you’ll do exactly the same.
But yes, maybe I am getting old.
Only a few years ago, I would have put my life savings into Northern Rock for a night on the skite in Paris.
But I guess I’m all Parisienned out. Over the years, I’ve drank the maxim in Maxims and partied until my Moulin was rouge. I won’t even attempt to tell you what happened in Fouquets,
This trip, I skipped the Champs D’Elyses, the Sacre Cour, the Arc de Triumph and Notre Dame. And I only visited the Eiffel Tower to look up some Tartan Army pals.
Paris 2007 was, I pledged to myself, going to be about window shopping, wine shops, good food and some football.
After a few hours, I was on nodding terms with the patron of a bar in Montparnasse.
When I nodded, he brought me a café cognac. When he nodded, I slipped him a wad of Euros. Lunch was lobster, oysters, mussels and a bottle of the house Chablis.
Could it get any better than this? Oh yes it could!
What a game. What a goal. What a result. What a party afterwards. And I hadn’t done any training for actually winning this one.
That feeling of euphoria was still with me on Thursday morning. But no-one else was. The Aviemore Light Infantry were off to the airport and I was booked out of Brussels.
But hey, I didn’t want to go home. And I didn’t want a night in Paris on my own. Some of their Foreign Legion weren’t taking kindly to the result.
If the missus caught the same flight I did on Tuesday, she’d be in Brussels by tea time. And we’d share the same flight back on Friday morning.
She went shopping for Belgian chocolates, I went shopping for Guinness. And we both succeeded.
Dinner was by candlelight in a street café off the Grande Place. I had sole in a Flemish sauce, she chose the mussels in Brussels.
Every few minutes, some smiling lads in kilts would wander past and want to shake hands.
I was in a grand mood, with a grand lady in a Grande Place and having a grand time. And we’d just humped France.
For an ageing footsoldier, even an old romantic one, it really doesn’t get any better than this.
Filler 2
Still on THAT match, how many of you counted the clock down with the same thoughts I had?
With about four minutes left, I was calculating that the French could still equalise. In injury time, I had worked out that even if they did, they couldn’t possibly get two. We would get at least a point.
How sad is that for negative thinking?
But the funny thing is, just about every fan I spoke to afterwards said they had similar thoughts.
Staring a great victory in the face, we still didn’t believe it could happen.
Sadly, that’s the mental legacy Berti Vogts left behind him.
Under Big Eck, we have a team that believes. It’s now up to the fans to believe with him.
Filler 3
I HAD the pleasure of interviewing Colin McRae about five years ago.
We were in a Glasgow hotel to talk about his latest computer game and new rally driving venture. He was a totally focussed man and he reminded me a lot of Jackie Stewart. Maybe its something all great drivers have.
But afterwards, we chatted about the finer things in life. Colin liked nothing better than tinkering with an old motorbike in his garage, trying to stop daughter Hollie getting her hands covered in oil.
He had a grin as he told that story. I like to think he knew that Hollie was about to get a little brother.
I was just back from a holiday in Puerta Polllensa in Majorca and by co-incidence, Colin enthused about his new boat sitting in that very harbour.
"If you ever see me on board, drop in for a beer," he said.
I saw his boat in the harbour many times