‘It’s good to see Scotland has a presence at the World Cup this year,’ says Bob Doolally, ‘even if it’s only the haggis-flavoured World Cup crisps that Walkers are selling. I’m not so happy that they’ve started printing the English flag on Mars wrappers, though. Don’t they know that’s Scotland’s national diet?’ So speaks the sometime football player and manager, who now ‘hacks out a living as an after-dinner speaker and third-rate media pundit’ (he’s also the creation of Scots comedian Paul Sneddon).

With World Cup fever once more gripping the UK – the part of it called England, anyway – Bob has had plenty of experience mulling over Scotland’s underachievements in that field. ‘Argentina ‘78, that was a pinnacle for Scotland,’ he recalls through a drunken haze. ‘I know it was a fiasco, but you compare it to what’s happened since. Not that I was there, of course, I got sent home before the plane touched down. Some dispute about the daughter of an SFA official and which country we were travelling over on the occasion of her 16th birthday.’

So does he see any chance of a to return to the glory days of Scottish football, when the Lisbon Lions could win a European Cup ‘training on pies’? ‘They have to do something about housing conditions in this country,’ Bob grumbles. ‘When I was a kid, we were always playing football in the street because our houses were shitholes. Look at Brazil, they all live in shanty towns. Until the country sorts out their progressive housing policy, I’m afraid it’s back to supporting any team that’s been to war with England and is likely to knock them out on penalties.’

The Stand, Edinburgh, Tue 8 Jun; The Stand, Glasgow, Wed 9 Jun