SCOTLAND’S biggest clubs face a constant struggle to keep the ultras groups which follow them home and away under control and occasionally, when their conduct crosses the line, bans are handed out in an attempt to restore order.

The Big T Bois – a more fearsome rag tag of cut-throat desperadoes you will not have the misfortune to cross paths with in the whole of, er, Tranent – are a little easier to manage than Block 7, The Green Brigade, Northbank Aggro or The Union Bears it would seem.

“They get told off by a village elder, a community volunteer or one of their parents if they misbehave,” said Daniel Gray, the editor of the Nutmeg football quarterly, as he talked Cup Tied, the beautiful photo essay book about the 150th season of the Scottish Cup he has produced along with photographer Alan McCredie, earlier this week. 

“When we were at the Tranent game against East Kilbride their ultras did something they shouldn’t have at one point. An old boy promptly stormed over and had a few words with them. One of them said, ‘We’re really sorry!’”

No “criminalisation of fans” or “police brutality” at Forester Park then.

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Gray and McCredie travelled the length and breadth of country and took in every stage of the second oldest cup competition in association football, from a preliminary round match between Luncarty and Loch Ness at Brownlands Park in August right through to the final between Celtic and Rangers at Hampden in May, during the 2023/24 campaign.  

It proved to be a hugely rewarding nine month odyssey. Their brush with the Big T Bois was just one of many humorous, surprising, uplifting and heartwarming moments they experienced along the way. They are all chronicled in forensic detail in their fabulous new tome.

If the intrepid duo set out in search of the spirit of the Scottish Cup when they attended the initial draw in the Hampden Bowling Club clubhouse – which is situated on the site of the original stadium in Mount Florida where Queen’s Park beat Clydesdale 2-0 in front of 7,000 spectators way back in 1874 - in July they found it.

(Image: Alan McCredie) Cup Tied captures the magic of the competition, underlines just how important it remains to the game in this country in the modern era, illustrates the unalloyed joy it still brings people of all ages and from all walks of life.

“I would like to think the reader is taken with us to match day when they pick it up,” said Gray. “That's a lovely feeling - to know that someone can peel off into a corner of their house and be transported to matches from Camelon to Hampden. You definitely do get a feel for things, no doubt about it. The early round stuff is wonderful.”

McCredie enjoyed those games - Pollok v Benburb at Newlandsfields Park, Camelon Juniors v Civil Service Strollers at Carmuirs Park, University of Stirling v Albion Rovers at Forthbank and Musselburgh Athletic v Clyde at Olivebank - greatly and found there was no shortage of interesting subject matter for him to focus his lens on.

“They were a delight,” he said. “I had complete freedom as a photographer in the lower league grounds. You can wander about as you please, everyone's much more relaxed. When it got to the later rounds and the bigger stadiums you were quite constricted.

“It was much easier to get quirky pictures, to spot the peculiar. At Luncarty, for instance, the train line goes right past the ground. Trains were passing as the game was being played. It’s just a totally different feeling. I loved all of the journey. I liked being inside Hampden for the big occasions. But we both knew early on those would be our favourite games.”

The third round of this season’s Scottish Cup, which got underway last night when Dumbarton did battle with Alloa Athletic at The Rock, may not feature prominently on news bulletins or trouble the back pages of the papers this weekend.

Yet, Gray and McCredie discovered that being involved in the cup still generates enormous excitement and interest among devoted followers of part-time and lower league outfits. 

“It doesn't have that seriousness that you get in the later rounds,” said Gray. “It really matters to people, but they're also happy at five o'clock back in the social club. They might have lost, but they've had a brilliant day, they've been in the cup. It really does still mean something.

“Some people say the cups don't matter anymore, but when you go to these early rounds you can see it matters alright. Just having the branding there, having the word Scottish Cup there, it's really something in all of these places. From a storytelling point of view, you just cannot beat the lower division and the non-league grounds.”

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That was certainly the case when they rocked up at Carmuirs for the first round tie between Camelon Juniors and Civil Service Strollers in September - and found that an ingenious supporter who lived in a house next the ground had built his own personal stand in his back garden.

“Talk about one of the best moments of the whole journey!” said Gray. “We got there at ten to three. Alan was thinking, ‘Where am I going to go to get the best photos?’. I was thinking, ‘Where should I stand to get the best colour?’. Then we looked behind the goal and saw what appeared to be a shed, just a red shed.

“But shortly before kick-off, two men suddenly appeared, pulled up the hatch, cracked open cans of lager, lit their fags and started watching the game. It was one of my highlights.

“We went over to speak to them and they were very much like, ‘Yeah, we built a stand, whatever’. They were very matter-of-fact about it. They'd built it together. It seemed like common sense to them because the garden backed onto the ground.

“They weren’t paying to watch the team they supported. But by all accounts the club were quite happy with the arrangement because they returned the balls quickly.

“They had all these ultra stickers on the front of it which visiting fans from Denmark and Germany had put up. I said to them: ‘Look at these! It must be amazing having people coming from all these places.’ One of them said: ‘Have we?’ He didn’t know. It was their nonchalance I really liked.

(Image: Alan McCredie) “I saw one of their kids bringing them out a pie at one point as well. That is the height of civilisation as far as I’m concerned. That kind of thing is just impossible higher up in the game.”

It has since been dubbed “The Smallest Stand in Scotland” by the tabloids and featured on irreverent BBC Scotland programme A View from the Terrace as well as the popular You Tube show Footy Adventures.

Camelon had their ultras too. But so did every club they visited. Evidence of what is very much a modern day football phenomenon was in plentiful supply.

“The kids at all the games were great,” said Gray. “I vividly remember one of the Civil Service Strollers players putting the ball high over the crossbar at one point in the Camelon match. The young lads started singing, ‘How s*** must you be! You just hit a car!’. 

“These kids are going to the game anyway so they just form themselves into a kind of wee group and call themselves ultras. Whenever their team gets a penalty they bomb around behind the goal and try to put the goalie off. It’s very funny.

“There's controversy at the top of the game about ultras with pyro and what have you. But you're getting young kids into football, getting them hooked to their local club. For me, it's entirely healthy. Hopefully they graduate from there, keep on going to games, stay in the life. It was really refreshing thing to see the enthusiasm of them all.”

Gray and McCredie relished the latter rounds of the Scottish Cup, when full-time professional clubs harbouring aspirations of being crowned champions were involved, just as much.

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“We were at the Hibs v Rangers quarter-final at Easter Road and that was a tasty affair,” said McCredie. “It was one of those real kind of blood and thunder cup ties. Both teams were up for it, there were two sendings off, there was lots going on on and off the pitch.

“The Aberdeen v Celtic semi-final was just a ridiculously good game as well. I support a smaller club and you get people who say it means more to people like me. But it still matters if you follow, say, Rangers. There's that bragging rights thing which never goes away.”

Gray suggested there was a surprising reason for the underlying tension in the stands during the last eight showdown they attended.

“It was Mother's Day,” he said. “I spoke to several people who'd gone from nice warm restaurants to freezing stands. They were saying, ‘What am I doing here? This is no Mother's Day treat! What did you take me here for?’ I'm sure that added to an element of spikiness. 

“There was a period in that game when the Hibs went mad in this Bermuda Triangle in front of the dugouts and got two men sent off. The fans absolutely lost their heads. Maybe they wanted to get back to the restaurant?”

(Image: Alan McCredie) Gray and McCredie, in stark contrast, had to be dragged away. They were bereft after Celtic captain Callum McGregor had lifted the trophy and it was all over for another year. They were left in no doubt about the place the Scottish Cup occupies in the hearts and minds of the football public at the end of their marathon endeavour.

“The cup's been given such a boost in the last 15 to 20 years with how democratic it is in terms of its winners,” said Gray. “Okay, we ended up with the Old Firm final and Celtic winning it last season. But since I moved up here, lots of different teams have been able to win it and I think that has made it matter more,

“Unless we get the Aberdeen miracle this season, it's likely that one of two teams is going to win the league. It happens every year. But the cup's up for grabs by everyone every year and that really leads to an edge in the atmosphere at matches. It's still vastly important.”

All supporters, regardless of their allegiances, will find something which piques their interest in the pages of Cup Tied. The members of the Big T Bois should seriously think about getting their hands on a copy too. They could throw it at the next interfering busybody who tries to give them a ticking off.

Cup Tied: Stories and Scenes From The Scottish Cup In Its 150th Year by Alan McCredie and Daniel Gray is published by Back Page Press and Nutmeg. It is available at all good bookstores or directly from Nutmeg at www.nutmegmagazine.co.uk