I think we can take it as read that after last Saturday's performance at Goat Gardens that Scottish football is officially in the scrubber. There can never have been so embarrassing a result for the country in 130 odd years of trying our hand at the beautiful game. Surely this result proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Vogts and Co need years to get this country on the right track again.
If any further evidence is needed as to just how low we have fallen as a footballing nation, then perhaps we should look back at how the late John Rafferty described the talents of Jim Baxter and indeed what football should mean to us all.
"It is irrational and it stems from a great conceit or, perhaps, a myth, that in Scottish football there is an inspired, spontaneous geometry of purest origin which, when it comes right, will benefit even the defeated.
For they could learn from the vision of perfection, a perfection that is of the people, made by the people, by wee, bitter, narrow, ill-educated men yet full of light and luminous grace."
I don't know where Scottish football goes from here. I was weaned on stories like Alex Scott being automatic choice for a very good Scottish side in the early 60s, yet not being able to get into the Rangers team because Willie Henderson was so exciting a prospect. What do we get now, the likes of Stephen Crainey and Kevin Kyle? Scottish football is approaching Northern Ireland status with the national side being littered with players who are not playing regular first team football.
I've had many a fall out with Scotland/Rangers supporters over the years, as I'm sure a certain KB who is in exile would readily testify. Right now, I weep for my country's footballing heritage. Before anyone asks, I will never forget (or forgive) the unfairness, jealousy and vindictiveness aimed at my club from the nothings at The SFA, in this post Souness era.
But the fact is we need to get back to Jimmy Bowie's golden vision for the club when we opened the Main Stand in 1929. Lest we forget, when Rangers opened the Main Stand, Jimmy Bowie took the Scottish journalists all round the stand, took them onto the pitch and pointing to the new Grandstand told the assembled throng;
"This is our new stand. It holds 10,000 and we could fill it ten times over with young boys who are desperate to play for The Rangers."
A hundred thousand young boys wanting to play for Rangers? At this moment in time, you'd be lucky if a handful would be good enough to make the grade.
It's easy to blame the PC generation. But personally speaking, I think blaming Sonic the fecking hedgehog and a fat moustachioed plumber is a bit of a cop-out. The fact is, the kids in Scandinavian countries plus French and the Dutch kids, to name but a few million, all have as easy an access to the creature comforts and easy living as our offspring do.
The fact is, we are doing something drastically wrong when kids reach a certain age group. No one is going to tell me that the kids are still not there in comparable numbers to these countries at an early age. But it seems to be that as soon as they start growing hairs they can sit on (thank you Dame Edna) then they become lost to us.
Not that it was all bad news on the international front. Word reaches us from Scotland's joint Euro 2008 bidsters that they don't have enough money to build the new stadium required for them to hold up their end of the bargain. Why anybody would be surprised that the Irish government can't do anything without being bankrolled by the EEC is a mystery.
Lest we forget though, Ireland already has a stadium large enough to meet UEFA's criteria, but as we all know, The GAA won't allow Croke Park to be used because of small minded, petty religious bigotry and racism. We can't have a British game played there. Dem Prods play football you know.
As usual the silence from our press has been overwhelming. Just think, the very people who get antsy and in a fankle because of invisible flutes, don't appear to have a problem with Scotland aligning itself to this most anti-Protestant of states.
Let's see now, this country won't allow a stadium to be used because of bigotry and a man who had to resign from the Fianna Fail party because he gave a terrorist an alibi in a court of law is one of the main players as the Irish Sports Minister along with Jack McConnell and Bertie Ahern.
That is the calibre of people Scotland's first minister has been aligning this country with and our press stands back and says nothing. One to remember I think, the next time they use the bigotry card against us.
Keeping with our cowards with typewriters. This midweek saw a minute' silence for the victims of last September's big bangs in The Big Apple. Which could only mean one thing of course. The jolly craicskateers were in town. Only in Scotland could a support defile a minute's silence for the victims of terrorism with pro terrorist ditties and attract so few headlines.
And where is the mock outrage from Dolly when you need it most though? I mean a whole cottage industry has been formed (or foamed more like) by Dolly about the imagined desecration of a minute's silence for Matt Busby up at Pittodrie all those years ago. The fact is, they don't care about Busby. All along this has been a dreamed up, souped up tissue of lies. Anything to try and have a go at the Rangers support.
So at long last the team is now peering down the table at the rest. No one and I mean absolutely no one should get carried away with the events of this midweek. In fact it should make us all the more determined to make sure no more daft and needless slip-ups like the first day of the season at Rugby Park are made. And it was nice to read Barry Ferguson saying precisely this after the Hearts match. I don't think I'm the only one who sees Master Ferguson starting to mature and take on the responsibility that comes with being captain of Rangers.
Although as per usual, this victory was gained at a cost. At time of writing Numan (again) and de Boer are on the treatment table. It is to be hoped nothing serious will come of these knocks. I think it is vital that we keep a wee bit of continuity about the team where possible.
So it's another trek out east this weekend. I had to laugh at a yahoo on one of the yahoo whebsites this week who accused Auntie Beeb of being biased against Celtic. He cited Gordon Smith and Jimmy Calderwood of all people as proof positive of this.
With the issue of favouritism and bias in mind, I think it's only fair to let the rest of you in on a statement made by Livingston Chairman Dominic Keane. This was in reply to a question about how he would feel and what would he do if Celtic had to play Livingston on the very last day of the season and needed a win to lift the title. "I'm sure our Under 16s would try their very best" quoth the bhoy Keane. Now if that's not biased or cheating, then I don't know what is?
Enjoy your weekend troops.
The Govanhill Gub.