Andy Goram’s kilt is finally going to a World Cup...

The kilt, with the indisputable provenance of Andy Goram's name tag!

Andy Goram was the first footballer Stephen Reside met when he was five years old, when Goram was still at Rangers.  As a child with cerebral palsy, sitting in a wheelchair, it was a big thrill for Stephen.  It was an even bigger thrill when Andy moved to Stephen’s team, Motherwell, and kept opposition forwards at bay for several seasons at Fir Park. What a keeper he was!

Now, another Andy, Andy Smith, the chair of the Scottish Football Union, the biggest fan’s organisation in Scotland and one Stephen is proud to represent as our Lead for Disability, has connected the now 33-year-old Motherwell fan with Andy Goram again.

Andy Smith, back in the day, ran a very big marketing agency in Edinburgh. In 1998, with Scotland having qualified for the World Cup, he got a call from Hampden.  Could he organise kilts for the entire squad before they travelled to France?  Despite a tight deadline, he managed it, and the kilts were duly dispatched, each with the player’s name sown into the waist.

The only problem, as you may recall, was that Andy Goram sensationally asked international manager Craig Brown to release him from the squad, effectively walking out from their US training camp a mere fortnight before the World Cup.

As a result, Andy Goram’s kilt has been resting in Andy Smith’s attic for the last 28 years.  And now, it’s at the centre of one of the most heart-warming stories that you will read about the 2026 World Cup. Stephen is going to take it to the World Cup, where he has tickets for the Haiti and Brazil games.  As he says, ‘it’s going to be pretty hot there, so a kilt is not ideal, especially in a wheelchair, but I’m delighted to be able to do this and keep alive the memory of one of Scotland’s greatest goalkeepers.’ While there, Stephen will be keeping a wee diary of the kilt’s progress and sharing it with everyone back in Scotland.

Stephen, with Andy Goram's kilt

Even more importantly, in Stephen’s eyes, Andy Smith has agreed to allow the kilt to be auctioned after the World Cup.  The Scottish Football Union, amongst its other excellent work on behalf of fans across the country, is committed to helping disabled fans and disabled footballers to access the games and the sport they love.  Ashley Reid, the CEO of Scottish Para-Football, is an Ambassador for the SFU and she was delighted to discover that all the money raised by auctioning Andy Goram’s kilt will be donated to the Scotland National Cerebral Palsy team, who, like all of Scotland’s four Para-Football teams, often struggle to get the funds they need to represent the nation on the international stage.

For Stephen, the connection is both poignant and personal.  His first meeting with a famous footballer was with Andy Goram.  As someone with cerebral palsy, he knows exactly what the lived experience of the national cerebral palsy team is like.  And, given his passion for helping other disabled fans and para-footballers, this is a mission as much as anything that he is determined to create as much publicity around the kilt’s journey to a World Cup (albeit one that is 28 years’ late!), in order to raise as much money as possible to benefit another of our great national teams, the Scotland National Cerebral Palsy team.