I went to the 1998 World Cup in France and generally had a whale of a time. I arrived after Scotland's brave but doomed opening game v Brazil (1-2), watched Scotland v Norway on TV in a French bar (1-1) then actually attended the game in St Etienne that might have seen us through to the next round for the first time ever. Sadly Morocco were easy winners (0-3) and as the Tartan Army walked back into town that night, the songs sounded more like laments. It seems very "wise ass after the event" but even then there was a feeling that a lot of that team were getting on and maybe it would be a while before we qualified again for a major tournament ... Jim Leighton, Tom Boyd, Colin Hendry, John Collins, Kevin Gallacher, Gordon Durie and Tosh McKinlay all played v Morocco as first choice, or subs, and all were over 30 ...
In the qualifiers for Euro 2000, Scotland finished second in their group and got a playoff tie v England. Beaten at Hampden in November 1999 (0-2), the team beat England 1-0 at the old Wembley in the return and nearly pulled off a shock... but didn't. A couple of years later in the qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup, Scotland went into their penultimate group game away v Belgium needing a result but lost 0-2, missing out on the playoffs in the end by two points (Belgium made the playoffs instead, beat the Czechs 2-0 on aggregate and went to Japan/Korea the next summer).
Another two years, and Scotland made the playoffs for Euro 2004 only to lose 1-6 on aggregate to the Netherlands in November 2003 - utterly outclassed in a 0-6 thrashing in Amsterdam...
In qualifying for the 2006 World Cup, Scotland took 1 point from a possible 9 in home games v Slovenia, Norway and Belarus so weren't anywhere near even a playoff place ...
As for Euro 2008, the team improved and had a good go in a group that contained France and Italy, taking it to the last game v Italy at Hampden but lost 1-2 and missed out on a playoff spot by a couple of points.
This World Cup? Not at the races. The Netherlands bossed the qualifying group leaving Scotland and Norway trailing in their wake. The group also rans were so poor, that no one even went forward to the playoffs anyway - we finished third, behind Norway in second on goal difference.
Plainly, we're not good enough. A poor qualifying campaign and we tend to finish third in the group - a good one and we finish second which only leads to tough playoffs. For the next European Championships, we have the following teams, with latest FIFA World Ranking score in brackets: Spain (2), the Czechs (33), Lithuania (49) and Liechtenstein (149). Spain will finish top and we might make the playoffs if we pull off a couple of decent results v the Czechs over 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons - our ranking is 43.
The question is, how well can a post-industrial nation of 5 million couch potatoes be expected to do? And the answer is that Croatia (pop: 4.5m) are ranked 10 in the world at the moment; Uruguay (pop: 3.5m) are ranked 16; Norway (pop: 4.9m) are ranked 22 ... so it is possible and we could be doing better. But we're not. So when England tears itself apart tomorrow in a fit of self-flagellation, remember that actually getting there, playing the games, meeting the locals, having the fun is something denied a lot of people ... It's late and I'm going to stop now.