You see like everyone since we qualified that Thursday I've tried to rationalise just what we have achieved in Europe this season and I have used my old man as a marker of sorts. He'll be 72 this year (I'm sure you won't mind me sharing that with everybody, old man) and it's been 36 long, weary years since Barcelona. So that's half of his lifetime we've been waiting for this.
It's quite ironic, he didn't get to Barcelona because he was on strike at the time. His youngest brother offered to take him but he declined the offer. His reasoning was simple as he explained to me a few years down the line. 'There was no way I was gallivanting off to Spain when I wasn't bringing in a wage to my wife.'
As we reach fever pitch in the lead up to Manchester, those are the memories and images of one man's personal pride that that I cling to. I'd love nothing more than for my old man to go, but he's getting on and the travel is getting too much for him. I've also thought of my uncle's generosity back then too. Oh how I'd love to get him a brief; my way of saying thanks for that generosity all those years ago.
My brother however is something of a pragmatist on these issues. 'Hold it' he said. 'I don't mind you getting our old man a ticket, but you're taking this 'sentimental, help the family stuff a wee bit too far'. 'There is such a thing as brotherly love as well, you know, so just you be thinking about getting me to Manchester too.' What can I say, we're a close bunch!
I think what I'm trying to say is I genuinely hope the bears who actually deserve a ticket get one. I'd imagine the TC members and the CCS people would be okay; but there are others too such as the bears who are not a member of any organisation and travel independently all over to watch their team also. They are also deserving of that gold dust piece of paper.
Sadly even in just these last two days I've heard of guys who very rarely go and in certain cases NEVER go, getting their hands on the booty. I suppose it was ever thus.
As for winning the UEFA Cup, there are enough signs, portents and runes to be read that would keep a production line of fairground fortunetellers busy for a few months and raking in a fortune into the bargain.
Where do you start well I've already mentioned my old man. He'll be 72 this year, Barcelona was 72. I was two months old in May 61 when Fiorentina last met us for a high profile European two-legged affair. Fiorentina, May 2008 will live with all of us forever.
There's more of course. Everyone has been mentioning the N word as a link in this particular run, also Sporting Lisbon itself, plus a possible Bayern Munich tie up that wasn't to be, culminating in another Russian side as final opponents just as in 72.
This is the fiftieth anniversary of the Munich Disaster and as luck would have it, Man Utd will contest the CL final in Russia while we will contest the UEFA final in Manchester. I'm sure Man Utd's first ever home European Cup tie was played at the home ground of Manchester City. Guess where we're playing this year?
Exactly eighty years ago a defining moment and achievement in the club's history back then came with our first ever League and Scottish Cup double.
The 25 year long, Scottish Cup hoodoo was smashed thanks in no small part to a famous penalty taken by Davie Meiklejohn to open the scoring. This season has already been marked for three separate penalty shoot out wins that for a variety of reasons have left us limp, deflated and ultimately elated.
But for all of the above, and I'm sure there are others who can point to ones I have missed out, I just think we are going to have to perform to as high a standard as we have all season and that is purely because in Glesga parlance, 'this Russian mob are nae mugs.'
You don't wallop a German side 4-1 in Germany and then strike another four at home against a Bayern Munich side that is romping the German league if you don't have something special going for you as a collective team unit.
So can we win it? Well anything is possible in a one off contest. However, one of my mates is convinced, truly convinced that we've had four guardian angels looking down on us throughout this run. These four would be horsemen of Timbos' apocolypse being the gallant young men; Moses, Peter, William and another Peter who formed our club all those years ago.
It's that kind of stuff that plays on my emotions. Because there are others who played such a major part in where and what we are today. First and foremost those being our first two managers William Wilton and William Struth. No explanation is required here.
But there are literally hundreds of others who have devoted a lifetime of service to the club for a pittance, compared to the mollycoddled and pampered players of today and the outrageous monies earned by them. Although this is not the time to be having a dig at modern day life.
Barely a week if that goes by and a post will go up on the FF message board informing us all of a good bear who has just passed away. The Aberdeen based bears foe example will tell us they have just lost a wonderful human being in Bobby Clifford, only in the last couple of weeks. And I hope I'm not being disrespectful to all the other bears mentioned in these type of posts.
At the start of the season, I paid tribute to a marvellous old bear cum reprobate from Bridgeton called Tam Bain. Tell you what, both my granda and ATB who would have been 93 and days shy of being 90 respectively, would have taken Madchester in their stride. Tales would have been told, whiskies splashed, gambles gambled and cigars chomped all week long.
What I'm saying is this; thirty six years is a long time for us to get a tilt at winning a European trophy, especially for a club of our size. And of course in that time we have, all of us, lost plenty of loved ones who'd be feeling as we are today in the run up to next week's final.
So with that in mind, don't win this cup Rangers purely for the living, do it for all those bears, cloud 'people' in the sky looking down on us.
Just do it Rangers.
The Govanhill Gub.