Scotty Stevenson: The world of the Scottish bus spotter

Valerie Adams, the New Zealand Flag bearer leads the New Zealand Commonwealth Games. Photo / Greg Bowker

At first they looked like run of the mill news photographers. There they were, huddled together like pale Glaswegian meerkats, snapping away with their cameras in the early evening sunshine as the media bus pulled around the corner and into the stop outside the bustling Buchanan St station.

There were four of them in all, pacing the pavements, searching for angles, diligently documenting the scene. Given there has been a mass mobilisation of buses from all over the UK to assist Glasgow with its increased passenger load during the Games, it was natural to think there was some kind of vague news value in the busyness of Buchanan St.

Alas, no. For on closer inspection, they did not look like news photographers at all. News photographers, for starters, always seem to have more than one camera hanging off them, as if they were distant relatives of Enid Blyton's Saucepan Man. This bunch had no such accoutrements nor accessories.

Turns out, what I had stumbled upon was something much more than a developing story about large passenger vehicle congestion. What I had stumbled upon, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning as I was alighting from my Ulsterbus double decker, was the heretofore little understood world of the Scottish bus spotter.

You heard me right, the bus spotter. Edinburgh might be famous for trainspotting, but in Glasgow there exists an underground community of (mostly) men, who stare at buses, and take photos of them. Who knew this? Of all the Commonwealth Games stories, this could be the greatest. What other event but this, an event which features some of the most anachronistic Anglo-Saxon pursuits ever devised for the pleasure and recreation of colonials, could prove such a honeypot for the busy bees of the bus lanes?

"It were a shambles around here earlier," said Paul McKenna, 16, of Ayrshire. He also told me exactly where in Ayrshire he lived, but having only just become accustomed to the Glaswegian accent, the Ayrshire one was almost indecipherable.

I was intrigued by just what kind of shambles had befallen Buchanan Station though, so I managed to drag further detail from him. Apparently half the buses were trying to get out of the station while the other half were trying to enter it.

All at once. I am assuming this would, under normal circumstance, not pose too much of a problem, but given, as one bus spotter told me, an extra 400-odd coaches have been added to the Glasgow fleet for the duration of the games, it seems there was indeed "a shambles".

I would have thought this was what we in the sports world call "a result" for Paul and his friends. Think about it: two dozen buses trapped in gridlock - that's easy pickings indeed for even the most plodding of bus spotters. But he simply shook his head in a way that asks, rhetorically, "What are these idiots playing at?"

I wandered over to meet Gordon, a retiree and a Glaswegian native. He had a friendly face that he pushed up against his viewfinder with alarming vigour every time a new coach made the turn for the station entrance. Gordon was suffering from a rather severe case of psoriasis which meant he was shedding skin in the manner of a calving glacier. He was there for the Irish buses mainly, the double decker ones.

I had just rode an Ulsterbus coach. In fact, I'm probably in one of his photos. This was a fact I shared with him with surprising enthusiasm, thinking it might give me some street cred in the bus spotter world. He simply nodded and quickly took a photo of a Firstbus headed for East Kilbride, Gardenhall via Fernhill and St Leonards.

I could tell Gordon, friendly flaking face and all, had more pressing concerns than answering my questions. I left him to take a quick snap of the N57 to Peat Rd Roundabout and struck up a conversation with Ryan Deakin, 18, also of Ayrshire (he and Paul were in this together) and one of 259 members of the Stagecoach West Scotland Bus Group on Facebook.

I asked Ryan if he came to Glasgow much. He didn't. It seems usually there are more than enough buses in West Scotland without having to pay a visit to Glasgow. But like the rest of us, he had come because of the Commonwealth Games. Like the rest of us the bus spotters had arrived to revel in the action, to be a part of the glory.

I left Paul and Ryan and Gordon - and the other bloke who was too busy stalking Games' special coaches to talk - and wandered into Glasgow Green to watch this fine city welcome the world with its delightful mix of history and humour, passion and pageantry, and to listen to Rod and SuBo and Billy and the Queen.

And I watched the athletes walk in to Celtic Park, and thought of just how fleeting this whole thing will be for them. Of how much they have put in just to be here, and of just how few will return to their far-flung corners of the Commonwealth with anything to show for it, save a selfie and a tracksuit.

And I thought of the Scottish bus spotters then, and their own quest for the big prize. "One of 'em big bendy buses is what I'd like," Paul had told me. I hope he gets his moment.