Billy misses and nobody scores the rebound By Donald C Stewart

Date: 27th June 2026

Billy misses and nobody scores the rebound

By Donald C Stewart

A view from the sofa, as I, along with many Scotland fans, are unable to get a second mortgage to attend the World Cup in the USA and so am on the sofa. With a virtual Billy Gilmour by my side, also from Ayrshire I shall be looking out for the bizarre and daft that makes this summer, hopefully, a World Cup to remember….

Zoom, Teams, WhatsApp messages, Facebook Live.

It seems to be the way of communication these days as I try to make a connection with Billy over in Miami because the Billy Gilmore-sized hole in my sofa is still there.

After a few moments of connection issues, for whatever reason, no doubt my contract with my internet provider, EE, is not as solid and sound as I thought it was supposed to be – he eventually appears on screen. Behind him is an anonymous looking hotel where he and his family have decided they’re going to stay in amongst the melee and the massive cost of getting to this World Cup.

And so, after a few functional how are the families and are things going well and are you keeping out the heat and how’s your knee, how was the baseball, we get into the major topics of the World Cup.

And so, I asked him, did he see the duck walking? Buzzed for a moment, Billy’s expression starts to cloud back over as he shakes his head and goes, no. I saw, I say, on yon Tikkie Talkiie a duck walking, a saltire on its back and some kind of token round its neck, alongside the Tartan Army as they went to the baseball game. “No,” he says, “I didn’t see any of that.”

Mind you, given the size of a duck and the relative size of the Tartan army, that was to be expected.

And again, I thought maybe he hadn’t seen it because he hadn’t been on the TikTok or that he wasn’t there when the duck went a walking.

But I say, ye cannae escape the Tartan Army oan the t’internet.

Then we move from the Fenway Park night out to the passports that were lost by a couple of people and how the Tartan Army got together on one occasion to find it. And for the second loss the Fenway Park people bagged a Boston Sox fan for life, as the young guy who lost his at Fenway Park, the following was allowed into the stadium, and they’d found it! So, all good, all great.

Billy meanwhile reported that he has found The Tartan Army to be absolutely fantastic. Many conversations, lots of photographs and plenty of opportunities to drink America Great Again – and dry – in has been Billy’s time across the pond.

It led us into a discussion of rounders, or as they call it in America, baseball. It seems to be the revelation for the Scots of their time in the US of A! But the big winner seems to be the city of Boston.

I told Billy about the news report who found a few Scotland fans in New York. The fans wanted to make clear that New York was nice, but it was nowhere near as nice as Boston!

The Boston Red Sox are probably going to have a Tartan chapter founded in their honour, either in their stadium or across the pond.

Billy has not been rising early and certainly did not hear the guy who spent every morning at 6:30am in his Airbnb playing the bagpipes, no doubt, making sure that everybody realized that we were in town.

“No,” said Billy, “I just use the normal thing on my phone.”

Finally, of course, the fitba.

Scotland gets to a major competition.

And then fails to beat the top seeds to get anywhere after the group stages.

I spoke of how it felt like 1978, we had to beat the Dutch by so many goals or in 1996, when we had to beat Switzerland and hope that the Dutch would be beaten by the English by a certain number of goals. Certain. You can never depend on certain with Scotland.

As we finished the Zoom call, we both felt intensely Scottish, him on one side of the pond, me on the other, as over here we had all waited up to see the game against Brazil… even though the Morocco game was a disappointment.

Disappointed. Scottish illness – uncurable. Like being a romantic on your eight wedding day.

 

 

 

 

Duck walking

 

Passports

 

Baseball

 

6.30am bagpipes

 

Once again needing a result against the top seeds11111

 

 

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Posted in: Fan's Blog, Latest News

Tags: FIFA, Scotland, Tartan Army