SKOPJE was not the most welcoming of places yesterday, certainly not for the legions of Scots. Despite representations made by the SFA to the local authorities on the morning of the game, considerable chunks of the Tartan Army, those who had travelled without tickets but who had purchased them in the city, were not allowed inside.
It was estimated that up to 1,000 Scottish supporters were locked out. Police sources say they had purchased tickets for the Macedonian areas of the stadium and it was feared that their safety would be compromised had they made their way into those
sections. You could perhaps see their point for there were angry scenes at one end of the ground when Macedonian fans were forced to remove a flag celebrating a war criminal by the name of Johan Tarculovski, who only recently was sentenced in the Hague to 12 years in prison for terrible crimes against Albanians. There appeared to be scuffles between the supporters and the police as the banner was removed.
Derek Kirkwood, the SFA security advisor, said official travel club members had been allowed entry with no problems. But he added: "There's probably about another thousand who have come over to Macedonia in the hope of maybe getting tickets for the match and they've been buying them off people in the street. Unfortunately, they're for the Macedonian section of the stadium and the police commander in charge of the event is not allowing these people in.
"We've done absolutely everything we can in our power to say to them (the police], 'Look, these guys are known as the greatest fans in the world, won't you please just let them in. I know they shouldn't be buying tickets in the street but there's room in this stadium. We can assure you they'll go in there and not cause any bother'. But the police chief has just said, 'Absolutely not'."
For the Tartan Army, or at least those who missed the game, it was a bitter pill, for they had only last week pledged £12,000 to various children's charities in Skopje. They will feel, with some justification, that they got scant reward for their generosity.
