McFadulous

Regular readers (!) of my blog will know that the last few weeks have taken me nowhere near the Home of Football, but instead I have been galavanting across the globe (well Prague and Manchester). The last 7 days have taken me to Glasgow and Paris for the final leg of my World Tour. For about 30 minutes last weekend, I thought that the dream was about to be blown apart by the cheating, diving Hearts Reserves team. OK, I know our lot like the odd bit of simulation (looking at you Mr O'Connor) but we are useless at it, so it doesn't seem quite so bad as what those pesky Lithuanians got away with. They really must practice at it to be that good! In the end we played our Get of out Jail card (again) and headed for Gay Paris in high spirits. I was just happy that the dream lasted a little longer, and OK, the French were going to wreak revenge on us following the game at Hampden when the ballboys had stolen vistory from the illustrious visitors. So, I headed off to Paris to complete my "Stenhousemuir-free" football watching extravangza. Expections = very low. But it turned out that the highlight of the trip wasn't the bars before and after the game; for once the match itself was the highlight. So many times in the past I have travelled away with Scotland, where the fact of the matter is that the game has got in the way of a good piss up. I am still coming to terms with McFadden's goal - didn't it creep past the post? surely someone must have been offside? over zealous French ballboys maybe threw 2 balls on the pitch at the same time? - but it really does seem to be true. The goal stood. We just beat the French - again. And still we haven't qualified for the finals. How does that work?! If you look closely, as the camera pans across the jubilant Scottish support, immediately after the ball hit the back of the net, you can see me jumping about like a loony. But I don't care how idiotic I look, when they re-run the "Greatest Ever Scottish Goal" I'll be able to say I was there, and I'll be able to prove it! Now it's back to normality, and the truth is that I was actually enjoying not thinking about our trip to Dumbarton. Hopefully Campbell Money has used the break to good effect and that the players will be up for it. For me, Dumbarton is a bridge too far, so I will have to make do with Jeff Stellings updates, but hopefully we can round off a fantastic week is style!