AND now the hard work begins.

Hampden Park will remain the home of Scottish football, a victory for most in the game, it must be said, but even those who cheered loudest in favour of Mount Florida’s old lady have to admit something rather important.

Which is the stadium isn’t that great. And that’s being kind.

Too many seats have dreadful views, rain gets in even if you’re high up in the stand, the food is average at best, there are no real tributes outside which would tell visitors this was a historic place and as for Ronnie Brown – let’s not even go there.

Ian Maxwell, and this is to his great credit, didn’t try to hide from these facts. The SFA chief executive is a clever man and so he knew any attempt to pretend the still national football stadium was one of the best around is simply untrue.

Hampden is still the third best stadium in Glasgow.

Both inside and outside the ground, the SFA must – and this is non-negotiable – spend money to make it look like a famous arena, rather than what it is; an old ground with some seats stuck on the terraces and a main stand with a frontage which resembles an out of town call centre.

Here we take a look at what is needing done.

What can they do about the atmosphere which the stadium has never properly recaptured in almost 20 years?

Firstly, bring the stands behind the goal towards the pitch. More of that later.

It would also help, in terms of international football, if the team were winning some games.

And the pre-match entertainment was even close to entertaining.

Maxwell said: “Everyone has been here at cup finals when you can’t hear yourself think. I don’t think it lacks atmosphere. It lacks that success at international level, which is something Alex McLeish and the guys are working really hard to put right.

“That drives a lot of attendances, a lot of excitement.

“But even with only 17,000 there on Monday night, you could feel things starting to get a bit noisier during the game when they see an energetic side who are working hard, making tackles, having shots, getting up the park and doing all the things you want the team you support to go and do.

The stadium desperately needs money and lots of it spent on upgrades.

And here is the crux of the issue. Suggestions are all well and good but they require investment.

Maxwell said: “There is no doubt it needs a bit of work.

“It’s 20 years old now in its current form and there are areas of it we need to try and improve. There is no shying away from that.

“Whether it is in the seating deck, the hospitality, the kiosks, the Wi-Fi or the floodlights - there are a lot of different things.

“This gives us a real opportunity to step back, look at the whole Hampden experience and come up with a plan to say there are areas of this we need to attack.

“We can’t do it all tomorrow. Some will be picked up for Euro 2020 and we can come up with a longer term plan to address the rest.

How about safe standing?

Those of us old enough to have stood at the old Hampden can attest to how good it was when Scotland scored a goal and you got lost in a crowd of strangers.

Standing does make a stadium nosier.

Maxwell said: “Safe standing is definitely one thing we can look at. We’ve seen the success of that at Celtic Park.

“Within the life cycle of costs, we have, there is always going to be a replacement of seats. There’s no reason why some of them can’t be rail seats.

“I would caveat that by saying it’s not just as simple as that, because of sight lines depending where you are in the stadium.”

Please do something about the stands behind the two goals.

You can forget about seeing the whole pitch if sitting in one of the seats close to the track and, frankly, that’s a disgrace. This should have been taken care of 20 years ago but better late than never.

Maxwell said: “As for bringing the ends in, Stuttgart is a really good model. They had a very similar stadium to what we have at the moment and they managed to bring the ends in.

“It’s going to be a chunky number that will be required to get us to that point but that’s not something to be scared of. We need to try and address that, have conversations with as many people as we can.

“Whether it’s private funders, government - I don’t suppose Glasgow City Council will or can pay for it.

“I wouldn’t like to stick a number on it. Depending on who you ask, there are different ways to do it and we have to find out the best way for us to do it.”

Are there proposals to regenerate Hampden to become a football hub?

There is so much than can be done here to celebrate Scottish football but it’s almost as if previously that was seen as crude..

Maxwell said: “Yeah, there is regeneration possible in terms of the footprint of the stadium, what we do with the stadium. And how we make it look - can we do anything with the land we have got? That will all form part of the discussion moving forward.”

You could just flatten it and start again.

Or at least some of it and then, erm, move the games away from Hampden for a bit.

Maxwell said: “I have no idea. That’s never been talked about. Whether someone comes up with a way to do that then great…but it’s not been on the agenda.

Any other investors or folk with money come forward to get involved?

Maxwell said: “There have been no others (benefactors) . It’s up to us to go and try to find them now. There are people out there who are big Scotland fans who could be in a position to help and we need to go an maximise that opportunity.

Rod Stewart, it’s over to you.