Tap Shop Tartan Army - Stevies Diary Ahrnem

The Captain Is Bonnie Tyler
The Story of Paris

Only 27 footsoldiers were willing to cross The Channel by bus. They probably should have told more people they were going to put the bus in a ferry first! It meant about 2 seats each which left plenty of space for the carry outs. It was all aboard the Vogtswagon. They were just 3 tickets short.
After about 20 minutes, Action Man put left hand to mouth, slowly opened fingers and sprayed. Yes a £150,000 brand new bus and the little munchkin christens the bus so quickly with diced carrots. Dennis the Menace applied the obligatory “slap”! Big Stuff then turned a bin bag inside out to spill rubbish all over the floor for good measure.
They had a few new travellers who had to get their name badges. Denzil got his name because he has curly hair akin to Denzil Washington, and Richard Branson because he says he is always in a pickle. Fraser, the Tap Shop’s Karaoke compere made his first tour hence his name the Singin’ Defective.
Young 15 year old Stuart made his debut to the tune of Buddy Drunk.
Paul Thackery is known as Fried Egg for the fuss he created at the Invercarse Hotel in the morning following the East of Scotland Tartan Army dance. Credit Card got a fried egg with his breakfast but greetin’ face ended up with just scrambled and moaned about it for months. John and Martin are joined at the hip telepathically and are therefore Randall and Hopkirk.
Tap Shop Manager Malky got himself a new name. Malky was due to go to Tenerife but swapped his golf clubs and the sun for the TSTA tour at the last minute. He got off at Haymarket before Waverley so to speak hence his new name Haymarket. Bet Lynch’s name was never cleared up but let’s do that now its thanks to her enormous saltire ear-rings and Laura was un-named but will now be known as Wednesday (see later).
In London, obviously when it was dark, they picked up one of their footsoldiers currently based in Englandshire. Welcome onboard The Fugitive.
They were first in the queue as usual for the bar on the ferry. As they sat supping, Gnasher said his old man told him he was sober on the journey down. Mary Doll showed Denis the digital photo of him on the bus out of his tree in an indecent sleeping position with Action Man and he stood corrected. Well he tried to stand. Action Man said he had nae trouble at the time of the photie!
The announcer on the ferry said the bar was now open (a full 20 minutes after the TSTA had unofficially opened it by using The Chieftain’s negotiating skills of “Get the bar open big man unless ye want hooked!”)
Can you believe the TSTA played bingo on the bus? They did and you could hear a pin drop. Bizarre, only Bet Lynch slept through it.
The Captain handed out the match tickets and now is the time to tell you why Laura is called Wednesday for evermore. On getting her match ticket she said “Oh look they’ve even got your name on it but they’ve not spelt it right, they daft frogs”. The Smuggler asked what she was on about when Bet Lynch’s satellite ear-rings worked out the script. She had to point out to Mrs Laura “McCreadie” that Mecredi was French for Wednesday. She won’t be allowed to forget this one for a while.
They finally made it to the Relais de Paris hotel at lunchtime. It didn’t take the troops long to stake out a hostelry, 100 yards round the corner. The boozer was called George et Chantals and that wee boozer made itself a bomb. George was an ex-actor and had loads of memorabilia on the wall. The TSTA, on the other hand, had Big Stuff who tried in vain to chat up some French lassie with “The cat sat on the wall”. The only French he knows apparently is kissing, mustard and toast (you might need to read this bit again…got it now?). Big Stuff was therefore given help. He asked how to say something a bit rude and was told to say the word “amour” and got it a bit wrong.
Randall and Hopkirk were moaning with Dress Sense that they didn’t have any feathers for their Glengarries. The 3 of them plucked up courage (bad pun I know) and went across the street to see if they could persuade an assistant in the butcher’s shop to help them out. All three returned with wide grins and three of the best feathers ever seen. The butcher thought they were mental (we knew they were) and the only feathers he had were in a display bird in the window, something that Randall said he had seen a few times himself in Amsterdam that he wouldn’t mind plucking either.
The Smuggler and Hamlet couldn’t see green cheese, or in fact little else the state they were in, but they too came back with a set of fine feathers. Talking about not being able to see things, Fried Egg and the Fugitive on getting off the bus had a few beers and went back to the hotel for a lie down at about 7 o’clock. Both woke up at 2 a.m. Soup drinkers! The Chieftain on hearing this wisely pronounced them “Bawbags”.
Love St Gazza our St Mirren fan, realised his badge had 2 meanings when the barmaid asked who is Saint Gazza and why do you love him?
The Singin’ Defective got the sing song going and the TSTA met up with Diddley Dee from EASTA who was staying at their hotel. There was also a group from the Airdrie TA, plus WEBTA and they arranged to give them a lift to the match in their bus the next day. One of the Airdrie lads was missing and as he was only 16 they were panicking but luckily the lad had the sense to phone someone to say he was lost and between them they got him home eventually with the promise of a bottle of Buckfast Tonic Wine.
Litchfield, Dress Sense, Denzil, Richard Branson and Love St Gazza headed for the pub called The Auld Alliance. They were back within the hour. On buying some Chinese beer for the train called Doe the youngsters were singing “Doh a deer we don’t like this beer”. Denzil had his flag stolen by some American bird and following his loss he also managed to forget what room he stayed in and chapped up at least 6 sleepers who promised him a good skelpin’ in the morning.
The Captain and a few other late night bevvy merchants headed for The Stingray pub. This was quite apt really as The Captain’s body movements at this time would give even the best of puppets a run for their money (but it was a close call as to who has the most real wooden head!)
There was a spot of bother just before the TSTA got there with Moroccans and Police going hammer and tongs. The Police were winning but even so, The Captain was going over to “slap” the troublemakers. The Vice Captain, Haymarket and The Singing Defective slapped The Captain instead and told him to calm down. They were struggling to restrain him but the promise of a wee schwally of the Vice Captain’s carry out back at the hotel got him sorted out.
Rocky, sorry; The Captain, was last to the pub following breakfast. Big Stuff had been there at 6 a.m. but did have the decency to come back for his breakfast when Chantal had to change the vodka bottle.
At this point Haymarket got to hear more about last night’s trouble. As it turned out, one of the lads from another group in their hotel was in hospital after being stabbed. The Vice Captain on hearing this told Haymarket that this meant that there must be at least one ticket spare.
Within 2 seconds of human compassion, Haymarket was there to buy the lad’s ticket from his mate and got one more too. He said surely “He would have liked it that way!” Another ticket was secured in a more traditional manner. At this point best wishes to Burky the lad who was hurt. We are told he made a full recovery and that he missed his flight over to Paris in the first place then had to pay £400 to get there! Lucky white heather.
The beer and Pastis 51 flowed and it was time to set up the TSTA flag outside for a few photos about 50 yards from the pub. As they were taking the photos, George jumped out from behind the bar to get in the photo (he was clearly a media tart). Chantal (aka Colin Hendry) then left the bar completely empty as she ran over the road to the chemist and appeared seconds later with a disposable camera of her own.
Randall and Hopkirk were a little worse for wear especially following their pillow fight the previous night. Randall complained that he couldn’t hit Hopkirk because he couldn’t see him! Even when he made himself visible white suit against white sheets made it no contest.
Most of the TSTA headed for The Eiffel Tower after buying a carry out for the Metro. A group of 10 schoolkids were on the Metro giving a wee bit cheek to them all about wearing kilts. The Janny stepped in. He declared “Ah’m no a Facilities Management Team Leader for nothing, ah know how tae deal with kids. The Vice Captain said “Aye but you usually only get a fiver for a spliff at playtime”. After punching The Vice Captain on the throat, The Janny proclaimed “Watch, listen and learn.” The Janny looked softly into the wee ringleader’s eyes, raised a finger and said “Haw you, ya froggy wee twat, fuck-off you little bastard!” Simple, effective, and straight out of the book of good parenting.
On getting out of Trocadero station, Randall said after 20 seconds of walking, “So where is that big fuck-off tower then?” The tower was in full view in all its glory one second later. Hopkirk was now worried that his mate was indeed blind and that he himself wasn’t a ghost after all.
I don’t know what those two had been drinking but they also claimed they saw a puppet show on the Metro last night. They said a full Punch and Judy show came on the train. We reckoned the two of them were Sooty and Sweep…legless!
Lock-up John declared his nads were Baltic, which was his more than graphic attempt at being the TSTA’s “Heather with the weather”. Incidentally, Lock-up was sharing a cell, oops room, with The Singin’ Defective who said just before sleep-time the previous night to Lock-up, “So who’s the Daddy now?”
Although it was cold it was a sparkling sunny day. They replenished the carry out supplies and Buddy Drunk joined in the pre-match – Let’s kick a football as hard as you can and see if you can hit someone in the Eiffel Gardens game.
A lad lying on the grass bank tried to kick the ball but only succeeded in wrapping his kilt around his neck and putting his tackle on full display. Mary Doll, Bet Lynch and Wednesday declared in unison “ It isn’t half cold”.
The stragglers left in George et Chantals did a pub crawl. Captain, Fried Egg, The Fugitive, The Chieftain, Haymarket and The Singing Defective drank merrily away. That was until Fried Egg bought the round where the chaps fancied a sit outside and got stung for a bill of 48 Euros (double what The Fugitive paid). Serves him right for being in his kip at 8 the night before.
Eventually, they decided to go to see the Eiffel Tower too but 2 stops from it The Captain left the Metro clutching his groin and skipped up the platform shouting” I’ll get you there, I need the loo”.
Following the cultural trip to the tower all the TSTA were back in George et Chantals for a pre-match schwally 2 hours before the bus left for the game, except The Captain. The place was rockin’. The bus arrived but The Captain didn’t and there was some concern shown, as he had Vice Captain’s twelve-pack in his room for refreshment on the bus.
The money the TSTA collected on the bus went straight to both their drivers for their tip. They were really grateful and said they were going to blow it after the game. Gnasher pointed out there were two braw blondes standing on the street corner outside the hotel that would help them blow it. Well they offered to blow him last night and he said he didn’t want to fight!
One of the West End Bar boys had a grotty mask on of an ugly old man. Fried Egg didnae need a mask.
Big Stuff on getting off the bus said “Yoho there’s the stadium there look Stade de France”. The Chieftain simply hooked him and told him “It is the railway station ya diddy”. Big Stuff and The Singing Defective carried one of the 2 cases of Bud to the ground, which was about a quarter of a mile away but due to their staggering it was a full mile for them.
The Stade de France is a bit better than say Boghead. Hey, but that’s on the telly. Getting in is an absolute joke there was no organisation at all. Well they were organised enough to take Hamlet’s bottle opener from him.
Inside, it was a different matter even The Singing Defective liked it.
They all thought The Captain would be waiting for them in his seat in Row 14. Wrong. They were now getting a bit worried about him. Gnasher bought a beer but as he paid for it Credit Card pointed out his schoolboy error and told him the “NA” stood for non-alcoholic. Gnasher said “I’m no drinking it I’ll give it away”. He looked for someone daft enough to make the same mistake. He didn’t have to look far. Big Stuff fired it down his thrapple declaring it as a grand beer much to delight of everyone else who was in the know.
Everything started brightly with Barthez miskicking and nearly giving Scotland an early goal. Denzil declared “Barthez ya diddy, yer a pwick!” In the end France romped it. I mean look at the scorers, Trezeguet twice, Zidane and Henry and it wasn’t even half-time. The Scots sang to the French “You only sing when you’re winning and 5-4 we’re gonna win 5-4” and they were enjoying the banter. Zidane got substituted and they brought on Djorkaeff. Scotland brought on Gary Holt and took him off again.
Credit Card lost his TSTA flag at half time and Berti Vogts must have lost his rag.
On goal number 5 the Tartan Army sang “Au revoir, au revoir” as the prawn sandwich brigade frogs headed for the exits. The other frogs stayed behind to cheer the Tartan Army for being off their rockers.
Back to the hotel and back to George et Chantals who promised to keep the pub open for them all. Aye right. They were on the first plane to The Bahamas following the amount of Euros the TSTA jammed in their till earlier.
EASTA’s Chewy cadged a lift back with them and gave them more information on the bother the previous night. He was there and got his wallet nicked. A lassie got her camera pinched in the ensuing battle too but Chewy was confident that the police got the main culprits.
On getting back to the hotel at midnight most footsoldiers were done in. But not all were. Haymarket, Credit Card, Mary Doll, Hopkirk and The Singing Defective headed for The Stingray. They only did this once they were told that The Captain was safe in his bed. What a diddy. He said he got lost in the Metro, so he didn’t make the game. Ladbrokes won’t give you even money that he went to The Pigalle for a spot of “aerobics”.
Once there, they met up with a group from Lyons who were singing at a Celtic music festival. So the TSTA sang a song and they sang a song. The place was jumping. Dress Sense arrived with The Janny and Big Stuff and a good night was had by one and all. In particular one of the French ladies foolishly asked Haymarket “What do zyou wear under zyour kilt?” Haymarket refused to show her by lifting his kilt but he cleverly lifted her hand instead and showed her by moving it under his kilt. The tears flowed with laughter all around.
Hopkirk was asked to join the French in the “pinkie dance” which was their hilarious attempt at trying to get anything near the Auld Lang Syne the TSTA sang.
In the morning the TSTA were off back on the bus nearly on time and the journey home was rotten due to Bank Holiday traffic. On arrival at the Calais Hypermarket Big Stuff was trolleyed, quite literally as he was put in a trolley and pushed around by The Chieftain.
Haymarket slept with Wednesday’s teddy on the bus in a sleeping bag. Litchfield’s T-shirt was like a test card with all the stains he managed to spill on it. At the service station, The Chieftain had his photo taken next to a horse’s arse and it is a real hard spot the difference opportunity.
Well that’s it for another trip. Only the Captain could get lost in France. Remember Arnhem?