"The burden of history is everywhere you look. Hampden Park, Glasgow. A footballing mausoleum of memories and moments, both awe inspiring and harrowing. Walls of the place carry the spirit of the greats. Sir Kenny Dalglish dancing through defences, Denis Law with his arms aloft, a photograph of James McFadden with a ball hanging in the Parisian air with a bamboozled Mickaal Landreau somewhere in the distance."
"Take a walk deeper inside, the broad bowl of the national stadium opens up. Once a concrete cathedral which held the hopes of teams and fans setting off with dreams of actually trying to win a World Cup. Now, lying thick and still under the cover of plastic seats, the cavernous emptiness of the place mirrors the void left since it's modern reincarnation in the late 1990s. Not since before Hampden's redevelopment has Scotland earned the right to go to a World Cup."
"To the uninitiated, signs of stars aligning are there in the crisp Glaswegian sky. Scotland have tripped, stumbled and stuttered their way through this campaign with all the poise of a sumo wrestler on Strictly, but have managed to carve out positive results. They survived a first-half onslaught in Copenhagen to earn a valuable point. Battered at home by Greece? Somehow Steve Clarke's side claimed victory."
Hampden Park looms as a monument to Scottish football, its imagery and emptiness reflecting a long absence from the World Cup since the stadium's late-1990s redevelopment. The stadium's great moments and icons remain preserved in memory even as plastic seats mask a cavernous void. Scotland's qualifying campaign has been inconsistent but yielded important outcomes: a resilient draw in Copenhagen, an unlikely home win over Greece under Steve Clarke, and two victories over Belarus. A chaotic defeat in Athens was mitigated when Denmark failed to capitalize, leaving Scotland with renewed, fragile hope for qualification.
Read at www.bbc.com
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