Euan McColm: A father’s shared joy with his son and the whole nation over Scotland win… and how we needed it

He’s 15, obsessed with football, and brimming with the optimism of youth. As “Starburster” blares out on repeat, he shows me a series of TikToks and YouTube clips of his heroes.

We watch Scott McTominay score for Napoli against Inter, agreeing it’s a belter, and he offers me pre-match analysis of key players.

The thing about John McGinn, he explains, is the way he uses his “massive arse”.

“It’s so big it’s got its own gravitational pull,” he tells me, standing up to demonstrate, “It drags people towards him then he bams them away with it.”

His desire to make me laugh fills me with happiness. His success in doing so makes his eyes sparkle.

Man, I say, they could really do this. That optimism falters. He cautions against celebrating victory over Denmark too soon. At 15, he’s already learned to brace himself for the worst.

When I was his age, I took it for granted that Scotland would participate in the World Cup. A run of qualifications from 1974 until 1990 meant I was 24 before watching a tournament from which our national team was absent.

This blows the boy’s mind. The Scotland men’s team’s last appearance at the World Cup, in 1998, took place 11 years before he was born and he was a little young to appreciate the women’s team’s 2019 campaign.

He asks if I watched Scotland beat Holland in 1978 and it’s like me asking my grandfather what he did in the war.

Our shared football experience is not part of some continuum. I wasn’t hugely interested in the game when I was his age and, anyway, my late father’s drinking got in the way of us doing much together.

I’d watch the big international matches on telly with pals but find something else to do when they’d go to league games with their dads.

But pshaw to such melancholy thoughts. The boy doesn’t know it but this is a night that – regardless of the result – I’ll remember until the cogs stop whirring.

I open a months-old text message group with two pals, lifelong football fans (Nottingham Forest for him, Manchester United for her, so they both know a bit about the dashing of hopes) with whom I’ve previously watched matches. The boy’s here, I tell them, ready to make memories of disappointment.

It’s five minutes before kick off and we give “Starburster” another whirl. We bounce around the front room, joining in with the chorus…

“I’m gon’ hit your business if it’s momentary blissness…”

A man paces around in the tenement opposite. I give him a wave. He holds a fist aloft and grins.

The boy has inherited from me a chronic inability to shut up and a delight in profanity. He talks constantly. It will take us three hours to watch a two hour movie because I’m forever pressing pause while he blurts out another thought about the actors or the standard of the scenery.

But there isn’t a peep from either of us once the referee blows the whistle for kick-off at Hampden park. We sit, hunched forward, in silence.

Not for long.

“Holy f***!”

The boy’s on his feet and I’m right behind him.

Three minutes in and Scott McTominay scores with an overhead kick that’s, credibly, being described as perhaps the greatest ever seen.

“Did you see that?” the boy asks, unnecessarily.

“Yeah.”

“Aye, but did you f***ing see it?”

I send my pals a photo of the boy’s face.

Their excited replies tumble over each other “What a goal”, “My God”, “What a moment!”.

I might not know much about football but I know plenty about things going wrong and so Denmark’s equaliser, scored in the 57th minute from the penalty spot by Rasmus Hojlund seems entirely in keeping with the national team’s record.

“Ach, well,” I say, that McTominay goal, though…

“It’s not over yet,” says the boy, not even beginning to convince himself, never mind me.

Glasgow tenements have thick walls but the sound of cheering from neighbouring flats when Lawrence Shankland puts Scotland ahead at the 78-minute point is thunderous. The guy across the street stomps around, pumping his fists in the air.

Patrick Dorgu’s equaliser three minutes later kills the mood. Surely, Denmark are going straight through and Scotland are in the play-offs.

The boy’s explaining why this is a disaster when Kieran Tierney’s strike, three minutes into injury time makes it 3-2.

“Come on to f***,” says the boy, “blow the f***ing whistle.”

I’ve a knot in my stomach as the game stretches on. History tells us this is the point at which Scotland throws it all away.

Kenny McLean proves me wrong with that 98th minute goal from the halfway line.

All of us – whether we’re obsessive followers of the game, fair-weather fans, or completely uninterested in the beautiful game – needed Scotland’s victory over Denmark on Tuesday night.

We’re living through fraught days where disagreement quickly cements into division. Sometimes, it feels like anger is the default setting for human emotion.

And so it was a pleasure not only to witness a football match that united the nation but to hear the First Minister, genuinely, speak for us all in its aftermath.

“Scotland,” he said on Wednesday, “is utterly rejoicing today at what was a magnificent spectacle of goal scoring last night.”

It’s not often I find myself agreeing with John Swinney but, on this occasion, how could anyone not?

The boy asks if we can go to the States next year and watch the team in action. Not likely, I say, but I might be able to stretch to a bigger telly.

Then we fire up Fontaines DC, again, and leap around, savouring every moment of this blissness.