![]() So our friends in Guadalajara got us T-shirts made which basically said on the front, 'I'm not a f-ing American - I'm from Scotland,' and on the back, 'I support Chivas.'"īut what, I hear you ask, happened to his first love, Dundee FC, amid this torrid romance? People thought we were Americans and kept calling us gringos, even after we'd told them we were Scottish. "But we'd get loads of people asking to have our picture taken with us. "We didn't wear kilts - it's a bit hot for that," Law said with a laugh. Law even named his cat after revered Chivas keeper Oswaldo Sanchez. Bottom line: It's a love that has cost them thousands upon thousands of pounds, practically every penny they've earned.Ĭhivas have long attracted fans from around the world, but even by their globetrotting standards, the locals at the Estadio Chivas take rare pride in welcoming the crazy guy with the Scottish flag. Law and his wife, Lynne, would scrape together every penny they earned for regular trans-Atlantic trips to watch the team play, a passion that eventually saw them take out a second mortgage on their house in Dundee to fund a home on the Mexican coast, where they now base themselves to make regular pilgrimages to Chivas matches. Law named one of the family cats Sanchez in honor of venerable Chivas goalkeeping hero Oswaldo Sanchez. So besotted did he become that even the private office at his government job became a shrine to Chivas, with posters, shirts and pennants festooning the walls. Chivas, a team playing half a world away in a league he couldn't see on television, became Law's glorious obsession. It was the beginning of a love affair that was to quite transform his life. Law now lives in Scotland for half the year, but there are plenty of reminders about his beloved Chivas at his home in Dundee. Now, though, he was flirting with an exotic potential mistress, Club Deportivo Guadalajara, known throughout the footballing world to its estimated 35 million supporters simply as Chivas, "The Goats." In the blazing sunshine amid a crowd of 60,000 fanatical followers all going gaga for Mexico's biggest club, enjoying a beer and the best atmosphere he had ever experienced at a football match, Law's head was turned. He thought of some of those bone-chilling January nights at the Park, cradling a piping hot cup of tea while the crowd of maybe 4,000 tried to huddle together just to keep warm while watching a rubbish match against Partick Thistle. ![]() Greater love hath no man than that for his blessed football team, so they say, and Law's love for the "Dark Blues" had been soul deep as man and boy, through thick and thin - usually thin. How he'd managed to get it in the ground I've no idea, but I couldn't help smiling and thinking, 'Och, you don't see that too often at Dens Park.'"ĭens Park, the home of Dundee FC in Scotland's Premiership, was where Law had grown up on the terraces. "And then I looked behind me, and there was this guy with a live goat that he was holding by the front legs draped over his shoulders. ![]() The passion, the noise in the ground never stopped. ![]() "The first time I heard the noise in that old Jalisco Stadium in Guadalajara, I'll never forget. It was Mexico," he recalled with a fond shake of the head. It was the aroma of something very different, something enticing - even if it came with the faintest whiff of a farmyard. Grant Law still recalls that first scent of an intoxicating new love, a holiday romance no less, 5,400 miles from home. Lynne and Grant Law aren't hard to pick out at Chivas matches, with their Scottish flag bearing the Spanish words that translate to 'The Scottish Flock.' Courtesy Grant Law
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