Former Queen’s Park, Hearts, Scotland and, briefly, Dumbarton goalkeeper Jim Cruickshank has died.

He was probably the best goalkeeper Hearts have ever had and ought to have played more times for Scotland than he did.

I can’t remember at all well the 1977-78 season during which he played for the Sons but I suspect I did see him between the sticks for us. He was past his prime by then I suppose, but had fallen out with Hearts for some reason; a rift which apparently was never healed – which is sad as he is definitely a Hearts (and Scottish) legend.

Jim Cruickshank: 13/04/1941-18/11/2010. So it goes.

Pittodrie Stadium, 16/11/10.

I only watched the highlights but the performance looked good. The three goals all came from the same source, though – corners from the right not properly cleared – and better sides than the Faroes will not be so vulnerable.

However, Scotland have in the past struggled to score against opponents like this so the result is not to be sniffed at. It was also encouraging to see young players come in and do well.

Bigger tests await, though.

Hampden Park, 12/10/10

Well this was much brighter. Two good goals and coming from behind to equalise. Against the World Champions* too. It just shows the benefits of having a go sometimes. Mind you I only watched the highlights show at 11.05.

The timidity of the (lack of) ambition in evidence against Lithuania and in the Czech Rep was shown up by this performance. We are capable of creating chances and of scoring them – even against the best. Okay it was at home and with a fierce vocal backing. But Spain are a much greater force than the two teams from whom we filched merely one point and who now have four and three respectively in our mini tournament to decide the upper lower (or lower upper if you prefer) placings in the group. Spain will win it overall, Liechtenstein will be bottom.

It’s all left us with too much to do.

*The official World Champions. Japan (!) are now the unofficial World Champions. That title has changed hands twice now since the World Cup.

Synot Tip Arena, Prague, 8/10/10

This was grim: and we got what we deserved. I hope Jim Chapman wasn’t watching, it might have given him wild ideas.

I joked to a work mate today we should play 10-0. What we got was a remarkably similar formation, 4-6-0. I would have been better off – and more excited – watching paint dry.

If you don’t play any forwards you can’t get the ball upfield. If you can’t get the ball upfield you can’t score. And that’s the whole point of the game.

Okay, if you don’t concede you don’t lose. But you can’t win.

Craig Levein’s tactics today ensured that Scotland would not win.

Was he using this as some sort of a trial run for playing Spain? (I know he denied it after the game but watch what formation he sends out against Spain in Spain. If he’s still there. )

If so it was at the least unwise. (I doubt whether we have the players capable of sustaining this system.) And the Czech Republic didn’t look very great shakes, not all that incisive going forward even after we had to come out a bit and, though they were never really under pressure, insecure at the back . They also appeared very get-at-able when Scotland went 4-4-2.

This could have been an opportunity for a win (unlikely but possible.)

And it was spurned.

Big Rab recently posted up this list. Apologies to Sassenachs and others furth of Scotland for the incomprehensibility of most of what follows.

1. You consider scattered showers with outbreaks of sunshine as good weather.

2. The only sausage you like is square.

3. You have been forced to do Scottish country dancing every year at secondary school.

4. You have a wide vocabulary of Scottish words such as numpty, aye, aye right, auldjin, baltic…

5. You destroyed your teeth when you were young using Buchanan’s Toffee, Wham bars, Penny Dainties, MB Bars, Cola Cubes etc.

6. You have an enormous feeling of dread whenever Scotland play a ‘numpty’ team like the Faroe Islands.

7. You happily engage in a conversation about the weather with someone you’ve never met before.

8. Even if you normally hate the Proclaimers, Runrig, Caledonia , Deacon Blue and Big Country, you still love it when you’re in a club abroad and they play something Scottish.

9. You used to watch Glen Michael’s Cavalcade on a Sunday afternoon with his side kick Lamp Paladin.

10. You got Oor Wullie and The Broons annuals at Xmas.

11. You can tell where another Scot is from by their accent – “Awright, pal, gonnae gies a wee swatch oa yur Sun ? Cheers. Magic, pal.” Or, “Fit ya bin up tae? Fair few quines in the nicht, eh ?” etc.

12. You see cops and hear someone shout, ‘Errapolis.’

13. You have participated in or watched people having a ‘square go.’

14. You know that when someone asks you what school you went to they only want to know if you are Catholic or Protestant.

15. You have eaten lots and lots of random Scottish food like mince’n’tatties, Tunnock’s Caramel Logs/Wafers and Teacakes, oat cakes, haggis, Cullen Skink, Lees Macaroon Bars, etc.

16. A jakey has asked you for money.

17. You think nothing of waiting expectantly for your 1p change from a shop keeper.

18. You know the right response to, ‘Ye dancing ?’ is, ‘Y’askin?’ followed by, ‘Ah’m askin,’ and finally, ‘Then ah’m dancin.’

19. Whenever you see sawdust it reminds you of pools of vomit as that’s what the jannies used to chuck on it at school.

20. You lose all respect for a groom who doesn’t wear a kilt.

21. You don’t do shopping… you ‘go the messages.’

22. You’re sitting on the train or bus and a drunk man sits next to you telling you a joke – and asking, ‘Ah’m no annoying ye ah’m a?’ and you respond, ‘Naw, not at a’, yer fine. This is ma stoap, but.’

23. You can have an entire phone conversation using only the words, ‘awright,’ ‘aye,’ and ‘naw.’

24. You have experienced peer pressure to have an alcoholic drink when out – regardless of the circumstances.

25. You know that ye cannae fling yer pieces oot a 20 storey flat, and

that seven hundred hungry weans’ll testify tae that.

Furthermore

you’re sure that if it’s butter, cheese or jeely, or if the breid is plain or pan, the odds against it reaching earth are 99 tae wan.

26. You know that going to a party at a friend’s house involves bringing your own drink.

27. Your holiday abroad is ruined if you hear there is a heatwave in Scotland while you’re away.

28. Your national team goes 2-0 up against the Czechs in a qualifier in Prague and your mate says we’ll end up losing 3-2 here and you think, “Probably.”

29. You can properly pronounce McConnochie, Ecclefechan, Milngavie and Auchtermuchty.

30. Your favourite pizza is deep fried and battered from the chippy.

31. You’re used to 4 seasons in one day.

32 You can’t pass a chip shop or kebab shop, without drooling, when you’re drunk.

33. You can fall about drunk without spilling your drink.

34. You measure distance in minutes.

35. You can understand Rab C Nesbitt and know characters just like them in your own family.

36. You go to Saltcoats because you think it’s like being at the ocean.

37. You can make a whole sentence out of just swear words.

38. You know what haggis is made with and still eat it.

39. Somebody you know used a football schedule to plan their wedding day date.

40. You’ve been at a wedding where the footie results were read out.

41. You aren’t surprised to find curries, pizzas, kebabs, Irn Bru, nappies and fags all for sale in one shop.

42. Your seaside holiday home has Calor gas under it.

43. You know that Irn Bru is an infallible hangover cure.

44. You understand all the above and are going to send it to your pals.

45. And, finally, you are 100 per cent Scottish if you have ever used these terms – “How’s it hingin’?” “clatty” “boggin” “cludgie” “dreich” “bampot” “bawheid” “baw bag” and “double nougat,” (this last pronounced “nugget.”)

Hampden Park, 7/9/10.

On the highlights (there were highlights?) Liechtenstein looked like a team. They were comfortable in possession, passing the ball, running in support, and in Mario Frick they had a very good player in their ranks – who took his goal superbly but ought to have been closed down to prevent it happening. Every time they got the ball I thought – they’re going to score, they’re going to score – and eventually they did.

Scotland looked nothing like a team, disjointed, unable to make the simplest pass or run, scared of possession: but got out of jail.

There is no point dreaming of qualification – notwithstanding the fact that Lithuania won in the Czech Rep last night (we won’t) – and even if by some miracle we do qualify what’s the use? We’d only get humped in every game in the finals; or the play-offs.

Even the chance to become unofficial world champions has now been taken away after Spain were demolished by Argentina yesterday.

Dariaus Ir Gireno Stadium, Kaunas, 3/9/10.

This was so frustrating. I expected Lithuania to be much better than they were. Given that we were so dominant in the first half while playing an essentially defensive formation why not change to something more attacking at half-time? (That was also the perfect time to replace Scott Brown who had become a liability.)

As it was McFadden wasn’t brought on till 25 minutes to go which didn’t give him enough time to be effective. Not that the ball was delivered to him often enough anyway.

And Kris Boyd wasn’t brought on at all: whatever you think of him he’s more of a natural goalscorer than anything we had on show in the starting line-up.

We’ll probably struggle against Liechtenstein on Tuesday night too.

Spain, now, we just might beat when they come round. We’re perverse that way.

I’m not a golfer, but it’s impossible to live in Scotland and not be aware of the sport. Even more so in Fife where every wee town seems to have its own course. Lundin Links – barely a blink as you drive through it – has two; one which is usually used for Open qualifying and the other, Lundin Ladies’.

St Andrews, of course, is littered with them, demand for the Old Course being so great as to be unsatisfiable. So, in addition there are the New Course, the Eden Course, the Jubilee Course, the Castle Course, the Strathtyrum Course and the Balgove Course – and those are only the ones run by the St Andrews Links Trust.

The Open Championship – if you’re being parochial you’d call it the British Open – is underway at the moment and so the place is transformed. You can’t move in the town normally for golf shops etc. so goodness knows what it is like at the moment. So much of a distraction is the tournament that St Andrews’s other modern attraction – the University – shuts down for the duration.

Myself and the good lady caught the preparations last week. A small army of mowers was shaving the first fairway.

On the sand just where the Swilken Burn finally flows into the North Sea there was a spectacular piece of driftwood. It almost looked like it had been sculpted.

From the links it looked like a sculpture of a cow but closer in more resembled a dinosaur.

You can see bits of the tented village in the second photo. It wasn’t quite in readiness but there were signs for banks and “Fish and Chips” and other stuff which I forget. It must be a huge money spinner – not all of it going to the town, sadly.

When the open is at Muirfield you can see the tented village from Kirkcaldy, gleaming whitely across miles of Forth estuary. The proprietors there call themselves “the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers” but I believe they don’t allow women to be members – which may not be quite so honourable in this day and age.

Of course in central Scotland you are never far away from a course on the Open rota. Carnoustie is only across the Tay estuary from Fife and both Troon and Turnberry are on the Ayrshire coast, no more than a couple of hours drive away. (You just can’t avoid golfing puns in a piece like this.)

St Andrews is a favourite place for myself and the good lady but we’ll be giving it a miss this week. I’m sure you see more of the action on the TV anyway. I’ve caught some of yesterday’s and today’s play and I’ll be watching the climax on Sunday. At least I’ll be out of any wind and rain.

World Cup. Final. Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11/7/10. aet 0-1.

Not a classic. Again, finals are usually far too nervy affairs for the football to be flowing.

Here it was the Dutch who were more nervous about losing than the Spanish, yet they could have won it if Arjen Robben had put their best chance away.

They were lucky to have eleven men still on the pitch after the first half which featured mostly anti-football. What a comedown from the days of Total Football.

Spain could bury teams if they had a taller forward line, got width and delivered accurate crosses. As it is they seem content to win 1-0. That’s four of those in a row now.

A sideline to the Spanish win is that Scotland once again have the opportunity to be crowned Unofficial World Champions when we play them during the next Euro qualifiers.

That is if someone else doesn’t beat them first.

And pigs fly.

Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane, 17/6/10

The better team (by a country mile) won this game.

A France side which in retrospect was in decline even as long ago as when Scotland beat them twice in the last World Cup qualifiers, had no invention, no spark and looked disinterested.

Mexico by contrast were bright and fluid and constantly looked threatening.

France are out unless they hump the hosts and there is not a draw in the other game (or, if head-to-head results count before goal difference only if Mexico beat Uruguay.)

The TV pundits seemed to think Uruguay and Mexico might collude to draw and thus eliminate both Bafana Bafana and the French.

But….

Would you want to come second in this group?

Okay you would have got through but it would also mean most likely facing Argentina in the second round. (I can’t see Greece beating them to come first in Group B.)