Fitba Hell

ONCE I'd gotten over being patronised by SFA high heidyin David Taylor ("They'll get a simply super weekend break in Paris or Rome" - I'm sure that's what he said) I tried to look on the bright side of the Euro 2008 draw.

Like just about everyone else, I was on the point of finding solace in the laboured observation dredged up whenever we play anyone halfway decent - "Ah, but we always do well against the big teams."

But, in a word, shite. It's an untruism that been trotted out so many times people have been hypnotised into believing it. So let's go through the fairly undemanding motions of ripping this particular argument to shreds.

Here's a list the 10 best-performing European teams of the last 20 years or so that won't be open to too much dispute: France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia, England, Spain, Sweden, Denmark.

When did we actually beat a team like that - or even some of those bubbling below - in a competitive match that counted? The Holland game in 2003 and the win at Wembley in 1999 don't count; we lost in two-legged ties both times, so start delving further back.

The Alamo recreation against Sweden at Hampden in 1996? 2-1 against the Swedes at Italia '90? Fair enough. So let's rule out our solid but unspectacular Scandinavian friends. What does that leave? Can anyone do better than Mo Johnston's poacher's masterclass, back in the days when it was still safe for him to walk down Sauchiehall Street, against France in March 1989?

We do well against the big teams? We keep the score down, more like.

THIS club has played its football in Scotland since its formation in the 19th century. It competes in the Scottish Premier League, its greatest achievement featured a team of 11 Scots and its greatest manager was Scottish. So why is it the Irish tricolore that dominates at Celtic Park?

Unlike some, I don't go apoplectic at the merest sight of green, white and orange among the home fans at Parkhead. Celtic have Irish roots: the club's formation was designed to benefit immigrants who made Glasgow their home. I don't see why this shouldn't be recognised, even celebrated. But I do have a problem when this warps into something else altogether. Like when the Willie Maley song - an exultant anthem that lists some of Celtic's greatest heroes - is given the unofficial coda of "and the IRA". Or, as I witnessed on the Queen Street-Bellgrove train on the way to a Celtic-Aberdeen game last May, when a well dressed group of 30-somethings in green-and-white leads the carriage in a song that mocks a woman's legs being blown off in the Brighton bombing.

These sort of ditties are, of course, routinely blamed on the fabled "mindless minority" that seems responsible for all of football's ills. So let's award the benefit of doubt and assume that most Celtic fans are innocent bystanders.

Even then, something still rankles. Occasionally you'll see a lonely saltire among the home fans at Celtic Park, but for the most part the ground is awash with tricolores. You'll see plenty of Ireland strips mixed in with with hooped Celtic tops and the Parkhead songbook is packed with Irish songs. Fields of Athenry is an evocative lament for the victims of the Irish potato famine that doesn't deserve to be inextricably linked to extremist republicanism. But if we're to believe that Celtic fans are singing to celebrate their heritage and not to provoke, where are the Scottish folk songs? It's not the celebration of Irishness that's the problem - it's the utter rejection of Scottishness.

Let me finish with a challenge. Along the M8, in Edinburgh, there's a football team with similar beginnings to Celtic. The clue's in the name: Hibernian. Next time you see Hibs on TV, see how many tricolores you can count. You shouldn't need a calculator.

MY BROTHER'S getting excited about his summer. He's off to the States for a coast-to-coast adventure after he finishes his final year at university. All well and good, but where he should have been was Germany. I've tormented him for years about how, eight years ago, I finished my final university exam, threw my books down and got on a flight from Glasgow to Charles de Gaulle. I arrived just in time to see the centre of Paris explode in tartan as John Collins equalised against Brazil. Then followed the finest holiday of my life, as a group of seven of us meandered through France in a blur of boozy camaraderie.

My brother won't be doing the same in Germany because Scotland didn't qualify for the World Cup this time. He's a little disappointed, as he's about the same age as I was for France '98. On the plus side he's looking forward to searching out Hunter S Thompson's last resting place, cruising through the Midwest and nursing a few bourbons along the way. But it's an experience he wouldn't have had but for Berti Vogts displaying the ineptitude of Bambi trying to figure skate.

We used to get all het up in Scotland about not getting past the first stages of tournaments. Now we have the poorest selection of players in living memory and a world in which far more countries have fallen for the football bug. We might not even qualify for another tournament for decades. That could be good thing: generations to come may wean our nation off football and develop a broader range of interests and possibilities - by 2020 there could be a boom in sitar players and Sanskrit scholars.

But this may be too late for me. I fear football has seeped into and colonised the farthest recesses of my brain. Is it healthy that I can still recite all the scores from the 1986 World Cup? Should I really know the birthplaces of the Aberdeen's players in Panini's 1984 sticker album? (Neale Cooper started life in India. Interesting.) I certainly shouldn't have been sitting with my trigger finger on the remote, itching to know the Inverness-Ayr United score. There must be better things to do on a Monday night.

THERE'S little to say this week. My granny, a powerful presence in our family, died a few days ago. I could trot out the usual cliche about death putting things into perspective, but I already knew football was trivial in the grand scheme of things. There's no point in demeaning granny - a lady as selfless, caring and magnaminous as they come - by holding her up against a sport riddled with shysters, braggarts and money-grabbers.

Instead, I've decided to come out with it and admit that I enjoyed the weekend's football, especially Aberdeen's unlikely comeback and Clyde's moral thumping of Celtic. The difference this weekend from any other was that I'd have derived the same solace whatever the scores. When you're confronted with distress that you're not used to and aren't sure how to handle, routine and habit help keep the spirits up.

I MISSED Pittodrie's final afternoon of footballing drudgery for 2005, still being marooned in Ireland. Even so, I shared in the plod towards yet another 0-0 draw - Aberdeen's third in four games - since I spent another self-flagellating afternoon in front of Ceefax page 321. While my dad and brother urged Aberdeen forward in the flesh, I spent my time imploring the TV to send a little message of happiness. But as my wretched afternoon reached its inevitable conclusion, I drew consolation from one thought: at least I didn't have to put up with the Inverness supporters in the South Stand.

Fans of Caley Thistle, and those of Livingston, are an odd breed. Both teams were formed in 1994, and their supporters have a peculiarly sunny outlook. Their relationships with rival fans have not curdled over decades of enmity, so their songbooks feature little more than the simple chants of encouragement, usually "Cah-lee/Lih-vee (clap, clap, clap)". The bilious and imaginative insults hurled by rival supporters are conspicuous by their absence. And unlike most teams, Caley and Livvy aren't weighed down by decades of mediocrity. While opposition fans wallow in their side's also-ran status, Caley and Livvy fans, in their unrelenting cheeriness, seem oblivious to the likelihood that they'll only see their team win a trophy once every few decades.

Livingston have a drummer who follows his team across Scotland, and each time I've sat at Aberdeen-Livvy games I've heard several splutters of rage directed at his incessant thumping. That's because he unnerves us, although not by the noise he makes. The problem is that he and his pals are so unnaturally perky - like Stepford wives in the away end.