The young Scot, let’s call him Scott, must have felt damn comfortable in Bavaria. It was Saturday night, the opening match of the European Championship between Germany and Scotland had already taken place more than 24 hours ago, but Scott just didn’t want to go home. His flight back to the island was leaving in an hour, Scott told us, heavily drunk at the bar. But instead of taking the train to the airport as quickly as possible, he continued to whirl around the dance floor.
“No Scotland no party” – Scott seemed to take this chant very seriously. But he was not the only one: next to him, an older guy in a Scotland jersey fell to the ground like a tree trunk after being thrown at the Highland Games“Tens of thousands of Scots drank Munich dry,” reported the Sport-Information-Dienst the next day, which was exaggerated but fit the picture well.
Apart from the headache, Scott and his compatriots had a good time in Bavaria. This could also be because they felt at home. Bavarians and Scots are astonishingly similar, almost as if they had been separated at birth: white sausage and haggis, leather trousers and kilts, whiskey and beer, Macbeth and Markus Söder. Both countries have white and blue in their flags, feel bullied by London and Berlin respectively, and have a dialect that is difficult for foreigners to decipher.
Anyone who wants to speak to a Scotsman in school English suddenly knows what it’s like for a Hanoverian in Lower Bavaria: Sorry, what did you say? But even without words, there is an instinctive basic sympathy for these peculiar but warm mountain peoples with a tendency towards separatism.
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It is no coincidence that the Scottish national team has set up its European Championship headquarters in the Bavarian postcard idyll of Garmisch-Partenkirchen: where else in Germany do you feel so close to the rugged Highlands as at the foot of the Alps?
In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the joy of the British guests is huge. When the national team arrived last week, there was a reception with Schuhplattler dancing, brass music and bagpipes. “This team was my personal dream team,” said Mayor Elisabeth Koch (CSU). Only one thing could bring an abrupt end to the brotherly coexistence: After the 5:1 defeat against Germany, Scotland is in danger of an early exit from the European Championships.