A Scotland superfan who attempted to crown a Miami statue with a traffic cone has said he will “absolutely not” try it again after a police officer reacted angrily. Chris Nicoll, from St Andrews, discovered that not all US police are as tolerant of the Scottish tradition as those in Boston, the Tartan Army’s previous World Cup base.
Video shows police confrontation
A video viewed thousands of times online shows Mr Nicoll climbing a pedestal supporting a statue of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. As he placed an orange traffic cone on the statue’s head, a nearby police car blared its horn and someone shouted “get off of there”. A Scottish voice off-camera remarked, “surely they’ll lighten up”.
During the Tartan Army’s time in Boston, fans crowned many statues and objects with cones, echoing the cone on the Duke of Wellington statue in Glasgow. Boston embraced the tradition, with its mayor even placing a cone on a statue of basketball legend Bill Russell.
Fan explains tradition to officer
Speaking to the Press Association, Mr Nicoll said he explained to the police officer that he did not intend to be “disrespectful” to their American hosts. However, one of the two officers who spoke to him was unimpressed. “The guy who set the sirens off, he was losing it,” Mr Nicoll said. “I’m like – ‘it’s tradition’. He was just swearing at us.”
The 51-year-old added: “My main thing was to try and make him aware of what’s going to come. We’ve got 50,000 Scotland fans coming, your week’s just not going to be fun unless you take it down a notch or two.”
Impulsive trip to Miami
Mr Nicoll and a friend decided at the last minute to travel to the US for the Scotland v Morocco game, paying £900 each for tickets. They then made an equally impulsive decision to head to Miami, where Scotland will play Brazil on Wednesday evening. Mr Nicoll said he decided to try to crown the statue after seeing a cone sitting directly in front of it, joking that it must be a “gift from Miami”.
Asked if he would attempt any more statue decorations, he replied: “Absolutely not. I don’t want to get banned from America, it’s too much fun.” Despite the sweltering heat, Mr Nicoll described the atmosphere in Miami as “brilliant”.
