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No camera lenses bigger than 70 cms. No musical instruments larger than 60 cms. No food and drink bought outside the ground and no flag sticks larger than 20cms. These were the weird rules imposed on fans entering any ground at the U20 World Cup in Canada. The only other venue I have heard of people being prevented from taking food and drink into is Eurodisney. Very appropriate given the Mickey Mouse performance by the Scots, not least goalkeeper Stephen McNeil of Hibs, who appeared to have been given the normal pair of Teflon coated gloves the SFA provide to any Scotland goalkeeper before a World Cup finals. Had we been expecting too much from the young lads? Of course we were - it is Scotland in a World Cup finals for God's sake! And excuse me, but are we not the second best team in Europe? It was pointed out so often that the likes of Germany, France, Italy and England were not in Canada that I felt like getting T-shirt made up with this statement on the front to save my voice.
Whilst some major European teams didn't make the cut, rather worryingly for Scotland, a few leading African and Asian teams were competing. Even more worryingly, two of the best - Nigeria and Japan - were in our group. This view is being charitable in the extreme. Others, and by the end of the Costa Rica game I was firmly in the “others” camp, might suggest they didn't have a clue what they were doing and they, along with most of the team, were completely out of their depth.
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One player whose lack of ability at this level stood out like Tam Coyle at an anorexia convention, was Andrew Cave Brown of Norwich, out on loan to Kings Lynn last season. As he jogged past us the day after the Japan game, when myself and Craig McDowall were strolling around Victoria, Craig was moved to comment “If only he'd moved that fast on the pitch!”
After the Japan match we ended up in Logan's Bar which was possibly the worst bar of the trip. In the 'patio' area we met a paranoid drunk and depressed Scot (is there any other!) who believed he was a being closely observed by the pub's CCTV. He climbed up and put his baseball cap over the camera. He then spent 10 minutes gesticulating at, as he put it, those bastards trying to watch me on TV. Quite what they were managing to watch through his cap, god knows. The next game saw a return to the suburbs of Victoria and a return to Logan's Bar where the mood in the camp was a determined desire to give the boys our best vocal support, something which had been sadly missing in the first game. A few liquid refreshments were taken (you've got to rehydrate in the heat after all) and the main stand was duly stormed. The pipes were playing, the fans were singing and then a steward turned up to tell our piper “Just because we've let you bring them in, doesn't mean to say you can play them”. The tartan mist descended on a few of our company at this point and various strategies were proposed such as the fans forming a protective barrier around the pipers to prevent the stewards getting at them. Not so much an Iron Curtain as a Ring of Flab. Fortunately this was not needed and the game progressed as expected with Scotland getting humped despite an improved performance. I have to confess that at some point in the second half we were infiltrated by young Canadian girls of Scots descent. Yes, I did participate in a few chants of “Let's go Scotland, let's go” but hey, you can get a bit bored with “We'll be coming, blah, blah, blah”. |
And so to Vancouver, or more precisely, the Firefighters Club in Burnaby which proved the point that no matter where you provide cheap drink, you will get moaning pensioners. It was like being in the Canadian equivalent of “Still Game”. To put in an even better context I looked young. The Burnaby stadium, home to the Vancouver Whitecaps, is a bit of a joke and it takes a quantum leap of the imagination to picture David Beckham plying his trade there. It is, however, set in a gorgeous woodland park – a fact I know as we got lost in it after the game to the extent that had we met Little Red Riding Hood, it would have come as no surprise. As far as the game was concerned, we looked quietly comfortable in the first half, going in at half time 1- 0 up. It looked to me like the team were told to sit on the lead in the second half, but following this disastrous decision by the coaching staff, the Costa Ricans equalised. Later one Raymond Snodgrass, the supposed great white hope of Scottish football, (if he is the future I am handing back my SSC membership now) produced an individual performance of such mind numbing ineptitude I have never seen.
And so right at the death we were out, dead in the water, home before the postcards - the usual world cup debacle. As one wag pointed out leaving the ground “We've been put out by Milli Vanilli!” Was this a good experience for the team? I don't think so as I do not expect to see 85% of them playing for the full team and so they will have no need to take that experience into a full blown World Cup finals. How we resolve that matter is a question for a drunken conversation in a European bar at 2am in the morning. Will the fans take much from the experience? Too right mate. Canada was brilliant and I would go back in an instant. |
