EASTA receive a trophy on behalf of the Tartan Army

The new museum at the Hampden Park national stadium may soon be receiving a new trophy.

However, at one stage the recipients of the award thought they were destined to be stranded in a strange land , never mind picking up silverware.

The "temperance" guys who made up the East of Scotland Tartan Army, and have supported the Scottish International football team all over Europe, dispatched a 200-strong battalion to the double header at San Marino and Croatia earlier this month.

Things were going well, until they were left stranded in San Marino after bus drivers taking them back to their base in Venice decided to leave without them.

Organiser Tam Ferry takes up the story.

"We were based at Lido di Jesolo in Venice for the two games and left for the San Marino game on the Saturday morning. Our buses had been booked for months with a local company and everything seemed to be in order, although we were disappointed with the general condition of the buses.

However, Scotland fans that we are, we just got on with it and were glad to get to the match. After the game and the victory we thought it unusual that the buses weren't there, but thought they had just been delayed.

We even waved the other supporters' buses away, and also the official team coach, then it became apparent we were stranded. Everything we had was on the buses - money, passports, travellers cheques, medicines and such like".

Tam, who is fiercely proud of his club's good behaviour record, contacted the local police and found the San Marino's finest to be first-class.

They were really great, especially an officer called Freddy, who had an American accent" he continues.

"He immediately got hold of a 53-seater bus and we were able to get the woman, children and disabled fans on board first. For the rest of us, typically, it was into the nearest pub before the local chief of police opened the local sports centre to keep us all together. Despite our protestations" he even opened the bar !"

"There was only one 14-seater minibus available and it had to ferry 120 of us to Rimini to catch the 3.30am train to Venice.

"In the time it took to do this, we had drunk the bar dry and moved on to the Champagne. However, by 9.30am, most people had made it back to our base hotel."

So wher does the trophy come in ?

"The original bus company said as their reason for leaving us stranded, that we were not behaving.

"That is complete nonsense as we self-police ourselves, and we have never been involved in any unsavourly incidents. The local police confirmed they did not have any complaints made to them.

"For the Croatia game, the hotel set us up with luxury 75-seater coaches - and they surely wouldn't have done that is they thought we would be a problem. We even had a good natured police escort from the Slovenian border to our Zagreb hotel, then to and from the game.

When we got back to Lido di Jesolo hotel - after that great result - we were given a wonderful silver trophy, the emblem of Jesolo, as a token of thanks from our hosts.

They were so delighted by our banter and behaviour that they also put on a free buffet in addition to magnums of Champagne.

I don't suppose it had anything to do with profits. The hotel's average beer consumption was one keg per night. We were going through eight!

We are going to offer the trophy to the SFA as we are very proud of our good behaviour record." concluded Tam.

Thanks to the Evening Telegrapgh Newspaper for some of the information on this page.

More details at Tam Ferry the Sun Interview

(Tha sinn duilich nach eil an duilleag seo ri leughadh ach sa Bheurla.)