A Scotland superfan who tried to crown a Miami statue with a traffic cone will “absolutely not” attempt to do so again after a police officer took a dim view of the act.
Chris Nicoll, from St Andrews, found out that not all police are as tolerant of the Scottish tradition as those in the Tartan Army’s previous World Cup base in Boston.
A video which has been viewed thousands of times online shows Mr Nicoll scaling a pedestal which supports a statue of the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León.
As soon as he places an orange traffic cone on the head of the statue, a nearby police car blares its horn and somebody shouts “get off of there” before he climbs down.
A Scottish voice off camera then says “surely they’ll lighten up”.
During the Tartan Army’s time in Boston, the Tartan Army crowned many statues and other objects with traffic cones, echoing the one which famously sits on the Duke of Wellington statue in Glasgow.
The Massachusetts capital took to the tradition with good humour, with even the mayor of Boston placing a cone on the head of a statue depicting basketball legend Bill Russell.
Speaking to the Press Association, Mr Nicoll said he explained to the police officer that he did not intend to be “disrespectful” to the Tartan Army’s American hosts.
One of the two officers who spoke to him was unimpressed, with Mr Nicoll reflecting that “we’re not in Boston anymore”.
He said: “The guy who set the sirens off, he was losing it.
“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.”
Mr Nicoll and one of his friends decided to travel to the US at the last minute for the Scotland v Morocco game, paying £900 each for tickets to the match.
I don't want to get banned from America, it's too much fun
They 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 be trying to decorate any more statues with cones, he said: “Absolutely not.
“I don’t want to get banned from America, it’s too much fun.”
The atmosphere in Miami has been “brilliant” despite the sweltering heat, Mr Nicoll said.