleased Billy Gilmour has been ruled out. Manager Steve Clarke might have wanted to drop him anyway. Young players – star debutants in particular - don’t always put together the runs of sensational performances Gilmour would need to if he was to repeat tonight what he did on Friday.

Callum McGregor and John McGinn were bloody sensational in that midfield on Friday and I hope they were irked by Gilmour getting all the credit. In that perverse way Scots only get results from adversity, I hope they’ll relish the opportunity to prove they were laying the groundwork for this moment long before Gilmour came into the side to collect a Covid-riddled Man of the Match trophy from Heineken. 

But I’m done with the fear. I’m more than done with the acceptance of failure. I’m beginning to feel a contempt for the people who can be bothered telling us we’ll likely take the lead tonight then concede in the last minute – “because, you know, that’s just what Scotland are like” – yet they haven’t found the energy to buy a ticket for a Scotland game at any point in the last 23 years of singularly inglorious failure. Not heroic failure – just failure failure.

I don’t want to go all Roland Barthes (mostly because I can’t) but the minute you start saying “That’s just the way things are” you’re buying into a mythology and you’re happy for things to continue that way. If you care change it. Don’t worry, uur national humour and our humility are never going to be lost. We’ve got a library of Billy Connolly LPs and centuries of deprivation and chemical self-abuse to ensure that. But the acceptance, the romanticising of failure, has to stop. I knew this two years and three days ago as I found myself crying on the same sofa, in front of the same telly on which I’ll watch tonight’s game.

I wasn’t crying for myself. I was crying for a group of the bravest women I’ve ever seen representing our country, being struck down with what can only be described as our national infection.  Tears of pride as Scotland went 3-0 up on Argentina, of all teams, in the 75^th minute of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, in Paris, the birthplace of truly international competitions, of all places. They  weren’t just on the cusp of breaking the Scottish Second Round curse, they were doing it with a grace and elan which I could feel healing the international portion of our national sport. Scotland’s women were crushing Argentina at the Parc des Princes which, if you know about Racing Club de Paris and Stade de Reims and… oh, look, it was just amazing.

And then it was 3-1, and then it was 3-2 in the 94^th minute and when Argentina were awarded their penalty I did something I never do for my men’s teams when they chuck it; I cried. I usually only shed football tears through joy. But this time I bloody cried because I was still a tourist to the women’s game and this just wasn’t fucking fair and I felt like it was my fault for allowing the particular Scotland team I supported every bloody year to infect the beautiful thing the women were putting together in …

What? Sexist, you say? I’m patronising the ladies?  Okay well what the fuck was it when I did likewise during the 2015 Rugby World Cup? The men’s IRB World Cup, when Scotland took the lead against Australia at Twickenham with 5 minutes left and I immediately began sobbing because I knew they’d have it taken away from them – the totally winnable semi-final with Argentina and the chance to reach their first ever World Cup final. Why did I start crying with projected heartbreak for a bunch of lawyers and private school boys who could snap me like a twig if they so desired? It wasn’t patronising. It was the sheer grinding, soul-sucking, fucking inevitability of Scottish teams losing tragically in field sports invented by England in which we were the world’s first foreigners.

This has to stop. We can’t care this much and remain this incapable of true success. That’s just depression. And they say depression is anger turned inwards. Let’s get fucking angry. Outwards. Starting with Croatia – beginning with the Sahovnica in Mount Florida this evening.

It should be no surprise Billy Gilmour is able to boss a top international game like he did on Friday. He has a Champions League winners medal. He comes from the same town in which I sat at that coffee table Sellotaping together my big pennant. We have Andy Robertson who has a Champions League winners medal and, even more impressive these days, an English Premier League winners medal.

Villarreal’s Étienne Capoue got the official UEFA award after the last Europa League final but Scott McTominay was Manchester United’s Man of the match; never a bad thing. Kieran Tierney is borderline world class and, frankly, Scotland is the home of international football – the first international was played in Glasgow - and most European crowd records and is the only nation to provide a finalist in all three European club competitions but never make it past the second round of a major international finals and… and… and our population talks about nothing other than football.

 

We need to be angry. If we fail tonight we don’t blame these players. They performed miracles to get us here. But we need to ensure we build on the fact we’re back in tournaments. We need to feel outrage at our historic failure on that front.

Steve Clarke played for the same club Gilmour plays for, the current European champions, and made a career in Scotland beating the big boys – holding his own with the Old Firm as boss of a Kilmarnock side bottom of the table when he took over. He’s from Saltcoats, the town next door to my home town of 1978, my mum’s home town. Yes, my mum knows Steve Clarke’s mum. Is this the problem? Nah.

There are plenty reason for our failure at international level. But population, as Croatia demonstrate better than most, as Uruguay always demonstrated and as Wales are shoving down our throats these days, is not one of them. What there is no excuse for is a failure to expect and demand more than a piss-up and a moan whenever we go to watch the Scotland national team. I’m sick of it.

I tried to convince myself I would be satisfied with seeing Scotland in a major finals. I did that last Monday. It wasn’t enough. I can’t help myself. Even if I tried not to care, I just do – it’s in my genes… and I always wear jeans, never a kilt – because that’s how it was when I was a lad in 1978. And I’m the same lad tonight, hoping we turn it round, 43 years later, on a night when being “sent home” is exactly what we want.

In 1872 we hosted the world’s first international match. A 0-0 with England - sound familiar? After that we became the best on the (admittedly much smaller) football planet. It’s taken one and a half centuries but here we are hosting the biggest tournament in Europe and the next game we want to be involved in, in the Last 16 of Euro 2020, in 2021, could well be at Hampden. This is already different. After 23 years away from our routine of qualification then first round knockout, everything has already changed. And that change must be embraced.
 

Dare to feel it – dare to go with it. Dare to fucking believe.