ALL IN THE GAME:A Euro 2012 miscellany

TO qualify for their first major championships, Euro 88, Ireland needed Scotland to win in Bulgaria. That seemed unlikely. The Bulgarians hadn't lost a home qualifier in five years – and Scotland's miserable form didn't suggest they were capable of ending that run.

RTÉ, ever the optimists, showed the game live, just in case. Jack Charlton was watching it too over in England – but not live, as he assumed.

"I get a phone call. The guy says to me, 'congratulations'. I said 'what for?' He said 'for qualifying for Europe'. 'Na', I said, 'the match is on the telly, I'm watching it, it's 0-0 and there's only about half an hour gone'. He said 'no, no – it's recorded, Scotland won 1-0'. It was out of the blue, we never expected it – Scotland beat Romania 1-0! Or was it Bulgaria?"

Gary Mackay had come on as a substitute – in Bulgaria, not Romania – to win the first of four caps, and with just three minutes to go scored his only international goal.

"It was a surreal atmosphere in the Levski Stadium," he told the Daily Recorda few years back. "50,000 Bulgarians sat back in the rain and expected their team to treat Scotland as cannon fodder. Instead, Gordon Durie played me in and I fired a shot off my left standing leg into the far corner of the net.

"The implications of the goal didn't sink in immediately, but they certainly did when I arrived back at Glasgow Airport and Packie Bonner was waiting for me with a bottle of champagne."

And so, Mackay, much to his amusement, became a sporting legend in Ireland.

Now 47, he made a record 640 appearances for Hearts between 1980 and 1997 before briefly managing Airdrie. Since then he has worked as a player agent and a media pundit, also involving himself with the Show Racism the Red Card campaign and volunteering as a coach with youth teams.

Since stepping down as a match-day analyst for Hearts Media, in protest at owner Vladimir Romanov's running of the club, Mackay has been the target of some colourful abuse from the Lithuanian, not least when he was described as a "parasite" who had lived all his life "at the expense of football".

After Romanov bizarrely accused him this summer of attempting to manipulate the club and their results Mackay considered suing, but decided to let it go. "His opinion of me doesn't keep me awake at night," he said.

Safe to say, Irish football fans are a touch fonder of him than Romanov. As the football bard Peter Goulding wrote, we "sat open-mouthed in disbelief, as Scotland, like a brazen thief, broke once upfield and young Mackay, became the apple of Ireland's eye . . . and then the final whistle blew, and, for the first time, we were through!"

It's hard to believe, it's 24 years since that game in Romania. Or was it Bulgaria?

"Sometimes when I look at the videos I dream that it is my team, that I can lead them. They are quality players . . . I cannot say that I was happy to draw them in the play-off." – Estonian supremo Tarmo Ruutli revealing his ultimate fantasy: managing Ireland.

BUYER BEWARE

SPEAKING of ticket speculating for the game. There's a curious listing on Ebay, from a seller who claims to be located in "Anapa, Russian Federation", under the title: "Ticket ESTONIA v IRELAND 11/11/2011 EURO 2012 PLAY-OFF".

The "Buy It Now" price? €8.21.

Very reasonable.

Problem? "Will post ticket the next day after the game."

We can only assume they're targeting the used-ticket-collecting market, but pity the two buyers so far who missed the red print and are waiting patiently by their letter boxes this morning.

Shady dealings: Tickets touts a new experience for Estonia

IRISH supporters, are, alas, more than accustomed to dealing with touts when it comes to the business of trying to secure tickets of the gold-dust variety for major games. But for Estonia, by the sounds of it, this is a whole new ball game.

"Shady Estonia-Ireland Ticket Purchases Identified," read the headline on the country's public broadcasting website (ERR), which reported that the Estonian FA is "tracking down the buyers of 194 tickets to the match after it was determined they were speculators".

Tickets for the game sold out in half an hour when they went on sale in Estonia last month, "but it soon became obvious that not all the customers were typical fans. One purchaser who scooped up 150 tickets and began advertising their sale on Facebook has been contacted by the association and is due to return them tomorrow."

A tout with a conscience? Strewth. Although, another "as-yet-unidentified buyer who scored 44 tickets from the Tondi Selver shop in Tallinn" has still to atone for their sins. "The association is . . . politely requesting that the purchaser return the tickets."

Aivar Pohlak, president of the Estonian FA, explained "Estonians are not used to having to deal with ticket speculators because home games rarely sell out".

His colleague Mihkel Uiboleht said, "During Soviet times you were supposed to have a permit to buy a car. You could not just go and buy a car, so a permit was a great asset to have. Now the Estonia-Ireland tickets are a similar asset."