O Flower of Scotland

O Flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again? The opening line of the national anthem took on a whole new meaning on Wednesday night: when will we next see a match as wonderful as this? Scotland’s defensive masterclass in Paris was the stuff dreams are made of, but down here in deepest Tuscany, my attempts to find somewhere to watch the game were notably less successful. Every time Scotland play, I resolutely check the listings of every obscure sports channel I can find, in the inevitably vain search for live coverage, before eventually settling for a text commentary on the Internet, accompanied on this occasion by streamed audio coverage from ‘Super Scoreboard’ on Clyde 1. What I hadn’t noticed, though, was the 30-second delay on the audio commentary. When the words ‘GOAL: McFADDEN’ appeared on the screen in front of me, clearly I thought my eyes were deceiving me: I was listening to the radio, and the ball was at the other end of the park with Craig Gordon! Thirty seconds later, alas, I heard the goal for real, and my fellow Internet café users may, at this point, have been a little taken aback by my animated behaviour. At full time I had the widest smile in Siena; I just wished I’d been able to watch the game. Imagine my displeasure, then, when I returned home to discover that the game had been live on Eurosport! My frustration at having missed it was such that, this afternoon, I had no option but to leave work early and watch the repeat broadcast in full. As for the match itself, our victory underlined the importance of a well-structured team. Every Scotland player had a clearly defined role, and every one of them stuck to it: at any level of football, a well-structured team tends to be a winning team. In our recent games Stenny have been found wanting in that regard: I hope we are now able to follow the example set by the national team. We have got plenty of quality, so if our players stick to their roles and do the simple things right, our season will soon be back on track. As Dumbarton attempt to ‘Raise the Rock’ this Saturday, it might just be time for us to turn a corner.