tcsh passing a variable inside a shell script - unix

Question

I've defined a variable inside a shell script and I want to use it. For some reason, I cannot pass it into to command line that I need it in.
Here's my script which fails at the last lines
#! /usr//bin/tcsh -f
if ( $# != 2 ) then
echo "Usage: jump_sorter.sh <jump> <field to sort on>"
exit;
endif
set a = `cat $1 | tail -1` #prepares last row for check with loop
set b = $2 #this is the value last row will be checked for
set counter = 0
foreach i ($a)
if ($i == "$b") then
set bingo = $counter
echo "$bingo is the field to print from $a"
endif
set counter = `expr $counter + 1`
end
echo $bingo #this prints the correct value for using in the command below
cat $1 | awk '{print($bingo)}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr #but this doesn't work.
#when I use $9 instead of $bingo, it does work.
How can I pass $bingo into the final line correctly, please?
Update: following the accepted answer from Martin Tournoij, the correct way to handle the "$" sign in the command is:
cat $1 | awk "{print("\$"$bingo)}" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr

Answer 1

The reason it doesn't work is because variables are only substituted inside double quotes ("), not single quotes ('), and you're using single quotes:
cat $1 | awk '{print($bingo)}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
The following should work:
cat $1 | awk "{print($bingo)}" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
You also have an error here:
#! /usr//bin/tcsh -f
That should be:
#!/usr/bin/tcsh -f
Note that csh isn't usually recommended for scripting; it has many quirks and lacks some features like functions. Unless you really need to use csh, it's recommended to use a Bourne shell (/bin/sh, bash, zsh) or a scripting language (Python, Ruby, etc.) instead.