BIG TIME IS RIGHT

Naismith knows standards have been raised since miserable night in Georgian airport... now Scotland have to cement their place among the world's elite

- KEITH JACKSON

IT was 10 years ago now.

But Steven Naismith is still haunted by the merest mention of it.

Tbilisi International Airport.

And the five-hour delay which brought Scotland's hopes of making it to Euro 2016 shuddering to a halt, in the dead of the Georgian night.

The 1-0 defeat had been damaging enough. But with world champions Germany heading to Hampden just a couple of days later, Scotland's players needed the hold-up like a hole in the head.

Manager Gordon Strachan was quietly livid as he kicked around an otherwise deserted departure lounge, waiting for Scotland's plane to arrive from storm-lashed Amsterdam.

As part of a penny-pinching exercise, the SFA had chosen not to pay the parking fee to keep it waiting for them on the ground, where it was needed.

Scotland arrived in Glasgow just before breakfast on the Saturday. On the Monday they went down bravely to a 3-2 defeat against the Germans. But another campaign had come and gone. All because it saved a few quid to cut some corners.

Which is why Naismith, right, understands the true value in the new approach which Steve Clarke has demanded of his bosses on the sixth floor.

Yesterday Clarke's coaching staff and his squad were settling into camp at a palatial five-star hotel in Belek, Turkey.