Hugh Keevins: Wha's like us? Not many!

Flashers and flops. It isn't a good look.

Scotland's national football team is statistically rotten and realistically out of its depth among the game's elite. The manager's a goner and the Tartan Army, allegedly the one consistently bright spot in an otherwise dark place, has been exposed, if you'll pardon the pun, as being an affront to common decency because of the mis-behaviour of an indisciplined few at Trafalgar Square on Friday morning.

That was the embarrassment that came before the ritual slaughtering of Gordon Starchan's side by England at Wembley later the same day.

I decided to drown my sorrows and celebrate my birthday at the same time when I arrived back at my hotel in King's Cross shortly after midnight.

But that notion was knocked on the head when it transpired that more loose canons from the Tartan Army had indulged in a spot of late night cabaret in the hotel bar that had forced the management to take the decision that the sale of alcohol had to stop for fear of the consequences.

There has long been a myth attached to the Tartan Army's status as the group of fans that everybody loves, but it is rarely written about for fear of the consequences the next time any offending journalist is caught in their company on a trip outside of Scotland.

The vast majority are in it for the football, but there is a group of supporters who indulge in industrial scale boozing from the minute they set off for an away match and who could only be described as a public nuisance for the duration of their stay as some other country's guests.

But wading in a sea of poppies on the eleventh day of the eleventh month set aside for remembering the UK's war dead and commiting the indecent act of hoisting their kilts to reveal human genitalia to stunned passers in London hit a new low in supporter standards.

But the picture is now complete. We're inferior on the park and excruciating off it.

Wha's like us? The people of London might say "Not many, and thank goodness for that."

But you can always draw attention to shameful behaviour and trust that a period of reflection might cause the offenders to have a good look at themselves and a long think about their anti-social tendencies.

What we do about the football team is another matter altogether.

Take as long as you like to mull over the manager's eighteen month-long decline, producing two wins over Malta and one against Gibraltar amidst seven other matches that were either lost or drawn.

Str-exit is the only answer for someone who has had four years in the job without taking the national side an inch further forward than they were on the day he took over.

And spend as long as you like navel gazing on the list of potential candidates who might replace Gordon. A better question might be, who would take it?

The present crop of players have now blown two qualification campaigns on a back to back basis while amply illustrating that they are vastly over-rated when it comes to international football. Some are palpably done, others were never fit for purpose in the first place.

The composite picture is surely an un-appealing one for prospective managers who might be thought to have the ability to provide a better future than our present inadequacy or our past imperfections.

As for the players who are coming along, and might be though to more readily occupy the attention of Strachan's successor, let us examine the evidence.

The Scotland Under 21 side's last five matches have all been lost and the seven and a half hours it took to play them did not result in a single goal being scored by Scot Gemmill's side.

The future is not bright. I rest my case.

Twenty years will come and go without Scotland having played at the finals of a major tournament. Another twenty before we re-enter a major stage might not be thought the doom-laden prediction of an habitually cautious observer of the national side's faltering progress.

The only reasonable course of action to take under the present circumstances is to pull back on the Scottish hokum and allow reality to replace the belief that we are actually better than we look.

We were bang average and now we're not that good.

We need to stop approaching each match on a wave of nostalgia and mis-placed hyperbole and accept our limitations as part of a more humble style of preparation.

The time for cheer leaders who are left with egg on their face on a regular basis following one indignity after another is over and done with.

Don't talk about a clear-out from top to bottom because there's nothing underneath the surface to imply that tomorrow will be any better than yesterday.

Don't mention going back to basics because that's just a cliche used by people who can't think of anything else to say at times like these.

Back to what precisely?

We don't have the players who're good enough and the next generation offer no promise of anything better further down the line.

We are what we are. Toiling and praying for a person who has a bright idea or two concerning the subject of how we get out of the extremely deep hole we're in.

The sooner we accept that, the quicker we can start to re-habilitate ourselves with all of the nonsense knocked out of our heads. And spare me the righteous indignation about any, or all, of the above.

We couldn't even put up an imitation of composure by the end of the night at Wembley. The only way is up, but who the guide is who will navigate us in that direction is anybody's guess.