In less than 6 hours’ time, Scotland will play their first World Cup match against Haiti in Boston.
I’ll be honest. I struggle to care about football unless it involves Inverness Caledonian Thistle or Ross County, and even then I don’t actually have to watch it.
I knew so little about this World Cup that it was only last night that I realised that the Scotland game was in the middle of tonight. I’d previously assumed that because the Scottish Government had made Monday a bank holiday (which only 6 of the 32 Scottish local authorities are taking) that the match had to be in the middle of Sunday night.
My first experience of the World Cup was in 1978, when Scotland qualified to go to Argentina and I was totally caught up in the hype of Ally’s Tartan Army. I also had a monster crush on Kenny Dalglish. I was incredibly disappointed at the outcome – typically, we beat Holland, but lost to and drew with teams who were below us in the international rankings.
Fast forward nearly 50 years and here we are again. Several of my friends are over there in Boston – some staying for the whole tournament. Some people have spent thousands on travel and accommodation. You would have to have a heart of stone not bo be moved by the sight of the Tartan Army in Boston’s hostelries and squares. When an American reporter described them as “perfectly unhinged” last night, I seriously had never been prouder.
I would like nothing better than for the Scottish team to fight their way to the Final and then, after a brilliant game in which every single player excelled themselves, score in the last minute to take the trophy. But I can dream that without needing to watch a single game.
I hope that everyone who is sitting up tonight has a marvellous time. And I know that there are people of many nationalities reading this. Let’s just hope we have a tournament that brings joy.
Anyway, newly elected Scottish Lib Dem MSPs Sanne Dijkstra-Downie and Adam Harley had a chat about the World Cup the other day.
Sanne describes a recurring nightmare of the Dutch team that will be familiar to England fans too. Let’s hope that we don’t end up with too many blood-pressure busting penalty shootouts.
Happy World Cup everyone!
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UPDATE: Well, Scotland clearly leading the group after Brazil and Moroccco won. Who would have thought it?
I had no intention of watching the match, but Channel 4 put on Jo Jo Rabbit, a brilliant film that I can never resist late at night. By the time it finished, the match was only a wee while away so I thought I might as well watch them come out and sing Flower of Scotland. Then my son came downstairs and it turns out I cared rather more than I thought. He found my commentary and language every time the ball was in the Haitian end highly amusing.
So I went to bed in daylight having consumed more wine than was strictly necessary. So I am very tired and I have a sore head this morning, but there is joy in my heart. I can’t remember Scotland winning our first match at a World Cup. This may well be a peak, but I’m going to enjoy it.
Pity I signed up to the party strategy session at 10, though…
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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11 Comments
I confess my main feeling about the current World Cup is a burning desire for the USA to lose, preferably extremely humiliatingly, to a team which is brown and/or Muslim.
But Inverness Caledonian Thistle, which you mention, has a permanent place in my affections after their somewhat unexpected 3-1 victory over Celtic on 8 February 2000 in the Scottish Cup. The editor of the Scottish Sun, you will recall, came up with the immortal headline SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS.
Best headline in the history of the world.
In other news, what the hell am I doing up at 2:08 am watching a football match. I did not expect this.
“I confess my main feeling about the current World Cup is a burning desire for the USA to lose, preferably extremely humiliatingly, to a team which is brown and/or Muslim.”
That is an appalling thing to post. Trump may be a worthless individual; but not as worthless, in my view, as someone who wishes for something that will do more harm to Americans who have done nothing wrong, many of whom think Trump is as bad as you do, than it will to Trump.
@Andrew Tampion 14th Jun ’26 – 7:48am…
Why is Neil Hickman’s post ‘appalling’? After all, many football fans (Tottenham) want their own team to lose if it stops another team (Arsenal) from winning a title.
BTW.. As for your (losing) “will do more harm to Americans who have done nothing wrong”..
It’s ONLY a game of football..
“It’s ONLY a game of football..”
Quite – writing as one who has no intention of watching any of it – apart from ignoring what comes up in TV news programs.
I normally agree with Nonconformist and Expats on most things, but clearly they’ve never read up on that son of literature from Bradford, J.B. Priestley. Here’s Jack Priestley on football in ‘The Good Companions’ :
“To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink. For a shilling the Bruddersford United AFC offered you Conflict and Art; it turned you into a critic happy in your judgement of fine points, ready in a second to estimate the worth of a well-judged pass, a run down the touchline, a lightening shot, a clearance by your back or goalkeeper; it turned you into a partisan, holding your breath when the ball came sailing into your own goalmouth, ecstatic when your forwards raced away towards the opposite goal, elated, down cast, bitter, triumphant by turns at the fortunes of your side, watching a ball shaped Iliads and Odysseys for you; and, what is more, it turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half”.
From my past, “Up the Town” and thanks for the memories Denis. For the future, “There’s only one John McGinn”.
David Raw 14th Jun ’26 – 1:14pm;
David, Jack Priestley, obviously, never watched Millwall or Leeds Utd in the 1970’s…
I read ‘The Good Companions’ in the 1960’s when it was the ONLY book in English where I was ‘stranded’..
BTW.. If memory serves, I actually, rather enjoyed it
The current World Cup, beside being a monumental exercise in chiselling, is a massive ego trip for one of the most unpleasant and dangerous individuals on the planet. A humiliation for that individual would inflict no meaningful “harm” on American citizens.
I take it that Andrew was “appalled” by the sporting boycott of South Africa on the basis of the harm it inflicted on South Africans who were personally opposed to apartheid
@ Neil Hickman Thanks for stirring a memory Neil. I was employed at LPO (Party HQ) way back in June 1964, and took part in the massive international campaign which successfully pressured the South African government to spare Nelson Mandela and seven other Rivonia trialists from the death penalty.
The climax was a major rally in Trafalgar Square outside South Africa House on June 14, 1964, which was followed by a tense three-day vigil outside South Africa. I remember sitting (with a thermos flask) chatting through the night with Eric Lubbock (then Lib MP for Orpington). Eric was a radical and a great man and we could do with a few like him now.
The news came through that Mandela’s and his co-defendants sentenced to death had been reprieved, and years later, the circle was complete when my wife and I were able to visit Nelson Mandela’s old cell on Robben Island. So, cheers for the memory, Neil.
Correction : should be “South Africa House in Trafalgar Square”.
“I take it that Andrew was “appalled” by the sporting boycott of South Africa…”
A boycott is a positive act in which someone demonstrates support for a cause by withholding support from something, usually money. Hoping that a sporting team is humiliated in a game because you oppose it’s government is not a boycott; nor is it in anyway comparable to a boycott. If you had posted that we should not go to world cup games or watch them, whether on TV, streaming etc., thus affecting the advertisers who support the World Cup. Then I am fine with that. Similarly if you want to organise a protest outside the US Embassy in London to oppose Trump then let me know the details and I will attend with you to show my opposition to his actions.