Dear Gordon Strachan.
This is the hardest letter I have ever written…
Actually, now I think about it, the hardest letter I’ve ever written was an apology to Mr Brady (Head of Science at The Nicolson Institute) as I’d killed his goldfish by feeding them anti-acne tablets. I hope, when he flushed Pinky and Perky down the loo, he noticed how clear their complexion was.
Let me start again.
Gordon, this is the second hardest letter I have ever written. I hope after reading it you will understand and realise it’s not you, but me.
I wish to withdraw my name from consideration for future Scotland squads.
I wish the boys all the best but I feel that after being omitted from your last squad, and the squads of Craig Levein, and Walter Smith, and Alex McLeish, and Berti Vogts, and Craig Brown that I should take the hint.
I’m not sure where it went wrong. From an early age all I wanted to do was to play for Scotland. My first club was Stornoway primary. I played for Grant house. We won the inter-school football competition every year until I left. This was in no small part due to having a striker in our team who was twice the size of the opposition. He was so mature he could buy alcohol without an ID at age 12.
In secondary school I honed my skills in Mr Dunlop’s PE class. One day, to test how fast we were, he got us to do 100m sprints. I clocked a time of 12s. Which is amazing for a 13 year old. What he didn’t realize was the 100m was only 90m. He’d asked one of the other boys to measure it out but the kid was too lazy to do it properly. I still hold the school record.
I didn’t feature in the school team as they had a strict rule about only playing people with talent and ability. This rule hindered vast swathes of my career.
I drifted away from the game but played sporadically in university. I had one season in University’s Division 1 because my team had been assigned to division 1 instead of division 7. We got humped every single week and didn’t score a single goal. Which surely qualifies me to know what it would be like to play for Scotland.
After University. I played in a Glasgow five a side league. I quit after spotting a sign on the noticeboard that said “the following teams have been given warnings for violent conduct.” The list comprised every single team we were due to play.
Over the years I have come close to getting called up. One day I was walking along the road and Walter Smith was walking right towards me. I was heading straight for him and we would have collided if I hadn’t jinked out the way at the last moment. As I jinked round him I could see the expression in his eyes. It said “he’s a player!” I wish I’d jinked back and given him my number as without it how could he have called me up?
I turn 38 this weekend and I realise that my time has come and gone. I ask just one thing. If you bump into Dave Brailsford from Team Sky then tell him that now I have retired I can fully concentrate on cycling. I’m available for next Year’s Tour De France. Call me!
Yours Sincerely,
Iain M Todd (0 caps)
