Scotland World Cup kiltgate: Why SFA ditching national dress is welcome move amid confected outrage

In my mind at least. Because I remembered once standing at the bar of the Brass Monkey pub in Edinburgh’s Drummond Street and spotting a photograph of Scotland players on the turf at Wembley before a match against England in the 1960s. It wasn’t so much the identity of the players that caught the eye, a stellar group though it was. More what they were wearing.

I called in on Wednesday to check. What do you mean it’s been taken down? Apparently this classic photograph was recently transferred to the new branch of the pub that’s opened in Gorgie. Typical. Ach well, I’ll have a half anyway. And the helpful barman confirmed to me that the picture was how I remembered it. Scotland players, including the likes of Billy Bremner, Pat Stanton and John Greig, cutting a dash in slacks. Several sport roll neck jerseys. Eddie McCreadie has a tie on, Greig too. The latter is also wearing a very natty cardigan. Not a shred of tartan between them.

Which brings me to kiltgate. And the fact Scotland have, it seems, decided to ditch Scotland’s national dress in favour of tailored suits when they head to the United States in June. 'Ditch', admittedly, is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

They’ve only ever worn kilts once before a match, against Brazil in the opening match the last time they qualified. They didn’t wear them before the other two games against Norway and Morocco at France ’98. And they didn’t, as far as I am aware, wear them at Italia ’90, Mexico ’86 and Espana ’82. Nor at Argentina ’78 – ‘they embarrassed themselves enough’ – or even in Germany four years earlier.

Sweating, panting and under-prepared

Pictorial evidence is scant but Switzerland and Sweden in 1954 and 1958 were kilt-less. Indeed, the former tournament, which was played in stifling heat, is recalled for a different sartorial detail. The SFA got it in the neck for sending the players out in thick woollen jerseys while their opponents, Austria and Uruguay, wore light, modern tops and enjoyed the benefit with respective 1-0 and 7-0 wins over the sweating, panting, under-prepared Scots.

Fast forward 72 years and the SFA are getting it in the neck again. Have they ever stopped getting it in the neck? Often it’s deserved. But sometimes they are put in the firing line for people's own ends.

Take the widely circulated letter to SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell from Fulton MacGregor, SNP MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, complaining about the decision to forego kilts and sign a deal with Glasgow-based tailor Forbes Bespoke Suits, for example.

“Scotland’s qualification for the World Cup for the first time in 28 years is a landmark moment which shape (sic) how Scotland is seen by the world and how Scots, at home and abroad, feel about their country,” he writes. “The kilt is a strong expression of Scotland’s identity. It speaks to our history and our culture, and it is recognised internationally as a symbol of who we are….”

It goes on and on. One can imagine manager Steve Clarke reading this and shrugging: Aye, but what has any of this to do with winning football matches? While the United States and Canada might indeed be wowed by the sight of Scott McTominay et al wearing Highland dress, can we leave such catering for those dreaming mistily of ancestors to tat shops dotted around Edinburgh’s Royal Mile?

McTominay dons only the finest Italian threads...

Clarke of all people isn’t in the business of gimmicks and while it might have worked on a one-off occasion against Brazil 28 years ago, when the eyes of the world really were on Scotland, it doesn’t necessarily translate to a game v Haiti, as eagerly awaited as it is.

The current players deserve to stand on their own two feet in attire approved by them rather than be cast as a 1998 tribute act.

McTominay has spent the last 17 months cutting around Naples in the finest Italian threads. Who’s going to tell the star man he’s wearing a kilt and scratchy woollen socks prior to the opening World Cup match? Who’s going to tell Clarke that after weeks of reconnaissance work hinged on how best to acclimatise for a tournament that will be played in often searing temperatures, the players will be rocking up for the first match in an outfit made from layers and layers of heavy cloth.

But some Tartan Army fans are unhappy. I received one message from a friend. “Are the Tartan Army going to be wearing suits in the US?” he asked. “The biggest stage of all and we are going to look like executives. Where’s the national pride?”

The national pride will probably come from Scotland not making haddies of themselves on the pitch v Haiti. But in saying that, who knows what might happen? The players themselves might stage an intervention, as they did at France ’98. As now, the SFA back then had signed a deal with a suit supplier for the tournament. However, the players had other ideas. They signed a lucrative side-deal. The first Jim Farry, the chief executive, knew of it was when the players stepped down from the team bus inside the Stade de France ahead of the opening match.

According to then SFA press officer Andy Mitchell, Farry was said to be “incandescent”. Nevertheless, the players duly trotted out at the stadium wearing dark green McEwan tartan kilts – Scottish Courage, the brewing giant, had commissioned the tartan while the kilts and Argyll jackets were designed and made by Leith-based firm Kinloch Anderson.

It was an iconic moment, undoubtedly. But unless the current players agree amongst themselves to surprise us, let’s leave it as a special one-off and drop the confected outrage.