Chris Iwelumo will never forget his Scotland debut — for one thing, he won’t be allowed to. The Wolverhampton Wanderers striker was still being assailed with questions and comments yesterday about his 'amazing miss” in the World Cup qualifier against Norway at Hampden Park on Saturday, and it is a line of conversation he better get used to. Wherever Scottish football fans gather, there may be another 50 years of it.

Iwelumo’s miss from three yards in front of an open goal in Scotland’s 0-0 draw has triggered a welter of debate about “the worst ever” of its type. There are a few obvious candidates, such as Peter Van Vossen’s amazing miss in an Old Firm game of the mid-1990s, or even SFA chief executive Gordon Smith’s “and Smith must score!” miss in the 1983 FA Cup final, though in truth, neither compares with Iwelumo’s gaffe on Saturday.

The 30-year-old striker was still trying to live with his fate yesterday. “There are many ups and downs in a football career, and you just have to be strong enough to ride with them,” Iwelumo said. “I’m sure I’ll get some stick for the miss, but I’ve just got to take it on the chin and move on.

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m a striker, I like to score goals but I missed a chance, I can’t say any more than that. I’ll go away, look at it, analyse it, and come back and show people I can score goals. I’ll look at what I could do better.”

Nonetheless, the miss still took some explaining. Receiving Gary Naymith’s cross right in front of goal, Iwelumo, from three yards, somehow contrived to wedge his shot a foot wide of the left post. In that very moment 50,000 fans inside Hampden were numb with bewilderment.

“In hindsight, I should have swung my left foot at it,” Iwelumo said. “In another day, it’s in the net and it’s another story. It was just one of those ones that hit my heel rather than my instep.

“I saw the chance about ten seconds after it happened [on the big screen]. I am disappointed, there is always going to be a talking point when you make your debut, and unfortunately it is this, rather than me scoring the only goal of the day. I’ll go away now — I’m my own worst critic — and I’ll come back stronger. Hopefully, when the next squad is announced my name will be in it. I’ll come back and show people what I can do.”

Iwelumo also did yesterday what has become a prerequisite of modern sport, especially one dominated by the shrinks — he gleaned what positives he could from his personal disaster.

“If we had lost the match it would have been disastrous, but we got a point, that’s the positive way to look at it,” he said. “The performance of the boys was positive. And my own performance, if you take away that chance, was also positive, in terms of my link-up play and winning balls in the air.

“If I had scored it would have been the icing on the cake, but it’s just one of those things. People will talk about the miss, and rightly so, it was a bad miss, and it was a crucial three points lost. But there are still things to take forward to the next game.

“My family is important to me, so I’m going off now to spend some time with my beautiful little girl. She always says to me, ‘Kick the ball and score a goal’, so I’m going to see her and give her a kiss. I’ll be fine.”

Last night, hopefully, she wasn’t also interrogating her father about his miss.