Tartan Army invasion warms the heart of hosts and even a sobering on-field surrender can’t dampen the mood

IT must have seemed a good idea at the time. The bride-to-be would have visited the Marienplatz, looked out from the city hall and savoured a vista of historic charm and modern architecture that would provide the spectacular backdrop to her wedding. All was put in place for Friday, June 14.

What could possibly go wrong?

Dressed in traditional white, posing for the obligatory photographs, the bride could not help but smile. There were thousands of uninvited guests on the doorstep of her wedding in marvellously manic Munich. An actor, in the shape of Martin Compston, crowdsurfed over the heads of a battalion of the Tartan Army. Balls were blootered high in the air. There were guys with guitars, lads with bagpipes, lassies doing flings. Songs rose and fell like waves.

Scotland were in town. Can you see us? Can you hear us? The answer an emphatic yes from shoppers, office workers and wedding guests.

The Seville calculator was in operation. There are those who insist that 200,000 Scots have come to Germany for the Euros. It is difficult, however, to be precise about this benevolent invasion. It must be emphasised that the tens and tens of thousands of Scots in Munich did not comprise the full cohort. Personal experience tells me the Tartan Army were on manoeuvres in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Dortmund even as the national team were preparing to be pumped by Germany at the Allianz.

Woods poses for a selfie with members of the Tartan Army ahead of the opening match

The centre of Munich was a sea of blue as Scotland fans relished their moment on the big stage

The Munich battalion, though, offered persuasive testimony to the might of the Tartan Army and how it represents a phenomenon in sporting and cultural terms. Modern football is increasingly middle-class. It demands money from the supporter. It also has spawned various tropes.

Marienplatz welcomed a succession of walkers, runners and cyclists who had made their way to Munich to raise money for various charities. They were met by Scots who stood by crates of beer, most with bags of crushed ice at hand. This was the modern Tartan Army.

There was also a substantial nod to the past. On the outskirts of the square, a budding entrepreneur was selling Buckfast at 10 euros a bottle. His supplies were diminishing rapidly. He said he had brought crates by train. Further questioning was not encouraged.

But the Buckie was largely ironic if enthusiastically scooped. The Tartan Army inhabits a higher plane than the veterans of my age whose trips consisted largely of travelling to Wembley by storming trains and inviting British Rail staff to do something about it. Carry-outs were the size of the Chrysler Building and consisted entirely of rocket-fuel lager and fortified wine. There was a feeling of euphoria laced with the threat, even a promise of violence.

That was then. That was the best part of half of a century ago. Now the Tartan Army travels in numbers but with all the threat of a toddler who has just been given a drawing book and a set of crayons. This is not a criticism. It is warming to be part of a constituency that raises a laugh rather than insurrection. It is intriguing, too, to be part of an evolution of a sport.

Beer, and lots of it, was the order of the day as supporters quenched their thirst in the sunshine

Scotland fans have travelled in their thousands, with some estimates going above 20,000

Marienplatz and surrounding areas were populated largely by the supporters of sides that do not feature in the highlights reel of European football. There were lads and lasses from Buckie, Arbroath, Falkirk and Hamilton. There were pensioners who could never be described as glory hunters when it came to football. There was, however, an Aberdeen fan who remarked laconically that he had just travelled to Germany ‘to boo Ryan Jack’.

There was a genuine creativity in travel plans. One gentleman told me he had come to Munich via four different countries. Another said his base was initially in Bratislava but plans had become increasingly fluid. This was not a reference to the amount of alcohol he consumed but it would have applied.

There were also the members of the Tartan Army, mobilised division. Many spoke of hiring camper vans and leaving them abandoned outside town while they cavorted in the centre.

Many, too, had no tickets, no realistic prospect of getting any, and no obvious grief at this deprivation. ‘Listen, we are here for the atmosphere,’ said one. ‘We will see the game. But not in the stadium.’

This view did not apply to everyone. There was vindication for many who have followed Scotland though thin, thinner and skeletal and have eventually found that those attendance points finally provided tickets for Munich, Cologne and Stuttgart. ‘I have always been asked why I bothered over the years,’ said one young woman. ‘This is why, though I suppose I would have done it anyway.’

All these and more gathered in Munich over the weekend. They filmed each other. They were filmed by television companies. They filmed media companies filming their mates. It was all very post-modern. It was all very civilised or, at least, as refined as a crowd laced by Buckie can be.

Former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond was another to make the journey to Germany

More than a few piece-to-cameras were brightened up by joyous fans ahead of the opener

At one point, an English fan, dressed in Crusader gear, the flag of St George emblazoned on his chest, swaggered through the crowd. In a Trafalgar Square of the 1970s, such an intruder would have prompted a series of court cases and a post-mortem. In Munich 2024, there was a round of boos but no intimation of anything more than derision.

There was no aggression in the bars surrounding the square, even when Scotland were sinking quickly and inexorably towards heavy defeat. The initial roars of expectation were met by groans. There was an otherworldly atmosphere in a bar on the Hochbruckenstrasse in the Old Town. Its stream was seconds behind other bars on the street. A huge roar would cascade down the road, suggesting Caledonian catastrophe. We would watch as that German goal was revealed. Its inevitability did not leaven the pain.

Yet the Scots support remained resilient. There was no danger to any of the German fans in the bar. Their explosions of joy were treated with a weary acceptance. The end of the match was greeted by relief. ‘It could have been more,’ said one lad, peering out from under a bunnet and through eyes glazed by a day of excess.

The positive mood was only temporarily dampened by the 5-1 drubbing doled out by Germany

The crowds eventually emerged from bars, left fanzones and, indeed, completed the trek from the Allianz back to the city centre. The mood was not joyous, but there was an acceptance. It came with criticisms of selection, tactics and the anonymity adopted by some of the Scottish players on the night. But there was no danger of a belligerent march on the team’s hotel or a protest at the Marienplatz.

The punters drifted from the streets and into hotels or even towards far-flung camper vans. Cologne and Stuttgart now beckon. The squares of both cities will echo with the songs of the Tartan Army. The prospects of those being tunes of glory seemed distant as sunrise broke on the Marienplatz on Saturday morning.