OFFSET YOUR WORLD CUP TRAVEL WITH GREENERTRAVEL
Date: 2nd July 2026
Billy calculates
By Donald C Stewart
A view from the sofa, as I, along with many Scotland fans, are unable to get a second mortgage to attend the World Cup in the USA and so am on the sofa. With a virtual Billy Gilmour (he is no really there by the way, just exists in ma puggled heid) by my side, also from Ayrshire I shall be looking out for the bizarre and daft that makes this summer, hopefully, a World Cup to remember….
Zooming in with Billy this week, it was a fascinating education.
Let’s be honest, the majority of people think that footballers are thick. They are mocked because of their lack of educational prowess.
Every four years of the World Cup, they also get the opportunity of taking out a big map putting pins in it, or Panini stickers, where they think the teams from each of the countries have actually come from.
This has been compounded for Billy because he combined maths and geography trying to work out in terms of statistics, if Scotland would qualify.
By Sunday morning, ironically it was all academic.
Billy’s heid had been puggled and so had mine.
So, as South Africa beat South Korea. Ecuador managed a 2-1 win over Germany, and Japan were held to a one-all draw by Sweden, but with Uruguay beating Spain as a bit of good news, whilst Iran’s draw with Egypt was mixed for us, we just lost the plot and decided to sit back and let the tourney run… Until we got excited again by another result
Billy and I had been looking at the map. We knew where Austria was, but Billy was unsure about where Algeria was. He wondered if them being in the heat, whilst Austria had winters like ours, maybe gave Algeria an opportunity to use that temperature over in America to spring a surprise. He pointed out they would have to win by four goals or more. So therefore, we settled for hoping that Austria would win by two. Ghana. Well, we knew it was in Africa somewhere. We eventually tracked it down.
Then Croatia! Get beaten by three goals or more by on Ghanaians? That was a tall order. Then we looked at the Democratic Republic of Congo. Billy asked, wasn’t that where the huge guy frae Airdrie came from that was some kind of boxer? I was able to confirm that Martin Bakole did indeed come from Congo and was now using Airdrie as his base to conquer the world. Imagine that?
We both shook our heads.
They had to beat Uzbekistan. Where in the name of the world is Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Union enclave. We eventually found it on the map, and decided that probably was the best hope that they would just draw. Or if Uzbekistan could just win by a maximum of three goals and no more, that would also help. So, I put a pound on. No point in going over the top, is there?
On Saturday at 0.07%, Scotland’s World Cup hopes had plummeted day on day as results had gone against them. By Sunday we arrived at hee haw per cent, and we were officially going hame.
The predictable had been thrown out the window and Billy and I had sat many an evening on WhatsApp swapping the ideas that if X won Y and A beat B, that perhaps we were in with an alphabetical shout of being in the next round. It was compounded by Billy trying to work out when to leave now or wait until later.
The rest of the World Cup is probably going to be the two of us on a sofa watching from our cardboard cutout ideas of what is going to happen. And wondering why Congo could not hold onto a lead.
Then the reality – even if we were to get into the last 32. Who were we kidding? Was it Germany we were likely to meet? Could we replicate Ecuador and beat them to get to the last 16? Was there a Denmark-like performance left in our bones?
Little did we know that in some bedroom somewhere Steve Clarke was penning 1,000 words and making his exit plans.
Legacy is a big word and when I spoke to Billy, he had little to say. The shock was obvious. What was to come next was to be talked through.
We left it till next time…
Posted in: Fan's Blog, Latest News
Tags: BILLY GILMOUR, Scottish football, Tartan Army, World Cup