Gordopolis

If I remember rightly he was being touted (here and there in the media) for a Scotland recall at the time?

Yeah Burchill always seemed a decent athlete and keen to do well. The injury at Pompey might have shaved an edge off his pace but I don't think it was the difference between him being Michael Owen and, well, Mark Burchill

Ha, my reply and yours are spookily similar!

IIRC Miller and Mark Burchill were the promising young strikers at the time. Both of them were speedy and seemed to have a good eye for goal. When Miller first went to Rangers (June 2000), I don't remember there being a huge clamour for him to get into the Scotland squad just because of his move, but I do recall a spell around autumn of that year when he had a purple patch, bagging 5 goals vs St Mirren in one game, then scoring vs Monaco in the Champions' League and getting a few more league goals. He suffered a goal drought after that and his season kind of faded away. So at the end of the year when he got his first cap vs Poland, it was a bit anti-climactic. He ended up being sold to Wolves and it was a few years before he got his next cap. He did score against Germany but he never really 'clicked' as an international striker till he was about 25 - something to do with Glenn Hoddle (his Wolves manager at the time) coaching him to improve his workrate and movement. For me it was the game vs Italy at Hampden when he scored a beauty of a bullet header that he came of age as an international. Anyway, typing that football-related stuff out was somewhat cathartic. This Covid pish is driving me nuts!

Scotland 0 - 4 Apocalypse (War 9', Pestilence 26', Famine 70' (pen), Death 90')

Guaranteed anal, surely?

I remember the whole 'story of whisky' pish and his random life anecdotes but for some reason I can't recall anything petrolheady about it. Then again I couldn't care less about cars - I wouldn't spunk on a Ferrari if it was on fire - so maybe I just tuned those bits out. Overall I remember it as a decent read. Not as good as his fiction but good nonetheless. Reading John Niven at the moment. Sublime.

Yeah I do realise that. But it's a bit of a lottery, isn't it? If we're going to fail in these playoffs I'd rather fail after giving as good an account of ourselves as possible, with our best players fit and sharp. It'd be very shit (and very likely) for us to completely misfire against Israel were it to be be the first game back for our lot.

"You're welcome"

So you think it'd be a good idea to come stumbling out of cold storage and into a game like this? That'd quite possibly be the worst preparation possible for the biggest game the NT have had for over a decade. You could say it'd be the same for the opposition but that's a rather flimsy argument. When footy comes back, yes it will have to come back with a bang, straight into money-earning games. I don't think that this should be the one we come back for though. P.S. stop putting everything in quotes, it makes you sound twice as sarky as usual.

Bit hard on the teeth? armchair c*nts still armchair c*nts tho.

Yep. It's not about competition or proprietorship. It's about survival.

I think it would be criminal if everything went back to exactly how it was. This surely must kick the hubris and complacency out of the world. Economically and logistically, it's shown just how much of a knife-edge we've been walking for decades.

Totally agree. Especially as there's next to no chance of any of our (or Israel's) players being anywhere near match fit.

Yes I would like fries with that,@Romeo