A NEW variation on an ancient theme as Scotland bade farewell to the European Championship last night. One of those strange evenings when news and scorelines crackled between two football grounds. In the end, everything which happened here was irrelevant but the craziness at Wembley kept hope alive till the death.

The more downbeat and cynical of the tartan hordes had rolled into town expecting that the participants down the road in London would look after themselves and conspire for a draw. Instead, as the bulletins came through, via a thousand radios welded to straining ears, it was Scotland's failure to take chances on the pitch which sent them home.

"We had maybe eight chances, five of them good ones," said Scottish manager Craig Brown afterwards. "If you don't take those chances in tournaments like this you go home."

Indeed. With yet another failure at a major championship to contemplate, the moment which will truly haunt the Scots came in the early passages last night. Five minutes into the action, a John Collins corner was flicked on by Gordon Durie, whose Rangers team mate Ally McCoist crashed a shot against the Swiss bar. Scottish arms shot into the air claiming a goal, the Czech referee waved play on.

Two minutes later, that prodigality began to look as if it might be fatal. Tosh McKinlay rolled his low pass into the Swiss penalty area; McCoist, as surprised as a lottery winner, controlled it poorly, but even when he recovered his wits, found he still had only the Swiss goalkeeper to beat. He drove the ball against Pascolo's knees and Scottish heads shook in despair.

Such was the pattern of the evening. The Swiss seemed resigned to their fate, the Scots meanwhile drove forward in marauding waves with Colin Hendry at the heart of their defence, assuming the Mel Gibson role. Intermittently, a massive roar from the Scottish end would rend the Midland skies as England drove in successive scores at Wembley. Culturally disconcerting, but quite enthralling.

Scotland had set out their stall aggressively, opting for just Calderwood, Hendry and Boyd as their rearguard, leaving everyone else to pile forward. The Swiss began with three up front, but rummaged around to little effect. Chapuisat crashed repeatedly into Calderwood and was withdrawn at half time. The highly rated Turkylmaz got little out of the mobile Boyd.

Meanwhile, McKinlay and Burley, the latter in particular, roamed the wings searching for openings.

Ironically, however, Scotland's best chances came not from the high ball hoisted back from the byline, but from the more cerebral promptings of Gary McAllister and the energetic running of Stuart McCall. In the 36th minute, it was just such fine embroidery which produced the breakthrough.

McCoist flicked to McAllister, and then went galloping past to take the return with Koller and Henchoz bearing down. McCoist shot first time into the top corner of the Swiss net. One nil and things were about to get crazy.

By 55 minutes, news of England's third goal had reached Birmingham and Scotland were demented with passion. By the 61st minute England were four ahead and the Scots, were celebrating deliriously. Sixteen minutes later, Patrick Kluivert had bounced them out the door.

Not that Scotland didn't persist. Burley lashed a speculative shot just wide, McCoist ran up several cul de sacs, Booth arrived to provide some energy on the right flank. All to no avail.

The Swiss, for their part, sensing the hopelessness of their own situation, sent Sforza further forward, but his disappointing tournament fizzled out altogether in the face of Hendry's exuberant physicality.

By the time the police encircled the pitch in their luminous yellow jackets, Scotland knew that hope was seeping away. The attacks became less patient, more frantic. The great good hearted army of supporters cheered them off and sang late into the evening.

They've had many, many rehearsals for sad scenes like this, going home with tears for souvenirs.

. Craig Brown said afterwards: "We did not score the goals we needed and it's a huge disappointment not to go through to the quarter finals. It was an excellent result by England and credit to them. I thank Terry Venables and his players for that but we didn't score the goal we needed.

"In all three games we have played reasonably well and have been superbly fit. I feel we didn't carry much luck against England and Switzerland.

"We are going home but I would like to think we are one of the closest losers of the eight teams who are being eliminated. I would like to think we were ninth out of 16 here."