Mark Langdon: Beers and tears - the Tartan Army should demand more

A journalist is forever chained to the rigours of a newspaper's style book and we must adhere to it even if we fundamentally disagree with those whose job it is pore over every word to make sure there are no inconsistencies.

For instance, it hurts my eyes when I see playoff as one word in the Racing Post, and even after all these years I am left yearning to put a hyphen in. Surely it's play-off, not playoff I would argue? But, you see, layoff is one word in our style book and if you add a p it kind of makes sense. Except it's play-off not playoff.

Another one is Twitter. The style book says of Twitter - and I quote with a helpful example of use - "now X; they posted a message on X". Dear style book gurus, I'll give you playoff but you won't catch me ever calling it X*.

I was on X on Thursday after a post was featured on The Herald's live Euro 2024 blog following all the news from the Scottish national team and it read "9am at Glasgow Airport and the Tennent's bar has run out of Tennent's. Outstanding." 

Now I hope I wasn't the only one who read that in the accent of ace comedian Kevin Bridges and among the replies were some saying the same thing had happened at Edinburgh the day before while apparently the keg needed changing at Aberdeen Airport at 5am, such was the rush of the Tartan Army to get on the beers ahead of the festival of football in Germany this summer.

There's nothing wrong with having a few airport beers but it got me thinking about a conversation I had with somebody who was a fully paid-up member of the Tartan Army. 

This person was not just in it for the glory nights - and you might well say just as well given the team he was following. But my McFriend was furious with other members of the supporters group for their lack of desire to actually see the team win.

I've taken out some of the swear words but the gist of his complaint was that he'd given up and was starting to follow the Under-21 team instead because too many people were only interested in wearing a kilt, drinking next to a fountain and singing songs.

There were plenty of tears, many beers, but not too many cheers. It's almost accepted with a shrug of the shoulders. Ah well, it's Scotland. 

The Scots are in a tricky Group A alongside hosts Germany, stubborn Switzerland and in-form Hungary, but there's also Premier League talent in Steve Clarke's squad and they should be disappointed if it ends like every other major tournament and they fail to get past the group stage.

Scotland, who have produced some incredible footballers and managers, has a population of just under 5.5 million. Ireland's population is just over 5m (the style book says the first reference to million is spelt out and subsequent ones have an "m" instead), with Wales at just over 3m and Northern Ireland just under 2m.

Wales have reached a Euros semi-final and Irish fans will forever cherish memories of Italia 90 as well as a few other decent runs, while Northern Ireland, who have had two runs past the first group stage at the World Cup, made the last 16 in the Euros eight years ago.

So by all means get on the beers but at some stage Scotland should demand more of its football team.   

*If future references to Twitter were changed to X that was done only by the sub-editors and it was not in my name!

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