So, my point is, amongst all the agony of modern-day football there is always the intervention of a higher source. Yes, it's a game played on earth, but it's controlled in the changing room of destiny, where the ice tub is actually a sauna, and the complex tactics board instead reads, "Don't worry - it'll all turn out alright."

Take Gretna, for example. A football club so dragged up in the shadow of Leeds United that they even get their goldfish food from the same garden centre. The club's dream was a pure one, yet the foundations barely merited promotion from the Northern Premier league (where they may well return) let alone an escalation to the heights of the Scottish Premier and a Cup Final appearance thrown in for good measure.

So in a season littered with general under-performance, withdrawal of funds, homelessness, administration and, yesterday, confirmation that every employee of the club has been made redundant, it is somewhat fitting that the higher powers of football (no, not the Scottish FA) up in the bootroom of fated football, saw fit to reward the club's longest-serving player, Gavin Skelton, with an injury-time winner against Hearts in what looks to be Gretna's final senior game .. in their current guise, at least.

Skelton's rasping winner ended six years of immaculate service dating back to the days of 5-0 away defeats to Morton in Scottish Division Three, and when the dream was still unfulfilled. A shame that only 1,090 fans were there to see it last Tuesday, but football Gods of fate, you've pulled another corker out of the bag.

And amen to that.