Now that we've all had a couple of weeks to let it settle, there are a few of moments that have risen to the top of my mind regarding our win against Spain.
McTominay's second meant delirium. Looking around, embracing my pals, my girls and some strangers, I finally caught the big man's eyes, just over my nephew's shoulder.
My brother was looking at me with the only suitable expression for such an occasion, and one I no doubt reciprocated. We embraced in a totally normal way, by grabbing each other's shoulders with unbroken eye contact and screaming until our lungs emptied. Other than my sister, who doesn't share our love for football, there is no one in the world more genetically similar to me, so I guess it was like looking in the mirror. Only, as we're both now at different stages of middle-agedness, I'd more say it was closer to looking at our Auld Yin, who couldn't make the game, and would no doubt have screamed the same way.
Let's just get a few things out in the open, you can't help when you're born. There's always some well-meaning elder telling you you've missed the best days; or, conversely, part of the younger generation telling you their time is now, old man, and looking at you like you are properly ancient.
At that moment, when Scott McTominay's volley hit the net, I didn't care, we didn't care. No one in Hampden cared what generation they belonged to, because this was happening here, and now.
Scotland were beating Spain.
It was as if our screaming souls being emptied through every sinew knew something intangibly true in that instance, even if we could scarcely believe it.
These are the good times.
My brother is six and a half years older. He's a 70s boy, I'm an 80s child (spoilt too, apparently). I grew up in hand-me-downs of classic Scotland kits. As my brother was a superb goalkeeper - like, genuinely superb - I had the goalie kits too.
We pretended to be Scottish players in our hallway from as early as I could kick a ball, in nappies. He was the oracle concerning football. Who is the best team in the world? AC Milan. Who is the best player? Maradona. Who is the best Scottish player? Kenny Dalglish (this became Davie Cooper). Where do Scotland play? Hampden. When are we going? Soon… soon… soon… Now.
1994, Scotland versus The Netherlands at the reopening of the new Hampden. Lost 0-1 to a Brian Roy peach.
Initiated.
It was the colour that I remember. That kind of muted, orange glow that lights the stands. The type of glow that made freezing nights look warm in the television as goals flew in and bodies bounced around.
This is for me, I thought. This is for us. So for the 1996 and 1998 qualification runs, I became a bouncing body, whenever my brother had a spare ticket. We were there for McCoist's header against Greece. We'd even drive to Pittodrie and Rugby Park for friendlies, too. It was taken as read that if Scotland were playing, we were going.
Then life happened. Other interests, demanding money, time, and love, encroached. Time for a new initiation, my first gig, so he took me to see Reef, at the Barrowlands. There and then I knew I needed to play guitar, so I did, and then I drove around the country with my bandmates, not to football stadiums, but to gigs. A new chapter.
For the next wee while, every penny went on guitars, pedals, practices, and recordings.
My brother and I kind of stopped going to Hampden. Stopped watching games together. Stopped seeing each other as much.
Guys are like that, I suppose. We're not particularly good at using our words to recognise the moments and friendships that mean the most to us. I daresay I'm alone in this, but as someone who has recently had a few health scares, eventuating in the diagnosis of chronic pain and a benign (but unwelcome) brain tumour in my cranium, please allow me to say this; these are the good times.
Furthermore, as someone prone to romanticism, let me be absolutely clear, having an epiphanal 'moment' like this is not something to be envied, because it's not met via a shortcut. You need to go through the pain, trauma, tears and heartache. You need to hit new obstacles with whatever energy you have left, and if you can't get up, you rely on the people around you to get you through.
My brother and I quote movies. Our favourites are Rocky, Predator and The Rock. This quote is as close-knitted to my psyche as Ally McCoist's goal tally for Scotland, and the fact it would've been much higher had he not broken his leg in Portugal. Though I talk about moving forward, it is my wife and kids who are the superstars here. They are my 'Adrian'.
It meant that when COVID hit, I had a lot of time to consider what this looked like. I still felt 21, but my body hadn't kept up since I was 30, when I began feeling pain, and life hasn't been altogether pleasant since.
Maybe you're a bit like this... Ignore, ignore, ignore, AHYAH! Guys are like that, aren't they? Or maybe it's just people…
There was no ignoring this. I've never known pain like it, and it didn't go away. It shouldn't have happened to me! I was healthy and fit, played two games of football a week. Trained. Played at the weekend. Worked full- time. Had two young kids. Ran long distances. Did DIY. Had the odd night out, but didn't go mental. Was expected to do CPD when I got home from work, so did. Volunteered at a local church. I wasn't perfect, but I was trying my best and working hard.
I felt like I had limitless energy, but I didn't. No one does. All of a sudden, pain arrested me, and life took on a new form.
Illness is indiscriminate.
Life isn't fair.
The pits.
Back to Spain. Back to the heights. Back to screaming in each other's faces with our kids beside us. How did we get back there?
Well, I made a conscious effort to hold close the folk who had always been there for me. To make an effort. To re-establish and strengthen that which had, for whatever reason none of us could remember, been somewhat neglected.
My bandmates supported me through the illness. We got together for curries before finally reforming. We were playing last night. They're my oldest, and best, pals, and now we're making new music together.
My other best mate, Fin Marks, supported me through the illness and helped me launch Alba\Matter, and we ended up making a video for the National Team, with one of my childhood icons, Pat Nevin. Mind-blowing.
And my brother? We both ended up back at Hampden with different groups. It's funny how you never really leave those early loves that shape you. It could probably have just as easily been a Reef gig, but it was Hampden. We stood in an empty ground, me in the North and him in the West. Separated by a barrier, and chatting through it as an over-zealous jobsworth told us we couldn't chat on the stairs in a ⅓ full Hampden.
As much as a steel barrier may have benefited us at times in teenage years, we thought we might be able to tolerate seats together. After all, we had the new generation to indoctrinate, sorry, inspire.
Football is more than kicking a baw. It's the people you share it with. It's the Mcfadden goal with my girlfriend, and not seeing her again for 5 minutes, kissing more men than i did her. It's watching James Forrest's hattrick with Davie, it's Skrtel's OG with Colin B, it's Oli Burke's last gasp winner, and every game since, with Colin R, it's Moldova 1-0 for the first time in 20 years with the Auld Yin, it's Israel last minute with my now-wife, found after Mcfadden, and our precious kids, post diagnosis, it's telling Shuggie we'd score again, and we did, it's sharing a common pov with Gordon about Scotland being more important than any club, it's getting to games with Fin before he emigrated, it's singing the anthem next to my bandmate Ferg, with lovely falsetto, and it's even my other bandmate Joe, who asked to leave early. It's my kids and nephew, and seeing their wee eyes. And it's screaming in my brother's face. Who understood exactly what it meant.
That's what I'm thinking, post-Spain. Some things remain.
Here's to Scotland beating a'body, with the people you love. The good times are now.
Cheers
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