Rory Phillips-Hunter Guides 7,000 Scotland World Cup Fans to Providence
About 7,000 Scotland fans are planning to base themselves in Providence for scotland world cup matches, with Boston-area hotels priced too high for many of them. The move gives the Tartan Army a cheaper place to stay and a shorter route to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
Rory Phillips-Hunter said the trip was non-negotiable after Scotland qualified. "We're going. I don't care what it takes. We're getting across to America," he said after Scotland beat Denmark in November and reached the biggest event in sports for the first time since 1998.
Phillips-Hunter's Providence pivot
Phillips-Hunter, a Scottish national team fan and organizer born in Hawick, shifted his own plan from Boston to Providence when hotel prices climbed. An eight-day stay in the US for two people would cost $8,000 total, he said, a figure that pushed the group toward cheaper lodging and shared transport instead of a Boston base.
He works as an estate and maintenance manager at a farm in North West England and earns about £33,000 ($44,000) a year. That gap between income and travel cost has shaped the way supporters are organizing the trip, with Providence becoming the practical option for fans who still want to follow Scotland across the Atlantic.
Tartan Army fills Providence
The Tartan Army's Providence presence has grown quickly. The Providence Tartan Army's WhatsApp group expanded from 400 members in January to more than 1,000, and its Facebook group now has over 13,000 followers.
Providence's Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism and local organizers expect between 6,000 and 7,000 members of the Tartan Army to be in the city for the World Cup. Providence is about a 40-minute drive from Gillette Stadium, the site of Scotland's matches, which makes the city a workable base for fans trying to avoid Boston's higher prices.
Gillette Stadium bus plans
Organizers are already moving people in bulk. This weekend, they plan to use 21 buses to transport 1,100 supporters to and from the Scotland v. Haiti game at Gillette Stadium, and on June 19 they plan to use 20 buses for 1,050 supporters going to the Scotland v. Morocco game.
The bus plans show how tightly organized the fan movement has become around the stadium schedule and the hotel market. Earlier this year, organizers said affordable transport to the game did not exist, but the Providence setup now gives supporters a cheaper base and a direct way to get to Foxborough for the matches.
Phillips-Hunter's line about crossing to America now reads less like a boast than a travel plan. For thousands of Scotland supporters, Providence is where the World Cup trip becomes affordable enough to happen.
