hoofitharder

At work i am the only one who goes near a football stadium and it is killing me how everyone is talking about how great WE are. I dont think any of them could name more than a couple of Englands players. I have been wearing a Scotland hat but even so folk have been asking me if i think football is coming home. But what has had me looking for a gun is yesterday i guy asked if i was going to watch the Belgium France game i said yes he then asked a guy who is doing some painting for the firm and the painter fella said no but i will be watching Britain tommorow

If you take it as a percentage of population Ireland an us are well out in front. Belgium and Portugal have about double our population and England, France and Germany at least ten times. For a supporter who lives outside the central belt the cost of travel and hotels is a bit steep and taking two days off work to go to a game can mean not bothering going to the less meaningful games. The type of football player over the last few campaign's has been pretty poor as well with managers seemingly sending out teams to not lose rather than going out to win.. Ian

Argentina 78 was a disaster but a disaster of our own making a guy i worked with talked me into going over to Hampden for the send off and i have to say by the time we were on our way home i was convinced we would win the thing. But as usual we were brought crashing down to earth. Some great stories though. The guys who were apparently looking into hiring a submarine to get there, taking a centre half who was crocked but the manager seemed to think he would be ok for the quarter final, Arthur graham in the squad picture for an advert for some car and he never made the squad and the lowest point for me in our history a player failing a drugs test. There was also a lot of stories of scotland supporters digging deep in their pockets to help local charities as if i remember right the areas where the grounds were were very deprived. The really sad thing for me was we played against and saw teams play styles of football that were totally alien to us and we learnt bugger all from them. We played Argentina and Peru in friendlies at hampden and we were chasing shadows. Ian

I will do he doesnt come to mind but i am sure i have seen a guy with a retro Arsenal shirt on.

When my family moved to bradford we lived a few hundred yards from valley parade and i used to go along at half time when the gates opened i was hooked. My family moved to south bradford and although my uncle still took me to bradford city games the area i lived was a bradford (park avenue ) haunt so as i grew up i went to both not every week but as often as possible.when avenue went bust it was just city. I moved back to Dunfermline in the late 70s and followed the pars after about 3 seasons i moved back to bradford and followed city again untill the fire. It didnt feel the same after that so i stopped going. After a while i ground hopped a bit and in the mean time avenue reformed as a saturday team so i watched them occasionally but didnt go regularly untill they moved to the ground they play at now and they were playing in the northern premier league. Ian

This is a hard one there are that many. As a boy the images that stick out are Tostao (I am not sure if the spelling is correct ) of Brazil sitting on the ball in the middle of the pitch. I just thought how good was he that he would do something like that. Another was watching Bradford City with my pals we were right at the front and during a stoppage in play a player ran over and tapped a fag of a guy stood behind us and just puffed away until play began again. My abiding memories of Scotland are Billy Bremners missed chance against Brazil. As a nieve 13 year old I thought we were going to win the tournament. Another has nothing to do with a game. for the 74 world cup a tv rental shop whom I can't remember the name had life size cardboard cutouts of players one of whom was Eddie Gray my favorite player at the time. And after the tournament my dad scrounged it and I had it stood up in the corner of my bedroom. Ian

Stay. I have always wondered why have the SFA never purchased the freehold on Hampden . with it they would have some borrowing power and could also sell the naming rights along the lines of the Etihad and Emerates ( i know they wouldn't get anywhere near the amounts Arsenal and Man city get ) but it could still be substantial. lets be honest without Scotland playing there Hampden is a white Elephant . They should approach Queens park about selling if they don't want to walk away it will be their loss. Ian

Totally agee

I know what you are saying but martin o'neil would have got a decent pay rise for getting to the euros.i was not really thinking of an established international manager but even then if you look at the list of saleries for the managers at the last euros a package of half a mill and a big bonus for qualification should make it attractive Ian

I don't buy this if we can afford and if the sfa will pay.if I understood correctly Strachan was earning around half a million a year if you add on a generous bonus if we qualify I think that would be quite attractive to most managers in Europe barring the very top clubs.i think we are all guilty of looking at the money in england as a benchmark sometime. As has been said the sfa need to put an ad in the situations vacant and see who applies.one of the beauties of every game being on film there might be a good manager out there wanting a change who could research our players and see he could make them better and apply there are hundreds of managers out there that none of us have heard off that would jump at the job we just need the sfa to be more open minded. Ian

Yes but with a Dutch accent

The champions league was the payoff when Europe's elite threatened to break from uefa and the europa league for the likes of celtic and rangers who were looking at setting up a so called Atlantic league. All that is happening is the same with Real Madrid the main instigator because they don't like the fact that the team that finished bottom of the EPL got more money than they got for winning the champions league.the more they get the more they want.the best thing is for them to set up their super champions league and go and play their games in the middle and far east where the stadiums will be full of clones in their replica shirts clapping and cheering every pass, throw in or simulation. Eventually the tv companies will realise that no one is actually watching and turn their attention elsewhere and in the meantime the proper supporters will be watching real football where winning a game is about three polite and not about x amount of millions of £/€ Ian

It's maybe I wee bit more than a ten minute walk but the state just off Sauchie all St is good very similar to the horseshoe bar.the butterfly and pig has some decent ale although not really a traditional pub

I was told on saturday that there are two clubs in the league i watch ( conference north ) that have players on £75,000 a year or more he wouldnt say which clubs but i would guess at york and salford Ian

Sorry i havnt heard that story