Monday, March 26, 2007

This is a Tennents advert that was on the back of the match day programme at the Scotland v Georgia game on Saturday. This is about football (or soccer!!) for those of you who don't know. The first time I saw this was on the Glasgow subway and I couldn't stop laughing. I think it is just brilliant! At the moment we are topping our group for the Euro 2008 qualifiers. It has been dubbed 'The Group of Death' because it includes Italy (world champions), France (runners up at the world cup), Ukraine (also a very good team), along with Lithuania, Georgia and the Faroe Islands. It is amazing that we are in the position that we are in and who knows if we will qualifiy so I will savour it while it lasts! But heres hoping!!
So here it is:
Scotland Hopes.
Hope is knowing that football fans, like the scarves we wear, are made to be lifted up.
Because our greatest glory consists not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall. Confucius said that. Or was it Steven Pressley?
Like Hampden’s fearsome roar, hope arouses a passion for the possible. It helps us achieve the unthinkable –
Scotland 1 France 0
Hope 89’
We can live 40 days without food, 3 days without water and 8 minutes without air. We can live 4 days in the Ukraine without changing our replica shirts. But we cannot live 1 second without hope.
Hope is not caring if we lose every game, as long as we top the group.
Hope is calculating that we only need 6 points from our last 2 games, provided the Faroes hold Italy and Ukraine beat France by 2 clear goals. And Hope is pricing flights from Glasgow to Zurich ‘just in case’.
But most of all, hope is like a path in the country – there never was a path, but when many of us walk the same ground, the path comes into existence. This is the path we follow – WHEREVER IT TAKES US, WHATEVER IT TAKES.