Live in Hope. Don't Succumb to Despair.

It was an absolute pleasure to sit with Joe Jordan in the Superscoreboard studio on Saturday afternoon, the great man being the rule by which we measure the distance from where we were in our international heyday to the place we find ourselves in our grey days of non-qualification for anything over the last eighteen years.

Joe is sure to provide excellent entertainment when he joins Graeme Souness to be interviewed by our own Gerry McCulloch in front of an audience at the Royal Concert Hall on Thursday.

As will the legendary Denis law when he teams up with John Greig and Willie Henderson at the SECC for a nostalgic night of story telling next January.

As did Walter Smith last night when he was the guest of honour at the Scottish Football Museum's annual Hall of Fame inductees dinner.

But there's a problem with fondly remembering the past in football and it is that the present is brought even more sharply into focus when one is compared to the other.

The Summers weren't actually longer and the sky wasn't even more blue back in the day when Greigy and we Willie were at the peak of their powers as players. Neither made it to a major final with Scotland in spite of being part of an era that looks golden when set aside today's base metal.

And Denis was just about at retirement age when he finally got to a World Cup in Germany in 1974.

But Joe was involved in three World cups, 1974, 1978 and 1982, and scored for Scotland in all three. It is an achievement he will take to the grave, an historical place in the record books that will never need to be re-written due to the inclusion of another name who has done the same thing.

We are where we are, and right now that means we don't know if Scotland will ever again qualify for a World Cup final.

But there might be a glimmer of hope if we can contrive to beat England at Wembley next week in our qualification group tie, which is why the debate raging over Scott Brown's decision to overturn his decision to retire from international football is so depressing.

Here's how it works.

The Celtic supporters say anyone who finds fault with Broony's decision is against him on the basis of which club he plays for, while admitting that they have no real interest in the national team.

"Wouldn't watch them if they were playing in my garden," being one, informative comment from a caller to Superscoreboard.

The fans of other clubs who object to Brown allegedly picking and choosing the games he plays for the national team have little interest in Gordon Strachan's side either.

They just want a spat to fill in the Wembley weekend which means the cancellation of the Premiership card and the temporary cessation of domestic squabbling as a result.

But here's the thing. We are a bang average national side apparently faltering in our group on the back of winning only one point from two lacklustre games against Lithuania and Slovakia..

We have lost three squad members, Robert Snodgrass, Kieran Tierney and Andrew Roberston, to injury, and we were hardly a model of strength in depth before that happened.

But now we've contrived to have a row over one of the country's best players having had the audacity to exercise free will and change his mind while returning from retirement to help out the man who signed him for Celtic and began the job of having a huge influence on his career thereafter.

We are the country whose fans could start a fight in an empty stadium and you get the feeling there would be ill-disguised glee in certain quarters if England beat Scotland and a fresh debate was forced on the subject of Strachan's future.

What chance has the man got when Scottish people don't care about the Scottish team ?

We used to wear our heart on our sleeve where the national team was concerned. What's visible now is contempt and a ready willingness to turn any issue into a row based on club rivalry.

Gordon will get the chance to say his piece on the matter when he names his squad for Wembley on Wednesday, and it should prove to be well worth the wait.

I hope he picks Brown in the first place. I hope he re-instates him to the captaincy. And I hope it goes well for all concerned at Wembley on November 11.

And if it doesn't ?

We go back to the drawing board just like we have on every other occasion since 1998 when non-qualification for a major tournament was our tale of woe.

What else would we do ?

We've now got a national team which sometimes plays in the face of national apathy.

We've also got, on the strength of nostalgic nights spent in the company of former players, a colourful past, an indifferent present and an uncertain future.

But I'd rather live in hope than succumb to despair because that is the very essence of being a football fan.