Gie it laldy – Scotland dreams of the World Cup

Earlier this year, Scotland’s Makar, Peter Mackay, made a call out to the Tartan Army, to the good citizens of our bonnie country, and to all who love that our national men’s team will be at the World Cup finals this month, to send in some lines to be included in a collectively-written poem by the people of Scotland. To send our boys on their way across the Atlantic to glory. Or at the very least qualification to the next stage. You responded in your multitudes. You sent in your lines, your hopes, your dreams (is that BA Robertson we hear) and our Makar got tae work on them. After much jiggling them aboot here it is. Our World Cup poem. Appropriately called Gie it laldy…

Whit dae ye ken o glory? 
A sea of cans, St Etienne.
Cheeky nutmegs and net bulging shots.
“Scotland are the Greatest Football Team”.
The saltire-painted lungs; the red lion rampant heart.
Blue waves surf across the forest floor.

Logic has no place in the quest for joy.
As I watch, my mind renders McTominay in slow motion,
grim grinned, full doomed with expectation;
electricity fizzes through sinews, underfoot and overhead.
Jock Tamson’s bairns ur we, still dreaming o the gree.
The same “hope that kills you” is what keeps you going.

Give me patience in the face of success – or adversity.
The Tartan army takes the ball and writes history:
“Tae North America, Alba Gu Brath”.
“We’re just happy to be here”.
“And for once we will forget our past!”
(“and out of the group escape at last”).

Whit dae ye ken o glory?
28 years waiting to retake our field of dreams,
but yon bicycle kick o’ hope is aye beatin.
Jock Tamson’s bairns are aw agog.
Hope is – we are – stronger than girders.
Gaun yersel, gie it laldy.