The hand of Snoddy said it all
It was a symbolic moment when, at the final whistle, television showed Robert Snodgrass beating his hand on the pitch in Slovenia where Scotland's World Cup hopes had just come to grief on Sunday night.
His belated goal to equalise against the hosts had left us a few minutes in which to believe the miracle to end all miracles was still possible.
When fate eventually denied Gordon Strachan's side the opportunity to write a chapter from a fairytale and replaced it instead with the end to a horror story, the hard bitten Glaswegian in Snodgrass knew his imprint on the grass was one thing, but his footprint at the World Cup finals would forever be denied him.
Robert is part of that generation who, like the one before him,have suffered from a persistent failure to re-write an agonising history where the national team is concerned.
A monopoly on misery, blah, blah, blah. Exclusive rights to excessive cruelty, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Been there. Done that. Wrote the tweet to describe the last two decades.
The fact is, to my way of thinking, twenty years of non-qualification for the major international tournaments, has left Scotland's older players diminshed by the weight of history bearing down on their shoulders.
The battle scarred are carrying psychological wounds that will not heal.
Strachan's team were half a game away from making the World Cup play-offs, and then minutes away from recording an unlikely journey back from the deficit that ultimately did for them.
Either way, we choked.
The five games before Slovenia has been testimony to momentum, character and self belief.
And then when we most needed that strength of mind to continue we looked at the finishing line and panicked.
Blood letting is what we are good at, world class no less. Now the knives are out and the scatter gun has been brought down from the wall.
Strachan will be first in the firing line because he's unpopular with the people who dislike his manner, selection processes, tactical approach and, in all probability, the way he combs his hair.
When Gordon beat Slovakia at Hampden last Thursday he was credited with having had the courage of his convictions when it came to team selection and use of substitutes at Hampden.
The credit came because he won the match.
When Strachan failed to beat Slovenia his team selection and use of substitutes were filed under errors of judgement.
That's the way the game works.
Not introducing John McGinn and/or Callum McGreegor when disaster was staring Scotland in the face will be construed as favouring players from the English Championship such as Ikechi Anya, Snodgrass and Steven Fletcher over the home based Scots Gordon rarely sees.
And this will be interpreted as suffiicent grounds for dismissal. The court of public opinion will have it no other way.
There was no denying that the manager overcame a disastrous start to the qualification campaign that brought only four points from a possible twelve.
Equally, there was no denying that thirteen points from a possible fifteen in the five games that followed vouched for a unity of purpose where Gordon and his players were concerned.
Until we choked in Slovenia.
It would be unusual for a manger with two failed qualification campaigns behind him to be given a third go at getting it right in any case.
It would also be understandable if the sixty year old Strachan felt he had had done his bit for his employers at the SFA and retired to the golf courses of the place where he has a property in La Manga.
There is still a future at international level, hard though it may be to imagine at a time like this.
It is a future based on players like Kieran Tierney, Andrew Robertson, John McGinn, Callum McGregor, Oliver Burke etc, etc.
But it is also a future which requires a fresh approach in the technical area.
Gordon can sometimes look pained, fatigued and exasperated by all that accompanies his job.
There is no shame in saying you gave it your best shot and your best shot wasn't quite good enough.
No shame in letting someone else have a go and see if they can do any better with absolutely no guarantee that they can.
Thanks for everything, Gordon, but it's time to investigate the possibility of someone else being able to take the Scotland job in a different, more productive, direction.
Maybe it is beyond man's ingenuity to make a successful side out of what we have at our disposal on the playing front.
But there's no harm in trying, is there?