MikeyHead

We are building up quite the portfolio. Playing the Soviet Union after it fell apart (1992), Yugoslavia as it headed towards oblivion (1989), playing Ukraine after it got occupied (2022). Could be that no one's too worried about drawing us in future from a football point of view, but they might fear it's a jinx, and their whole political infrastructure's about to topple.

It's great that you know what's going to happen between now and June. Well done

Music! Aye. Why stop there? Give us jelly and ice cream before the game, maybe some balloons to blow up. I was just saying to ma mate after we failed to qualify yet again, y'know I'm not that bothered about the football not being up to much, what I really want is an Improved Customer Experience Thank you, SFA, you're on the ball and no mistake

I like going different places and finding things different and not as antiseptic as football has now become in the UK ..... but how can it be allowed to have a ground where people can only go out by going back through turnstiles (two for several thousand people). If there'd been a need to get out quickly, or just some frustrated shoving from the back, people would have been hurt, or worse Transport to and from the ground was a joke too, but that's just annoying. Those turnstiles were genuinely dangerous

Why? WHY? nothing to do with Scotland, nothing to do with Scottish football Idiots

Kiev, yes, worst ever for me. Shite strewn all over the floor in the bogs. I've seen some pretty horrible sights in toilets all over the world, but that was the worst I've ever seen at a football match. Kept in afterwards by very aggressive police and then let out into the night just in time for the local neds to have assembled to pick us off. Neza in 86 was a mess but brilliant locals

Brazil in 1982 was pretty warm

Well put. I agree. I'd like to think the commemoration before the match will be respectful too. But I doubt it. It'll be jingoistic bollocks, squaddies carting on the match ball, union flags fluttering at all corners, chinless wonders like the Duke of York and the Prime Minister in attendance, tannoy demands that we remember all the sacrifices made (but not by those on the wrong end of British imperial power)

Your local pub's full of half wits who don't understand the first thing about football, is it? Do they say things like "may the best team win" and "at the end of the day it's only a game". Sure they wouldn't be better off with a rugger scarf? FFS. The TA has got far too many people in it who don't care if we lose as long as they get on telly swinging their kilt over their heid, but people who buy half and half scarfs are the scum of the bourgeois earth It's football it's not the F£$%^&g gay gordons

I wouldn't usually get too worried about a few away fans in home sections. But I was puzzled last night by the sheer number of Polish fans last night round Hampden before the game absolutely steaming, carrying plastic bags full of cans, and attracting no attention at all from the police. I've seen plenty of Scots lifted for far less in Glasgow

Explain to me how that works?

It's a good point. It's all got a bit ridiculous in recent years - it does look like a big fancy-dress party, with almost everyone having chosen the same outfit. And the TA is getting older too, as well as more homogenous. That picture from 1996 does hammer home how it's changed. Not for the better, to my taste. Was a great half-time though. And the difference between 96 - needed a bit of attention but basically safe - and 99 - not safe at all - was enormous

WONDERFUL place!! Don't even think about driving yourself. Easy and cheap to hire a driver, any hotel or guesthouse will sort you out. Safe everywhere, far safer than the UK. Amazingly friendly people. Food .... o wow. Food. Colombo's an acquired taste - very busy, hard to get a grip on what's what, and where things are. Galle is good, Kandy lovely. And just enjoy it

Yep, don't let it get too low

Plan very little, is my advice. One of the beauties of interrail is hooking up with people by chance, following advice from a bloke in a bar ... or just turning up at a station mid-evening and picking a night train at random, and see where you wake up. Go east, go south for cheapness. Wouldn't bother much with France. San Sebastian is great, you can't really go wrong in Spain, and Portugal is good too, but only go to the Algarve if you like golf and expat bores telling you Farage has got the right idea. Italy's brilliant everywhere, random small towns can be amazing, Slovenia, Croatia too ... it's all great! Though I wouldn't worry too much about Scandinavia or Switzerland, which are a bit sedate and crazy expensive. Skip England too, it's shite

Aye, and those wristwatches that Platini and all the rest of them got given as a 'gift' a wee while back - shame Bobby Moore's not around anymore, he'd have nicked a few o'them

Gary Teale and Bobby Moore - you're a wag!!

The home game with Croatia in the WC qualifying for (I think) 2002 - the man was absolutely outstanding. Didn't run more than a yard or two all game, but because he saw the pattern so early, he was always in space to receive a pass, and then to move the ball on to a teammate. No Scotland player could get close enough to stop it, even though all the play was obviously going through Prosinečki. Genius Iniesta at Hampden in the 2-3 game a couple of years ago would be the only other midfield performance I'd want to mention in the same breath. Proper, proper footballers

You're dead right about Best. He gets mythologised because of some folk's envy about his drinking and women, but he was simply (at the most generous) the third best player in a very good United team, and was effective for only 3 or 4 years, quickly being exposed as short of top class when he was asked to do it for a declining United side. Greatest British ever? Well, that's an interesting one to discuss - Bobby Charlton, Gordon Banks, Kenny Dalglish, Denis Law, Tom Finney and (my slight favourite) John Charles would all be in the frame, I think - but not Best, no way

Ach don't worry. Brady from Hull's no bad, but he's not even Hull's best left sided player. Hull's best left sided player is Scottish!

I agree, and I think our manager would too, but I'm sure the SFA needs a friendly here and there: ticket sales and TV rights matter, even if they won't be large for a friendly v N.I. For me, if there has to be a friendly, make in March not June. In June the Republic play England at home a few days before they play us. If we can avoid playing a friendly in the run-up, I think we'll be fresher and gain a real advantage

You can't be suggesting they're going to route the Irish through Bridgeton??!!

Agree with you. Brown was pragmatic and really did get more out of his squads than just the sum of the parts. I wish he'd been in charge when the quality of the players was better overall. No complaints about 74, but 78 was an appalling waste. 82 was unlucky up to a point but, again, agreed, Stein never quite was firm enough on his preferred defence. Then again, if someone had picked up Chivadze for the equaliser as I was yelling at them to do from behind the goal we might still have got through. 86 was a gruesome group, maybe we did as much as we could do, though obviously the Uruguay game still rankles - they were just a bit too streetwise for us. 90 was Roxburgh, the most dismal miserable petty dull man ever to take charge of an international football team. The only person in the whole world who didn't know that if we tried to defend our way to a 0-0 v Brazil then we'd lose 1-0 to a late goal was Roxburgh

Yes. I'm calm, I am. If someone says to me "Well, I voted no, I just felt too worried about the uncertainty", well, I am calm, they've made their choice. If someone says to me "I was going to vote yes, but I changed my mind and voted no because I was so impressed by Gordon Brown's speech but now I am o so disappointed because it turns out that balloon was lying on behalf of his English masters and in fact none of those promises are going to be kept, and I never even guessed that might happen at the time", well, I won't be so calm

I suspect it's all going to go ahead in Faro anyway, but it's clear from UEFA's Regulations for the tournament (Art 22) that venues have to be announced no later than 120 days before the game. So I don't think at this stage Gibraltar were ever committed to play in Faro. Under UEFA rules they were always free to move it, and still are