WATCH: Bagpipe-playing Highland student led the Scottish capital's wild celebrations after Scotland's famous football triumph
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A student whose celebratory bagpipe-playing went viral in the aftermath of Scotland’s Euro 2020 play-off win over Serbia hails from Inverness.
The bare-chested rooftop rendition of Flower of Scotland on Edinburgh’s Lothian Road exploded on social media and also made BBC national news headlines on television.
The 19-year-old Heriot Watt University actuarial science (Bsc) undergraduate also stopped traffic and raised huge cheers from gathering pedestrians and local residents leaning out of nearby properties after climbing out of his flat window with pals to fire up his pipes.
Scotland had just ended a 22-year wait to qualify for a major tournament.
It transpires that the piper was Louis Peteranna, a former Culloden Academy pupil who was previously on Highland Rugby Club’s books.
His mum Shona and dad Colin live and work in Inverness.
No social-distancing rules were breached by the flatmates as they celebrated Scotland’s feat on Thursday evening last week.
In fact, passing police officers were said to be among those showing their appreciation on the street below.
A video of the memorable moment, captioned ‘guessing Scotland won’, shows Mr Peteranna with friends dancing with joy above a Starbucks coffee shop.
It has since been retweeted thousands of times.
Mr Peteranna said: “The hysteria that night was honestly just amazing.
"To stand in the capital of Scotland on this historic night and be leading the celebrations for Scotland’s national team in this city with my pipes just felt incredible.
"Me and my flatmates are still buzzing from it.
“It honestly was such an honour to be playing to all those people singing in Lothian Road on one of the country’s biggest nights in history.”
Inverness-born Ryan Christie had given Scotland a crucial lead in the match, but a late Serbian equaliser ushered in a nerve-racking period of extra-time.
To give his flatmates a morale-boost with penalty kicks approaching, Mr Peteranna first fired up the pipes within the flat.
He said: “I heard people singing from their windows when we went into extra time, so I started to play the pipes in my living room as a way of trying to build morale, a bit like what happens in stadiums when fans start building momentum for moral support.
“I remember then saying to the guys ‘if we win this game, then it’s straight out onto the balcony and pipes out.’
“A soon as the penalty was out it was tops off and the pipes got going.”
Mr Peteranna, who has been playing the pipes for seven years, said when he emerged on the balcony there were already people on the street shouting for him to play Flower of Scotland.
After the national anthem, he launched into Caledonia, Amazing Grace, Scotland the Brave and Old Lang Syne.
He said: “I ended up playing for about an hour. People kept shouting one more tune, one more tune.”
The piper said Lothian bus drivers and passing police joined in the celebrations by beeping their horns.
He added: “No one was breaking any social distancing rules.
"What was amazing was people were standing apart in the street, or just singing from their windows, but it just felt so alive.
"I am just so moved that my pipe playing was the centre of Scotland’s capital city celebrations on this historic night.
"I have been playing since I was 12-years-old and nothing has beaten this.
"It was such an emotional moment.”
