By our other man in Americana, Sir Billy Connolly
The thing about supporting Scotland at a World Cup is that it’s no really football support anymore. It becomes religion. Travelling theatre. A sort of emotional caravan full of beer fumes and disappointment held together by bagpipes and blind optimism.
And now the World Cup’s in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Three enormous countries. Vast landscapes. Huge stadiums. Thousands upon thousands of Scots descending on them like escaped medieval musicians with a grievance.
Ye can picture it already.
A man from Dundee standing in downtown Dallas wearing a kilt, sunburnt to the colour of a boiled lobster, shouting, “ANYBODY SEEN TAM?” into a cowboy bar at eleven in the morning while somebody nearby attempts to play “Flower of Scotland” on an inflatable saxophone.
That’s no a football tournament. That’s performance art.
And Scottish fans are magnificent travellers because they never really expect happiness. That’s the secret. Brazilians arrive expecting glory. Germans arrive expecting efficiency. The Scots arrive expecting catastrophe and are therefore emotionally prepared for anything short of a meteor strike.
That’s why we enjoy ourselves more.
You’ll see them wandering through New York looking utterly lost. A full squad of tartan-clad men staring up at skyscrapers like medieval villagers encountering electricity for the first time.
“Look at the size ae that building, man.”
“Aye.”
“Whit’s in it?”
“Probably sadness.”
And the football itself becomes almost secondary. The tournament starts and suddenly the whole country transforms into amateur philosophers. Taxi drivers discussing high pressing systems. Joiners explaining midfield balance. Men called Alec who haven’t run since 1987 criticising professional athletes for “no wanting it enough.”
Scotland have actually got a decent team now, which is deeply unsettling for the national psyche because we’re much more comfortable being tragic outsiders. There’s danger in hope for Scots people. Hope leads to expectation and expectation leads to emotional injury.
But this squad… they’ve got grit about them. They look like they’d happily tackle somebody through a brick wall then apologise politely afterwards. There’s organisation. Energy. Proper footballers. No just eleven men defending their own penalty box like frightened farmers protecting livestock.
And every Scottish fan secretly believes — secretly, mind you, because saying it out loud feels medically irresponsible — that maybe this time we could actually get out the group.
Imagine it.
The sheer panic.
The nation wouldnae know how to behave. Newsreaders greeting one another in pubs. Traffic abandoned in city centres. Your granda crying into a pie supper because Scotland have reached the last sixteen and he never thought he’d live to see civilisation advance this far.
Because supporting Scotland is inherited suffering. It passes through generations like an ancient family curse. Fathers teach sons how to cope with heartbreak before they teach them how to shave.
“I love ye, son.”
“Love ye too, dad.”
“Remember… never trust a two-goal lead.”
And yet we keep turning up. Every tournament. Every anthem. Every glorious collapse. Because there’s something beautiful about collective delusion when everybody joins in together.
The Americans won’t understand the Scottish support at all. They’ll think: “These people seem incredibly cheerful for a nation that’s drawn 0–0 with Haiti.”
But that’s because they don’t understand the deeper philosophy of Scottish football. We don’t support Scotland because we think we’ll win the World Cup.
We support Scotland because hope is funnier than reality.
And somewhere in a giant stadium in Boston or Miami, surrounded by noise and colour and impossible expectation, thirty thousand Scots will belt out the anthem with tears in their eyes and lager on their shoes, genuinely believing — for one ridiculous beautiful moment — that this could finally be our year.