That's what happens if you allow the toddlers in the big boys' playground. Gretna, hardly out of nappies, were trampled into the gutter before playtime had hardly started.
It should never have been allowed to happen. I ranted on for long enough in this column about the folly of allowing our beaten Scottish Cup finalists the right to represent Scotland in Europe.
And, much as I want to resist the temptation of saying, "I told you so", well, I told you so.
It wasn't a campaign against Gretna. They were offered another moment in the sun and, of course, they embraced it. You don't interrupt fairy stories to bring cold moments of reality.
But they won a European place without having to beat a Premier League team and that's sneaking into Heaven because you found the Pearly Gates on the latch.
 Kevin Deery (left) scored twice for Derry at Fir Park |
The Big Bad Wolf of Derry huffed and puffed and blew their happy ever after story into the great beyond. Derry City, remember. Not Barcelona, not Arsenal, not Bayern Munich. To lose 5-1 at home is to be slain without hope of survival. To be fair, the Irish side could play from now until the end of time and never again score goals the likes of which they carved out at Fir Park. It was like watching a Christmas video of strikes of the decade all wrapped into 90 minutes.
But Gretna were out their depth as surely as they had waded out into the Solway. In fact, negotiating a passage to the cup was like plotting a route through the quicksands on the firth's northerly shores. And you had better be lucky if you try that.
None of this is their fault. I love what they have done for themselves and I love what they have done for the Scottish game. And their owner, Brooks Mileson, is a football saint. But the system is wrong.
And you know the greatest crime of all? It could well be perpetrated all over again.
It is Uefa's call, apparently, that the runners-up in our cup qualify for the Uefa Cup if the domestic winners have qualified for a greater tournament, in other words the Champions' League, as Hearts did last season.
 Gretna goalkeeper Alan Main was beaten five times |
And so Gretna - or Stenhousemuir, or Berwick, or Alloa - could be in Europe next time around because the Scottish FA is refusing to lobby those who sit in power to make a change. In fact, it says it can't. This I find curious, because the same body did decide some time back to abandon all hope for the League Cup and rule that it would not henceforth provide the victors with a passage into Europe and that opportunity would instead be presented to the team finishing high enough in the Premier League. And quite right too.
So why can't they torment the chaps in Nyon into seeing sense over this one? Surely Hibs, who would have earned the place that Gretna took, would have been much worthier representatives given their long and relatively successful slog in our top division?
We went to Fir Park on Thursday night to enjoy a party and ended up with the custard all over our faces. It wasn't so much a reality check as a rude awakening from dreamland.
It's time the SFA started a protection racket aimed at shielding clubs like Gretna from the cruel world out there.
It was too much too early and the lesson that has to be learned is that you have to earn your rite of passage. This is European football, not the tombola at the village fete.
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