We’ll be coming down the road in our football tops in the early hours for the World Cup.
Alas, at the Law bar lock-in in North Berwickety, here east of Edinburgh, rather than our old stomping ground of Boston.
The World Cup, of course, is prime time for the sale of football tops with outlets greedy to inflate prices.
For shirts with the distributors often changing just the date on the shirt and change every 18 months.
Cry for us Argentina
One solution is replica shirts with this Scotland Tartan Army foot soldier donning his iconic retro top.
From Scotland’s ill-fated (aren’t they all?) Argentina 1978 misadventure.
With the No.15 on it in a nod to Scotland’s only shining light then, Archie Gemmill.
Back then, whisper it, the England Admiral football top was considered the height of football fashion.
So much so that some Scottish schoolboys put aside their loyalties and followed each other on their choice of shirts.
Gift that keeps on giving
Quite what red-blooded Scottish parents thought of that we can only imagine.
Of course football tops were always a safe bet to get your football-mad child for Christmas.
Even if it was the Argentina jersey instead of the vibrant orange shirt of the Netherlands team he’d adopted.
Which might explain the grumpy look in that Christmas’s photographs.
Moroccans on a roll
When it came time to make up our own decisions in life and we had the money.
We’d pick up tops on our travels… Fenerbahce and Besiktas for dad and lad in Turkey.
And the Morocco national top from a chaotic trip to Marrakech which has come out of the drawer.
Now that the African champions are in Scotland’s group along with Haiti and Brazil.
Although, naturally, it won’t be getting an outing when Scotland play Morocco in their second game in Beantown.
It’s just that sticking it back on takes me back to haggling with a Moroccan trader in Jemaa el-Fnaa square.
The Tartan Army Boys
Before everything went Pete Tong… a bit like Scotland’s World Cup story.
It’s true what they say, it’s the hope that kills you.
Still we’ll keep the faith.
So when you hear the noise of the Tartan Army Boys we’ll be coming down the road.
