Tartan Army will defy Tacitus description for party in the USA

I blame Tacitus. The Roman historian described the Caledonians as savages – big men with orange hair who didn’t fight in normal ways. Two millennia later, the Scots have refined the image into the kilted warriors of the Tartan Army, who conquer foreign lands with a kind of benign, knowing chaos.

They don’t really need to wear those parody See You Jimmy tartan bonnets any more, the ones with the signal fringe of orange nylon. Back at the highest level after 28 years, the fans have a settled sense of themselves – a travelling circus of colour, celebration and bagpipes, ambassadors for their team and their country.

By midweek, snatches of happy anarchy began to swamp social media: as they filled the departures hall at Glasgow Airport, a piper wearing a giant traffic cone hat marched up and down the check-in desks playing Scotland the Brave.

It is all splendidly bonkers, but it is underpinned by love, identity and a sense of belonging, a precious communal experience that sits beyond political division, social class or income.

“Supporting Scotland is such a rollercoaster, but it’s always fun, always an adventure. Watching them at a tournament like this will be so moving. “We’re a small enough nation to feel like we really know these players. I will feel an immense sense of pride,” says Martyn Robertson, a regular at international games since he was 12.

If he makes it, that is. He’s due to fly on Saturday morning, arriving four hours before kick-off for the crucial opening game against Haiti. God, Trump and the US travel authorisation system ESTA willing, he’ll be one of an estimated 30,000 members of the Tartan Army to throng downtown Boston and the nearby city of Providence.

Robertson, who made the award-winning film Make it to Munich, about a teenage footballer recovering from head injuries who cycled to the opening game of the 2024 Euros, has re-booked his accommodation four times, bringing initial costs down from £3,000 to £1,600.

Sadly this time, some supporters, numbers unknown but including a 57-year-old Edinburgh lawyer who told the Daily Record he’d visited the States twice already this year, aren’t being allowed to board planes. Despite spending thousands on flights and hotels (one claimed he was selling his child; others have merely re-mortgaged), they arrived last week at airports, checked the app and found that their visa status had changed from “approved” to “pending” to “travel not authorised”.

First minister John Swinney, who has granted three of his cabinet special leave to go to the World Cup, confirmed the Scottish Government had approached the US Consulate General in Edinburgh for an explanation. He is conscious, no doubt, of the oft-drawn parallels between the Scottish team’s performance and the support of nationalism.

The foot soldiers are wily and entrepreneurial, their weapons a gallus charm and a sense of the ridiculous - such as when they livened up the Trafalgar Square fountains with 50 litres of washing-up liquid. They drink too much (although at $18.99 for 16oz of craft/import beer in the stadium, maybe not so much) and get loud, but they lack that potential for violence which can hover around massed English fans. And above all, Scotsbond over the noble desire to behave better than the English.

Their standard regalia is a cacophony of colour: a kilt worn over milk-bottle-white Scottish legs, walking boots, and a Glengarry hat weighted with pin badges from previous trips. Some wear the current Scotland football shirt, others in regional supporters’ clubs have specially commissioned tops, all as bright as possible.

A friend of mine, an extremely happy former politician (there is a definite link) says she will be wearing her “Yes Sir I Can Boogie” t-shirt with a blue and white saltire on it. Ticketless so far, she’s heading for the Boston Fan Zone. Another friend is wearing his “Campaign Against Living Miserably” T-shirt, which speaks to a larger truth.

At their best, the Tartan Army wield cultural soft power for Scotland, a good-natured, slightly daft tribe, uplifted by the sense that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. In Boston, the Irish pubs have adopted them, shipping in draught Tennent’s beer (only $8 a pint…).

Extra goodwill arrives with the kilted charity walker Craig Ferguson, a young Scot who finishes his 3,000-mile walk across the US to raise money for SAMH, Scottish Action for Mental Health, in Boston on Friday. Expect pipes, generosity and fanfare.

Crucially, the Tartan Army aspire to their own myth. Their chivalry is pure Don Quixote, dreams ever hopeful, often thwarted, always well-intentioned. At the 2024 Euros, when 200,000 Scots went to Germany, they turned the centre of Cologne into a giant party. The litter was appalling. But they returned and cleaned everything up into bin bags. The German police stood back and watched.

Legend has it the following week that the England fans arrived, had a party, failed to clean up and the police moved in. Which pleased the Tartan Army no end, because the moral high ground has the best view.

In a similar spirit, a portable power pack ranks alongside a defibrillator. One seasoned supporter recounted how, queuing for the opening game in Munich, the people in front of him were in tears. Drink had been taken, their phones - where their tickets were stored - had run out of battery. They weren’t going to get in. My friend lent them his charger and saved the day.

In Boston, Hamish Husband, the official Tartan Army spokesperson, said: “We are determined to make as positive an impression as possible.” Money saved by hiring buses to avoid hiked-up public transport fares will be donated to a US children’s hospital; £5,000 has gone to the Rhode Island Highlanders pipe band to cheer everyone up; another £3,500 has gone to a local football project.

“We may not have many wins. We will, however, return with our own peace prize,” Husband said.

Scots abroad will always have their vulnerabilities. There are worries about US police being intolerant of drinking in public, although late-night alcohol licences have been extended by the Boston authorities. “You just hope that the cops give them a chance,” Robertson said.

For the Tartan Army, all that’s left now is to endure the agony of hope – and to party. As the AI Highland cow on slysportsnewschannel sings so catchily: “We’ll be home before the postcards from the good old USA/ But we’ll get pissed and stay up late and watch the Scotland play.” Tacitus might admire their spirit.

Photograph by Pamela Smith/AP