Scotland tried to end a long wait to reach a major tournament by hosting one instead.

A joint bid was made to bring the European Championships to Scotland and Ireland in 2008.

The pitch would ultimately fail and the competition was instead awarded to Austria and Switzerland.

But as Uefa announced that Germany are to host Euro 2024, we look back at the story behind the SFA and FAI's bid.

The build-up to the joint bid was far from straightforward as Scotland considered several options, including hosting alone.

June 2000: The SFA indicated their interest in hosting the championship and refused to rule out a four-nation bid alongside Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

July 2000: Scottish FA chief executive David Taylor announced that Scotland would bid to host the European Championships in 2008, with the preference to go it alone.

May 2001: The Scottish Executive gave its support, in principle, after a report found no "insurmountable" problems. First Minister Henry McLeish pledged the full backing of the Executive.

November 2001: McLeish resigned as First Minister and his replacement, Jack McConnell, withdrew support for a solo bid, following UEFA's decision to require eight stadia in the host country.

February 2002: The SFA and the FAI officially confirmed a joint bid for Scotland and the Republic of Ireland to host the 2008 UEFA European Championships.

The Scotland-Ireland bid consisted of ten potential stadiums, which would be reduced to eight for the final competition.

Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin all had multiple stadia earmarked for use.

The bid included using the three major football grounds in Glasgow: Ibrox, Celtic Park and Hampden, as well as Murrayfield in the capital.

To complete Scotland's contribution, big changes would have been required, as UEFA had set a minimum capacity of 30,000 for grounds to qualify.

Plans to renovate Easter Road and build new stadiums in Aberdeen and Dundee were touted.

Controversially, the new stadium in Dundee would have replaced Dens Park and Tannadice, with the two Tayside clubs sharing the new ground.

In Ireland, three stadia in Dublin were included as potential venues.

The Gaelic Athletic Association's Croke Park and Landsdowne Road were put forward, as well as proposals to erect a new stadium just outside the capital in Castleknock.

The final bid saw plans for Scotland to host both semi-finals, as well as the final. Murrayfield would be the final venue, with Hampden and Celtic Park each hosting a semi-final.

The six other candidates that confirmed their interest in hosting Euro 2008 were Austria-Switzerland, Croatia-Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece-Turkey, Hungary, Nordic 2008 (Denmark-Norway-Sweden-Finland) and Russia.

Among strong competition, Scotland and Ireland's bid was actually thought to be one of the favourites.

Simon Lyons, marketing director for the bid, noted that Scotland and Ireland offered the most seats, 1.7 million, at the eight stadia, ahead of the four-way Nordic bid with 1.2 million seats.

In September 2002, UEFA's inspectors began their five-day visit to the contenders, with their technical report giving Scotland-Ireland a score of 94%, a percentage point lower than Austria-Switzerland.

Ahead of the final vote in December 2012, UEFA's national team committee put forward Austria-Switzerland, Greece-Turkey, Hungary and the four-way Nordic bid as their recommendations.

Austria and Switzerland were awarded the championships, with the Scottish-Irish bid finishing a bitterly disappointing fourth place.

Several factors were touted as being responsible for the failure of the bid.

The issue of using three stadiums in Glasgow, as well as the uncertainty over whether Ireland could provide two suitable grounds, were suggested to be big reasons behind the outcome.

A sticking point behind using Croke Park was the Gaelic football association's rule preventing other sports taking place at the ground, while there were financial issues surrounding the plans to construct the new ground at Castleknock.

Some suggested the 2002 Irish general election negatively impacted on Ireland's ability to make firm commitments over stadia and funding.

The failure of the bid was estimated to deny Scotland a £400m economic boost.

And like the bid, the national side came close to securing a place at Euro 2008, but not close enough.

An injury-time header from Italy's Christian Panucci crushed Scotland's dream in their final qualification match at Hampden.