Fight Club

Just a quick note to capture the win for Scotland against Georgia, yesterday.
Bloody marvelous!
I did not catch all of the game, best not to ponder too much on the why's and whatnots about that ( i was in HomeBase at Hermiston Gate looking at bathroom tiles ) Told you not to ponder!
Heard the first exhilarating ten minutes on the radio, just enough time to catch Boyd's goal, sounded like a cracker at the time and by the time i got round to seeing it, it still was.
Then i was stuck in HomeBase hell for the remainder of the first half.
My reward was to be chaffeured up to the Riccarton Arms in Currie to watch the second half.
On the way i listened to the overtly depressed, half time post mortem of Scotland's failings in the first half !! By then Arveladze had equalised for Georgia ( a fine goal itself if helped a little by some confused defending and basic auld man-ness on our right flank.
Struck me though that the rest of the first half must have been a bit of a mare judging by the tearing to bits the panel on Radio Scotland ( Gordon Smith and Willie Miller ( if i remember right )) were giving the team.
I was a tad nervous then about the second half as we drew into the car park of the pub.

The Riccarton Arms has the advantage over the standard local ( Railway in Juniper Green ) for football matches in that they let you bring your kids along. So when you have nowhere to bung them and lets face it these days you can't just tie them to the lamppost outside the pub whilst you spend the afternoon getting hammered, like you used to be able to do, at least not in Currie any roads! The Riccarton Arms lets you take them in with you.
Got the beer and colas just in time for the second half to kick off.
Now for me i did not think we were too bad, in fact i thought under the circumstances of injuries and suspensions ( McFadden, Fletcher, Pressley etc ) i thought we were pretty good.

Thought about how different the world looked from a Jambo perspective - this time last year - The spine of the Hearts team was also the spine of the Scotland team and we were in danger of strengthening that position into a bit of a monopoly. How very different things were now with Craig Gordon the only Jambo on the park.
The way things are going by the next time we play Georgia they could be fielding more Jambos than Scotland !!

I was interested to see Gogita Gogua come on for Georgia as Hearts had tried to sign him in the January transfer window - red tape being the catalyst for another round of SFA conspiracy theories amongst those who have watched too many episodes of the x-files ( me too )
He did not do much, if anything at all, though so couldn't come to any opinion either way round.

For me Scotland were undoubtedly the better team, Georgia had a couple of chances but Scotland played the more aggressive positive game and without being anything like the 16th best team in the world we did manage to create a chance or two ourselves. The best came from a cracking cross from the left by Naysmith right onto the big toe of Boyd, he should have buried it but he tried to leather it in and missed completely. Boyd was also unfortunate a few minutes earlier when he took an awkward chance to score really well, only to see it come back of the bar.
As the game moved into it's final stages i was struck with that spirit sapping feeling that we were not going to score, Boyd's back post thrash was the chance to win the game i thought.
I mentally went over the pros and cons of a draw rather than a win in terms of what that meant to Scotlands chances of qualifying - bonkers is it not! have i forgotten the football goliaths we have in our group, what chance do we have of qualification regardless of this result.
Beattie came on for Boyd and Scott Brown came on for Teale, Brown brought his energy into the midfield which lifted things a little and Beattie did his usual mostly ineffectual bustling up front.
With only minutes left and the game stumbling towards it's level end, Hartley found 2 yards to cross to Miller who headed back across the box for Beattie to collect on his chest and somehow sclaff the ball goalward, the keeper got to it but not enough to keep it out.

Scotland 2
Georgia 1

I have been in the Riccarton Arms to watch only one game before yesterdays.
Scotland 1
France 0
The pub is now my local for football games.
I stood in the same spot in the pub for both games, directly under one off their low slung oak beams. As the goal went in i ( as you do ) raised my hand in clenched fist delight and slammed my fist into the oak beam. Bust my knuckles wide open - looked like i had been in a scene of Fight Club. Done exactly the same when we scored against France as well - eejit.