Any major city with any kind of achievable route to Germany has been taken over by kilts and cans.

By some estimates up to 250,000 Scots are travelling to cheer on Steve Clarke's side at Euro 2024 and at Praha hlavní nádraží, the main train station in Prague, the dark blue footsoldiers are out in force.

The spectre of history is never very far away. In the main thoroughfare of the station stands a monument depicting hands pressed to the door of a train, large handprints on the outside and smaller ones on the reverse.

It commemorates the children rescued from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and, hauntingly, the parents who were left behind.

Between 1938 and 1939 hundreds of them loaded their children, crying and uncomprehending, onto trains bound for a strange land. Most never saw them again. Close to 120,000 Jews lived in what is now the Czech Republic before the war - by the time the country was liberated by the Red Army there were around 10,000 left.

The German occupation of what was then Czechoslovakia followed the appeasement policy adopted toward Adolf Hitler by the British and French, in a deal struck at today's destination.

(Image: Newsquest)

Known to the Czechs as the Mnichovská zrada (Munich betrayal), it granted the Nazis ownership of what was known as the Sudetenland, home to around three million ethnic Germans, despite warnings it would leave the rest of the country defenceless. British history books will tell you World War II began in 1939, but not if you're a Czech it didn't.

It is to be hoped that this will place firmly into context any minor gripes about train services moving forward.

The train is packed with Tartan Army footsoldiers, one group carrying aboard a 24-can slab of Pilsner Urquell. Start as you mean to go on, lads.

You can tell pretty instantly when you've crossed the border into Germany, as the towns stop being called things like Domažlice and start being named Schafberg and Arnschwang.

Unfortunately it's not long after crossing into Deutschland that things start to go wrong.

The direct service grinds to a halt in Regensburg, and an announcement in German prompts the Teutonic among our number to disembark. The English and Czech speakers are left to sit on the carriage until a kind-hearted translator informs the congregation that the service will, for some unknown reason, no longer be going as far as Prague and in fact stopping at Regensburg.

Several people in kilts dutifully file off to get the next train to Munich, which manages two stops before it too grinds to a halt, this time in an unlovely and seemingly deserted town called Neufahrn.

(Image: Newsquest)

There are whispers of a bus, which never arrives, and the next service to Munich is delayed by a full 45 minutes. When it does arrive it's standing room only and a broken toilet door means at least one carriage smells strongly of urine.

A cursory Google search shows Deutsche Bahn has become notoriously unreliable of late - one has to wonder how it will cope with a month of European football fans.

A late arrival means the Scotland party is already in full swing in Marienplatz - but the main event is still to come.