Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of the Army Tartan (even though I’m half Scottish and have my own family tartan!). But now that the World Cup has begun and the Scottish fans known as the Tartan Army have descended on my home state of Massachusetts, they are a fixture. And that’s not a bad thing.
Full disclosure: I live in a suburb outside of Boston, so I haven’t had any direct experience with any of these kilted soldiers, but I’ve followed their exploits in the media and on social media, and I’m so glad they’re here. (If I was in a neighboring house for visiting tourists who played bagpipes all day, I might feel differently.)
The Tartan Army went viral over the past week, partly because of their numbers – it is estimated that up to 40,000 Scotland fans traveled to Massachusetts for the group stage of the tournament – and partly because of the festive atmosphere they brought to places like Fenway Park. More than 10,000 fans attended a Red Sox game last weekend, and they paraded through the streets wearing their iconic kilts and playing bagpipes. And they also did their research as tourists.
They know that the real Boston’s tourist attractions include Dunkin’ and the Cop Slide, a slide on the playground at Boston’s City Hall Plaza that is known to cause injuries because some people accelerate so quickly. The slide went viral when a police officer tried to use it and… it didn’t go well. (We can laugh now because he’s fine.) But that’s why we now have video of a man playing bagpipes while going down the Cop Slide.
I don’t know if anyone thought that would be one of the side effects of organizing the World Cup, but this World Cup has given us so many unexpected and delicious moments. Cape Verdean goalkeeper Vozinha, who went from unknown to world legend during his team’s 90-minute match against Spain, is another story that sparks joy, as well as another viral video of a police officer, this time of Boston cops dancing happily with fans after the Cape Verde-Spain match. All those little hits of dopamine really add up.
Bostonians and most New Englanders have a reputation for not being friendly. It’s a vestige of the puritanical and stoic values imported by our first settlers and which have persisted for centuries – it can sometimes make us seem indifferent and distant, when in reality it is more of an innate reserve that some of us cannot shake, no matter how hard we try. But the Scots are breaking our strong outer shell, at least temporarily.
Scrolling through TikTok, you’ll discover dozens of gratitude videos, both from Scots thanking Boston for the warmth shown to them, and from locals charmed by the exuberant and joyful visitors. Fans and pundits alike keep saying that the World Cup has truly become the great unifier we need right now, and the influx of Scottish tourists to our state seems to have lifted the local mood.
But alas, we will not be able to call the tartan army our own for long. The team and its supporters will stay for one more match on June 19 against Morocco before traveling to Miami for their final group stage match against Brazil on June 24. Sure, Miami has beautiful beaches, and we’ll probably get a viral video of a bagpiper on a jet ski from it, but we’ll miss the tartan army when they’re gone. At least we’ll still have Cop Slide.