One Team in Tallinn

This blog was first written for Live Forever Football, a website dedicated to 90s football.

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The summer of 1998 was a glorious one in my life. Celtic had stopped ten in a row in the May of that year, winning the league for the first time that I could remember – I couldn’t remember the centenary year – and in doing so they had saved the precious nine-in-a-row record set by Jock Stein. On top of that, I had just finished school. Forever. So when June 10th came around, I was free to spend the morning running around shops trying to buy the new Scotland top in time for our kick off that evening.

And I got it. I’ll never forget the odd button with a loop for a collar, a design never seen before or since.

But let’s go back to the start. The World Cup qualifying draw two and a half years earlier.

Thanks to the successful Euro 96 qualifying campaign, Scotland were in pot two. That mattered because with Yugoslavia now no longer an utter mess as far as the footballing world was concerned, UEFA was up to a full 50 member states. With France qualifying automatically as hosts, and FIFA deciding that UEFA would get 15 of the now expanded to 32 teams in the finals, that meant 49 teams playing for the other 14 spots.

Now, if you’re a sensible governing body, that should be really easy to plan. 49 teams, 14 places, that’s seven groups of seven teams with the top two qualifying from each, right?

Not UEFA!

Instead of something nice and simple, they had to over-complicate it like they always do. So rather than having seven groups, they opted for nine. But of course, nine doesn’t divide into 49 properly, so that meant there would be four groups of six teams and five groups of five teams. Having gone with nine groups, they now had to decide how to get 14 teams from that. How do you do that? Well, each group winner qualified automatically, leaving five places for nine runners-up. That doesn’t divide properly either of course, so they decided that the best runner-up would join the group winners in qualifying automatically with the other eight playing off in two-legged ties to decide the other four.

Hang on though, how do you decide who the best runner-up is if the groups are uneven? Well, you discount any results against the bottom team if you’re in a group of six, right? Well… yes, but UEFA also decided the team in fifth place didn’t matter either. Only the results against the teams in 1st, 3rd and 4th places would count for deciding best runner up.

Confused yet? I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

The draw was reasonably kind to Scotland. Of the nine possible seeds, we were paired with the eighth – Sweden – our old foes from Italia 90. The remainder of the draw threw up Austria from pot three, Latvia from pot four, Belarus from pot five and Estonia from pot six. Ten years previous, that would have been the USSR times three, but that just goes to show how much things changed in the 90s.

As we looked forward to Euro 96, Sweden had no such concerns and got their qualification campaign under way with a 5-1 thumping of Belarus in Stockholm in June 1996. Our opening match was a tricky affair, with a trip to Austria at the end of August. A goalless draw ensued, which wasn’t bad on paper when you consider that they would likely be our rivals for the top two spots. Sweden then beat Latvia 2-1 away from home the following day to give themselves full points from their opening two games.

October saw Scotland follow Sweden’s example with a 2-0 win in Latvia courtesy of goals from John Collins and Darren Jackson, but it was the unexpected win for Austria in Sweden a few days later that really put the cat among the pigeons.

Not that we noticed at the time, we were too busy taking part in an utter farce.

Scotland were due to play Estonia in Tallinn that same night, but when training in the stadium the night before it had become evident that the temporary floodlights that had been installed were insufficient. A protest was lodged with FIFA and the following morning, the day of the game, FIFA upheld the protest and decided to bring the kick off forward to the early afternoon. Estonia objected, claiming that they would lose out on television revenue, and decided they would continue to prepare as originally planned.

Which meant that when referee Miroslav Radoman set out to start the game at 1pm local time, only Scotland were out on the park. The entire match consisted of Radoman blowing his whistle, Billy Dodds kicking off to John Collins, and the Scotland captain for the day taking one touch before the referee blew to abandon the game. All the while, the Tartan Army in the stand had found good humour in the situation, chanting the now infamous “one team in Tallinn” song.

By the time the Estonians finally arrived at the stadium for the original kick off time, the Scotland team had packed up and left and even the Tartan Army had finished their own impromptu game on the pitch.

In the aftermath, FIFA’s match delegate confirmed that Scotland would be awarded a 3-0 win for Estonia’s refusal to show up at the allocated time. Indeed, when the Soviet Union had failed to turn up for a 1974 world cup qualifying playoff against Chile, the Chileans were given this very thing and qualified for that world cup.

What actually happened was UEFA’s president, Sweden’s Lennart Johansson, chaired a meeting in which FIFA ordered the match to be played at the neutral venue of the Stade Louis II stadium in Monaco instead. This was scheduled for February, having the knock on effect that Gary McAllister – who should have been suspended for the Estonia game – was now suspended for Scotland’s home game against… Sweden. Convenient!

Scotland’s first home game of the campaign found us on the road again. Hampden was undergoing another round of renovations, and so the game against Sweden took place at Ibrox, a day after Austria had beaten Latvia at home to go top of the group. But unlike the campaign four years earlier, Scotland actually managed to score at Ibrox against one of our rivals, and indeed John McGinlay’s early goal would turn out to be the only goal of the game. We didn’t need Gary McAllister after all. Nae luck Lennart.

That win put Scotland joint with Austria on seven points from three games, with the Swedes now languishing on six points from four games. Things were looking good….

Until that trip to Monaco.

Having originally thought that our game with Estonia would be a 3-0 walkover, the game itself finished goalless. Some would suggest it was Scotland who failed to turn up this time.

The end of March 1997 saw Scotland play a crucial double header. The first game took place at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock, and saw Scotland finally beat Estonia on the park. Tom Boyd with a goal midway through the first half, and a Janek Meet own goal just after the break. But it was the game at Celtic Park against Austria that would really see if Scotland had what it took to qualify.

And show it we did, with a goal in each half from Kevin Gallacher. Though we had played two more games than either Austria or Sweden by this point, we also had a seven and eight point lead over them respectively. It was a lead we’d need going into our trip to Sweden at the end of April.

With Austria winning 2-0 at home to Estonia, Scotland really could have done with getting something in Gothenburg that night. But just before half time, Kennet Andersson opened the scoring for the hosts, before adding a second just after the hour mark. Though Kevin Gallacher was able to pull a goal back with less than ten minutes remaining, Scotland slipped to a defeat which tightened up the group once more.

At the end of the 1996/97 season, Austria kept up their pace with a 3-1 win in Latvia, while Sweden almost let a 3-0 lead slip in Estonia but held on to win 3-2. Meanwhile, a solitary Gary McAllister penalty in Belarus just after half time ensured that despite only having two games remaining it was Scotland who were still in the driving seat.

August 1997 saw the group tighten up even further thanks to a 3-0 win for Austria in Estonia, while Sweden came from behind to beat Belarus 2-1 in Minsk. There was now only two points separating the three teams, and both Austria and Sweden still had a game in hand over Scotland.

But it would be against each other.

Just as they had in Stockholm, Austria beat Sweden 1-0 to leap frog Scotland at the top but also crucially leave Sweden stranded two points behind us with just two games remaining. The following day, Scotland went back top of the group with a 4-1 win over Belarus at Pittodrie, Aberdeen thanks to two goals each from Kevin Gallacher and David Hopkin. A few days later, Austria again went top with a 1-0 win in Belarus, while Sweden kept their hopes alive with a 1-0 win at home to Latvia.

Scotland’s qualification now came down to how we could do in our final game against Latvia at Celtic Park. Win in, and no matter what Sweden did at home to Estonia they couldn’t catch us. They already couldn’t catch Austria, so we were now their only hope. There was still a chance of finishing top if Austria lost at home to Belarus, but that looked unlikely.

But the runner up factor would also come into play. Latvia had already secured fourth spot in the group, so a win over them would not only secure at least second spot but also count towards deciding the best runner up.

Going into that final night of qualifying, Italy were in line for the best runner-up spot, although the likes of Croatia and Yugoslavia were actually also in the running but playing teams bottom of their group and therefore not counting towards the calculations. It was Scotland and Belgium who were really looking at this best runner up spot, with the Belgians hoping for us to slip up as well and let them in. But in the case of the Italians, they would either slip up or beat the team top of their group and send them tumbling into the runner up spot instead.

Their opponents in Rome that night? England, who only needed a draw to top the group and qualify themselves.

Back at Celtic Park, a goal from Kevin Gallacher just before half time put Scotland in the driving seat. But it was a nervy second half until Gordon Durie made the three points secure ten minutes from the end. With the win secured, Scotland could check the other results.

Austria topped the group thanks to a 4-0 win over Belarus. Sweden did indeed beat Estonia 1-0, but they were out due to our result. And as for Italy? England got the 0-0 draw they needed, consigning Italy to the place second best runner up of the nine. Who was best?

Scotland. We were going to France.

Italy and Belgium did indeed make it through the playoffs, with Croatia and Yugoslavia joining them too, and we could all look forward to seeing what the draw for the finals would throw up.

There is an odd pattern in Scotland’s world cup campaigns in that every other one seems to pair Scotland with Brazil. We drew with them in Germany in 1974, avoided them in Argentina in 1978, got hammered by them in 1982, avoided them again in Mexico 1986, and narrowly lost to them in Italy in 1990. Having not qualified for 1994, it was again time to face this in France. Sure enough, Scotland were drawn in group A along side the reigning champions.

But this time would be different. Scotland were allocated second spot in the group, which meant we would need to play Brazil in their opening match.

Before FIFA changed the rules and forced the champions to have to qualify along with everyone else, the traditional opening game of the world cup would see the reigning champions start their campaign to retain the title. France 98 would be no different, and so Scotland had just been put centre stage of one of the biggest shows on the planet.

Joining us in group A were fellow Europeans Norway who had topped their group ahead of Hungary – thumped 12-1 on aggregate by Yugoslavia in the playoffs – and Morocco who had easily topped their African qualifying group.

Which brings us back to June 10th.

Sitting there in my parents’ living room and wearing my brand new Scotland top, I was absolutely buzzing for things to get started and never prouder to be Scottish. The world’s eyes were on us, and this was going to be absolutely brilliant.

Of course, then reality hits.

For one thing, the opening ceremony dragged on as they always do. But when it was finally all over the two teams emerged. Brazil and Scotland. One of the most famous footballing nations in the world… and the reigning champions Brazil. As far as I was concerned, all tournaments should start like this.

Sadly, by the time I’d thought that, Scotland were already a goal down.

Cesar Sampaio had scored from a header and we were treated to music for a goal celebration for the first time. But as the game went on, things calmed down to the point that Scotland even put together a move that lead to Kevin Gallacher being dragged to the ground in the area by Sampaio. After the longest wait I could remember for any penalty, John Collins stepped up and levelled the game with confidence.

Half time in the opening game, Scotland were now holding their own. And as the game wore on we started to believe that maybe Scotland could do what so many others had done in the past and shock the holders. Remember Cameroon at Italia 90 winning 1-0 against Argentina? Or Bulgaria holding Italy in Mexico 86? Or Belgium winning 1-0 against Argentina in Spain 82?

Yeah, shame Germany had beaten Bolivia at USA 94 and screwed that pattern up.

With just quarter of an hour remaining, calamity struck and resulted in Jim Leighton’s save being pushed into the body of Tom Boyd and rebounding back into our own net. I’m not sure Boyd could get out of the way, and I’m not sure it would have made any difference anyway with a Brazilian lurking behind him to tap in the rebound, but forever more Boyd is remembered by many for that winner for Brazil.

That was a real kick in the chops for a guy who just a month earlier had lifted the Scottish Premier League trophy for Celtic for the first time in a decade. It’s okay though Tam, I forgive you.

Later that night, Morocco and Norway played out a memorable 2-2 draw. Memorable for its entertainment, but also memorable for the Norwegian goalscorers sounding like a cafe meal – Eggen, Chippo.

You can thanks Baddiel and Skinner for that one, their fantasy football show that was on throughout the tournament created a game out of joining names together. Cocu Kohler was a favourite of mine, while Rekdal Sellami would give you nightmares. Nothing ever quite matched Eggen Chippo though.

For our second group game, Scotland moved on to Bordeaux to face Norway. We needed not to lose, but ideally we needed a win if we wanted to progress from this group. There was no qualification from third place this time after all, so you had to finish top two or you were going home.

At half time in Bordeaux the game was goalless, but when the second half started with Norway almost immediately taking the lead through Havard Flo, we were heading out of the tournament with a game to spare. Fortunately, twenty minutes later, Craig Burley was able to awkwardly get on the end of a ball and chip it over the Norwegian goalkeeper and into the net.

The draw in that game wasn’t great, but at least we were still mathematically in with a chance of second place. Brazil had beaten Morocco 3-0 and ensured they had topped the group with a game to spare, so all we needed now was for Brazil to beat Norway as we beat Morocco and we would join them in the last sixteen.

Simple, right?

Bordeaux, June 23rd, 1998. Scotland’s final group game in the World Cup. Having watched the first two games in my own house, I went round to a friend’s house to watch the final game unfold. A few of us were there, all fresh out of school and not yet ready for the big bad world to suck us in. Ahh, to be that young and free again.

Even before kick off the game was looking rather ridiculous with Craig Burley dying his hair blonde in some weird celebration of his goal in the previous game. This would become a thing at this world cup with the entire Romanian team doing likewise when they qualified top of Group G ahead of England.

But if the hair was bad, then the game itself kicked off and things got worse. Scotland were rotten, from start to finish. Salaheddine Bassir opened the scoring with a terrific half volley from an angle midway through the first half and it was well deserved. At half time we needed the team talk to end all team talks. But, just like the Norway game, what we actually got was Morocco scoring almost immediately after the break through Abdeljalil Hadda.

With Jim Leighton caught somewhere between coming off his line to narrow the angle and staying where he was, Hadda chipped the ball over him. Leighton actually got his hand to it, but all that caused was the ball to loop up and into the net as Leighton scrambled back in vain.

Any hope Scotland might have had of a miraculous turnaround then evaporated as Burley put in a stupid tackle from behind which had no chance of getting the ball and got himself sent off. No case of mistaken identity when your head looks like a lightbulb.

With five minutes remaining, Bassir scored again with the aid of a slight deflection off Colin Hendry and Scotland were left deservedly hammered and out of the World Cup.

It was a devastating performance. My friend who had hosted us was inconsolable. The rest of us just sat there in shock. Somewhere along the way it filtered through that Norway had actually come from behind to beat Brazil 2-1. The fact that it wouldn’t have mattered what we did against Morocco didn’t really matter, although I remember thinking that I actually felt sorry for the Moroccans. That surprise win for Norway meant they were going home too.

Scotland’s song for the World Cup that year had been entitled “Don’t Come Home Too Soon”, Del Amitri’s imaginative dig at how we always went out of the group stages. Yet here we were, once again, “on that stupid plane”.

Sadly, now Scotland can’t even get on the plane to go there in the first place. Eighteen years after this tourmanent, Craig Burley is still the last Scot to score at a major tournament. At the time of writing, Four World Cups and four European Championships have come and gone with Scotland failing to get to any of them. A generation of Scots haven’t even come close to feeling the pride of seeing Scotland on the big stage, before somehow contriving to make a mess of it when there.

But perhaps that’s the biggest cringe-worthy aspect of all. For all France 98 was somewhere between disappointing and humiliating, most of us would bite your arm off just to see Scotland do it all again now.

My Summer With Des

This blog was first written for Live Forever Football, a website dedicated to 90s football.

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“It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming, football’s coming home…”

A song so inspirational that it makes everyone forget that the first official international actually took place at the West of Scotland Cricket Ground, Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow in 1872.

Yes, I know what it really means, but we’ll come back to that later.

Has there ever been a more catchy football song than Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds offering from Euro 96? I’m not sure there has, and certainly I can’t remember any football song before or since that’s been done for a tournament and has made it onto the stands and terraces. For all World in Motion was a terrific song, you don’t hear the crowds doing the John Barnes rap!

For Scotland though, Rod Stewart’s version of Wild Mountain Thyme, which he released under the title Purple Heather, was hardly inspiring and I’m sure many people have forgotten that’s what our official song was for the tournament until I mentioned it there.

But at least we had a song again.

After the disappointment of missing out on the World Cup in the USA, there was renewed hope that Scotland would build from that and take their place among the sixteen teams that would be playing in England in the summer of 1996.

While qualification for Euro 92 had been nothing short of remarkable given there were only eight teams in the final stages, doubling the number of places didn’t necessarily mean that qualification would be any easier.

For the World Cup qualifying campaign, only Russia and the Baltic states had been able to compete after the break-up of the Soviet Union. This time round there were a further six former Soviet states, as well as a newly split Czech Republic and Slovakia, and the former Yugoslav states of Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia. What remained of Yugoslavia was still at war with itself and so missed out, but that still meant 47 teams playing for just 15 places. To put that in perspective, four years earlier there had been just 34 playing for 8.

But still, the odds were better, and with a new manager in Craig Brown and the added incentive of wanting to play in a tournament just down the road in the land of our oldest rivals, all we needed was the draw to be kind to us.

And kind it was.

As third seeds, Scotland would have to hope that the top two seeds were relatively easy by comparison. Only the top two in each of the eight groups had any chance of progressing, with the worst two runners-up playing off while the others qualified automatically.

With the draw in January of 1994, by the time the World Cup had come and gone that summer we had already seen our two in action. Top seeds Russia had hammered Cameroon 6-1 with five of the goals coming from Oleg Salenko who would go on to sign for Rangers, but defeats to Brazil and Sweden had knocked them out of the tournament. Our second seeds, Greece, had fared even worse losing all three games without even scoring.

The rest of Scotland’s group comprised of Jari Litmanen’s Finland, the Faroe Islands and San Marino.

Another thing in Scotland’s favour was that, following two years on the road in the previous campaign, the national team were back at the national stadium. Hampden may not have been complete, but it was now usable for qualification again and that was good enough for us for the time being.

The campaign kicked off with a 2-0 win in Finland followed by a 5-1 win at home to the Faroes. With three points now in place for a win we had a maximum of six ahead of our first real test at home to Russia. Although Scotland took the lead through Scott Booth, Russia levelled through Dmitri Radchenko but a 1-1 draw still meant seven points from a possible nine to begin.

The major slip up though, came in December 1994, when a 1-0 defeat to Greece saw Craig Brown’s post-match analysis suggest it wasn’t all that bad because Scotland had more corners in the game. Most other people were far more concerned by the fact that Greece now had maximum points from their first four matches. With Russia having only played twice, the task of qualifying was now looking a lot more difficult.

The turn of the year saw fortunes pick up again. A goalless draw in Russia ensured they were kept at arm’s length, which became all the more important when they beat Greece away from home as Scotland won in San Marino. As the Russians played catch up on the number of games played against the other teams in the group, it was starting to look like a battle for second place was on the cards.

By the end of the 1994/95 season, Scotland were looking a lot better as a 2-0 win in the Faroe Islands was coupled by a surprise defeat for Greece in Finland. When the new season started, the big game at Hampden saw Scotland beat Greece 1-0. With just two matches left, Scotland were on the verge of qualifying.

Following a narrow home win over Finland in September 1995, Scotland’s second place in the group was confirmed the following month when Russia once again beat Greece, this time in Russia. That result ensured the Greeks could not catch Scotland and also that Scotland probably wouldn’t catch Russia at the top of the group given the gulf in goal difference.

There wasn’t even a question of Scotland avoiding the playoffs, it was a done deal. Scotland had amassed enough points already to qualify automatically for the finals. The final match at Hampden saw San Marino as the visitors, but since the results against the bottom team in the group didn’t count towards decided who the worst two runners up were, the game was meaningless.

Nevertheless, I distinctly remember standing at one end of Hampden watching Scotland record a 5-0 victory over San Marino. It was the only game of the campaign I managed to attend, but it was something of a celebration.

We were going to invade England. The only question now, was who would we be paired with?

Six and a half years earlier, the longest running annual fixture had come to an end. Since the aforementioned first international football match back in 1872, other than during the two world wars, Scotland and England had played each other every year. But in 1989 that run came to an end after England’s 2-0 win over Scotland at Hampden Park. Sadly, whilst still popular with the fans, the fixture was proving more and more difficult to fit into schedules and to make it meaningful for the players. So when the summer of 1990 rolled around with both teams heading to the World Cup in Italy, there was no scheduled match between them.

But that all changed after the Euro 96 draw in December 1995. Scotland were drawn in group A. Once again that meant facing the Netherlands at the Euros, although this was now a team that had only come through the qualifying playoff by beating the Republic of Ireland. It also meant facing our rivals from the previous qualifying campaign, Switzerland. Although Roy Hodgson had successfully coached them to qualification, he had left to take charge at Inter Milan, leaving Portugal’s Artur Jorge to take charge for the tournament itself.

Oh yes, and of course Scotland were also paired with the hosts, England. Cue seven months of excited build up.

The tournament kicked off on June 8th. Just like the World Cup in 1966, the hosts had somehow managed to ensure that all of their games would be played at Wembley as long as they won the group, so the pressure was on from the start. With memories of defeat to the Dutch still fresh in the memory from the previous World Cup qualifying campaign, Terry Venables men needed to get off to a good start ahead of that potential group decided in the final game.

And for a while they did. England took the lead against Switzerland through Alan Shearer midway through the first half, and appeared to be securing three points right up until Stuart Pearce handled in the penalty area in the closing minutes of the game and Kubilay Turkyilmaz slotted away the resultant penalty.

It would be another two days before Scotland would start their campaign at Villa Park, and just like in Sweden four years earlier, that start came against the Dutch.

But this Dutch side were a shadow of the one Scotland had faced previously. The likes of Ruud Gullit, Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard had all moved on, leaving Dennis Bergkamp to lead the line.

No, really, that was a step down!

This was still a Dutch side to be reckoned with, even if they didn’t have their former winners of the tournament. Ajax, who had lost the final of the Champions League to Juventus the previous month having been the reigning European Champions, supplied a lot of the team. Edwin van der Sar in goal, Michael Reiziger and Winston Bogarde in defence, captain Ronald de Boer and Edgar Davids in midfield. Indeed, throw in Clarence Seedorf who had moved from Ajax to Sampdoria the previous summer and substitute Patrick Kluivert also of Ajax, and you can see just how difficult the task for Scotland would be.

But then again, the Champions League top goal scorer, Ajax’s Jari Litmanen, hadn’t done much against Scotland in qualifying.

Scotland needed a helping hand. So when John Collins got away with handling on the line during one of the many Netherlands attacks, that’s exactly what happened. In a backs-to-the-wall kind of a match, Scotland managed to achieve a goalless draw in the opening match and set the whole group up nicely for round two, and the trip to Wembley to face the hosts.

By the time the two oldest rivals in football faced off, the Netherlands had already beaten Switzerland 2-0 to go top of the table. Nothing less than a win at Wembley would now do for England, while for Scotland a draw would be an acceptable result… as long as you forget about the rivalry!

After a surprisingly quiet first half, Scotland were holding their own again. At 0-0, neither goalkeeper had really been tested all that much and with all the pressure on them the hosts were starting to get a bit edgy. But eight minutes after the break, Gary Neville sent an excellent cross into the Scotland penalty area and Alan Shearer was there to meet it and head past Andy Goram.

Despite that lift, England didn’t kick on. Indeed, it was Scotland who seemed to come to life and after having seen David Seaman save a header from him, Gordon Durie was then brought down in the area by Tony Adams to give Scotland a precious lifeline. All Gary McAllister had to do was slot it home for 1-1.

This wasn’t entirely unknown territory for McAllister. He’d scored a penalty against the CIS at Euro 92 after all. But at Wembley, against the hosts, your biggest rivals… that’s a different prospect entirely. A nation held its breath.

Another nation apparently did the opposite though and blew the ball off the spot just as McAllister finished his run up. Whether that slight movement on the ball actually affected McAllister’s finish is something we’ll never know for sure, but what is certain is that Seaman’s elbow kept the ball out of the net and kept England’s lead intact.

It was a bitter blow to Scotland’s hopes, but what followed very shortly thereafter was a severe kick where it really hurts.

Paul Gascoigne had been something of a controversial figure. At this point in his career, Gazza was actually playing his football in Scotland for Rangers, and had hardly been a quiet figure in another fierce rivalry in Glasgow. But it was a pre-tournament friendly for England where Gazza had got the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Several English players, but most notably Gascoigne, had been pictured on a heavy drinking session in Hong Kong doing ridiculous things like “the dentist chair” where the incumbent has alcohol poured directly into their mouth by friends. Hardly becoming of a top professional footballer.

Questions had been raised about whether Gascoigne should be in the England squad at all, and having been substituted off during the Switzerland game those fears were not dispersing. But Gazza would silence those critics by scoring arguably the second best goal in European Championship history.

Yes, second. Marco Van Basten, you know it is, don’t even ask.

Just moments after the penalty miss, Gazza receiving a ball from Darren Anderton and with his first touch with his left foot he chipped the ball over the onrushing Colin Hendry to take him completely out of the game. Not content with that, Gazza then volleyed the ball with his right foot past club teammate Andy Goram and into the net for 2-0.

As a Scotsman, and doubly as a Celtic fan, watching that kind of thing happen sends a lot of feelings through you all at the same time. There’s bitter disappointment as you know that’s game over now. There’s rage that it’s happened against you by your rivals. There’s more rage because you’re still feeling like you just blew the chance to equalise and now they’ve doubled their lead. There’s even more rage because it’s a guy who plays for your club rivals too.

Then there’s a wry smile because our goalkeeper plays for them too. Never mind the defender though, he hasn’t signed for them at this point, that comes later.

But above all of that, there’s sheer admiration for the ability to score such a technically brilliant goal. And then there’s more rage that you don’t actually feel as angry about the goal as you think you should purely because it’s just so good.

While all that’s running through my head, Gazza is off celebrating with his teammates in a mock dentist chair. Take that doubters, take that questioning media.

England’s 2-0 win over Scotland sent them top of the group and consigned Scotland to the bottom of it. We were now in “mathematically possible” territory again. With both England and the Netherlands winning by two goals, and us losing by that same margin, we now needed a five goal swing in our favour. So either we would need to hammer Switzerland by four goals at Villa Park and hope there was a winner at Wembley, or we would need to just beat Switzerland and hope for a hammering at Wembley.

Clearly then, you try to do as much as possible yourself, right?

If there was one baffling aspect of Scotland at Euro 96, it was Craig Brown’s use of Ally McCoist. The Rangers striker had reached legendary status by this point in his career, and was top scorer in Scotland for the reigning eight-in-a-row champions. So you would think that would be enough to see him starting every game for Scotland. But by the time the Swiss game came around, McCoist hadn’t played against the Netherlands and had only played the last quarter of the game against England.

Fortunately though, McCoist would start against Switzerland. With ten minutes left of the first half, he fired in a long range shot to put Scotland in front. Unfortunately for Scotland, that was possibly McCoist’s most difficult chance to score, having already missed two earlier in the match. Who knows, maybe he was just rusty from all that time on the bench.

Remarkably though, things were a lot better at Wembley. By the time McCoist had given Scotland the lead, England were 1-0 up thanks to an Alan Shearer penalty. Still three goals short of anything important at that point but by the hour mark, things were getting crazy. In just a five minute spell, Teddy Sheringham had scored twice either side of Alan Shearer’s second. One goal for Scotland, four for England, there’s your five goal swing!

As this new filtered through to Villa Park, Scotland tried their best to ensure they got the three points. Rather than pushing to get a second and with it a cushion that would see us mitigate anything going wrong at Wembley, Craig Brown’s men shut up shop and ensured the Swiss didn’t get themselves into the same position. After all, a win for them would see them through just as much as a win for Scotland would see us through.

Of course, this is Scotland and if there’s one thing we’re good at it’s finding new and creative ways to break the hearts of the nation. Although Scotland did indeed see out the 1-0 win to get the points on the board, the goal difference slipped away from us in the cruelest way possible.

Substitute Patrick Kluivert, only on the park five minutes earlier, slotted the ball through Seaman’s legs and got the Netherlands on the scoresheet. The 4-1 defeat may have looked bad on paper, but it was still just enough for the Dutch to join England in the last eight of the tournament and send Scotland up the road.

If only Seaman had shut his legs? Perhaps. If only Scotland had scored a second? Definitely.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, two years later the BBC managed to make it worse. Just prior to the World Cup kicking off in France, they aired a very strange drama called “My Summer With Des”. In that drama, Neil Morrissey’s character is down on his luck having just split up with his girlfriend. But at least he has football to distract him since Euro 96 is on and he can focus on that.

Except, bizarrely and inexplicably, Rachel Weisz’s character then turns up as some kind of lucky charm for both Morrissey’s character and for England. So much so that there seems to be some correlation as to how much Morrissey’s character is getting on with her at the time. They’ve just met when they play Switzerland, and things seem to be going well by the time they play Scotland.

So you can imagine that when England are beating Holland that relationship is about as good as it can get. Let’s put it this way, for one of the England goals there’s a timely climax.

But then we get the Seaman nutmeg as a post-coital scene. At this point, Morrissey almost literally looks at the camera and shrugs, only caring enough to say “oh well, that’s Cameron’s team out” where Cameron happens to be his Scottish friend played by John Gordon Sinclair. Cut to Sinclair looking despondent.

So now all the disappointment associated with narrowly missing out has some added jealousy to go with it because, let’s face it, Rachel Weisz is stunning. But I digress.

As per usual, Scotland had to look on and watch as the rest of the tournament went on without them. But this time seemed harder than usual, because we’d lost to England and the commentators seemed convinced they were going to go on and win the tournament.

They always get to that point somewhere along the line, don’t they?

To be fair, England in Euro 96 were actually exciting to watch, but I’m not sure I see that the same way anyone who was supporting England might see it. They’d blown away the Netherlands, but they hadn’t been too great against Scotland and the Swiss had proven difficult to unpick. What would happen when they met the other good teams?

Euro 96 was the first tournament to feature the Golden Goal in extra time, with the idea being to introduce a playground classic of “next goal’s the winner” to try and stop teams playing out time for penalties. Though it was later doomed to failure as teams became too scared to concede, in this tournament it actually worked.

England’s last eight game against Spain didn’t produce one. Instead we were treated to another penalty shootout where England memorably prevailed, with Stuart Pearce screaming after scoring his penalty six years after missing in another shootout. But as with the group matches, the 120 minutes before the shootout hadn’t been all that impressive by the hosts.

And next up was Germany.

England took the lead after just three minutes, yet again through Alan Shearer, but were pegged back thanks to Stephan Kuntz after just quarter of an hour. The remainder of the 90 may have been entertaining, but it was nothing when compared with the drama of extra time.

Firstly, Kuntz had the ball in the net but it was disallowed for a slight push. That must have been heart stopping for anyone supporting England, but there was an even more dramatic point in extra time that even had me at the edge of my seat.

One teasing ball from Shearer across the face of goal that was agonisingly close to the sliding Paul Gascoigne is an image I’ll never forget. Even in replays of that goal you think maybe he’ll get it this time. Sadly for England, he never does though. Just like the previous round, the game goes to penalties and consigns Gareth Southgate to pizza adverts.

As for the golden goal? It would eventually decide the next two finals, with Germany’s Oliver Bierhoff getting one against the Czech Republic, and four years later David Trezeguet would give France a World Cup and European Championship double with his. Sadly it would be gone soon thereafter, somehow construed as a failed experiment due to the fact we never really got anything as exciting as Kuntz’s ruled out goal and Gazza’s slide that never connects.

And what of Morrissey and Weisz? Well she disappears into thin air and he actually gets his life onto a course of happiness. Sounds a bit like Scotland at major tournaments and me leaving school, but that’s for the final chapter.

Maybe Next Time

This blog was first written for Live Forever Football, a website dedicated to 90s football.

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As difficult as it may be for younger readers to believe, there was once a time when it was just accepted that Scotland qualified for the World Cup. Germany in 1974, Argentina in 1978, Spain in 1982, Mexico in 1986 and Italy in 1990 had seen Scotland reach the finals before crashing out of the group stages for one reason or another.

We didn’t beat Zaire by enough. We underestimated Peru and Iran. David Narey annoyed Brazil. We couldn’t beat Uruguay despite a man advantage for almost the whole game. We underestimated Costa Rica.

“Maybe next time” was a phrase that referred to us getting through the group stages, not reaching the finals themselves. But by the mid-1990s, the Winds of Change were sweeping across the continent of Europe and would come to sting us like Scorpions at time progressed.

Ending our Euro 92 campaign on the high of hammering what was left of the Soviet Union was just the beginning for Scotland. The USSR had already been breaking up when the qualifying draw for World Cup 1994 had been made in December 1991, with the Baltic states appearing for the first time.

Indeed, over the two years between the draw being made and the qualification campaign being completed, several other changes would occur. Russia took the Soviet Union’s place in Group 5 following Euro 92, while Czechoslovakia’s break up at the start of 1993 resulted in Group 4 being completed with a team of representatives from both countries playing together in one team.

But Group 1, the group that Scotland were drawn into, was far simpler.

The draw had been reasonably kind. As second seeds, Scotland were always going to be paired with a difficult opponent, and this time around it was the previous World Cup hosts Italy. The third pot threw up Portugal, who had failed to qualify for Italia 90, while pot four saw a Swiss side that hadn’t qualified for anything in nearly three decades.

The other two spots in the group were made up of relative minnows Malta, and the newcomers of Estonia. With the top two teams from each group qualifying, finishing second behind Italy and joining them in the US in the summer of 1994 was the expectation. On paper, it seemed a realistic expectation.

Of course, football isn’t played on paper. And in Scotland’s case, it wasn’t even played on our regular grass.

A combination of the Taylor Report following the Hillsborough disaster and FIFA’s updated regulations meant that Hampden’s sloping terraces required upgrading to continue to host international qualifiers. The seats bolted into the west stand in 1991 weren’t enough to satisfy the various governing bodies, and so with Celtic Park suffering similar problems Scotland’s qualifiers were split between Ibrox in Glasgow and Pittodrie in Aberdeen.

The signs that this campaign weren’t going to go as planned were there even before day one.

September 1992 saw Scotland travel to Switzerland and fall behind after just two minutes to an Adrian Knup goal. Although Ally McCoist levelled things ten minutes later, the Swiss went on to score two more in the second half. But undoubtedly the most memorable aspect of this game was captain Richard Gough literally jumping up and catching the ball to prevent the Swiss running through on goal to score a fourth.

You’ll never see a more blatant red card than that, even if Gough did claim he did it because a water sprinkler had gone off. No you didn’t Richard, you were so out of the running you were paying to get back into the Wankdorf Stadium and you know it.

Not that it mattered. The game was done already and Gough was back in the Scotland line up for the first Ibrox match against Portugal the following month. At least this time Scotland were able to keep a clean sheet, although failing to get anything at the other end didn’t help the campaign and after two matches against our two main rivals for second spot we only had a single point to show for it.

Sadly, with the Swiss already having hammered Estonia and of course ourselves, they then went on to earn a 2-2 draw with Italy and had an impressive five points from a possible six. We were already up against it.

Before the end of 1992, Scotland would pick up a second point with a second consecutive 0-0 draw at Ibrox. At least this time it was to Italy, which at least meant we had as many points as the Italians did. Sadly that didn’t last long though with Italy winning away to Malta.

By the time the first game of 1993 had been played, with Portugal also winning away to Malta, Scotland were already looking like they were in trouble. Switzerland were top on 7 points, with Italy next on 4 points and Portugal on 3 points. Scotland’s 2 points didn’t seem too far adrift, but when you consider Portugal had played a game less and it was only two points for a win, suddenly we were needing a good run and a few favours.

A 3-0 win at home to Malta was a welcome if expected start to the year, and with Portugal losing at home to Italy a week later things were starting to look just a little better. With Italy then thumping Malta 6-1 at home in March they were clear at the top of the table on 8 points, but Switzerland still sat immediately behind them on seven points compared to Scotland on four.

At least until they drew 1-1 with Portugal at the end of March 1993. Our rivals for second spot taking a point off each other was probably as good as we could expect ahead of our next game against one of them. But by the time Scotland headed to Portugal, Switzerland were back on track and sitting on ten points after a 2-0 win over Malta. With Italy also on ten after a win over Estonia, it was already seeming clear than anything less than a win in Lisbon and Scotland could all but forget crossing the Atlantic.

What we got instead was absolutely hammered.

Rui Barros opened the scoring after just five minutes, and before we could get to half time just a goal down Jorge Cadete popped up to double the lead. Things only went from bad to worse as Paulo Futre, Barros and Cadete all scored in a five minute spell midway through the second half. The 5-0 scoreline was humiliating, and yet it still managed to flatter a Scotland team who were second best from start to finish.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Ally McCoist was stretchered off with a leg as broken as our dreams of a sixth consecutive World Cup finals.

This was the day we all knew Scotland weren’t going to the World Cup for the first time in over 20 years. But as if it wasn’t blatantly obvious already, the Swiss went and beat Italy just days later. With them on twelve, the Italians on ten, Portugal on six and Scotland on just four we’d be lucky to even come third.

And so it proved. A 3-0 win away to Estonia at least pulled us level with Portugal on six points again. Another 3-1 win at home to Estonia just a couple of weeks later put Scotland on eight points, but still two behind the Italians and four behind the Swiss. Portugal then joined us on eight points before the summer break after a 4-0 win at home to Malta.

Yes, Malta actually did better in Portugal than Scotland.

Of Scotland’s three remaining games, two were at home to Switzerland and away to Italy. Just the two teams we really needed to take points off to have any chance whatsoever. The Italians still had to host both us and Portugal, while Portugal actually had a game in hand but two of their four games were against Estonia. They couldn’t all drop points, could they?

“It’s still mathematically possible” is one of those phrases that always seems to be associated with the Scottish national team. From consulting the wallchart in Italia 90 to this point and beyond, it just seems to come up a lot as we cling to hope while our heads try to rationalise what our hearts are telling us.

It wasn’t solely reserved for Scots in 1993, but don’t worry we’ll come to that.

The final stages of qualifying began in September 1993 with Portugal winning away to Estonia to keep them in the hunt for a qualifying spot. Meanwhile, Scotland were preparing for the showdown at Pittodrie with Switzerland.

When John Collins opened the scoring by nutmegging goalkeeper Marco Pascolo, at the start of the second half, suddenly we looked like we might have half a chance of clawing our way back into the mix. But when Switzerland equalised from the penalty spot twenty minutes later after Bryan Gunn has wiped out Ciriaco Sforza, any lingering hope of qualifying pretty much disappeared.

Our disappointment was all but confirmed later that month when Italy beat Estonia and left us knowing that a win in both our remaining games was required with the addition and hope the other three could all somehow take the right points off each other to let us sneak in.

Portugal beating Switzerland 1-0 would have given us a small chance had it not been for the fact that on that same night we were facing Italy in Rome. We needed to win, we lost 3-1 and even our goal only pulled it back to 2-1 at that point in time.

There was no doubt now. Scotland were staying at home. The final group match against Malta in November 1993 was confirmed as a dead rubber and attention drifted elsewhere.

On the very same night that Scotland lost to Italy, England lost 2-0 to the Netherlands and Graham Taylor’s men were left hoping they could thump San Marino while also hoping that Poland did them a favour at home to the Netherlands.

It’s become somewhat commonplace for us Scots to see how the neighbours are getting on since we’re not going anywhere. While the drama of the semi final shootout in Italia 90 definitely had our interest, it’s only when San Marino scored the fastest ever goal many of us have seen before or since, almost ruining England’s goal chase in the process, that we truly seemed to embrace schadenfreude.

I say almost ruined England’s goal chase. Poland losing to the Netherlands meant it didn’t matter how many goals England scored they were staying at home with the rest of us. But had Poland won 1-0 that night, that quickfire San Marino goal really could have cost England.

Meanwhile, back in Group 1, with Portugal beating Estonia in November it meant there was still three teams in the hunt on that final night. Switzerland looked all but assured of their qualification as they faced Estonia, so it was all down to Portugal’s visit to Milan to face Italy to decide the final places. Portugal had to win, while Italy knew a draw would be enough to take them through. In the end, Dino Baggio’s goal was enough to give the Italians a 1-0 win over Portugal that ultimately meant they topped the group ahead of Switzerland who did indeed beat Estonia.

So how did the Swiss manage to overcome the odds? Well they had some real quality on the field in Stephane Chapuisat, but much of the praise was reserved for their English coach – a certain Mr Roy Hodgson. Whatever happened to him?

The Swiss would ultimately bow out in the second round, losing to Spain who themselves would lose to Italy in the quarter finals. Italy would go all the way to the final, becoming the first team to lose that final in a penalty shoot out.

That 0-0 draw against Brazil seemed a long, long way from another 0-0 draw that same Italian side had played out at Ibrox a little under two years earlier. For many, the final summed up USA 94 as a disappointing tournament. With no “home nation” representative there for the first time since they decided to join in after the second world war, it almost seemed distant to us.

Sure, there was some backing for the Republic of Ireland who did manage to qualify. Indeed, there was some jealousy when in their opening game they were able to beat the Italians 1-0 thanks to a goal from Glasgow-born Ray Houghton. In a unique quirk, all four teams in Ireland’s group finished on four points with the unlucky Norway missing out by virtue of a lack of goals scored.

Ireland’s second round game saw them take on the Netherlands, a game I actually watched in the Netherlands while on a school trip. Although I was backing the Irish that day, I was made to feel more than welcome. Partly due to the fact the Netherlands won 2-0 and partly due to the fact I wasn’t quite 13 years old by then.

Frustratingly and somewhat ironically, in an otherwise disappointing World Cup, I managed to miss the best game of the tournament coming back from the Netherlands as eventual winners Brazil saw off the Netherlands challenge by the odd goal in five. Indeed, Brazil had been pegged back from 2-0 to 2-2 and only got the winner ten minutes from full time.

Back in Scotland, those Winds of Change were being felt in the corridors of Hampden. Andy Roxburgh had stepped down on confirmation of Scotland’s non-qualification after the draw against Switzerland. His assistant, Craig Brown, took change for the end of the campaign and was confirmed as remaining in place for the campaign that would follow.

“Maybe next time” was now down to a new man. Although it would soon become a common mantra, for now it was still a realistic belief.

A Scottish Kiss From Lady Luck

This blog was first written for Live Forever Football, a website dedicated to 90s football.

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1967. Undoubtedly the high point for Scottish Football. Celtic were European Champions, Rangers were runners-up to Bayern Munich in the Cup Winners Cup, Kilmarnock were semi-finalists in the Fair Cities Cup where they lost out to runners-up Leeds United, and while Dundee United lost out to Juventus in that same tournament they had beaten Barcelona home and away to set up that tie against the Old Lady of Italian Football.

Then, of course, there was the small matter of Scotland beating the reigning World Champions England 3-2 at Wembley. But was that the greatest moment for the national team?

Scotland didn’t qualify for the World Cup in the England in 1966 as we lost out to Italy, and wouldn’t qualify for Mexico in 1970 either as we lost out to West Germany. It would be 1974, a full seven years after becoming unofficial World Champions, that we would finally be off to the official finals for the first time since 1958.

To further put the 3-2 win in context, the home nations were actually competing against each other in a group of four as part of the qualifying stage for the European Championship in 1968. The Euros, as they would come to be known, had only started in 1960 but Scotland hadn’t taken any part in the first two tournaments.

Despite beating them in 1967 at Wembley and drawn with them in 1968 at Hampden, England still managed to top the group as Scotland drew with Wales in 1967 and lost to Northern Ireland in 1968. England didn’t drop anything against them, and so they went on to the quarter finals. Indeed, England qualified for the last four but lost to Yugoslavia in the end.

Scotland’s luck in qualifying for the Euros didn’t get any better even after we started to qualify for every World Cup that was going. 1972 and 1976 may only have had four teams in the finals, but even after the final tournament was expanded from four to eight teams in 1980 Scotland still couldn’t get there.

But in 1990, lady luck finally smiled upon us. When the Euro 92 qualifying draw was made in February, Scotland found themselves in a group along with top seeds Romania and third seeds Bulgaria – both the bottom pick from those pots. Pot four gave us the second team from there of Switzerland, while pot five served up San Marino who until this point had never taken part in qualifying.

I’m sure as Scotland flew back from Italia 90 there were many eyes on the Republic of Ireland’s second round match against Romania. As they played out a 0-0 draw and Packie Bonner and David O’Leary became national heroes in the penalty shootout, in the Scotland camp it would have been the defeated Romanians that were of note. After all, we were due to play them three months later.

Despite going a goal down at Hampden, Scotland fought back and won their first qualifying game 2-1 against the top seeds in the group. When that was followed up a month later with another 2-1 home win, this time over Switzerland, it was clear Scotland had got off to just the start we needed to finally break our duck.

The 1-1 draw in Bulgaria didn’t do too much harm, and although a 2-0 win away to San Marino is hardly the most memorable of results it was enough to keep momentum going into the 1991/92 season. Another draw away from home, this time in Switzerland, was the followed up by a narrow defeat in Romania thanks to a Gheorghe Hagi penalty. Well we weren’t going to keep one of the household names from Italia 90 completely quiet, were we?

The final game was at home to San Marino, and a 4-0 win was recorded in November 1991. But… had Scotland done enough to qualify for the finals in Sweden? We’d have to wait a week to find out.

In the days of two points for a win, Scotland had amassed 11 points from their four wins, three draws a one defeat. The damning statistic though was the +7 goal difference. Romania were on nine points with a goal difference of +12, but they still had a game to play in Bulgaria. Any win at all would see the Romanians top the group and consign Scotland to yet another summer watching on from home.

But there was hope. While Scotland had picked up the maximum four points from their opening fixtures, Romania had picked up none. The defeat to Scotland had been followed up by a defeat at home to Bulgaria. If Romania were to qualify, they’d have to get revenge for that loss.

Popescu did indeed give Romania the lead in Sofia, but an equaliser from Sirakov came later on to deny Romania the win they needed and send Scotland on our way to Sweden the following summer. Finally, Scotland would take its place among Europe’s elite. It was a terrific time for Scotland.

And then they made the draw.

Everyone knows about Marco Van Basten’s outrageous goal in the final of Euro 88. No one even debates the best European Championship goal ever, they just accept it’s Van Basten’s and go on to decide what’s second. That goal helped the Netherlands beat the Soviet Union in the final, and as fate would have it those two were paired to meet again in the group stages at Euro 92.

In Scotland’s group.

Is that enough for you? No? Well, let’s see if we can’t make it worse then. West Germany had won the World Cup at Italia 90, before unifying with the East and then going on to qualify for Euro 92. How about we have them join the party as well then? The World Champions, The European Champions, the European Runners-Up… and Scotland.

I’m guessing lady luck figured we’d had enough of her help in qualifying.

When you consider the other group had the host nation Sweden that we ourselves had beaten at Italia 90, our old rivals England whom we’d hadn’t played since 1989 – the longest we’d ever gone without doing so – France who hadn’t even qualified for Italia 90, and Yugoslavia who had made the quarterfinals in Italy, you would have happily swapped places with any of them.

Which is exactly what Denmark did.

With communism collapsing, Euro 92 was affected on a number of occasions. East Germany had originally been part of the draw, but by the time the tournament kicked off they had dropped out and joined the West in their group instead.

By the time the tournament kicked off in June 1992, the Soviet Union had dissolved and so the team that played in the tournament played under the name of the “Commonwealth of Independent States”. Basically the same thing, but technically didn’t include the three Baltic states or Georgia – except for Kakhaber Tskhadadze who was somehow part of the squad anyway.

They were the lucky ones. The former Soviet states broke up amicably for the most part so they were still allowed to take part in the tournament. Yugoslavia weren’t so lucky. Slovenia were gone by the time the Euro 92 draw was made, but it was the war for Croatian independence that ultimately cost Yugoslavia their place in the championships.

On the 30th of May, United Nations Security Council Resolution 757 placed sanctions on Yugoslavia that had many consequences, but in this context it meant FIFA suspended the Yugoslav national team from competitive football. With England due to face them on the 11th of June in Sweden, a replacement was quickly drafted in.

To put that in the context of time, the Scottish Cup final in 1992 had taken place on the 9th of May. This decision was made three weeks later. Do you know where the Danish players, who rightly thought they had nothing better to do that summer, were at the time?

On the beach.

Denmark literally had to cancel holidays to come and play in Sweden. Or at least most of them did. Some players, most notably Michael Laudrup, opted to stay on holiday thinking it was a waste of time.

I’ll bet his brother Brian, who did join the Danish squad for the tournament, never lets him forget that decision.

So even when it comes to teams falling apart, Scotland had no luck. Not only did we get the newly unified Germans, but the Soviets couldn’t even fall out with each other properly. Meanwhile in the other group the highest rated team was gone and replaced by a team swapping their flip flops and li-los for football boots and treatment tables.

So it’s no surprise that the Tartan Army invaded Sweden with one goal in mind – to enjoy the experience. I don’t think there’s been another tournament before or since where the Scotland fans have accepted from the very beginning that we had absolutely no chance of qualifying from the group stage. It was almost liberating.

Do you know the names David McGow and Marianne Lindkvist? Probably not, but you might know their faces. Marianne was a Swedish police officer on duty at one of the Scotland matches and David was pictured kissing her in one of the most iconic photos in Scottish Football. That photo alone probably won the Tartan Army the Fair Play award we returned home with from Sweden.

But let’s not go home prematurely just yet! On the park, up first in Gothenburg were the reigning champions – the Netherlands.

To be perfectly honest, the game didn’t exactly live up to expectations. You would have expected the Dutch total football philosophy to overwhelm Scotland but while Hans van Breukelen had virtually nothing to do in the Dutch goal, Andy Goram was hardly rushed off his feet at the other end either.

Richard Gough was able to keep Marco Van Basten reasonably quiet, and a Frank Rijkaard effort was kept out by Goram… but that was about it until the final fifteen minutes. A Rijkaard header down into the path of Dennis Bergkamp from a Ruud Gullit cross saw the lesser known of the three names poke the ball home. One decent move made all the difference in the scoreline and gave the holders the winning start they had wanted.

Later that evening, the CIS managed a 1-1 draw with Germany. Scotland were bottom of the group and no one really expected we’d move from that spot with the Germans up next in Norrkoping.

And yet, just like the opening match against the Netherlands, Scotland matched up well against one of the favourites for the tournament. Indeed, Scotland were arguably on top and having the better chances… only for Jurgen Klinsmann to hold off Gough and roll the ball to Karlheinz Riedle who then fired past Goram.

If that seemed unlucky given how well we had been playing, just after half time lady luck was late back from having her half time pie. Or whatever the Swedish equivalent is. In her absence, a Stefan Effenberg Cross deflected off Maurice Malpas and left Goram helpless to prevent the ball dropping into the net and doubling Germany’s lead.

As busy as Bodo Illgner had been, Scotland couldn’t find a way past the Germany goalkeeper and Scotland were out of the competition with a game to spare thanks to another CIS draw in their game against the Netherlands. With world champions Germany and european champions the Netherlands both on three points, the inevitability of the group had come to fruition.

We all knew it would be this way, and yet Scotland had performed so well against arguably the two best teams in the tournament. If anything, we’d already done better than we had ever expected, even though we’d lost twice. And so we’d face the CIS in Norrkoping knowing it was our last game but that they still had a chance of qualifying. They might need to beat Scotland by a couple of goals if the other game finished a draw, but it was in their own hands to progress regardless of what happened in Gothenburg.

But they didn’t count on Scotland finally catching Lady Luck’s eye again.

The opening goal from Paul McStay came in the first ten minutes of the game. Actually, it’s technically an own goal by goalkeeper Dmitri Kharine’s since McStay’s shot hit the post and rebounded off Kharine’s outstretched arm and into the net, but I’m sure Dmitri won’t mind if Paul claims it.

Scotland were 2-0 up within 20 minutes thanks to another deflection, this time coming off the Georgian Tskhadadze as he directed Brian McClair’s effort into the opposite corner and away from Kharine. The former Soviets, shell shocked after the opening spell, missed some terrific chances as the game progressed but it was all over when substitute Pat Nevin was brought down in the area and Gary McAllister sent Kharine the wrong way with the penalty to complete the 3-0 win.

Remember when Rocky Balboa defeated communism? Well Scotland turned up and poked it with a stick to make sure it was dead.

This was the final act for the CIS. After Euro 92, the Baltic states entered qualifying for the World Cup in 1994 on their own merits while Russia went it alone in place of the Soviet Union. The rest of the former Soviet states wouldn’t enter qualification until Euro 96.

But forget the negative, Scotland’s comprehensive win ensured that we finished third in the group ahead of the CIS. When you consider that the other group saw both France and England finish level on two points with a negative goal difference, Scotland’s goal difference of zero technically means we were the best of the rest.

As far as I’m concerned, at Euro 92, Scotland finished fifth.

Of course, Scotland’s “achievement” went largely unnoticed. The fans rightly took the plaudits while the team went home satisfied with two decent but ultimately defeated games and one thumping win against a team that still had something to play for – so that was no dead rubber.

But then the tournament kept going. Remember those Danes who had been on the beach? Well they came second in their group behind the hosts. Sweden would lose out in the semifinals to the Germans, but the Danes went on to shock the holders in a 2-2 draw and a 5-4 win on penalties – Peter Schmeichel crucially saving the second Dutch penalty from, all of all people, Marco Van Basten.

But they weren’t done yet.

If defeating the Dutch was a shock, then what came next rocked the continent. A 2-0 win over Germany in the final is recognised as one of the truly shocking moments in football. For a team that hadn’t even qualified to cut their holidays short and go on to win the tournament outright is precisely why we all love football. It shouldn’t have happened and yet it did, and we all celebrated with the Danes.

And they didn’t even need Lady Luck to help.

Costa Reekin’

This blog was first written for Live Forever Football, a website dedicated to 90s football.

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1990 is a landmark year for me and my love of football. I have very few memories prior to that, save for the signing of two Poles at Celtic shortly after a slightly bigger story broke about a certain former Celtic striker being usurped across the city to Rangers.

To be honest, it was the Poles who really caught my attention given my own family background connection with the country. When you’re the kid with the funny name, being able to properly pronounce Dariusz Dziekanowski and Dariusz Wdowczyk is almost expected. As it was, they were Jackie and Shuggie to many others in Scotland.

Both of Celtic’s Polish contingent played at Hampden in the Scottish Cup final in 1990, and indeed Wdowczyk is the lesser known penalty misser in the 9-8 shootout victory for Aberdeen. Poor Anton Rogan has the unfortunate honour of being the man who missed the most crucial penalty, and so Shuggie is rarely mentioned.

As I watched on at home that day, little did I know that just a week later I’d be watching both of those Poles play at Hampden in the flesh.

The first football match I was ever taken to was a Scotland v Poland friendly match at Hampden Park on May 19th, 1990. To this day, I can close my eyes and picture Hampden Park as it was back then from the terracing at the traditional Celtic end of the stadium. The sheer vastness of this footballing arena was truly breathtaking to a child who wasn’t quite nine years old yet.

The Celtic end of the stadium was open to the elements, but thankfully there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Even back then I noticed that the terracing opposite me was covered, but it never struck me as odd as I had nothing to compare that with. The thing that really struck me at the time was that the main stand to the left had a press box that looked like it could slide off the roof and onto the pitch at any moment.

The game itself is something I can only remember in patches. Scotland took the lead through Mo Johnston, but it was the equaliser that will live with me forever. With Andy Goram rushing off his line, Gary Gillespie didn’t notice this and when he attempted to head the ball back to him he instead looped the ball over him and into the empty net.

I never liked Gary Gillespie for that very reason.

But there was a bigger picture here. This match was one of Scotland’s warm up games ahead of Italia 90. For the fifth consecutive World Cup, Scotland had qualified for the finals once again. As I’ve hinted already, I’ve absolutely no recollection of the qualifying campaign, but for the record Scotland finished second in Group 5. Four points behind Yugoslavia, in the days of two points for a win, and just one ahead of France.

Norway and Cyprus completed the group, and it was arguably Cyprus getting a draw at home to France that made the difference. When you consider that Scotland only beat Cyprus away thanks to a 90th minute Richard Gough winner, you can see how close things were between the two.

Yugoslavia only dropped two points the entire campaign, a draw each against Scotland and France. With both teams drawing against Norway, admittedly Scotland doing so at home in the final game when a draw was all that was needed, the two winning their respective home games against each other cancelled themselves out too.

When the draw for the finals was made in December 1989, Scotland found themselves paired with Brazil for a third time in five World Cups. The other two teams in Group C were fellow Europeans Sweden who had topped England’s group and in doing so had seen off Poland, and the little known Costa Rica who had qualified for the finals for the very first time. Literally everyone in Scotland had failed to notice that they had actually topped the final CONCACAF qualification group, perhaps because CONCACAF was not a well respected confederation at the time.

In the build up to the finals, Scotland played a number of friendlies. Perhaps most noteworthy was Scotland’s 1-0 win over the then reigning World Champions Argentina thanks to a goal from Aberdeen’s Stewart McKimmie. Sure, there was no Diego Maradona in the team, and only three of the players who played against Scotland went on to start the World Cup final against West Germany that summer, but when you’re Scottish you take any small win you can get. Besides, beating reigning World Champions is a Scottish tradition dating back to 1967!

The other friendlies weren’t quite as impressive. A 1-0 defeat to East Germany and a 3-1 defeat to Egypt had come before the draw with Poland, while the final warm up match took place in Malta and saw Scotland narrowly beat their hosts 2-1.

By the time Scotland took to the field in Genoa for their opening group match against Costa Rica, Brazil had already beaten Sweden 2-1 the previous day. With Sweden seen as the main threat to Scotland finishing second behind Brazil, things were looking good.

Well, not everything. Scotland had turned up to play Costa Rica in what can be politely described as a white with thin yellow hoops jersey. How the traditional kit could possibly clash with the all red jersey of Costa Rica I’ll never know, but I distinctly remember thinking it didn’t look right to see Scotland not playing in the dark blue.

The choice of strip was the least of our worries though.

The first half didn’t seem to go too badly. Sure, the service to Mo Johnston could have been better, and sure it was still 0-0 at the break, but we’d get the breakthrough eventually. Wouldn’t we?

Four minutes into the second half, Geovanny Jara played a cheeky backheel that gave Arnaldo Cayasso a clear sight of goal. With only Jim Leighton in the Scotland goal to beat he fired the ball into the net to give Costa Rica a shock lead.

The expected Scotland comeback never materialised. In truth, it never looked like it would. A few good saves from goalkeeper Luis Gabelo Conejo aside, Costa Rica just weren’t put under the cosh as would have been expected. It turned out that Costa Rica were “nae mugs” after all, and went on to narrowly lose 1-0 to Brazil in the next match, a few hours before Scotland faced Sweden.

With both teams having lost their opening group match, this game was already looking like a “win or bust” for both sides. More so for Scotland though, given we still had Brazil to face in the final game.

With both teams now in their traditional kits, things were already looking a lot better. The fact it was a later kick off in Genoa and therefore not as hot and humid as the first match also seemed to help matters. Ten minutes into the game, Murdo MacLeod sent a corner into the box and Dave MacPherson flicked it on to Stuart McCall who was waiting at the edge of the six yard box. McCall slid in and fired Scotland in front. We were off the mark.

The game will never go down as a classic, and despite the good early start it took until just ten minutes to go for us to breathe a little easier when Mo Johnston tucked away the penalty given after Roy Aitken went down somewhat easily in the box, and Scotland had a 2-0 lead. A late consolation from Glenn Stromness latching onto a ridiculously long through ball didn’t stop Scotland picking up only our fourth win at the World Cup finals – the other three coming against Zaire in 1974, Holland in 1978, and New Zealand in 1982. Sadly, to this day it is also Scotland’s last win at the World Cup finals.

That win against Sweden gave Scotland a reasonable chance of progressing to the knockout stages for the first time. With 24 teams in the tournament, the top two from each group would both progress as would four of the six third placed teams. With Brazil top on four points, and Scotland level with Costa Rica on two, we were still in with a chance of being one of the four third placed teams if not one of the top two in our group.

Costa Rica’s game against Sweden would take place at the same time, and so what kind of result we needed was still to be determined. If Sweden could win, a draw would be enough to finish second. Even if Costa Rica won, a draw might still be enough to finish in one of the plum third place positions.

But then again, the final match was against Brazil.

In our two previous meetings with Brazil, we had done fantastically well to draw with the reigning champions in 1974, but the 4-1 hammering in 1982 after David Narey had given us the lead was of more immediate concern. The 1990 Scotland were nowhere near the class of the 1974 Scotland, but neither were the 1990 Brazil team anything like the quality they had in 1974 or 1982. They had only succeeded in beating Sweden by the same scoreline that we ourselves had managed, and even they had struggled to a narrow win over Costa Rica – a team we still felt like we should have done better against.

And so, with our usual bizarre optimism that could see us think getting a result against Brazil was possible having already lost to Costa Rica – and to be fair you only have to look at the 1978 World Cup results to see why we might think like that – it was off to Turin.

Scotland set out with the draw in mind, with Roy Aitken dropping back to play as a sweeper in a back five. The game itself played out exactly as you would expect of a backs-to-the-wall game. Everyone played their part to stop Brazil, most famously Murdo MacLeod who was completed sparked out after taking a free kick full on in the face not long before half time. It was no surprise when he couldn’t continue.

Gary Gillespie came on for him. I should have known then we were doomed.

With just eight minutes left on the clock, Alemao fired in a low shot from distance. Leighton probably should have held it, but instead he spilled it out to Careca. The striker managed to knock the ball towards the goal line under pressure from Gillespie but it was going wide. With the whole of Scotland willing the ball to run out of play substitute Muller, who had come on less than twenty minutes earlier for a youngster named Romario who would become a household name four years later, broke all our hearts by appearing on screen to tap the ball into an empty net.

Im guessing for those in the stadium it was more obvious he was going to score, but for those of watching on at home it was substantially more of a tease.

There was still time for Scotland to give us hope, but a late Mo Johnston chance was somehow tipped over the bar by Brazilian goalkeeper Taffarel and Scotland were stranded on two points. With Costa Rica beating Sweden, they progressed along with Brazil to the knockout stages while across Scotland we consulted our wall charts to see what we needed to happen to be one of the four best third placed teams.

To be honest, we already looked doomed. Both Argentina in Group B and Columbia in Group D had finished third on three points, and with Austria in group A also on two points with two goals for and three against like ourselves, it was pretty clear what the teams in Group E and Group F had to beat. Should it come to it and only one of Scotland or Austria could qualify, then lots would have been drawn to decide which it would be. To this day I have no idea what that means! What’s wrong with tossing a coin?!

But we still had to get to that point first. With both groups E and F finishing the day after ours, we were left in the bizarre scenario where for a full 24 hours Scotland didn’t know whether to go home or not.

In Group E, Uruguay already had a point while South Korea had none. Spain also had two points, but they were playing Belgium who had four so unless they lost they were going to be of no help. The best case scenario from this group was a comprehensive Belgium win over Spain to wipe out their goal difference, or a small South Korea win over Uruguay to ensure they’re worse goal difference didn’t surpass ours.

Both Spain and Uruguay won, ensuring the latter became another third place team on three points.

Group F was too tight to call. With England on three points, Ireland and the Netherlands both on two points, and Egypt on one point, the only thing that would help Scotland here was for an England win over Egypt to ensure they didn’t come into the equation, and a win for either Ireland or the Netherlands – ideally by more than a goal but a 1-0 win would have been enough given the goals scored column would be in our favour.

England did indeed beat Egypt to top the group, but Ireland and the Netherlands drew 1-1, ensuring both of them progressed to the knockout stages and finally Scotland and Austria were sent home.

Interestingly, Ireland and the Netherlands actually did have to be separated by the drawing of lots, which Ireland won to finish second in the group to the Netherlands third place. Given that meant Ireland faced Romania while the Netherlands faced West Germany, it made all the difference.

With the tournament progressing without Scotland, we watched on as neutrals and tried not to get too carried away with just how annoyingly good World in Motion was as a World Cup song. When you consider Scotland’s equivalent of “say it with pride, the lion shall roar in the sun” it’s no wonder more of us could probably do the Barnes rap even today than could even tell you anything about our song back then.

Fish, in case you’re wondering. Ask your parents if you’re still wondering.

Meanwhile, on a patch of grass somewhere in Scotland, I was falling over trying my best to copy David Platt’s last minute winner against Belgium. That’s when I wasn’t wheeling away screaming “Schillaci!!!!!” after scoring a goal of course.

Italia 90 may have been a disappointment for Scotland, one forever tainted by the memory of Costa Rica, but it inspired me as a young football fan in a way I’d never known before.

And as for Costa Rica…

Sixteen years later, I went to the World Cup in Germany. Scotland hadn’t qualified, but fortunately Poland had and I’d been fortunate enough to win tickets in the ballot to go to their final group match against Costa Rica.

So, draped in a saltire, wearing a Celtic jersey with Zurawski printed on the back, I went to Hannover to watch Poland exorcise some of my demons with a 2-1 win courtesy of two goals from Bartosz Bosacki. There was even a point in the game where Costa Rica were winning 1-0. The game might have been a dead rubber by this point in the tournament, but it certainly made a certain Scotsman feel just a little bit better.

Time Is The Fire In Which Generations Can Burn – Part 4

Of course not. Instead we get a little insight into the mind of Jean Luc Picard. Apparently he’s a traditional Christmas type person, and when I say traditional I mean he dresses up his family like they’re from the 19th century. This whole scene reminds me of Kathryn Janeway’s Governess holonovel, and I didn’t understand her love of that either.

Okay, so I understand why Picard might be craving a family at this particular moment. He’s still stricken with the grief of losing his brother and nephew so family is foremost on his mind. But I really don’t understand why they seem to be from a time period a full 500 years in the past. We’ve seen Picard likes aspects of the past, from Dixon Hill to his archeology, but even when he visited his brother on his vineyard on Earth after the Borg has assimilated him it was more modern than this!

Of course, the blissful happiness for Jean Luc Picard lasts about five minutes. Earlier in the movie, Guinan described the Nexus as being wrapped inside joy, but good old Captain Picard sees through the whole thing the minute he sees a flash of light in a Christmas bauble. Oh yes, about those stars blowing up…

Oh, hiya Guinan.

Literally from nowhere, Guinan shows up. Not that she’s the only thing to show up out of the blue, as Picard’s communicator is with him for the duration of his stay in the Nexus. No explanation, so we can only imagine that he’s imagined he has one and the Nexus was only to happy to oblige. But back to Guinan’s sudden appearance.

Well, it is and it isn’t Guinan. She explains that she’s actually an echo of the person that he knows, no doubt a call back to her other description of being “ripped” away by the Enterprise-B’s transporter. Pesky things those transporters, they have a habit of leaving behind duplicates. Good and evil Kirk, Will and Thomas Riker, now two Guinans.

Hang on though, doesn’t that also mean there’s two Sorens? After all, he was ripped away at the same time as Guinan. Indeed, there should be two of every one of those 47 survivors that were rescued earlier in the movie.

Why is that important? Well, in the conversation that follows Guinan tells Picard that she can’t go with him as she’s already there. What, the two of you can’t exist in the same place at the same time? Well how come Soren was able to enter the Nexus then? He’s already in there! That would have been a real blow to his plans. Can you imagine him going through all that star destroying only for the energy ribbon to pick up Picard and not him?! The look of horror on his face as it would have kept going and he realised he was about to be destroyed himself. You could have done that little extra bit and not even had to change the movie!

Anyway, never mind that as we’ll just assume the Nexus is different and will re-integrate the two Sorens when he returns. No, there was a far bigger point made in that same conversation that blows yet another massive hole in this already flimsy movie.

Guinan tells Picard that in the Nexus time has no meaning. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, that means that if Picard wants to leave the Nexus then he can go to any place, any time.

Okay, first, how does that work? Any time I can accept if “time has no meaning” there. But any place? Surely you’d need to go somewhere that the energy ribbon was? That’s the gateway to the Nexus after all! So you’re trying to tell me that you need to be in the right place at the right time to get into the Nexus, but if you want to leave you can literally go anywhere? I’m not buying that at all. But lets just pretend that it’s a magic gateway where the ribbon’s location only matters for those wishing to enter the Nexus but not those wishing to leave it, all for the sake of argument number two.

Picard decides he wants to go the mountain top on Veridian III just before Soren destroys the star.

Really? You can go anywhere, any time, and you choose the battle you lost already when the odds were stacked in Soren’s favour?

Not, say, to that point in time when you were talking to him in Ten Forward? Never mind not destroying the Veridian star, how about not destroying the Amargosa star either? In fact, lets go back to before the Romulans attacked the observatory and maybe stop that particular tragedy happening. I don’t think they ever said how many casualties there were on the station, but there were certainly a few.

Actually, how about we remember that Picard is standing in his family house because family is on his mind and we head back to Earth to stop the fire that killed his brother and nephew? Do that and he can phone in the issues with Soren! That way his family are safe, the Amargosa and Veridian stars are still intact, Soren gets taken into custody for stealing the Trilithium and – unknown to Picard at this point in time – the Enterprise-D stays in one piece too!

No, instead, lets go back to the most ridiculously difficult bit of the day. Screw Robert and Rene, the Amargosa observatory staff, and making life easy for himself. Utterly, utterly unfathomable. And don’t tell me it’s a temporal investigations issue, because wanting to go back and stop Soren will be breaking their rules anyway! If you want to avoid them, you’ll have to leave the Nexus at the point you entered it.

So, Picard has decided where he wants to go and Guinan can’t help him. But she knows a guy who can…

Suddenly the scene changes and we’re outside a nice little cabin tucked away in the woods with mountains off in the distance. Picard sees someone chopping wood and quickly realises who it is. It’s Captain Kirk!

Yeah, if you hadn’t figured out by now that he was still alive then you’ve clearly not been paying attention.

Picard helps him to chop wood for a bit before heading inside to help him cook breakfast. All the while Kirk explains how he’s just got there from the Enterprise-B and Picard tries to convince him that he needs to leave again to help him out. Kirk doesn’t really seem to be listening, but when he needs to reply then he’s quick to reference things Picard has said. For instance, Picard’s claim of being from the 24th century goes completely ignored until Kirk points out that this isn’t the future but is in fact the past. In particular, it’s the day Kirk told the woman he was living with that he was going back to Starfleet.

There’s a bit of a hole here as to Kirk’s history. A quick google tells us that this takes place somewhere between the first two movies, so somewhere along the line Kirk was on sabbatical between the V’Ger incident and teaching Saavik and co at the academy. That’s fine though, there’s a big enough gap between those two movies that it’s quite possible he did just that.

Kirk tells Picard he’s done enough for the galaxy already and instead he’s going to tell this woman that he wants to marry her. He takes the breakfast tray upstairs and into the bedroom. Creepily, Picard waits a few seconds and then follows him into the bedroom! Maybe Data learned tact from Picard…

Fortunately for Captain Creepy, the door doesn’t lead to a bedroom. Instead, Kirk and Picard find themselves in a barn. Kirk claims that this is even better than his bedroom – might have known a bed would be too simple for Captain Kirk… No, what he actually means is that this is the day that he meets this woman. He declares the Nexus a great idea as it means he can start again and do things right from day one. He then jumps on a horse and rides off. Again, Picard hesitates before deciding to follow on another horse. A bit of horse riding later and Kirk finds a ravine to jump, clearing it with no problems whatsoever.

Not physically anyway. Kirk stops, looks back, and jumps the ravine again. No problem again. At this point Picard catches up and Kirk reveals what the real problem is. He’s jumped that ravine a hundred times and been scared about it every time… except this time because it’s not real.

So there you have it. Picard snapped out of the Nexus trance in about five seconds because he just didn’t care about joy for some unexplained reason. Kirk, on the other hand, only snapped out of the joy when he realised that it was fake and there was no risk. Nothing to risk, nothing to gain. At least Kirk’s realisation makes sense to me. Picard just seemed to suddenly remember he had something better to do. Having said that, neither of them seemed overly fussed by being wrapped “inside joy”, although Kirk seemed to at least be giving it a go for a short period.

So having decided that neither the ravine or the woman in the distance are real, Kirk is ready to listen to what Picard is offering. But not before telling him not to retire because it’s utterly terrible not being on the bridge of the Enterprise, in the command chair. That’s the only place he truly made a difference. Picard uses this to suggest he come back with him and make a difference again.

Then we get possibly the only quotable bit of this entire movie – other than Data’s swearing I mean. Captain Kirk sums it all up.

“Who am I to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise?” – well, you’re benchmark for that.

“I take it the odds are against us and the situation is grim?” – only because Picard hasn’t told you that you could just go back to the Ten Forward and arrest him there, but yes. Oh, and never mind the fact that he originally asked Guinan to help him – I’m sure she’d have been useful in the ensuing fist fight with Soren. Never mind that for now…

“You know if Spock were here, he’d say that I am an irrational, illogical human being for taking on a mission like that.” – he’d be right as well, as the logical choice is to go back earlier.

“Sounds like fun!”

And with that they ride out of the Nexus.

So, we’ve reset, the saucer section has just crashed, and Soren is standing on the mountain top looking up from his watch to see… Kirk. This confuses Soren, but instead of pouncing on this moment of confusion, Picard decides to talk some more and Soren manages to evade both of them. They decide to split up, with Picard heading for the launcher to stop the solar probes firing while Kirk chases after Soren. Basically, Kirk is a distraction for Soren while Picard does the actual stopping of the missiles. Ahh, now I see how Guinan would been useful. She could have talked Soren into distraction. I’m sure he wouldn’t have paid any attention to what Picard was doing in that instance.

Of course it’s Kirk and not Guinan, so what Soren actually does is hides around a corner and points his gun at Kirk when he comes around. But just when he seems to be in trouble, Picard appears to catch him off guard. This lets Kirk get a few punches in on Soren and eventually knock him off the cliff. Unfortunately, there’s a rope and Soren grabs on to it, saving himself from a deadly fall. He gets out a remote control and cloaks the launcher.

Okay, two things at this point. One, can the missiles fire when their cloaked? You know how that’s usually an issue for what I can only assume is Klingon technology since they are the people helping Soren. If those missiles are cloaked, then it’s not really an issue as Soren drops the control pad seconds later when the rope slips.

Secondly, isn’t this all taking a lot longer than the first time round? When it was just Picard there was a brief fight, just long enough for Picard to knock the gun out of Soren’s hand but lose the fight, before the missiles fired. Now we’ve had a bit of banter, Soren running away, Soren catching Kirk, the two of them fighting, Picard changing his mind about going to the launcher to help Kirk, and Soren cloaking the missiles. Oh, and we’re not done yet either.

The two Captains try to retrieve the control pad from one of the bridges that Soren has set up around the mountain, but Soren fires on the bridge just as they get there. After initially missing – again – he hits it and narrowly misses killing them both. Picard is safe, but Kirk is stuck and narrowly avoids slipping to his death when Picard grabs him and pulls him up.

Taking time to regroup, Picard and Kirk notice that the energy ribbon is approaching. Picard notes that they’re running out of time.

No you’re not.

Think about it, what’s the worst possible scenario here? Forgetting the fact that the missiles are still cloaked and probably can’t fire anyway, lets assume they can indeed fire while cloaked. They destroy the star, the energy ribbon swoops down and picks up all three of them. Great, you’re back in the Nexus and can start again! After all, Picard knows for a fact that he failed the first time and is getting a second shot at it. Why not have a third? Surely by the third attempt you’ve helped Kirk get to grips with the area and you can come up with some kind of plan of action before even leaving the Nexus.

Like, maybe, capturing him in Ten Forward? I know, I’m labouring that point. Well it’s a big point!

No, rather than consider that they could just wait and start again with an actual plan, Kirk decides he’s going to jump from one side of the broken bridge to the other while Picard heads for the launcher. Picard argues that he’ll never make it and they need to work together, but Kirk assures him that they are working together already! Wishing the Captain good luck, Picard heads off as Kirk tells him to call him Jim. The smile of Picard’s face clearly shows just how much that simple act means to him. First name terms with a hero, wow!

So, having had a not-real-so-not-scary jump to do in the Nexus, Kirk now has a real one. We get a close up as he realises the irony of this situation before he jumps across. Of course, he makes it, grabs the pad and decloaks the launcher. Job done, Kirk doesn’t get time to escape as this half of the bridge detaches and falls, taking Kirk with it.

Meanwhile at the launcher, Picard tries to stop the launch. Soren interrupts him from a distance, pointing the gun at him. Picard does as he’s asked and steps away, but he runs around a corner before Soren can do anything else. Soren runs up to check that the launcher is okay, only to discover that the locking clamps are engaged. With the missiles armed, the launcher explodes and kills Soren in the process.

So, what we have here are missiles loaded with Trilithium, a substance apparently so dangerous that it can stop all nuclear fusion within a star, but if it blows up on a planet it’s just a small local explosion that kills the guy standing right next to it but leaves the mountain top – never mind the entire planet – well intact.

Actually, I at least have a theory for this one. The missiles were never armed, it’s just the propellant that explodes as the missiles try to escape but can’t because they’re locked in place. Nuclear warheads would do similar if they’re not properly armed, so I’ll give this one a pass.

The energy ribbon continues to pass overhead, ensuring that there’s no return journey to the Nexus for Picard. Which is a shame, because there’s another casualty in all of this. Picard rushes over to where the broken section of the bridge has fallen and starts digging around to try and free Kirk. He does so, but it’s evident that it’s too late already. Kirk is conscious, but won’t be for long.

“Did we do it? Did we make a difference?” Kirk asks Picard.

“Oh yes. We made a difference. Thank you.” Picard replies.

“Least I could do for the Captain of the Enterprise.” Kirk gives his approval for the metaphorical passing of the baton as far as the Star Trek movies go. All very nice.

Then the writers nail it. You’re killing off the iconic Captain Kirk, the hero of the Star Trek franchise over nearly thirty years across the original series and the now seven movies, and he has the chance at some dying words because of the way you’ve put this movie together. Make them good.

“It was… fun.”

Brilliant. I love it. It calls back to his comment in the Nexus earlier in the movie, but it also fits with just how much the viewers have enjoyed the near thirty years of adventures of the original series crew. I hope that when I look back on my life in my deathbed I’m able to think it was fun too.

“Oh my.”

Yeah, you’ve fucked it. You had absolutely nailed it with the “it was fun” line and you should have left it at that. But no, you had to make him say something else.

I’ll be honest, there is nothing in this movie that makes me angrier than Kirk’s last words. The whole story is an absolute travesty from start to finish with more holes than Swiss cheese, but ruining Kirk’s brilliant last words with another couple more after it was just unforgivable. Even if they’d been utterly rubbish I could have let them away with it, but they actually had something I really thought was fantastic! Leave it at that for fuck sake! But no, two more words had to get thrown in there anyway.

I was thirteen years old when I saw this movie in the cinema. When people ask me who my hero was growing up, I’m just enough of a geek to admit that it’s Captain Kirk. To this day I’m not sure if I was choking back tears watching this scene because my hero was now dead, or because they’d ruined his epic last words.

Anyway, let’s finish this awful movie. Picard buries Kirk on top of the mountain.

Oh for goodness sake, haven’t you done enough already? A legendary Starfleet captain who saved Earth, Starfleet and the Federation on numerous occasions and you’re burying him on some random mountain top on an uninhabited planet? Are you kidding me? Take him back to Earth for the state funeral he deserves!

Okay, I know he probably had one after the Enterprise-B incident, but now that the truth is out and you actually have a body you can do it properly.

There is also another problem with burying him here, and it’s one that William Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens addressed in the book “The Return”. Leave aside everything that happens in that book to “resurrect” Kirk, the simple fact is you can’t leave Kirk here as it violates the Prime Directive.

Remember that pre-warp civilisation on Veridian IV? Well, you can bet that when they develop warp the first place they’re going to head is the other habitable planet in their solar system. Obviously, we humans keep talking about going to Mars and it’s far less habitable than Veridian III! Furthermore, they’ll be able to do that before inventing warp drive, so the prime directive will actually still apply to them at that time. What are they going to think when they discover an alien body buried on that mountain top?

For the same reason, Soren’s setup needs to be dismantled and the Enterprise-D saucer section needs to be taken away as well. None of this is addressed in the movie of course. No, Picard just leaves Kirk’s body on the mountain top and makes a log entry about how the Enterprise can’t be salvaged.

Oh yes and, while all this was going on, at some point the Enterprise managed to work out where Picard was. No explanation given as to how that happened given the saucer section was inoperative and they couldn’t find him earlier when they were fully operational in orbit of the planet, but never mind, eh?

As the movie winds up, Deanna Troi helps Data find his cat Spot, which of course causes Data to cry. He thinks his chip is malfunctioning, but Troi assures him it’s working properly. Meanwhile, Picard is also raking through the wreckage of his ready room looking for something important. He tosses aside several bits and pieces, including a gift the now deceased Professor Galen gave him in the season six episode “The Chase”. Clearly a gift he was delighted to get at the time, one that was rare, complete, 12,000 years old, and one that was from a friend who has since been killed, isn’t worth bothering about. He literally throws it away when Riker finds his photo book.

Okay, I get the importance of the photo book, but come on. Other things are important too!

So having retrieved the photo album, which at some point was moved from his quarters to his ready room for no apparent reason, everything else gets left behind as Picard and Riker step out onto the bridge so Riker can have a moan about never getting the chance at the Captain’s chair.

Eh… you had it, on several occasions. In fact, in the Best of Both Worlds, it was made official. Riker was wearing Captain’s pips and being stopped from going on away missions by his first officer right up until Picard was rescued. I still haven’t worked out why Riker stopped being Captain after that episode actually. He was promoted, officially!

It wasn’t even the last time. In Gambit, Picard was declared dead and Riker was given command. At least this time he wasn’t actually promoted as he investigated Picard’s apparent death, but he was definitely the Captain of the Enterprise during that time. And we’ll forget about all the times Riker passed up promotion – at least we know why. He doesn’t want to be Captain of just any ship, he wants the Enterprise.

At least he does until Nemesis, but lets not get into that. There’s enough problems in this movie already without adding in another movie.

Fortunately, not only does Riker plan on living forever – maybe he fancies living in the Nexus – but Picard also reassures his doubts that this will be the last ship named Enterprise. Well, we know it wasn’t of course. We knew at the time as well, as this movie was only ever set up to be a passing of the movie torch so the Next Generation crew could get into the movies on their own. This was clearly a not-so-subtle hint about something we all knew anyway.

Taking one last look around the wreckage, Picard contacts the USS Farragut to beam the two of them up. Clearly they’re the last two people to leave as the Farragut, along side it’s two companion ships, leave orbit and warp off to finish the movie. Well, the Captain should be the last one to leave, and standing there with his first officer beside him was a good symbolic way to say goodbye to the starship we’d watched for seven seasons.

But even in that final scene there was one final thing I had an issue with. The uniforms.

I haven’t mentioned them until now, but even the uniforms annoy me in this movie. Uniforms are supposed to be just that – uniform! So how come you can basically pick and choose whether you wear your department colour with black, or black with your department colour?

Prior to this movie the uniforms made an element of sense. In The Next Generation it was mainly your department’s colour with the black shoulders. That was the uniform throughout Starfleet for a while, at least until we saw that Starfleet Academy had the reverse. Of course, then Deep Space Nine started up and they had the same as the Academy, but even that seemed to make sense as starships had one and starbases had the other. Commander Sisko even switched from starship to starbase in the pilot DS9 episode Emissary, as if to indicate that his transfer was complete.

Of course, as The Next Generation finished on television, so Voyager started. But they all had the starbase uniforms despite being a starship!

But you can rationalise that one as well. The pilot of Voyager takes place around the same time that Generations takes place, so it’s quite possible that the long term plan of Starfleet was to move all of their starship personnel to the starbase uniforms. Everyone on Voyager has already made the move, and everyone on the Enterprise-D was actually in the process of changing.

So accepting all of that, why on Earth does Captain Picard switch BACK to the older style uniform at the end of the movie? He actually switches several times. From the first time we see him in his holodeck sea-faring ship uniform, he later changes into the starship uniform when he is talking to Troi about what has happened with his family. By the time he faces off against Soren he has changed into the new starbase uniform so you then accept that he’s made the change. If that’s the case, why change back again?

This isn’t the only movie that ever suffers from this problem of course. The Motion Picture didn’t seem to have any sense when it came to uniforms either, but other than that the rest all make sense. From Wrath of Khan to the first part of Generations they all wear the maroon uniforms. By the time we get to First Contact we’ve introduced another new uniform that also makes its way onto Deep Space Nine, and it’s used in both Insurrection and Nemesis too.

CONCLUSION

Throughout all of this, I’ve absolutely panned Generations. I can’t help it, there’s just so much about the movie that doesn’t make sense, goes against other ideas that have been set out previously, and basically just annoys me in general. So if it’s really this bad, then why do I care?

Well, it’s Star Trek!

I’ve already said that I grew up with Captain Kirk as my hero, but Star Trek in general has been my all time favourite television and movie franchise since I was old enough to think. My earliest memory is of seeing the bright colours of the Original Series. I couldn’t tell you what episode it is, but I know it was this show. I distinctly remember a conversation with my dad about how exciting it was that a new Star Trek show was coming soon. Specifically, how odd it would be to see a Klingon on the Bridge! So I definitely remember when there was nothing other than one series and a handful of movies. Indeed, one of the first movies I ever got taken to see in the cinema was The Final Frontier.

I might have grown up with The Next Generation being fresh, but it was always the Original Series that I preferred. It’s not perfect by any means, but I love it nonetheless. I can completely understand that people feel the same way about Generations!

But for me, Generations ruins the wonderful ending the original series had in The Undiscovered Country. They should have left it there and they didn’t. They shoehorned the two crews together to pass some baton that didn’t need passed in anything other than the closing log entry of Captain Kirk on the Enterprise-A. In doing so, they not only make the final adventures of this incarnation of Captain Kirk an absolute travesty, but they didn’t do much justice to the Next Generation crew either. After the wonderful ending to the series on All Good Things, this was an awful way to finish off the iconic Enterprise-D.

But lets not end on what annoys me about this movie. Lets remember one simple fact. Even bad Star Trek is better than most other television series and movies at their best. If you can get past all of the plot holes, this movie is actually quite good fun at times. Not as much fun as The Final Frontier in my opinion, but fun nonetheless. Data is the comedy relief, and I definitely remember impersonating “Mr Tricorder” at school for a while afterwards!

The music in this movie is brilliant as well. Dennis McCarthy did a fantastic job of scoring it and it’s the one aspect I will always defend. Good music can salvage even the worst of movies – you just need to look at Duel of the Fates from The Phantom Menace to see that! I’ll happily listen to the soundtrack of this movie, and it even stirs up all of the emotions that go with the movie when I do.

But perhaps best of all, this movie clears a path for First Contact. As much as I don’t particularly like Generations, First Contact is in my top three of Star Trek movies. The Enterprise-E is a fantastic ship, and actually it’s one that I prefer to the Enterprise-D. It would never have existed without destroying the Enterprise-D in this movie, and after all of the plot holes I’ve illustrated here I’m pretty sure that Kirk would have been alive and well in the 23rd century while the Enterprise-D would probably have had a reasonably quiet day in the 24th century. But then I would have used the Nexus properly.

Of course, my suggestions would mean there was never a crossover between the Original Series and the Next Generation. Since that was the whole point of this movie rather renders the whole thing absolutely pointless.

Time Is The Fire In Which Generations Can Burn – Part 3

Having destroyed the Amargosa star, kidnapped Geordi, and escaped on a Klingon vessel, Soren is looking… annoyed. He’s not happy with the Klingons, who turn out to be Lursa and B’Etor the Duras sisters, for having been sloppy enough to allow the Romulans to find out where their missing Trilithium might be. Yes, it appears that the Duras sisters are stealing from the Romulans. That relationship hasn’t half gone downhill since the Klingon civil war, eh?!

Apparently that’s what this is all about. Having lost out to Gowron in that civil war, Lursa and B’Etor are now hoping to use Soren’s research and the Trilithium to take control of the empire. It’s never clear what their plan is, but I can’t imagine it’s blowing up the star of the Klingon homeworld. Although, who knows, they might be that mad.

The last time we saw Lursa and B’Etor they were being accused of plotting to kill Worf and his son Alexander, but that turned out to be nonsense as it was actually a ploy by a future Alexander to get younger Alexander to be more of a warrior. What that episode did reveal though was that Lursa was pregnant, with what was going to be a son according to future Alexander. Whatever happened to that son? Who knows, it’s never brought up. Lursa is clearly not pregnant at this point so either she lost the child during the pregnancy or she’s left the baby somewhere. Actually, given the speed at which Alexander grows throughout Star Trek I wouldn’t be surprised if Lursa’s son is a member of their crew already.

Anyway, missing son aside, the Duras sisters grudgingly set course for the Veridian system as Soren tells them he wants to go there and if they don’t help him then they won’t get his research. Meanwhile, Soren goes elsewhere to torture Geordi into giving up some information about Trilithium, and also to mess about with his VISOR for a bit. At this point it seems like the VISOR might be part of the torture but it’s never that clear. In fact, in the final cut of the movie we never actually get much detail about the torture, save for one throw away line from Crusher later on. If you read the book, you find out Soren has implanted a nanoprobe that stops Geordi’s heart by remote control – a pretty effective form of torture by the sound of it.

Speaking of Crusher, she’s actually done some investigation into who Soren is! Nice to know there’s one person on board the Enterprise who’s thinking straight. She’s learned he was on board the ship that was rescued by the Enterprise-B – so clearly Harriman senior didn’t cover up Johnny’s mess after all – and also told Picard who else was on that ship. So that’s Picard’s next stop – go talk to Guinan. Nice to have some old fashioned investigating in this movie.

Guinan very quickly reveals all. That energy ribbon is a doorway to another realm of existence which they call “The Nexus”, and she went through that doorway before she was “pulled, ripped” away from it by the Enterprise-B. She didn’t want to go at the time as the Nexus was a blissful place that she describes as being like “inside joy”. Sounds like a drug with no comedown really.

The fact Guinan gives up this information so easily just goes to strengthen what I said earlier. Did NO ONE ask any of the survivors about their experience after they were rescued? Really?! Not even the guy screaming “let me go back”? No one asked “back where?” at any point? I can’t believe that. I also doubt very much it was a secret, even if adjusting to being ripped away from it was difficult.

So having told Picard all of this, including how hard it was to forget about it, both of them reckon Soren is trying to get back to the Nexus. Guinan warns that if he is that determined to get back there he’ll stop at nothing to do it. So that explains why he’s happy to destroy stars, but how does destroying them help?

Picard meets Data in Stellar Cartography to try and piece the puzzle together. Data’s emotion chip has been fused into his neural net, so he’s stuck with the emotions that crippled him earlier – and as Picard soon finds out he is indeed still crippled by them. Fear has been replaced by remorse and regret as he remembers how he let Geordi be captured while cowering in the corner. After acting distracted by these emotions, Data finally loses it and angrily blurts out that he wants to be relieved of duty and deactivated until someone can work out how to removed the emotion chip. He doesn’t want the emotions any more.

Picard’s response? Boo hoo, grow up. You’ve spent years saying you want to be more human, well here you are. We all have to deal with emotions, so now you do too.

Actually, his response was to order him to do it and Data responded with “I’ll try” but it amounts to the same thing. I preferred my first suggestion though. Still, Picard seems happy with “I’ll try” as he says that takes courage and, after all, that’s an emotion too. This seems to do the trick and Data gets on with the task at hand. Ahh, can’t beat a Picard speech to fix everything. Must be an Enterprise captain thing…

Picard and Data slowly piece things together. First they work out every affect destroying the Amargosa star had on the area. The key one they pick up on is that the USS Bozeman – presumably a new one and not the 80 year old one we saw in Cause and Effect commanded by Captain Frasier Crane – had to make a course correction due to the change in gravity in the area. So having figured that out, they bring up the energy ribbon’s last known location and course and find that it’s course has altered too! That’s it, that’s what Soren is doing!

Wait, why is he doing that? Why doesn’t he just fly into with a ship?

Yes, exactly. That’s how he got there the first time! Yes, as Data says, every ship that has approached the ribbon has either been destroyed and severely damaged. We know, the one Soren was on was destroyed but that didn’t stop him ending up in the Nexus anyway, did it? Soren will stop at nothing to get there, surely the most obvious way to get there is to get there the same way he got there the first time? He clearly has no problem destroying whole solar systems to get his way, I’m not sure he’d be too worried about losing one tiny little ship!

This, for me, is the single biggest plot hole in the entire movie. Soren doesn’t need to be destroying stars to get what he wants, he just has to do what he did the first time. It worked, he knows it works, it will very easily work again. It’s a lot less risky that what he is doing, and a lot less destructive as well. He can fly into the Nexus in a ship on his own and not hurt a fly. But no, he’s destroying entire solar systems and making pacts with renegade Klingons who are stealing from the Romulans to give him the same ultimate goal. That is utterly ridiculous and kills this movie stone dead for me.

I’m not sure any of the other Star Trek movies has a hole this big. V’Ger being lost in a black hole? Okay, bad science, but if they meant wormhole then it works anyway and it’s fine. The whole Genesis project? A bit far fetched as science goes but it’s more of a leap of faith than a massive hole. Time travel to retrieve whales? We’ve done time travel using solar gravity in the original series.

No, the Final Frontier is the only one that comes even close to having this big a plot hole. It’s pretty dreadful thanks to the idea of being able to travel to the centre of the galaxy in a matter of hours – ruining the entire premise of Voyager in the process – but even that plot hole isn’t as ridiculous as this one given that the speed and distance throughout the whole of Star Trek has been pretty variable.

Incidentally, if you want a plot hole about speed and distance then Generations has another stinker coming up later.

The other one you often hear about The Final Frontier is the one that suggests the whole movie boils down to it being “Kirk versus God” – which to me is only ridiculous until Spock’s line “this is no God of Shakaree nor any other God” nails it. Yeah, it wasn’t God at all, it was just a very powerful being who had been imprisoned there.

The difference can be boiled down to two questions in the movies. “What does God need with a starship” is a funny question that not only makes that movie a little better by making it quotable but it even gives you a massive hint at what’s going on. “God” wouldn’t need a starship. “Fake God” would. “Why doesn’t he just fly into it with a ship”, on the other hand, is a terrific question which utterly destroys the entire plot of the movie.

So, anyway, assuming Soren is the worst scientist in the history of science and therefore too thick to realise all of this, just where is he heading?

Well, the ribbon passes quite close to Veridian III, but not close enough… unless you destroy the Veridian star as well that is, in which case it passes right through the planet. Fortunately, Veridian III is uninhabited and so it doesn’t really matter if Soren gets his way. Oh no, wait, Veridian IV has a pre-warp civilisation on it at around 230 million of them. Suppose we better go and stop him killing off that entire species then!

There is another point that gets raised during the Stellar Cartography scene that gets brushed under the carpet. Data says that the ribbon passes through this area of the galaxy ever 39.1 years. This makes sense given we’re 78 years after the incident with the Enterprise-B by this point, but it does raise one question – what happened the last time it passed through this area of the galaxy? Did Soren miss it? Did he really spend 39 years missing the Nexus after being ripped away from it by the Enterprise-B, but at no point realise when it would be back? Was he not ready to blow stuff up then? Wouldn’t he just have flown into it with a ship at this point?!

This is something they just gloss over and ignore entirely, but I can’t help but think Soren wouldn’t have let that opportunity pass him by. It would have been a lot easier to suggest the energy ribbon only passed through this area of the galaxy every 78 years, but no they had to clever about it.

Oh yes, and I’d love to know where it is the rest of the time. Elsewhere in the galaxy? Just how fast is the energy ribbon travelling that it can run around the galaxy in 39.1 years? Voyager, at maximum warp, would take twice that long to get home! And of course they’d be going the quickest way possible in a straight line! The Nexus must be both coming and going! So the Nexus is likely covering twice the distance in half the time? How does anyone even notice this ribbon when it’s whizzing around the galaxy at four times the speed of maxmium warp? Well, it clearly isn’t as we’ve seen already and will see again.

Back on the Klingon ship, they’ve just arrived at Veridian III. But no sooner have they done that but the Enterprise shows up! So despite having a head start on the Enterprise, the Klingons only just got there first? I’ll accept that the Enterprise is a faster ship, but that still seems a little odd. It’s fine though, we’ll let them have this one for the sake of the plot. This isn’t the speed and distance thing I mentioned earlier, that’s still to come. Still, it was nice of the Enterprise to show up and blindly broadcast to them.

Yes, blindly. The Klingon ship is still cloaked. Obviously the Enterprise figured they’d probably been here for some time too. At least that makes sense given the head start, although maybe they didn’t realise how much faster the Enterprise might be than the Bird of Prey.

So what are they going to do? Well, Soren has a plan and it seems to involve Geordi getting his sight back. Meanwhile, Lursa and B’Etor decloak the ship and decide to have a conversation with the Enterprise. They claim Geordi has been a guest but quickly change their tune when Picard demands him back. Of course he’s not a guest, he’s a prisoner. Well, how about a prisoner exchange? Data is quick to volunteer, clearly still guilty about how Geordi ended up a prisoner in the first place, but Picard overrules him and offers himself as a prisoner. The Duras sisters like the sound of this as he’s a much more valuable prisoner and they agree.

Okay, so how does this help? Well, somehow Picard convinces the Duras sisters to let him go and talk to Soren on the planet’s surface. No explanation for this agreement, it just appears to be part of the deal. Why would you let a prisoner go somewhere else? How is he still a prisoner if you do? What exactly do Lursa and B’Etor get from Picard going down to speak to Soren?

What makes this even worse is that Memory Alpha claim that it was the Enterprise that then beams Picard directly to the location of Soren on the planet. Now, in my head, Picard always beamed over to the Klingon ship and they then sent him down to the planet to talk with Soren. That at least makes very slightly more sense as I’ll reveal shortly. But the fact the Klingons are even prepared to let Picard go to the planet has never made any sense to me. Part of the deal or not, why would they agree to it? They hold all the cards as they’re the one’s holding Geordi prisoner!

Anyway, as Picard beams off the Enterprise so Geordi beams onto it. It’s simultaneous, as you’d expect with a prisoner exchange, but as Geordi finishes materialising he collapses and has to be taken to sickbay.

Down on the planet, Picard materialises near the top of a mountain – without his communicator. Well, he had that when he beamed off the Enterprise. Maybe the Klingons took it off him? How would they have done that if he’d beamed there directly? Of course, Soren is up there as well, working away at a control panel. Picard can’t get to him thanks to a big forcefield in the way, so he has to make do with trying to talk him out of doing what he is planning to do. As Soren says, it’s a “nice try” as he points out that what he’s doing is just as bad as what the Borg did to his world, but Soren isn’t for stopping now. Unlike so many times in the TV series, and of course with Data earlier in Stellar Cartography, Jean Luc isn’t going to talk his way out of this one!

Back on the Klingon ship, we see what Soren’s plan was as the Duras sisters watch Geordi-vision. Not the “Heart of Glory” or “The Mind’s Eye” multi-coloured Geordi-vision, but a regular camera view. I can only imagine it’s a hidden camera rather than a proper interface to the VISOR then, but maybe others would argue that this is yet another minor oversight.

What’s a far bigger oversight is that no one has thought to check that Geordi’s VISOR hasn’t been tampered with. Seriously, after “The Mind’s Eye” where he nearly assassinated someone thanks to a combination of mind control and someone interfering with his VISOR, you’d think it would be standard procedure on the Enterprise to check his VISOR for tampering if at any point Geordi went missing! But no, no one even considers it. More amnesia from the crew no doubt.

Still, on the plus side, this is the last time we see Geordi’s VISOR. Clearly someone thought about it after the even and decided that for security purposes he should have implants instead of a VISOR – which is exactly what he has in First Contact.

Anyway, the first thing the Duras sisters see through Geordi’s VISOR is Dr Crusher hanging over him.

Now, I dunno about you, but that’s not exactly the worst sight in the world. Certainly Scotty thought the Enterprise doctors were a lot prettier in the 24th century! But Lursa and B’Etor seem to think she’s repulsive. I’d suggest that’s a lot more “not funny” than when she was pushed into the water earlier.

Of course, the payoff for the Klingons isn’t long in coming. Well, not from our perspective anyway. For some reason he wandered around for a bit before going to Engineering. Bathing I could understand after his ordeal, but the wandering about for a while made little sense given the Enterprise was hunting for Captain Picard’s location.

Yes, they don’t know where he is. Despite Memory Alpha claiming the Enterprise beamed him down, the Enterprise has no idea where Captain Picard would be. That’s just not possible and so that should convince you that the Klingons beamed him to Soren’s location and he didn’t beam there directly! However, maybe this is just Memory Alpha being wrong and not the movie itself. It is possible you know!

Anyway, not knowing where Picard is also poses another issue. Worf and Riker discuss the problem on the Bridge. Apparently it will take 11 seconds for the Enterprise to detect the launch of a solar probe, lock its weapons on the probe and destroy it. Okay, fair enough. Worf then claims that the solar probe could take anywhere between 8 and 15 seconds to reach it’s target.

Cool, faster than light solar probes!

Veridian III, and no doubt Veridian IV, look like nice and hospitable planets for human beings to live on. The star itself looks pretty much like ours, so lets just assume that Veridian III is as far away from the Veridian star as Earth is from the Sun. It takes light eight and a half minutes to travel the distance from the Sun to the Earth. So you’re telling me these probes do it over 30 times quicker than that?

Okay, so we’ll assume these solar probes really do travel faster than light for now. They don’t look like they’re capable of it, but as we have no other evidence to go on, we’ll park that one for now.

Trying to get the odds back in their favour, Riker orders Data to start scanning the planet for lifeforms. Data, obviously happy that Geordi is safe, starts playing the console like a piano and singing a song he’s just made up about lifeforms. His sense of humour isn’t any better than it was on the Amargosa Observatory then.

But hang on, how come we can’t find these lifeforms quickly? Veridian III is uninhabited apparently, so it should be relatively quick to find the one spot on the planet that has two lifeforms on it. We’ve seen them do it before after all! Remember Kevin and Rishon Oxbridge? Apparently the only two survivors on an entire planet after a Husnock attack. Well, it was pretty quick to find them and confirm they were the only two lifeforms on the whole planet. Okay, so Rishon was a fake, but that just makes it worse!

Nope, that’s just yet another TNG episode we’ll conveniently forget about for the sake of this movie’s plot. Okay.

Actually, in this case they do explain it a bit. They tell us that the sensors can’t penetrate the ionosphere of the planet. They never explain why this is the case, or why the ionosphere of an otherwise perfectly nice M-class planet is even an issue in the first place, they just leave it there for the importance of the plot. At least they thought about it I suppose.

Down in Engineering, Geordi has finally arrived. Hurrah! Nothing like a crisis or two to ensure that your Chief Engineer gets to Engineering with a matter of urgency, eh?

Actually, no. Even now that he’s arrived on duty, the first thing he gets to do is run a diagnostic on some bit of the ship. Never mind everything else that’s going on like trying to stop Soren or worrying about the Klingons that are still around and had until recently just captured Geordi himself, no lets run an unimportant diagnostic! Lets face it, if it was really that important she wouldn’t have been asking for his permission first!

Of course, now that Geordi is actually in Engineering, Lursa and B’Etor very quickly get everything they need – like the Enterprise’s shield modulation frequency. A quick alteration to the photon torpedoes and the Klingons open fire. The torpedoes go straight through the shields like they’re not there, and no one on the Enterprise has any memory of the other times the shields get penetrated like this.

“Rotate the frequency of the shield harmonics”

Nope, no one ever remembers uttering this phrase. I’m pretty sure it was a standard procedure when facing the Borg, but no one even thinks of it here. Nope, just let them fire through the shields while trying to figure out a way to even the score. Well, at least Riker has the sense to tell them to try and break orbit, something Troi has to attempt after one shot causes half the bridge to explode and kills the helmsman.

While she tries to get them out of there, Riker asks Worf if he knows any weaknesses about the Klingon ship. Why would he know, he’s been in Starfleet all this time! I doubt the Klingons would have broadcast what the issues might be. But no, Worf remembers that these old ships were retired due to defective plasma coils.

What good is that? That only affects their cloak. Well, trigger their cloak with an ionic pulse and their shields will fall leaving them vulnerable. That’ll do! Data sets up the pulse, Worf gets ready with the photon torpedo and then the plan goes into action just as another console at the back of the bridge explodes and sends another crew member flying.

Over on the Klingon ship, things are a lot happier. “Fire at will” is uttered in what I can only assume is another comedy line given he’s in command of the Enterprise at the moment, but that comedy line is very quickly countermanded by a very shouty Klingon informing everyone in three sectors that they are cloaking!

What follows is the longest cloak in the history of Star Trek.

From the point that the Klingon shouts “we are cloaking” to the time that we cut back to the Enterprise and Riker orders Worf to fire – with no urgency in his voice whatsoever – most Klingon ships would already have cloaked. But we’re not even close to over yet as the torpedo fires and takes the longest time any torpedo has ever taken to go anywhere. And I include the heat seeking torpedo from the previous movie in that! It zig-zagged it’s way to Chang’s cloaked bird of prey and STILL got there quicker than this normal torpedo managed to find it’s target.

It gets better though. Remember how Chang’s Bird of Prey got hit by that one torpedo, only to then get bombarded by both the Enterprise and the Excelsior firing a full volley of torpedoes at it to destroy it? Well, we’ve obviously advanced quite a bit in the 24th century because now a single photon torpedo can do the trick. With just one torpedo, the Duras sisters are blown to bits. How many did the Enterprise take? I lost count.

Oh yes, and just to finish the comparison, the makers of this movie obviously decided to save money by blatantly reusing the same shot of Chang’s bird of prey exploding. In case you hadn’t already thought about the comparison of shooting down a cloaked Bird of Prey. I don’t know about you, but I’d have wanted to distance myself from that vastly superior battle.

Back on the Enterprise, Data clenches a fist and exclaims “yes!” in delight. Ugh. Apparently if you give Data emotions he takes great delight in killing Klingons while everyone else on the ship has a feeling of relief. Obviously the emotion chip didn’t come with tact. Thanks Doctor Soong.

Back on Veridian III, Picard is now bored. Having tried to talk Soren out of doing his terrible deeds, he’s now pacing about and throwing stones at the forcefield that separates him from Soren. Even Soren asks him “don’t you have anything better to do?” It’s a good question. He’s obviously given up trying to talk to Soren, which must be a first for Picard who went seven seasons of The Next Generation giving speeches to save the day, but he doesn’t seem to have any other plan. Obviously the “nice try” earlier was his lot.

At least he doesn’t have another plan until he accidentally stumbles on a conveniently positioned rock that has created a gap between the forcefield and the ground!

Seriously, Picard stumbles upon it. He doesn’t go looking for it, he only finds it after Soren tells him off for throwing stones at his forcefield. He really had run out of ideas entirely. Which, amusingly, means everything that happens after this point is completely irrelevant because Soren would have been successful and both Soren and Picard would have gone into the Nexus anyway.

Anyway, having confirmed that it actually is a hole by throwing a stone through the gap, Picard waits for Soren to move away so he can make use of it.

Back on the Enterprise, Geordi’s day is getting worse. The Klingons might have been destroyed, but the damage they did is extensive. So much so that while reporting to the Bridge about one problem another one occurs. The dreaded coolant leak. Well we’ve seen this before from the TV series.

And I mean that literally.

Geordi can do nothing about it, rolls under the door just as it’s closing like he’s Indiana Jones, and Engineering is evacuated. Now, not only does Geordi do that barrel roll on several occasions in The Next Generation, but this whole series of events happens exactly the same in Yesterday’s Enterprise! Oddly, despite things being exactly the same, in that episode there was two minutes until a warp core breach. This time there’s a whole five minutes. Phew!

Everyone piles into the saucer section and the Enterprise-D separates into two for the last time. As the saucer section pulls away, the warp core breaches and the stardrive section explodes… causing a shockwave that knocks the saucer section out of orbit and diving towards Veridian III!

“Oh shit” exclaims Data. Right, who taught him to swear? And how come his use of “colourful metaphors” is so much better than Spock’s was in The Voyage Home? Data spent seven years of the TV series showing a lack of basic understanding of cultural language and a complete inability to use contractions, but suddenly he can swear perfectly at just the right time? No tact, but swears like a trooper. Thanks Doctor Soong.

Back on Veridian III, Picard’s chance to sneak through the hole is a short one, and as he does so Soren catches him with his usual accuracy of shooting. There’s that Imperial Stormtrooper accuracy again. He NEVER hits the target with his first attempt. In this instance, he hits below the hole which causes the rocks to collapse – and probably frees Picard who was a little stuck at the time (you need a diet Jean Luc) – before his next shot hits the hole and the forcefield reshapes to fill it.

On the Enterprise, they’re screwed. The saucer section is going down, and despite the crew trying to steer it they’re now managing a crash landing. In the lower decks, the rest of the people take shelter in what I can only imagine are decks higher up than the lowest just in case the crash collapses them. The saucer section clips a mountain on it’s way down before sliding to rest through a big forest that is dwarfed by the saucer section. As the final lurch forward oddly rips seats and consoles from their fixtures on the Bridge, the crew recover enough to stare out of the broken window in the roof… giving a nice view of the beautiful blue sky beyond.

I’m not sure why the lurch forward was so violent, it’s not like they hit the brakes! But for some reason it was enough to send everyone on the Bridge flying, along with consoles that have been fixed to the floor since the Bridge was built. Everything that the ship has been through and sliding to a halt is what does that? Well, it looked good on screen. A bit like the smashing of glass windows – which of course we all know to be made of transparent aluminium and not glass. Again, it looks good on screen.

So the Enterprise is down, and now the fate of the entire crew lies in the hands of Picard. No warping away at the last second this time! Can he do it? Well, he has a go. He comes face to face with Soren, has a quick fight with him… and loses. Soren knocks Picard rolling down a hill and seconds later the solar probes launch. In just seconds they reach their target – without going to warp at any time – and we see the star extinguished immediately.

Yep, immediately.

Never mind those 8 and a half minutes for light to travel from the star to the M class planet, we’ll just forget about that. In fact, lets be generous, this is Veridian III not Veridian IV. We’ll call it 7 minutes. That’s just a guess of course, but it’s still a lot closer to the truth than INSTANTLY!

Honestly, the faster than light without going to warp torpedoes is bad enough, but the faster than light… eh… light?! Come on.

The darkness doesn’t last long though as the energy ribbon arrives, heads straight through Veridian III and scoops up the willing Soren and the bystander Picard before heading off to wherever the energy ribbon is heading next. They never do explain why it’s travelling about the galaxy, just that it is.

As it leaves, the shockwave from the dying star arrives to rip apart the planet, Enterprise-D saucer section and all. End of the movie, Soren wins, right?

Time Is The Fire In Which Generations Can Burn – Part 2

78 years later, on board the HMS Enterprise, Worf is being promoted. This calls for a bit of fun on the holodeck as we finally give Worf the Lieutenant Commander rank. About time too, now jump for that hat. Never under-estimate a Klingon. Or Riker’s sense of humour as he removes the plank. Sorry, retracts the plank.

Data, of course, doesn’t see why Worf falling in the water is funny. That I can understand, he’s an emotionless android and proved in the Outrageous Okona that he doesn’t understand humour at all. What I couldn’t possibly understand though was why no one else thought Data pushing Dr Crusher into the water – and in the process knocking Worf back into the water after he was starting to climb back up again – was just as funny, if not more so.

Data, that was not funny, that was hilarious. Never mind those killjoys.

Of course, this is all a plot device to get Data to finally plug in that emotion chip he first found out about in the episode Brothers and later retrieved from Lore in the two part episode Descent. Good continuity there though guys, we’ll just pretend that the giant emotion chip you plug into Data’s head in this movie is the exact same thing as that tiny little disc shaped thing Data almost took a phaser to at the end of Descent. But that’s nitpicking.

Did they check that the emotion chip was actually going to work though? It spent a good few years in the wrong android, and was later used to remotely control the right android to the detriment of his duties on the Enterprise. I’m assuming this was also sanctioned by the Captain? After all, we can’t have the third in command of the ship being remote controllable and an emotional wreck, can we?

No, of course it wasn’t sanctioned. By this point in the movie, Captain Picard is an emotional wreck himself. Having spent the terrific episode Family showing us Picard’s brother and family, the writers of this movie decided to kill him and his son off to screw up Picard for the movie. That’s pretty harsh, but we’ll run with it.

The Captain clearly isn’t up for running the ship at this point in time. After all, the fun on the holodeck was interrupted shortly after Picard got the message from home by a red alert as the Amargosa Observatory was under attack. It turns out to be Romulans, who appear to have just given up and left the area. Well, we have to assume so as they are never referenced in the movie again.

Taking a tricorder from a dead Romulan back to the Enterprise-D, Worf later informs Riker that they were hunting for Trilithium which can stop all nuclear fusion within a star. Riker’s reaction to this suggests he’s never even heard of the stuff, despite the fact that the Enterprise engines actually produce the stuff as a by-product and it is stealable when you stop off to have a baryon sweep. Maybe Riker should pay attention next time and worry less about infinite small talk with people called Hutch. Sadly though this won’t be the last time in the movie that Riker appears to suffer from amnesia.

Hang on though, why is Worf telling Riker about this? Did he suddenly get promoted to Chief Engineer? Isn’t this usually the kind of thing Data and Geordi would be investigating? Oh no, wait, they’re too busy fitting Data’s emotion chip. Right in the middle of a situation with the Romulans that is so big Picard tells Riker to inform Starfleet that they might be upping the ante in the sector. Never mind, you two pursue your own goals, I’m sure it won’t affect the mission in any way, shape or form.

Of course, the other odd thing in all of this was Riker being told to call Starfleet by Picard. That’s usually the kind of thing the Captain would do, but he’s not up for it. Despite this, Riker also tells Picard that there’s a scientist they found on board the observatory who would like to meet with him. Despite not being up for doing his job and putting in a call to Starfleet, he bizarrely decides that he will go and chat with this scientist.

Wouldn’t you just leave that up to Riker as well? I dunno about you, but when I’m not feeling my best I’m far more likely to talk to someone over the phone for a couple of minutes than I am to meet someone face to face. I know Picard’s messed up at this point in time, but he isn’t even acting like a messed up person would do at the moment.

So Picard goes to meet this scientist, Dr Tolian Soren, in Ten Forward and as we all know it’s the same guy who was rescued by the Enterprise-B and was ranting about wanting to go back. We also know that Guinan was another person rescued from that ship, so it’s not much of a surprise that Soren looks a little shifty when he leaves Ten Forward as he catches sight of Guinan.

This is after he’s hit a few raw nerves with Picard of course. “They say time is the fire in which we burn”. Well that phrase makes no sense until we find out exactly what happened to Picard’s brother and nephew later on. I’m not sure we ever got an answer for why El-Aurians have some magic power to sense just what to say, but Guinan was pretty good at it throughout the series as well so we’ll just assume they have a gift. That whole “race of listeners” thing perhaps.

Soren wants to go back to the observatory as he’s left a few experiments running that need critical timing. Picard doesn’t care though as they haven’t finished investigating the attack yet. Tough titties Soren, you’ll need to slum it on the Enterprise instead. Picard says he’ll see what he can do, but it’s left at that.

Meanwhile, Geordi has brought Data to Ten Forward to get him drunk. Or at least to try out some drinks. Is that really the first thing you do to try out emotions? You couldn’t tell a few jokes first? Show Data some pictures of puppies, kittens and fluffy bunnies to see if he goes all gooey over them? No, lets buy him a drink! Which he hates. Something that delights Data no end. The chip is working then.

So having established that the emotion chip works, but having not yet tested it to any limit whatsoever, Geordi and Data suddenly remember there’s important stuff happening and get back to work. As such, they are sent over to the observatory to look for the Trilithium that the Romulans may or may not have found. What, is Worf now too busy? Is it shift change time? Or have you suddenly remembered that there might be Romulans in the vicinity and decided Worf is needed at Tactical now? If that’s the case, why has your Tactical Officer been in Engineering all this time and no – you know – at Tactical?!

Honestly, Picard has a few personal issues and suddenly his entire ship is an utter shambles.

The good news is, sending Geordi and Data pays off. Geordi’s visor lets him see the hidden compartment and one of Data’s servos is modified to open it up. “OPEN SESAME!” exclaims Data as the doors open to reveal solar probes loaded with trilithium. Data cracks a joke about having a magnetic personality before whipping out Mr Tricorder. Not a euphemism. Sorry Data, but you were funnier when you were pushing Crusher into the water.

Unfortunately for Data, something isn’t quite right and suddenly his emotion chip is taking over. The bad jokes keep coming and he goes into a laughing fit at the most inappropriate time. Geordi gets angry at this at first but on realising it’s serious he calls for backup… which can’t get through a dampening field.

But just then, Soren arrives! Did Picard really sort him out after all? Or did he sneak off the ship? Well, it seems odd that anyone would authorise Soren’s return when there’s such a crucial part of a dangerous investigation going on, but Picard has gone a bit mental by this point so it wouldn’t surprise me. You can imagine someone objecting to it and Picard barking at them to “just do it” like he did with Riker on the Bridge when they first arrived at Amargosa. That certainly seems more likely than him sneaking off the ship without anyone noticing. No one seems at all worried that an unauthorised transport or possibly an unauthorised shuttle launch has taken place after all. Including Data and Geordi who you’d think might have been alerted that they were about to be joined by the scientist. Maybe that happened just before we viewers joined them on the station. Although that wouldn’t explain why Geordi seemed slightly surprised to see him. Only slightly though, he quickly accepts that Soren is there and could be of use.

No, sorry, I’m not buying this. Geordi and Data are on that station looking for Trilithium just as the Romulans were. The station is, at best, a crime scene. At worst, someone who was on the station may or may not have been hiding Trilithium, and yet the crew allowed a member of that station to beam over without any form of escort as they had some crucial experiments to tend to? I don’t think so. This seems like the kind of thing Worf would definitely have objected to. I’m surprised he didn’t have Soren in for questioning never mind letting him roam the ship – and apparently the station – freely. At the very least, Worf would have sent a security detail with Soren to the station. Or maybe he’d have escorted him personally – it’s not like being at Tactical was all that important after all.

Anyway, Soren is only too happy to help Geordi understand what’s going on with the hidden Trilithium-laden solar probes he’s just stumbled across. And by only too happy he means not at all and proceeds to knock him out. One phaser pointed at Data later and the shit-scared android is effectively useless. How’s that emotion chip experiment working out for you now? So glad you did this during an important time guys, it’s really worked out well.

Back on the Enterprise, we have a scene with Picard and Troi in which we find out what’s happened to his family. Of course, we’ll get the payout from this scene later on. Picard tells Troi how there will be no more Picards because his only brother is gone and Jean Luc doesn’t have any kids of his own. What, you couldn’t go and start a family now? I know you’re busy, but if it’s that important I’m sure you could “make the time” and find someone willing to settle down with you. Clearly Jean Luc Picard has never heard of Hikaru Sulu. Besides, you’re a guy in the 24th century, I’m sure you can father children even at your age. Hell, at Picard’s age you could father a child when this movie came out at the end of the 20th century!

But before Troi can raise this obvious flaw – well, I’m assuming she was about to tell him the truth about the birds and bees anyway – the Amargosa star flashes and dims. Well that can’t be good. The two head for the Bridge where Worf – who actually is at Tactical and not off duty – tells us that a probe was launched from the observatory moments earlier and that the star’s fusion reaction had stopped.

Okay, I know a bit about about how stars work so lets examine this. Somehow the magic Trilithium has stopped the star’s ability to fuse Hydrogen into Helium. Or possible Helium into further heavier elements, I’m not quite sure what stage the star was at. The energy from that is certainly why stars shine, so we’ll accept that it’s dimming. We’ll also accept that it’s probably now shrinking as the fusion reaction is what keeps a star from collapsing in on itself under it’s own gravity. Which it might just have done is got to a point where it can’t collapse any more and then “bounced” causing a shockwave which we now have heading towards the observatory and the Enterprise.

Yeah, I’m happy with this bit. I can accept the slight leap of faith about trilithium here as the rest seems to fit with what I know about stars, and specifically supernovae. This is how good science fiction works!

Riker and Worf head for the transporter to go and see why they can’t get in touch with the observatory – they have to get Geordi and Data back before that shockwave hits after all – but you’ll note at no point does anyone say “oh you’d better get that scientist guy as well since he beamed over there as well”. Either they don’t care about him – unlikely – or they really don’t know he’s there. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier about whether he was allowed to go or not!

Oh yes, and suddenly it’s not important for Worf to be at Tactical again. Maybe they’ve decided that the Romulans have probably legged it before the shockwave hits and they’re definitely no longer a threat. Or they’ve just forgotten all about the Romulans completely.

Of course, Worf and Riker don’t get it easy and are soon under fire from Soren. We’ll see as the movie progresses that Soren couldn’t hit the side of a barn if he was standing next to it, and as such neither are actually in any danger. Honestly, watch him throughout this movie, Soren has all the shooting prowess of an Imperial Stormtrooper. I know, that Star Wars, but if the shoe fits…

Riker quickly scurries over to Data to see if he can get to Geordi, but our poor emotional android is still checking to see if his bowels are fully functional and is of no use to anyone.

Meanwhile, Soren has arranged his getaway. A Klingon Bird of Prey makes contact, decloaks and quickly beams him and Geordi away before warping out of the system. With no one left to rescue, Riker, Worf and Data beam back to the Enterprise just in time to warp away themselves as the shockwave reaches the station – destroying it in the process.

Time Is The Fire In Which Generations Can Burn – Part 1

Twenty years ago today, Star Trek passed the movie baton from the Original Series to the Next Generation. Three years earlier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country had wrapped up the story for the Original Series characters in a terrific movie and had that been the final voyage for those characters I’m sure everyone would have been delighted at that. With the Next Generation finishing up it’s seven season run on television, making the next movie about them made perfect sense.

Sadly, someone, somewhere, thought it would be a good idea to actually pass the baton on screen. The result was arguably the worst Star Trek movie ever made.

Now, I say arguably because I know lots of people who love Star Trek: Generations. Most of them are probably screaming “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” in their heads right now as that’s clearly the worst Star Trek movie ever made. A few are probably thinking the same about Star Trek: Insurrection, while I’m sure Star Trek: Nemesis features top of some worst lists. That’s without even touching the JJ Abrams universe movies which I know have divided opinion at times.

Leaving those aside, I’m now going to try and explain why I despise Generations just as much as I do. I’m going to run through the movie and pick it to pieces, and I’ll warn you now – this could last longer than the movie itself! I’ve always reckoned I could spend longer ripping this movie apart than it takes to actually show the movie itself, so this is probably about as close as I’ll get to finding out whether or not that’s the case.

I should also point out that a lot of this is probably covered by Red Letter Media, but I’ve got to admit I wrote all of this up before watching it from bits and pieces I’ve thought about over the last twenty years. Yes, the movie bothers me THAT MUCH. You’ll probably find out why eventually.

So, shall we begin?

We start off at the launch of the Enterprise-B. Good start, the Enterprise-A was being decommissioned at the end of the last movie and this nicely fills in the gap of the one ship we haven’t seen yet. Well, we have, but it’s been a model on the wall of the Enterprise-D and looks a bit like the Excelsior. Well, now we know, it’s a slightly modified Excelsior class ship. So far so good.

At the launch, as well as lots of media coverage for some unknown reason, are Captain Kirk, Captain Scott and Commander Chekov. Now, first off, why are the media there? Do the media get to ride about on the launch of every new ship? Does that happen today? If the American navy launch a new ship do the media get to sail on its maiden voyage? I’ll admit this is a very minor nitpick of mine.

A far bigger nitpick is why Scotty and Chekov are there with Kirk. We all know it would have been Spock and McCoy, but we also know that neither Leonard Nimoy nor DeForest Kelley wanted anything to do with these small cameo roles. I’m guessing Nimoy has softened to cameos in the 20 years since, as he turned up in both of the JJ movies and the second of those was completely needless as turning up in Generations would have been.

Personally then, I’d have rewritten this entire sequence. Scotty being there I can almost understand as he’d probably be curious to see the new technology. But then Scotty being there also ruins continuity as he turned up in the TNG episode “Relics” and the first thing he thought when he was told the Enterprise had rescued him was that Jim Kirk had rescued him. Apparently the official explanation for that is disorientation after 70 years in a transporter buffer, but I’m more inclined to think he just refused to believe Kirk was dead. We’ll come back to that though.

We’re introduced to the new captain of the Enterprise, John Harriman, who appears to be newly promoted. Okay, so they’ve given the new flagship – I’m assuming it’s the flagship anyway – to a new guy. Well, Kirk was fresh when he got the job I suppose. Kirk could probably have done without hearing that this new guy read about him in grade school though. Well done on making the living legends feel old Captain!

We’re also introduced to Demora Sulu, the never before mentioned daughter of Sulu. Where did he find the time to have a family? Well, if something’s important then you make the time. Good advice, but a massive cop out from the story writers there. Given her age, I’m guessing it happened after the first five year mission. After the original series but before the Motion Picture. That seems about right. Could have been after the Motion Picture as well.

So anyway, the Enterprise-B is taken out on the orders of Captain Kirk, to much applause and embarrassment and piss taking by Kirk’s “friends”… piss taking that would have worked much better with Spock and Bones of course. It doesn’t really make sense with Scotty and Chekov. They might not work under him any more, but they’re not the close friends I would expect to make such jokes. See what I mean about rewriting this scene?

Of course, this is the Enterprise so it wouldn’t be right if something didn’t go wrong. There’s a distress call and the new Enterprise is the only ship in range.

Really? Does anyone protect one of the most important planets in the Federation? They pulled this stunt a lot in the original movies. In the Motion Picture the Enterprise was the only thing standing between V’Ger and Earth. Okay, the Enterprise was the newest ship after it’s refit, so that made sense. It also made sense that they sent Kirk for his experience, in fact that’s precisely the argument Kirk takes to Admiral Nogura.

The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home both show us that there are indeed other ships hanging around Earth, but they’re all useless with idiots in charge of them. Captain Styles for instance, what an utter roaster that guy is. Funnily enough, he’s nowhere to be see when the whale probe shows up. Not that it would have mattered given what it was doing to the power of the ships. At least that made some sense then. The Final Frontier actually acknowledges this issue quite well, when Admiral Bennett actually tells Kirk that there ARE other ships but he needs the experience of Jim Kirk. Fair enough, that’s pretty much the same argument from The Motion Picture! The Undiscovered Country also uses the whole “only Nixon could go to China” quote to suggest that “only Kirk could go save the Klingons”.

The biggest flaw in any of the movies before Generations is actually when the “little training cruise” in The Wrath of Khan gets cancelled because the Enterprise was the only ship in the quadrant. Well, leaving aside that a quadrant changes meaning during the run of Star Trek, I can only assume they mean near Regula I rather than near Earth. I can’t imagine that’s too far given the Enterprise isn’t out of dock for very long, so it’s still pretty bad in my book. However, Carol Marcus did contact Kirk specifically so even then it made sense to send Kirk to investigate from that perspective.

But in Generations they’re on a quick run round the block – even shorter than the “little training cruise”. They were going out by Pluto and back again! Surely this time there’d be another ship that could respond? You can’t seriously tell me there’s nothing at all. This new Enterprise wasn’t ready to launch five minutes earlier so there must have been something protecting Earth and the centre of the Federation. You can’t use the experienced Captain excuse this time either because Kirk is retired and Harriman is new. Besides, it’s a distress call, you shouldn’t really need experience!

Regardless, the Enterprise is sent to help. Harriman looks worried by this, clearly showing his inexperience in doing so. If you look worried as Captain, then you can bet the rest of your crew is worrying as well – not just about their own situation but also the fact that their captain looks worried. He’s the leader, he needs to be the strong one in this situation. But no, he actually has to be encouraged by Kirk to do the right thing and try and assist after he hesitated to even respond to the distress call!

Of course, as they get to the problem – an energy ribbon with two trapped ships – things go from bad to worse and one of the ships explodes. 265 people on board, all “gone”. Yes, “gone”, we’ll come back to that later. First, lets just take a little bit of time to remember that these ships are El-Aurian refugee ships.

Did NO ONE in the 23rd century think to ask the most obvious question? You know, the one that asks” refugees from what exactly?”

We know that the El-Aurians were fleeing from the Borg because Guinan revealed the truth about the Borg after Q sent the Enterprise-D to meet them. Until that time, no one in the Federation had even heard of the Borg! Well, except for Annika Hansen’s parents of course, but Voyager is it’s own continuity headache!

Seriously though?! I know the El-Aurians are a race of listeners (they listen), but are you really going to convince us all that not one of them heard the question “refugees from what exactly” at any point in the three quarters of a century between this energy ribbon incident and Q sending the Enterprise 7,000 light years? Just how dumb are they making Starfleet personnel, doctors and officials in all that time?

Okay, lets leave that to one side for now. There’s still a ship to rescue.

Now, it would be nice to use the tractor beam to pull the other ship out of danger, but sadly that won’t be installed until Tuesday. So the ship wasn’t ready for launch after all? Who sanctioned that one? Remember when the refitted Enterprise almost didn’t launch in the Motion Picture because it wasn’t ready? They needed a crisis to get launched with dodgy warp drive. This wasn’t a crisis, it was a media circus. Maybe they figured a tractor beam wasn’t a major problem though so you could let this slide.

Without the tractor beam, the Enterprise has to get closer, into transporter range. But that’s inside the ribbon. Harriman at least decides to do this on his own, and now it’s Kirk’s turn to look worried. Well that makes no sense. If it’s the only option, then it’s what you need to do. Kirk was pretty much suggesting that to begin with and Harriman was worried about it, now the roles have reversed? Nope, sorry, I don’t get that at all.

The Enterprise moves into transporter range and Scotty manages to beam over 47 out of the 150 passengers before the second ship explodes. It was a neat trick as the people on the ship were phasing in and out at the time. Still, 47 people rescued is better than none and they’re now being attended to by the medical staff. Oh wait, no they’re not, the medical staff won’t arrive until Tuesday. Great. Should have launched after Tuesday really. I’m guessing the media pushed for this and they got an early launch to fit their schedules.

Fortunately, Dr McCoy is on hand and he takes two of the media to be “volunteer” nurses. Oops, it’s not McCoy, it’s Chekov. Well, we’ll assume he’s had field training. You’d assume even among a skeleton crew he’d not be the only one on the Enterprise that has had such training, but apparently he’s the only one willing to volunteer for it as if he’s actually a real doctor anyway. Yeah, this is another bit they really should have rewritten instead of just getting different characters to say the same lines. You can actually imagine Dr McCoy saying “you and you, you’ve just become nurses” as he heads for the turbolift.

Unfortunately, now the Enterprise is trapped by the ribbon. They need to disrupt the gravitational distortions and a photon torpedo should do the trick. Oh wait, there’s no photon torpedoes. Let me guess, Tuesday? Harriman’s look says it all. Even he’s fed up apologising for Starfleet sending out a ship that wasn’t ready.

Okay then, so how do they get out? Well, Scotty has a plan. Use the navigational deflector to simulate the effect of a photon torpedo. This might be the one bit where I think that Spock probably could have come up with the solution but Scotty coming up with it made even more sense. It seems like his kind of fix, and he probably should have been the man to head down to the bowels of the ship to make the necessary changes.

Of course, no one else thinks that. Never mind that there’s an experienced Engineer like Scotty around, Harriman decides he’s going down there to make the changes. Why doesn’t he just ask someone down there to do it? Surely he has his own Engineering staff? Or are they not arriving until Tuesday either? Is there anyone on this ship that’s not on the Bridge? I’m having my doubts at this point. Which is odd, because a few movies ago it took some special work from Scotty to ensure that “a trainee and two chimpanzees” could run an entire starship from a partially automated bridge.

However, just as Kirk is about to sit in the Captain’s chair, he remembers that he’s not the captain of the Enterprise any more. On the bridge of the Enterprise is where the captain belongs and so in a gallant act of passing the baton he stops Harriman, heads for the turbolift himself and leaves Harriman to take the centre seat. Well that wasn’t symbolic at all…

Down in the bowels, Kirk makes the changes necessary as the ship is battered by the ribbon. Harriman orders it to be activated and it works – the Enterprise breaks free. But just as it does, the ribbon almost seems to get angry and lashes out one final time. It’s such a big hit that a big chunk of the Enterprise is knocked out. Back on the Bridge, now free of the ribbon, Demora Sulu reports the damage and everyone realises that it’s the exact area of the ship where Kirk had to be.

Scotty calls him and there’s no response. He and Harriman head down there to look for him and Scotty tells McCo… Chekov to meet him there. Well, if Kirk’s injured they’ll need a doctor. But when they get there they find the entire section is open to space. Chekov arrives late and exclaims “My God, was anyone in there?”

“Aye.”

Later in the movie, Picard confirms history recorded that Kirk died saving the Enterprise-B from the energy ribbon. One last heroic act from a legendary Captain, and lets leave it at that.

Bullshit.

“You came back for me.”
“You would have done the same for me.”

Remember those words from the end of The Search for Spock? Kirk was the one who came back for Spock, and you can bet your life that Spock would have done the same for Kirk. In fact, I reckon that upon hearing of the death of his friend, Spock immediately stopped whatever he was doing to find out every detail of what had happened.

I reckon the bit that would have intrigued Spock most would have been the bit where the lifesigns were phasing in and out. What was all that about? Did anyone even bother to check? I’m sure Spock would have coupled that with the story Chekov told him. The bit I’ve left out of this first part. The bit where he was in sickbay with the 47 survivors, one of which was screaming “let me go back, let me go back” while the other 46 all seemed pretty shaken.

Back where exactly? Back to the ship? Did he leave something there? Do you not think Spock would have located this rambling lunatic to make sure? Surely someone, somewhere asked him why he wanted to go back after he woke up following being sedated. Surely after asking him he’d have confirmed with the other 46 passengers that what he was saying was something they had all shared. We know from later on in the movie that Guinan experience the same thing after all, surely she could have explained it?

Oh no, wait, maybe this is another one of those questions that NO ONE asked the race of listeners at any point. A bit like the whole “refugees from what exactly” question I mentioned earlier.

Well maybe everyone else is useless, but I would bet Spock would have investigated every last piece of this apparent death and he would have come to the same conclusion that the TNG cast do later in the movie. That the ribbon was some kind of gateway to another realm. Except Spock would also have figured out that Kirk might just be there – as might the other 103 people from the second ship and all 265 from the first ship.

We’ll come back to how I think it’s possible later, because there are another couple of points in the movie later on where comments from characters make it relevant again.

The first part of the movie ends with Harriman, Scotty and Chekov staring out of the big gap in the shiny new Enterprise. Harriman’s career is clearly in tatters given that on his very first command mission he’s managed to break his new ship and kill off the most legendary Starfleet captain in history. That inquiry must have been fun…

Actually, maybe that explains everything. Maybe Harriman has an Admiral daddy who gave him the job, and when this clusterfuck happened he pulled a lot of strings to have it swept under the carpet. Yeah, lets not investigate all of this, we don’t want little Johnny to get his starship taken off him again. We’ll just get it patched up again and pretend this never happened. Nothing to see, move along. All media recordings confiscated and classified.

Lets just say if Harriman is the kind of captain you give your new flagship to then I could probably believe that no one asked the El-Aurians “refugees from what exactly”. But I’d also reckon the Federation would have fallen apart long before Picard’s time as they would probably give the Pakleds a run for their money on the intelligence stakes.