There was a tweet from (the excellent) Mark Palmer that slightly confused me, wondering whether a piper at the Italy v Uruguay match in Nice was either a local who had taken Scotland to their hearts or “someone has got here very early”.
Apart from being a reminder of how different the experience is for the traditional media at these events who shuttle between hotels, it also was very unreflective of my experience of travelling around France between Scotland’s first game in Marseille and, two weeks later, their second game in Nice.
I have been to previous RWC games at Murrayfield and Newcastle, but this is my first full-on World Cup abroad.
Travelling through southern France, from Marseille towards Bordeaux for Samoa v Chile and then back to Nice, there have been Scotland fans (and fans of many other nations) visible almost everywhere – Scotland fans to commiserate with the day after in a park in Nimes, hoards of Aussies getting off a coach in Avignon, and pretty much every rugby shirt you can imagine wandering around Carcassonne is just the tip of the iceberg.
In Antibes the day before the Scotland game, it wasn’t so noticeably full of rugby fans, but we did spot WP Nel trying to shepherd his kids away from a shop instead.
A couple of key discoveries for me on my travels – I feel bad for anyone not getting to experience a Chile game in person this World Cup: their fans are relentlessly noisy and colourful and create the best atmosphere.
Toulouse is an amazing, rugby-obsessed city but sadly I wasn’t at a game there, so that’s now high on my wish list for the future. I just need Edinburgh to get back into the Heineken Cup…
But back to that Italy v Uruguay game in Nice – there were thousands of Scots (and Welsh and English and more than a few Irish too, presumably not just those who hadn’t left France yet, but also those taking advantage of slightly cheaper flights or trains and getting a few extra days holiday with it. As a fan here, you can’t help but notice that although everyone is here for their team, many are also here for rugby, and the complaints you might see about one-sided games are probably not coming from those who are in the crowd, enjoying watching nations who don’t get to play the ‘bigger’ nations more often.
Uruguay, for example, do not get huge numbers of opportunities, but their first-half performance showed what an impact they could have if they were permitted more experience. As if to prove how many Scots were about, on the tram home, bemused locals were treated to a continuous Scotland-flavoured sing-song, all the way to town.
Nice isn’t the biggest rugby town (unlike those more to the west) but there was no shortage of places to watch other matches and rugby fans stood out amongst the other tourists. As we got closer to the match, the number of Scotland fans in Nice grew and grew and it started to feel like a proper takeover.
Despite losing a lot of hope after the brutal and barnstorming South Africa v Ireland game the night before, spirits seemed pretty high in the sunshine. Our group decided to get off the tram to the stadium a couple of stops early and walk to the Stade Nicois ground where the party had definitely started and we joined a massed group marching from there up to the stadium. The piper had gone AWOL, but car horns and cheers from the cars and motorbikes going past made sure it was a fantastically noisy walk.
In the stadium itself, Scots were clearly the most numerous, with smatterings of enthusiastic Tongan support.
The atmosphere seemed to waver between excitement when Scotland built towards a score and tension as Tonga came back into the match or a chance slipped away. The decision to not upgrade the first bunker yellow to a red was met with angry bemusement as you’d expect.
But as Scotland took control of the match, the tension went out of the air, even if there was a sense of frustration in the last ten minutes not to push the score past 50 points.
But job done: happy Scotland fans, and once we finally got on a bus home, there was a final sing-song of Flower of Scotland as we drove away.
