Four Scotland supporters have received a significant financial boost for their World Cup trip, winning over $10,000 in a raffle at a baseball game in Boston, a welcome relief from the thousands spent on tickets.
The two father-and-son duos bought the winning numbers on Sunday at the Boston Red Sox stadium, which was packed with the Tartan Army.
Their win came just a day after Scotland celebrated their first World Cup match in 28 years with a 1-0 victory over Haiti.
“We checked in the ninth inning. We had to do a double take,” one of the sons, Paul Innes, said after receiving the $10,677 prize.
“The numbers matched. I think we checked three or four times. It’s just surreal. It’s not really sunk in.”
Scotland are due to play Morocco at the Boston Stadium in Foxborough, near Boston, on Friday, where they will be roared on again by thousands of their fans.
Scotland’s fans have made their presence felt in recent days, with Boston’s pubs facing a significant shortage of beer since the arrival of over 20,000 of the Tartan Army.
Noelle Somers, chief operating officer at Hennessy’s Bar in central Boston, highlighted the scale of the phenomenon, stating that trade following the Scotland v Haiti match had tripled that of St Patrick’s Day.
She told the Boston Globe: “We’ve been here for over 30 years and we’ve never seen anything like it.”
The bar ran out of beer on Sunday night before being restocked on Monday morning. Another delivery was due on Thursday, ahead of the Scotland vs Morocco match on Friday evening.
Fans have also brought a Glasgow tradition to Boston, with traffic cones being found on statues in the city.
This playful mischief is most famously associated with Glasgow’s Duke of Wellington statue outside the Gallery of Modern Art. Since the late 1980s, a cone has persistently topped the statue’s head, only to be replaced whenever removed.
The tradition has now been transplanted across the Atlantic. NBC Boston shared footage of a group of Scotland fans attempting to crown Samuel Adams, a US founding father whose statue stands on a tall pedestal.
