Inside Scotland's race to save Georgia clash in downpour as Steve Clarke reveals clash was 10 MINUTES from washout

Steve Clarke has revealed his table-topping Scots got the job done against Georgia with just 10 minutes to spare on torrential Tuesday.

The national team coach watched his team rack up a fourth straight win to take Scotland to within touching distance of Euro 2024 but only after an astonishing battle against the elements by ground staff who fought to clear the monsoon that hit Hampden an hour before kick-off. That led to the game being halted after just six minutes - seconds after Callum McGregor had given Clarke’s men the lead - and with Georgia reluctant to come back out after FOUR pitch inspections by the Hungarian officials - the match finally resumed at 9.35pm.

The Scotland boss later revealed that had the delay lasted another 10 minutes, the game would have had to be abandoned because the finishing time of 11.30pm would have been too late by authorities to have 50,000 flooding into the streets. As it was, the final whistle blew on the Scots’ 2-0 victory at 11.20pm and Clarke was just relieved and delighted to get a bizarre night out of the way.

He said: “There was obviously a time limit on it and we were getting close to the end of it. I think 9.45 was the sort of cut off.

"So it was pretty close to not going ahead. We’re glad it did. We got the game on, we got the three points, so great.

“Apart from the birth of my three children I think that’s the longest day of my life! There were moments where it was quite surreal.

"The worst one was after the first stoppage and everyone was getting ready, warming up inside, you go out, you’re going to start again in 15 minutes, and the two teams got in the tunnel and it was absolutely tipping it down again. That was when you start thinking ‘maybe we don’t start again’.

“We