Editorial: Boston and the unbridled joy of Scottish World Cup fandom
Did any group of visiting sports fans ever bring such pleasure to a city as those who follow Scotland brought to Boston? Did drinking copious quantities of beer ever get better press?
We racked our brains for a precedent to the recent lovefest between Beantown and the lassies and laddies who follow Andy Robertson and his team on the World Cup group stage. We failed to come up with one. Not since Sept. 11, 2001, when the good people of Gander, Newfoundland, welcomed stranded airline passengers who had "come from away" did a large group of visitors get so embraced by a community.
They came, they drank, they conquered New England reserve.
The kilted Scots got treated to dribbling cops with Lionel Messi-like ball control, a "rally duck" named Dawn from Providence, Rhode Island, that was willing to waddle in a parade and deal with bagpipes and similar civic tolerance for the Glaswegian tradition of sticking traffic cones on top of statues. Even as Samuel Adams and Paul Revere were treated to new head gear, Fenway Park was turned into a Scottish heritage fest, and the regular Red Sox fans, unaccustomed to the combination of beer and full-throated choral singing, seemed delighted by the benign invaders.
"What a great group of people," said one of the amazed TV announcers, agog at so public and musical a manifestation of highland joy. "They know how to live." (Drink beer, tell jokes and sing.)
The traveling Scots were even treated to a full-page "house ad," as we call it in our business, in The Boston Globe, wherein our friends at that newspaper hailed the fans in what we would call the savviest act of metropolitan newspapering in a long time.
"You came for the World Cup," the paper wrote in part, "but gave us something more. For a week, you turned train stations into singalongs, Fenway into a football ground, and an ordinary June into something we'll be talking about for years."
"We knew the Tartan Army was coming," wrote Red Sox President Sam Kennedy, singing the same Scottish air. "We did not know what that meant until we saw it." The Scots, Kennedy wrote, "treated our home like it was their own and we are the better for it."
The compliment was returned. "You made us feel part of your incredible city," the Scottish national team wrote as they left for Wednesday's game against Brazil in Miami. Less formally on social media, the fans marveled at all manner of Boston minutiae.
Deeper friendships will surely result. Boston Mayor Michelle Woo announced plans to build a new partnership between Glasgow (barracks of the Tartan Army) and Boston - "with opportunities to work more closely across key areas including innovation, education, sustainability, tourism, and economic development."
The Scots now are headed down to Miami, sparking invitations from communities along the way to pay them a call. This love affair with Boston might not be over, though; there is at least a chance that Scotland could return to Boston on June 29 as an advancing third-place team against Germany. We will have to see what happens against Brazil.
We've already registered our disappointment that Chicago did not see the benefits of hosting the World Cup with sufficient foresight or clarity. They are, as this love affair proved, not merely economically tangible, although that is the case (especially for brewers of ale). The costs Boston shouldered are most meaningfully paid back in good feeling, in the promise of return visits, in social media hits, in the sense that the U.S. is still a welcoming place to visit, in the shared international joy of being a sports fan.
Those kilts will be a bit thick and itchy in the Miami heat, and beer does not come at Boston prices by the beach.
But we think the Scots will charm South Florida too. Hae no fear.
___
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.