The Tartan Army Children’s Charity are again delighted to announce the continued partnership with Includem to bring a family Christmas some of Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities this Christmas.

The £10,000 donated by the TACC will be spent on improving Christmas for the vulnerable young people and families throughout Scotland who use Includem’s services.  Includem provides 24/7 one-to-one support to some of Scotland's most vulnerable, high risk and challenging young people.

Most of us take for granted that we can spend some time with our families and enjoy the festive period our donation will ensure that families get a Christmas dinner, or an outing to the Christmas lights. A donation like this helps Includem to go the extra mile, giving young people a Christmas that they will never forget.

In 2013, the £10,000 donation funded Christmas experiences from Christmas dinners to outings and gifts - and much more. For some individuals and families, this was the first experience of its kind. There was even some funds left over to have a family fun day back in August this year which everyone enjoyed and meant that some fun could be had during the year as well and shows us that Includem continue to put the full donation to very good use.

At our Christmas party this year at Hampden Park on the 29^th November Scotland manager, Gordon Strachan, kindly agreed to present the cheque to David Ferrier the Includem Partneship Development Manager. David was thrilled to accept the donation and to continue the partnership with TACC which has helped so many children since our first donation in 2012.

Hosted by Sheelagh McLaren from STV and entertainment provided once again by the mighty Torridon it was a fantastic evening and we raised in the region of £2000 towards the Christmas appeal, which is fantastic. We still need your help however to ensure that TACC can continue to help worthy organizations like Includem and bring some joy to children over this Christmas period.

We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.

You can support the appeal by visiting TACC's online shop and buying Christmas cards or by making a donation on to TACC......

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David Dickson, TACC Ambassador and author of “We’ll Always Have Paris – The Fans Stories” came up with an epic idea to raise money for TACC. After a lot of miles and even more leg work David finally reached his goal (pun intended), here’s his story in his own words:

“”The idea of having every player (plus the manager, I’m too superstitious to have 13 signatures on it)who played in our win over France in 2007 sign a shirt to be sold for the Tartan Army Children’s Charity first came to me whilst I was compiling the stories for “We’ll Always Have Paris”and so after picking up one of the shirts from eBay I decided to start formulating a plan for how it could be done.

The first signatures I obtained were that of Stephen McManus and James McFadden. I waited outside Tynecastle to catch them as they went in to play Hearts in January. This started the collecting off at an excellent 15mps (miles per signature).

Then I began pestering club representatives from the teams down South which had some of the players on their books. David Lloyd, the fan liaison officer from Bristol City, was the first to get back to me and so the shirt was packaged up and sent to him for Stephen Pearson to sign it (264mps). This was quickly followed up with a reply from Tony Collier, the finance co-ordinator at Fleetwood town, who took it upon himself to have Graham Alexander sign the shirt for me. This brought my average up to 297mps.

It was then Anne-Marie Bannon of the Scotland Supporter’s Club turn to help me out. I met her in Warsaw before Scotland’s friendly victory in March to hand over the shirts to be signed by the three members of the squad who played in the Parc Des Princes: Alan Hutton, Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher. This jumped my miles per signature up to 342.

I followed this up almost immediately with a trip to Almondvale to catch Paul Hartley as he led his Dundee side into the stadium. My son must have been wondering how many other football stadia in Scotland I would be taking him a tour of seeing he had also kept me company outside Tynecastle. The short trip for this signature brought me back down to 306mps.

At this point I had eight of the 14 signatures I was looking for and, it could be said, I start dicing with the possibility of restraining orders against me. I managed to get in touch with Craig Gordon’s parents whilst compiling “We’ll Always Have Paris”and luckily for me they were willing to help me out again by getting Craig to sign the shirt for me (277mps) and Garry O’Connor’s mum is a former work of my wife and was more than happy to have him sign (249mps).

After managing to get in touch with David Weir through a business partner of his, the shirts were posted off to Brentford where he currently coaching. After a good run of short journeys to amass signatures this bumped me up to 302mps.

Then came an abortive trip to Easter Road to try and obtain the signature of Lee McCulloch. After hanging about outside the entrance to the stadium for about half an hour (my son was spared this trip), the team bus arrived and duly parked in a secured parking area to which the fans couldn’t gain access. This meant I had to resort to plan B, my wife’s cousin is friends with a Rangers player and I passed the shirt onto him to have McCulloch sign them at the Rangers training complex. Including the trip to Easter Road this dragged my average back to 288mps.

Once again, the contacts developed during the compiling of “We’ll Always Have Paris”came to my aid when it came to contacting Alex McLeish who was kind enough to write the foreword for us. The shirts were sent off for him to sign and with penultimate signature now collected the miles per signature stood at 316.

The good news was I only had one signature left to collect, that of the man who captained us to that famous victory, Barry Ferguson. The bad news however was that the off season was fast approaching and he was wrapped up in a relegation battle as player/manager at Blackpool. The season was over by the time they club replied to my request and they were unsure whether he would be returning so sending them the shirts wasn’t really an option. However I was happy then see he took up the position of player/manager at Clyde so another afternoon of waiting outside a stadium was an option (“Booooooo!”said my son).

But I got lucky when Gary Ballantyne, the Commercial Director at Clyde, took my phone call and offered to have me through to meet Barry before their home match against Berwick Rangers and then sit and enjoy the match in the directors area (with Dougie Donnelly as well). Not only did I get the final signature on the shirts but I also got to enjoy a barnstormer of a match which finished as a 3-3 draw.

And the final miles per signature? 301mps, but worth every one!””

A huge well done to David from TACC in achieving this. We’re sure you’ll agree it’s not an easy task and we think this is just fantastic. It’s through our supporters and folks like David doing extraordinary things that enables us to carry on helping disadvantaged children.

So after the top's epic journey to get all the signatures, what next? Stay tuned for incoming news regarding the auction for the shirt and how you could get your hands on it.

David's book, with proceeds going towards TACC, is still available from the TACC Shop, it's brilliant and would make a great Christmas present. "We'll Always Have Paris"

We would like to issue a statement to our supporters regarding our participation and partnership with The Kiltwalk charity. This is just to clarify to you, our supporters, what has happened and what exactly our position moving forward. 

As a charity strictly run by volunteers we reviewed the requirements that we would to have meet for us to remain a charity partner of The Kiltwalk, after a lot of thought we decided that it would be impossible for us to meet these requirements while maintaining our voluntary status. The TACC trustees felt that the time, resource demands, the reduced financial return and The Kiltwalks subjective awarding of grants meant that TACC should focus on other ways of raising funds. Therefore TACC have decided to no longer maintain a partnership with The Kiltwalk.

In 2014 TACC had applied to be a partner for both the Glasgow Kiltwalk (which is the “traditional” and original TACC walk) and the Speyside Kiltwalk but we were not successful, although we were accepted as partner for the Aberdeen Kiltwalk. Reflecting on 2014, TACC has made a decision to step back from all future involvement. This means that after the 2014 Aberdeen Walk TACC will no longer be involved directly with any Kiltwalks events. 

TACCs involvement in all the Kiltwalks is now at an end.

“Dom Dziecka Falbogi” – Orphanage at Falbogi

We're proud to announce our upcoming donation for the Poland v Scotland game in October. Undaunted by the efforts of a Norwegian referee and World Champions, but buoyed by a fabulous donation to help homeless kids to the “Off Road Kids” group in Dortmund, TACC will be making the next overseas donation of the Euro 2016 campaign to an Orphanage at Falbogi, just to the east of Warsaw. 

The 30 bed orphanage which offers 24/7 supervised care for children from as young as 3 years through to school leaving age have requested public assistance to create a fitness/play room and to equip it with modern equipment. The project which will be completed with TACC’s donation will, in addition to the therapeutic benefits and enabling physical activity to be enjoyed on a daily basis, educate the children about healthy and balanced diets and assist them in the development of healthy eating habits.

In addition to full time care and meeting the physical and emotional needs of the children, the emphasis of the orphanage is towards personal development and equipping each child with the skills and confidence necessary to assume an independent role in society. Each child receives personal education and support, including social integration which may include initiatives to rehabilitate them with their own families or find adoptive or foster families. Specialist therapeutic and development programmes are in place for children with disabilities, dependent on specific needs.

Although obviously loved and cared for at the orphanage, local funding is limited and opportunities for such projects like a fitness room usually remain a dream. TACC are delighted to be able to support this organization and to transform the dream into a reality.

If you’d like to join our TACC “ambassadors” at the presentation to the orphanage on the morning of match day – October 14^th 2014 – please get in touch at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we’ll provide you with details. If you can’t make it on the day, take the chance to support TACC’s initiative by purchasing one of our Poland tee-shirts from our on-line shop at TACC-Poland

Remember EVERY penny we raise goes towards supporting kids here at home or overseas in the counties in which our national team plays.

Our second overseas donation of this 2016 Euro campaign on October 14^th, 2014, was to an orphanage in the village of Falbogi, located approximately 45 miles to the east of Warsaw.

The orphanage had appealed publicly to complete a new Fitness Centre for the 25 children, aged1-18, who are currently resident at the facility and TACC came to their support with a donation of £5,000.

 We were able to secure sponsorship from Graylings who provided both the transport and an interpreter for the 11 TACC supporters, including 2 pipers from the Caledonian Brewery Pipe Band, who made the trip. A tyre blow out on the motorway added to everyone’s excitement. 

The orphanage was superbly run and, not surprisingly the children were amazed, if not a little awestruck, at the sight of so many kilts.

The Fitness Centre was a former classroom, no longer needed for that function now that the children attend the local school. Children come to the orphanage not only when they are bereaved, but also from families, unable to cope through poverty, drugs or other societal problem areas.

The generosity of the TA enabled us to take bags of extra goodies, in the form of sweets, tartan gifts and some of TACC’s tablet. Thankfully the orphanage teaches the children a proper and disciplined dietary balance, so hopefully the sweets will last for some time.

As might be expected the orphanage has their own kitchen, and the staff and some children provided their TACC visitors with a beautiful spread of Polish homebakes and possibly the best coffee in Poland. 

The Fitness Centre will be fitted with new flooring, mirrored walls and a range of fitness equipment that will be used by all the children, under supervision, especially through the long winter months.

 Unfortunately the boys (big boys they were!) challenged TACC to a football match which was pursued with much vigour, and a decided lack of skill on the part of TACC, with the lads winning by the solitary goal.    

We are again delighted that the ambassadorial role played by the TA when travelling overseas has been exemplified by our TACC supporters. It was a first class experience to be able to see at first hand the value and benefit that the generosity of our supporters can bring to children in whichever country we visit.

Many thanks to all our supporters, Graylings, the Caledonian Brewery Pipe band (as always) and special thank to all those who gave up their free time to come along to the donation.

If you would like to come along to a future TACC Away donation or make some contribution please feel free to get in touch, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us through our Facebook page or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it