It's not just Rangers and Celtic who can claim the sky's the limit in a season that promises to be special - Keith Jackson

They all this bit the ‘scene setter’. It’s a long-held tradition on the eve of every new season with the purpose of whetting the appetite for whatever dramas might be about to unfold now that Scottish football’s curiosity shop is about to reopen its doors and drag us all back inside. Sometimes kicking and screaming.

I must have written more than 30 of them over the last three decades or so. But it’s hard to recall a summer when the sense of anticipation and sheer excitement felt just as heightened as it does right now.

For the most part, especially since the turn of the century, it has amounted to a long, sad story of steady decline with only the very occasional surprise success story to provide some momentary respite. Celtic getting to Seville, Rangers to Manchester. These were both colossal achievements which bucked the trend of decline.

But even these European high points were depressingly fleeting, especially when held up against the backdrop of a domestic game which was so busy self-harming it didn’t stop to think how much damage was being done. And how long those scars would last.

But now, for the first time in a long time, it feels as if our national game is experiencing some kind of awakening after all these years spent sleepwalking into the wilderness. Steve Clarke’s has reinstated Scotland as a tournament team for the first time in more than two decades, even if we’ll all have our noses pressed up against the TV again later this year after a painful World Cup near miss.

Yes, of course it will sting a little when the fun gets going for everyone else in Qatar but that’s mostly because we now have a team which really ought to be performing there given the depth of talent in Clarke’s squad. Previously these