{"id":1021348,"date":"2026-06-12T06:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1021348\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T06:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T06:25:16","slug":"scottish-government-donates-400k-to-scotland-superfans-walk-across-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1021348\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Government donates \u00a3400k to Scotland superfan’s walk across US"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scottish Government has made a \u00a3400,000 donation to a Scottish football fan who is walking 3,000 miles<\/a> across the United States.<\/p>\n

Craig Ferguson set off from Los Angeles in February in the hopes of making it to Boston ahead of the Scotland team\u2019s first game in the World Cup<\/a> against Haiti, due to take place on Saturday evening local time. He aims to raise \u00a31 million for Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH) as a result of the walk.<\/p>\n

The charity<\/a> plans to open a walk-in mental health service in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, June 11, before his own trip across the Atlantic ahead of the team\u2019s first World Cup game in 28 years, John Swinney announced the Government\u2019s backing for the fundraising.<\/p>\n

The First Minister said: \u201cI met Craig before he headed out to Los Angeles to begin his mammoth trek across the United States and I was struck by his tenacity, ingenuity and genuine passion \u2013 both as a Scotland fan and a campaigner for mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been hugely impressed by Craig\u2019s inspirational campaign to raise funds for SAMH, one of Scotland\u2019s leading mental health charities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work such charities do across the country is both life-changing and live-saving, and this funding will help SAMH to continue that important work \u2013 including to deliver their new drop-in mental health centres, which my government is keen to support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tartan Army are such a wonderful advert for Scotland, and I am proud that we have people like Craig representing our country in America as our men\u2019s national team take to the stage for their first World Cup finals in almost 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charity hopes to expand its The Nook project, with plans to open a centre in Aberdeen this month and another in Edinburgh in the early part of next year.<\/p>\n

The Nook is a walk-in mental health service, with one branch currently operating in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Billy Watson, the chief executive of SAMH, said: \u201cCraig\u2019s efforts to raise awareness of mental health problems and money for SAMH have been absolutely extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a football fan, a member of the Tartan Army, who decided he could help and has quite literally come down the road in the most spectacular fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hugely grateful to Craig, and to the First Minister and the Scottish Government for their support for Craig and SAMH, and we look forward to working with them to roll out The Nook across Scotland.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scottish Government has made a \u00a3400,000 donation to a Scottish football fan who is walking 3,000 miles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1021349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,282515,28958,4884,218,91699,712,282516,11312,16,15],"class_list":["post-1021348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scotland","tag-britain","tag-craig-ferguson","tag-football-fan","tag-great-britain","tag-mental-health","tag-samh","tag-scotland","tag-scottish-action-for-mental-health","tag-scottish-government","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116735713531519395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1021349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}