The Balfour Conspiracy

“By all the Gods, there’s Elaine C Smith!”  Tom Devine had recovered and was back scanning the list of creatives who had signed the Manifesto for Independence.  “How did she get out?  I thought I had her tied up in the basement, the frightful creature.”

“Really Tom, I haven’t the time for your nonsense right now, do you know what Lawwell has asked me to do?”

“Eddi Reader?” he smiled, digging me in the ribs with his elbow.

“Gosh, if I only had to get a hold of her it would be fine, I’d just wait outside Peckhams Wine Shop till opening time and grab her then.  But no, it’s nothing to do with your bloody list, Tom.  Lawwell wants me to sabotage Rangers’ run at the league.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” he burped.  “How do you plan to do it?”

“Well Lawwell was very specific, he only wants me to kidnap Morelos!”  There was a crash of thunder and the wind blew the pub doors open, leaves rushed in along the floor as the barman closed the doors against the sudden storm.  “A bit dramatic there, Spiers.  What’s wrong, can’t handle a little football player?  Aren’t you the man who jumped Walter Smith once?  Eh?  Didn’t you have a go at Richard Gough with a sword?”

“Erm, I think you’re mis-remembering our adventures there, Tom.  No, I can’t remember besting anyone in a fight, heavens didn’t you even beat me at shooty-in?”

“Oh!” he roared at the memory and started laughing.  “Oh no, Spiers.  I let you beat me and then I ran off with your wife, remember?” and he hooted all the way to the bathroom where he was sick.

So according to Lawwell, the key to Rangers winning the league and preventing Celtic winning nine in a row was Alfredo Morelos, but how would I manage to over power a man who bullies hammer-throwing Scottish defenders with ease every week?  “Pat Nevin,” someone said over my shoulder from behind me.  I turned and there was no one there.  That’s odd, I thought, I was sure I heard…

“Hello Spiers, buy me a drink.”  I nearly jumped out my shirt, there sitting beside me at the bar was Jorg Albertz, master of the black arts and a man I hadn’t seen in almost a decade.  “You don’t look pleased to see me” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“That’s because you always bring trouble, you maniac!  Where did you pop up from?”

“I’ve been here all along, Spiers.  You just didn’t notice me because you never pay attention.”

“Oh I pay attention…” and just as I said this, Devine appeared and vomited on my trousers.  “Now, what was all this about Pat Nevin?”

“He,” grinned Albertz.  “Is your key to all this.  Your way to kidnap Morelos.”

“And why the bloody heck would you want to help me disadvantage Rangers?” I almost shrieked, my heart still beating like a fucked clock from the fright and added outrage of Tom puking on my shoes.

“Let’s just say Spiers, that Morelos isn’t all that he says he is…” and he winked and looked over my shoulder.  I turned to see what he was looking at and then when I turned back, he was gone.  I hate it when he does that.

I had to find Pat Nevin then, find out how he is the key to kidnapping Morelos.  This would be more difficult than usual as wee Pat had gone to ground shortly after Haggerty had announced her news recently.  Funnily enough, quite a few people I know had disappeared around the same time, I’ll need to ask Tom what that’s all about one of these days but for now, I had to find Nevin.  So I set off out the doors of Tennents and into a dark, stormy afternoon and as I was struggling down Byres Road, face to the wind, I got a funny feeling that I was being watched so I stopped and had a look around me and just for a moment I was sure I saw a car pass me and in it were Albertz, Souness and Donald Findlay, and they were all laughing.

Cronies O' Mine or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the SNP

“Ye see this, Spiers? Huh?  Ye see this?” bawled Tom Devine, waving the Herald in my face as we sat in Tennents pub on Byres Road this morning.  “This is what I call a front page!  Ah… look, there’s my name, “signatory on the Manifesto for Independence, Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus of Scottish History”.  See, right there” and he shoved the paper under my nose, “under Robert Crawford, whoever the fuck he is…”  He would’ve gone on, but he burped a little and then swallowed it, it went down the wrong way and he spent the next ten minutes choking.

So the great and the good of Scottish cultural society have come out again for independence, there was no surprise there, they’ve not stopped banging on about it since they lost back in 14; I’m just glad it was a new independence manifesto Devine was showing me, for a moment I was worried that Neil Cameron was back at the Herald.

So, there we were, two idlers in a pub before midday and Tom’s choking apart, the place was quiet.  Pat Nevin wasn’t around to tell us his two stories and Angela Haggerty was hiding somewhere for a reason which Tom doesn’t like to discuss; indeed, he blushes whenever her name is brought up.  Janette Findlay has also gone to ground since she got caught sending bombs to her own university and got a slap on the wrist for it and told not to do it again.  All in all, it’s been very quiet, even Lawwell has been silent, not torturing any journalists in a while.  And just as I thought about Lawwell, the pub doors swung open and in he breezed, straight up to where we were sitting - he slapped his horse whip onto the bar and ordered a pint of ale.  The landlord brought it over and Lawwell picked it up and poured it over my head.  “Alright tosser?” he said.

“He’s fine Peter,” said Devine, his coughing fit gone now.  “Have ye seen this front page, eh?  Look, there’s me, right above Lari Don… I don’t even know if that’s a man or a woman, what say you, eh Lawwell?  Man or woman?”

“The SNP, eh?” growled Lawwell.  “Everything they know about managing the press they owe to me.  I wonder what fuck nuggetry they’re covering up today with this pish.  Hell’s bells, I thought the Scottish press were pussies when dealing with us, but they take cowardice to a whole new level with this bunch of fucking losers.”

“Not a fan?” I asked.

“Are you joking?  How the fuck are Celtic supposed to get a sniff of the big money of the EPL if we’re not even in the same country anymore?  Plus, I’ve seen enough useless arseholes in my life – remember Adam Matthews?  No, I wish I didn’t either.  How about Samaras?  Oh, he might have been a pretty boy and caught your eye more than once Spiers, but how many goals did he score?  Honestly, how many?  I don’t know, I wasn’t paying much attention back then.  Anyway, I’ve known enough hopeless parasites in my time to recognise them when they’re running the country” and at this he ordered another pint and poured it over my head.

“Who is Robert Hodgens, Spiers?” piped up Tom, still pouring over the list of creatives from the Herald.  “Is that the Bob the Builder chappy?  You know, used to be in Mary’s Prayer with the Rangers boy, erm, Danny Wilson?”

“Yes, Tom.  That’s the one” I humoured him.  I was almost certain it was actually Bob the Bluebell but with Lawwell around it doesn’t pay to remind him of anything to do with Rangers, not since they had gone top of the league and people started talking about number fifty five.  Oh no, that’s a sure way to fetch up in the butcher’s yard, upside down with your guts for company.  I was just pondering this when Tom spat out his port.  “Ho ho!  This list is poppycock!  I know this mad old dame and she ain’t no writer and broadcaster, damn it all Spiers, I’m in the company of cranks!  But by God she was a pretty one back in the day, I had her over the jumps once, up on the Isle of Skye, at least I think it was Skye…” and at that his eyes clouded over and a dark mood of maudlin reminiscence washed over him like waves in the night.  I’ve seen this before, and it never ends well as he tends to self-medicate his way out of it by way of several gallons of whisky.  “Whisky, damn your eyes!” shouted Devine, as if on cue.

“Is this all you chumps get up to of a morning then?” asked Lawwell.

“Well there’s not much else to be doing when you’re both pretty much out of work” I said.

“In that case, I think I can help you there,” he pondered. “Now don’t think I’ve forgotten the fact that you singularly failed to intercept Steven Gerrard on the Orient Express a year ago,” he picked up the horse whip and twisted it between clenched fists.  “But I’m willing to forgive and forget, aren’t I known throughout Scotland as being a benevolent ruler?  Now here’s what I want you do…” and so he told me his plan, a plan so wicked yet simple that it would change the face of Scottish football forever.  But then, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Gerrard on the Orient Express

The rhythm of the Orient Express as it trundled out of Istanbul was relaxing and might have been a calm and pleasurable experience except I was stuck, hiding under a bed while Tom Devine ploughed into Angela Haggerty just feet from my face.  “By the time I’m finished with you m’lass, your fanny will the size of a Range Rover exhaust” he roared while Haggerty squeaked in indignation.

As usual I was up to my knees in intrigue, caught up in the machinations of Peter Lawwell as he panicked about the fact that Celtic had won the league again, but nobody had noticed due to the story going around that Steven Gerrard was set to manage Rangers.  Hearing that Gerrard was relaxing on a European tour and was on board a train heading to Paris, Lawwell had despatched twelve of his most trusted lieutenants to do something about it.  Twelve of us, me included, on the Orient Express, it reminded me of something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

There I was though on my first day on board that magnificent train when I spotted Tom Devine, he was in the bar and on his second bucket of Port and since the randy old Satyr owed me fifty quid I decided that rather than confront him about it and risk a pummelling, I’d simply break into his room and take it out of his wallet – so gone was he these days, with the drink that he’d never notice.  The only problem was though, while I was in his berth rifling through Tom’s drawers, he was heading back there with Haggerty with the intention of rifling through hers.

Any other man would’ve been caught in the act but when I heard Devine’s key in the door, years of experience of jumping at shadows saw me under the bed in a twinkling before Devine could get Haggerty in the door for a monstering.  And that’s how I came to get caught up in the most fascinating intrigue on board the Orient Express, an experience that would change the course of Scottish football forever, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

A Tale Told by an Idiot

So where was I?  Oh yes, my bowels were dissolving and Lawwell was glaring at me with an evil glint in his eye.  Somewhere out there James Doleman was stinking up a court as he stalked Rangers and Angela Haggerty was bleating about double standards while indulging in the most outrageous hypocrisy.  So, that was this time last year and guess what, nothing’s changed!  It’s as if a whole year meant nothing because we haven’t progressed one bit.

Well, we have a little.  Celtic spunked a fortune on making sure Rangers didn’t reappear in the Premiership and win the bloody thing immediately while Rangers spent two bob and appeared blinking into the light feeling lucky just to be there.  Somewhere along the line Celtic won the league but nobody noticed or cared much because let’s face it, without Rangers they had a free run at it – I mean who else was going to mount a challenge, Aberdeen?  I said as much to Tom Devine and he snorted Port out of his nose.  “Ho ho, Spiers!” he chortled.  “Aberdeen?”  And that was it, that was all he said and for the rest of that evening he sat chuckling, supping from his bucket and casting horny glances across the bar at Haggerty who had popped in for a shite.

How could I possibly lose a year?  I’ve been asking myself today.  The answer lies in my meds of course, I’ve been taking them regularly now and so am no longer embroiled in outrageous adventures with fantastical characters from the world of Scottish football.  “Ye’ve run out of steam,” ventured Devine rudely without my asking and you know, I think he could be right but the mere fact that he was sitting beside me suggested that there was still something in my armoury, and of course that I’d gone out for a drink while forgetting to take my pills.

“What do you know of Stewart Gilmour?” growled Lawwell after Devine had got me drunk and into a taxi which took us to Hampden.  “The boss wants to see you,” he’d said and like a fool I thought he meant that rat-faced little runt whose name I can’t even remember.  I mean is he even still with the SFA?  “Regan’s his name,” said Devine as if he’d read my mind.  “Awful fellow, smells a bit odd and lives in the janny’s cupboard on the ground floor.  You’re going to see the real boss of the SFA,” and of course everybody knows who that means.

"Well?" pressed Lawwell.

“Stewart Gilmour?  I dunno, is he the new Celtic centre forward?” I said, trembling at the sight of Lawwell who was standing in the centre of his office throwing daggers at a target on the back of a door.  He was naked.

“Fucked if I know,” said Lawwell.  “Devine, is he our new centre forward?”

“No Peter, he’s the manager of St. Mirren.”

“Who are they?”

“Nobodies from Paisley, gifted us the league a few decades ago, we bought them a stand, remember?”

“No…  Oh yes, it’s coming back to me now.  That bastard Gilmour’s only come out and said I’m running Scottish football and…  What are you smiling at Spiers?”  He shot me a glance, one dagger still in his throwing hand and I did not like it one bit.

“Nothing,” I said.  “Except, here you are in an office that takes up two floors of the SFA headquarters in the national stadium.  You’ve got Stewart Regan hanging from a hook from the back of a door with a target on his chest and you’re throwing knives at it and well, you kind of, erm…  You’re the establishment now, Peter.”

Devine roared with laughter all the way back to the west end.  “Oh Spiers, you should’ve seen your face when that dagger hit your thigh!  Oh my goodness, I thought I’d die from laughing!”

“I didn’t find it funny, Tom” I said.  “It took the paramedics an hour to stop the bleeding, and then there was all that piss to clean up.”

“It’s too funny Spiers, when do you think he’ll give you your balls back?”

“Only once I’ve seen to it that the Daily Record removes that headline from their back page, shouldn’t be too much bother, the editor’s a pussy.  Lawwell would’ve horse whipped him himself but apparently Nicola Sturgeon’s taking care of that these days herself and nobody else can get a look in.”

Later, job done, headline gone, and back at the Ubiquitous Chip, Devine ordered a Pina Colada for me and four pints of whisky for himself and as we clinked glasses he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little bag.  “What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s your medicine, son.  Now gulp it down like a good boy, this was fun and everything but I was right the first time, you’ve run out of steam.”

Enter the Others

Tom Devine was laughing, pointing at me and slapping his thighs.  “Oh you bloody great oaf, Spiers.  You’ve only gone and fallen for it again!” he roared as he tossed me a rope to pull me in out of the Clyde where I was bobbing around having fallen out of my banana boat.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It all began when I wrote some nonsense about Rangers, you know the usual stuff: barely brushing reality, snide digs and a few in-jokes to keep my demographic happy.  Then it turned out that the Herald wasn’t too happy about all the whoppers and they made me apologise.  Now as you all know I’m not one for apologising even if I’ve been caught out good and proper like that time behind the Queen Margaret Union but the less said about that the better, so before the ink was even dry on the apology I was releasing a statement of my own and this is how it came about…

I was sauntering down Byres Road considering whether to have a pint in the Chip or go home to my flat for a quick wank when suddenly a van screeched to a halt on the road beside me and two masked men jumped out.  They made a beeline for me and I let out a girly yelp as they hooded me and bundled me into the back of the van and before I knew what was happening I was driven at speed through the streets of Glasgow.  The journey lasted around ten minutes until the van came to a halt and I was dragged out and forcibly marched up some stairs and into a room, then the hood was removed and I began blinking, trying to work out if my eyes were deceiving me because sitting in front of me were Phil McGillivan, Angela Haggerty, Alex Thomson and James Doleman.

“Welcome to the Others, Spiers” said McGillivan, mysteriously.

“Who are the Others?” I asked.

“We’re the Others,” said McGillivan.

“Who, you lot?” I persevered.

“Aye, us.  We’re the Others.  It’s a name we’ve given ourselves, alright?  It was going to be the Outsiders but Angela pointed out there’s a film wi’ that name and James didn’t want to be named after a piece of thick bread.  Anyway, enough of this nonsense, you’ve been brought to us because you have now joined the ranks of journalists who are being threatened by the Klan, the Herrenvolk, they Orange bastards…”

“Hold on,” I interrupted.  “I’ve not been threatened by anyone.”

“You were forced to make an apology because the Klan threatened to burn down the Herald building if you didn’t!” shouted McGillivan.

“Er, no.  I made an apology because I lied in print and the Herald found out, no one’s threatened anyone.”

“No Spiers,” spoke up James Doleman.  “You’ve been threatened by the Klan just like the rest of us journalists sitting here.”

“Journalists?  You’re not journalists, you’re a bunch of raving lunatics who are so busy crying about hatred and sectarianism that you don’t even notice your own prejudice – and you?  Doleman?  Stalking Rangers through the courts and tweeting about it doesn’t make you a journalist, it just makes you a sad man who likes to sit in court in the hope that something bad’ll happen to a football team you hate.  Alex?  You should know better” and Alex Thomson blushed and looked away.  “Look, this is ridiculous, if anyone sees me with you lot then my reputation is mud so I’m off…  Where am I anyway?” and as I said it the lights went on, the door opened behind me and the look of fear that shot over the faces of the Others told me that behind me was something so frightening that it could even scare these fearless crusaders for social justice and community cohesion, these haters of Protestants.

 

“Hello Spiers, it’s been a while” said Peter Lawwell as my bowels almost dissolved.

Trimalchio’s Feast

 

Writer’s block, it’s a terrible thing from which to suffer especially if you’re Scotland’s number one crusading journalist; fighting injustice, bigotry, free speech and Rangers wherever you find them.  Yet there I was, cramping up mentally and unable to find a unique approach to the latest Rangers EBT judgement.  Oh I knew I was going to lay into them but I’d exhausted all original approaches and so it was I found myself doing what any Scottish sports journalist does when they don’t know how to lay the boot into the huns: I called Peter Lawwell.

“Piss off you fucking French donkey, Spiers.  You really think I’m going to tell you what to write?  Do it yourself, you talentless tosser” said Lawwell which was surprising because he’s not usually so reticent when it comes to telling journalists what they can and can’t report.

“Sorry,” I stammered back at him.  “I just thought you might have an angle…”
“Oh I’ve got an angle all right,” he interrupted.  “And if you want to see it then you might want to come over to my office and bend over.  Listen pipsqueak, it’s our AGM soon and I’m keeping my powder dry until then; a few snide comments about Rangers and the daft twats will lap it up and forget all about Celtic’s many problems and then I can get back to doing my job.”
“Making Celtic a power in Europe again?” I ventured.
“Eh?  No, fuck that.  I’ve got the SFA to run and I still haven’t destroyed Rangers, that’s my job.  Now fuck off.”

Disappointed in the lack of encouragement from Lawwell, I left my Ayrshire bolthole and drove back to Glasgow and my west end flat where I settled down for an evening with my Martin O’Neil scrapbook and lo and behold, after a good old wank I found the inspiration for my piece for the Herald on Rangers.  My approach this time was to disingenuously mourn the days when Scottish football was all about the game and not the bile and hatred surrounding it – the genius in this of course was that I am one of the chief instigators of it all.  So job done, I sat back and had a browse through Twitter, wondering what I could post that would stir up some bile and hatred.

It didn’t take long for me to find something very interesting indeed: some English QC had taken a look at the Rangers judgement and been appalled and he’d only gone and written a three part blog on the matter.  Celtic fans were fuming, Rangers fans were happy that at last someone hadn’t just decided they were all ogres and could do with some sympathy.  And me, well I wasn’t about to let this go – this QC must be made to see that Rangers and its followers were the cause of all the ills of society and I was just the man to do it.  So I  dazzled him on Twitter with my middle class intellect and invited him for a curry.

Two nights later I strolled along to Mother India looking forward to meeting my new QC friend and pitching a few made up stories at him which would put him off Rangers forever.  When I got there though I was surprised to find Tom Devine sitting in a corner glugging from a bottle of port.  “Ha!  Spiers!  Over here my boy,” he shouted then he finished the bottle and launched it at the gantry.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking around for my QC.

“Oh you know, enjoying a quiet drink, and yourself?”
“Me?  I’m meeting a friend here, I’m going to buy him a curry and tell him a few of my tall tales.”
“Ha!  Good lad.  Now, this QC, his name wouldn’t be Jolyon Maugham, would it?”
“What?  How did you know?  It is indeed Jolyon Maugham QC, my new friend and curry partner, how on earth…”
Tom burped loudly, “Meet Jolly Boy John,” and he beamed at me, prodding his great big thumbs into his wine stained chest and then he burst out laughing.
“Oh Spiers, you should see your face!  Oh my word, I don’t think I can cope…” and he broke wind loudly while banging his fist on the table in delight at my confusion.
“I don’t understand,” I squeaked.
“Of course you don’t, you purblind idiot, you weren’t supposed to!  Oh my giddy aunt…  Spiers, it was me all along, I was Jo Maugham QC and I reeled you in good and proper.”
“But this isn’t your style, you’re never not drunk, how could you have planned and executed this?”
“I was sober by accident one day and came up with it then.”
“How can you be sober by accident?”
“I was roaring pissed one night and fell down a well in my garden; I was there for a week, a week b’gawd!  It took me four days to sober up but on the fifth day I came up with this idea and didn’t it just work?  Really, my sides are aching.  I gulled the Rangers fans into thinking they had an ally and I knew that you wouldn’t be able to resist poking your over-privileged Byres Road dinner party nose into it and what with the man being a QC, you’d just love to show off your own superiority over the common football fan and so you did and in doing so, you broke a million Rangers fans hearts.  Win/win all round, I’d say, what?  Now, about that curry…” and he snapped his fingers for attention from a passing waiter.  “Here, Babu, bring me a bucket of tandoori, two bottles of vodka and a straw damn yer eyes, Spiers is paying.”

 

The Adventure of the Eight Lawwells

Well that’s another season over and since no one was paying much attention, I assume that Celtic won the league, whatever it’s being called these days.  No one in my crowd of west end BBC dinner party elite took much notice which was odd considering they’re all mad Celtic fans but all became clear when I realised that they were too busy spinning the handbags incident at the end of the Motherwell Rangers play off as another Rangers shame game.  Even as I sat in the Chip with Tom Devine and the Pacific Quay CSC I knew that something was afoot when the phones of the BBC boys went off as one and they all grabbed their backpacks and rushed off into the evening on their bikes.  “Some skilful editing of the Rangers game needed in a hurry,” snorted Devine as he gathered up the drinks they’d left behind and poured them into his bucket. 

We’d been camped out in the Chip ever since our quest to locate the eight replica Peter Lawwells ended ignominiously when Donald Findlay called it off as everyone had lost interest after the first search.  “They’ll make themselves known when the time is right” said Findlay, puffing on his pipe and looking as bored with the mission as I was after days of monitoring Mumsnet in my capacity as Codename Chipmunk.  The only problem was that no one had been able to get a hold of Souness to tell him so he was still out there, working his contacts on the waterfront.  “He’ll come home soon enough too,” said Findlay.  “There are only so many fingers he can break before he realises that no one knows anything about the eight Lawwells.” 

So instead of spending the end of the season embroiled in some new and fantastic adventure, I fetched up sitting with Tom Devine recounting some of the more splendid scrapes we’d got into over the past few years.  “Remember when I sailed off with your wife and you came after me with the Rangers 80s Squad Navy?” he roared.

“Well I do like to forget about that one, Tom, it’s better for our friendship if I do.”

“Ha!  Friendship, you are a funny one, Spiers.  How about when I shot you in the belly at Lawwell’s highland hideout?  That was a cracker!”

“That was my wife and again…”

“Was it?  Oh dear, me old memory is playing me false again.  Didn’t we play shooty-in for the honour of your missus once?”

“Tom, please!”

“Oh alright.  Get ‘em in, Spiers.  Mine’s a bucket of port.” 

And so it went on for the rest of the night until Pat Nevin turned up and broke the monotony by telling  us his two stories.

The Fellowship

“There are eight Lawwells out there, who else is going to stop them?” asked Donald Findlay, addressing the curious assembly of a more disparate bunch of people you could ever expect to meet around a roaring fire.  The brandy was warming our stomachs and I got the feeling that Findlay was also trying to warm up my liver a little as he suspected that I was too much of a coward to take on the role he had planned for me. 

“Graeme, you cover the waterfront.  I want to know if there’s any movement from the Port Glasgow Fenian Navy.  Your codename will be Fountainhead, my own will be Highgate” said Findlay and there was a murmur of appreciation for the fact that we were all to be given manly codenames and Souness looked especially pleased at his as he stroked his moustache and lit up a cigar.

“Tom,” said Findlay to Tom Devine who was eyeing up the brandy bottle.  “You take the whorehouses, try to get round as many as you can, I’m sure it won’t be a chore.  Your codename will be Blackfriar.  Patrick,” Pat Nevin looked up, surprised to be included in such rough company.  “You keep an eye on the pubs and clubs, pretend you’re just there to tell everyone your two stories and if you don’t see anything suspicious, move on.  Your codename will be Shadowline.”  I sat up straight to show that I was paying attention and looking forward to hearing my own codename.  They’d all been so masculine so far, even wee Pat Nevin’s conjured up images of cloak, dagger and intrigue.

“Spiers, I want you to monitor Mumsnet, your codename is Chipmunk.” 

“Stop your whinging Spiers,” said Tom Devine as we made our way west from Findlay’s house.  “You have an easy task, all you have to do is sit on your lazy arse and read the blatherings of a bunch of frustrated house-fraus.  I’m the one who should be complaining, how am I supposed to get through more than a dozen brothels a night?  I mean it’s not exactly my birthday, I’ll make six if I’m lucky.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to have a shag in them all, Tom” I bleated.  “I mean, I’m a blooming radio star, I’m on BBC Radio Scotland!  How can Findlay not trust me with a better codename than Chipmunk?”

“You know Spiers, I don’t even know why they let you on that radio show; you have the voice of a castrato dwarf choking on marbles.”

“Gosh, you really know how to cheer up your friends, don’t you Tom?”

“Who said you were my friend, you limp wristed smurfcock?  As far as I’m concerned you’re a useless idiot…”

“Useful idiot,” I corrected him.

“Quite, you’re a useful idiot and the sooner you realise that the better off you’ll be.  Now get thee to a coffee shop and fire up some wifi, leave the real work to the men around here” and with that he downed the bottle of brandy he’d sneaked out of Findlay’s house under his waistcoat and kicked open the door to Angela Haggerty’s house.  “Hey Tom, that’s not officially a whorehouse!” I called over to him.

“Ha!  Sorry, force of habit.”

Dawn of the Lawwells

“Spiers, come in here.  Come take a look at this.”  This was Tom English and he was calling to me from Lawwell’s office in Hampden.  We’d been lurking around trying to find some explanation for the madness that had gripped the SFA in allowing Dave King to be deemed a fit and proper person to run Rangers.  Tom had got himself into a bit of a state over the whole affair because, well because he really hates Rangers.  Me?  I was just loafing along, running with the crowd as usual and it never hurts ones career to be seen to be laying into the Gers. 

“What is it?” I asked as I peered tentatively into the room and then I gasped at what I saw: Lawwell had had the builders in and had opened up the whole of the floor into his own personal space – internal walls had been removed and you could see the length of Hampden from one end to the other and it was all Lawwell’s.  We could tell it was all his from the ghastly instruments of torture which lined the walls: a rack here, chains there, an iron maiden in the corner.  I was just taking all of this in when I almost jumped out of my shirt as Lawwell walked in and caught us.  “Hello boys,” he said, smiling.

“Eh?” chirped Tom.

“Er, hello Mr Lawwell” said I, wondering why we weren’t hanging by the balls from the ceiling by now.

“It’s so good to see you both here, it’s saved me the bother of inviting you over” said Lawwell.

“Tom, I don’t like this, he’s being nice” I whispered to Tom.

“Hold on just a minute, Spiers” Tom whispered back.  “I have a theory…  Mr Lawwell, can you name a current Celtic player?  Any current Celtic player.”

“Efe Ambrose of course.”

“Spiers,” Tom hissed at me.  “This isn’t Lawwell.  Lawwell wouldn’t know a Celtic player if one chased him down the street and bit him on the leg.”

“Then who is this?  What is this?” I rasped, too loudly as it turned out.

“Why, I am Lawwell 8.1” said Lawwell. 

Later, in the Chip, I was having a pint with Tom Devine.  Well, I was drinking a pint; he was guzzling from a bucket, port dribbling down his chin and soaking his shirt while wee Pat Nevin sat nearby telling the regulars his two stories.  “So what happened to the other eight then?” burped Tom.

“It seems once they’d completed construction, they brought them to life with a massive charge of electricity and every one of them to a man, got up and ran out the door.”

“All at once?”

“No, they built them one at a time.  They’d finish one, zap him, he’d run off and then they’d start again from the beginning.”

“This is all very rum, Spiers.  I mean, I’m used to things being a bit odd around you but this is damned perplexing.  I mean, what on earth were they going to do with another Lawwell?”

“Ah, now that’s an easy one: they needed one to sit at Celtic Park calling Hampden demanding clarification, and they needed another to sit at Hampden taking the call.”

Tom sighed.  “So why 8.1?  Why not Lawwell 9?”

“The one that remained, the one that didn’t get up and sprint into Kings Park, well he thought that 8.1 sounded sexy.”

“And now we have eight Lawwells on the loose out there, getting up to gawd knows what?  By Christ, Spiers, I preferred it when you were still on your medication.  Talking of which, what in blue blazes were the SFA on when they passed Dave King?  See, this is what happens when Lawwell is too busy replicating himself to pay attention to the task at hand.”

“And the task at hand is?”

“Making sure Rangers remain weak of course, I mean it’s not bloody difficult.  I’ll tell you what is difficult though, that slattern Haggerty.  I had her in bed last night and was canoeing into her when she suddenly took a strange turn and bucked me off – I landed with such a thump on the floorboards that I woke up Elaine C Smith and I couldn’t get her to stop barking for the rest of the night.  Ruined my whole day.  Anyway, Haggerty stood above me as I picked the splinters out of my arse and she put a high heel on my face and told me that there’d be no more dancing the blanket hornpipe until we were sure Rangers were going to remain in Division One, or the Championship, or whatever the bloody hell it is called these days.”

“Wow, they really are scared of competition these days, eh?  But this involves me how?” I asked.

“You can be damned,” he roared.  “What I want to know is how the hell it involves me!”

 

Then I heard a chuckle from over Tom’s shoulder.  “Oh it involves all of us” smiled Donald Findlay, straightening his tie.  Beside Findlay stood Souness, his moustache bristling.

“Aw for Christ’s sake,” moaned Devine.  “Not all this again.  Spiers, do us all a favour and get back on your meds."

"No thank you, Tom.  This is far too much fun, all of a sudden Scottish football could be becoming interesting again."

They Horse Whip Donkeys, Don't They?

“Thank fuck we’re playing somebody this week, else the press might start sniffing around yet another fucking fine thanks to those morons in the crowd” snarled Lawwell.

“Who re you playing anyway?” I asked, rather mischievously considering I knew fine well.

“Fucked if I know,” he replied a little too honestly which was entirely unexpected.  “I leave that sort of thing to the manager.”

“And the manager is?” I prodded, chancing my luck.

“Delia Smith?  Ronnie Corbett?  Who gives a toss?  Just as long as you lot continue ignoring our lot and concentrate on hounding that lot, I’ll be fucking happy.”

“And what if we are accused of only holding one team in Scotland accountable for all the ills of society?” I asked.

“Then you remember your fucking training!  Jesus Christ almighty, do I have to give you fuckers refresher courses?  You accuse them of whataboutery and refuse to answer the fucking question.  Ever.  It’s not rocket science, Spiers.”

“Hold on,” I said.  “Have I missed something?  Have you already issued orders on this one?”

“Didn’t you get the memo?” he asked, smiling.

“No, no I didn’t” I said, feeling ever so slightly left out.

“Well lucky for you, Spiers, I have one right here.”

“Oh good,” I squealed, clapping my hands and hopping from foot to foot with excitement.

“Pucker up, loser, here’s your memo” and he punched me right on the mouth.  I went down whimpering and he laid into me with his horse whip until he tired, then he spat on me.  Phew, for one horrible moment I thought I was out of the loop.

Happiness Stan

“My career is in freefall, I’m skint, I’m a social pariah and if I don’t get my profile up and attract new employment soon then I won’t even make the rent this month.  Oh what is to become of me?” wailed Stan Collymore as we sat in the Chip drinking Deuchars while Tom Devine sat in a grump in the corner drinking port from a barrel through a straw.

“You can always lay into Rangers on Twitter,” I said.  “Always works for me – you’ll probably get a job on BBC Scotland out of it.”

“Really, are you sure?” he asked, brightening up.

“Totally!  Look at Tom English: rotten journalist, going nowhere, sacked by the Scotsman; he lays into Rangers and bingo!  Job on the BBC.”

“Alright then,” he said, smiling for the first time that day.  “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Belay there, young shaver,” called Tom Devine from his corner.  “Before you go near Spiers’s Twitter moral high ground, be careful you don’t have any skeletons in your closet – and Spiers knows all about closets, don’t ye young pup?  Just be careful, that’s all I’m saying” and he burped a little sick onto his tie.

“I’ll be fine, Tom.  Yes, I might have a history of domestic violence and curious sexual proclivities but compared to singing songs containing the words ‘fenian blood’, they’re nothing.”

“This set me off, “Fenian blood?  Fenian blood?  Somebody call the police!  There should be a law against this filth.  Those terrible Rangers fans should be rounded up and put in camps and thrown down wells and and and…”

“There there, Spiers.  Let’s go,” said Tom, putting a reassuring arm around me.  “I think we should get you back home and on the medication.”

How to Look the Other Way

"Can you categorically, without doubt, say that it was definitely a Celtic fan?  Because if you go ahead and print that this animal had anything to do with our club then two things will happen" said Lawwell as he paced up and down in front of the gathered Scottish press to discuss the poor boy who'd been assaulted before the recent old firm match.  "One: you'll lose your access to the manager - whatsisname - and all of the team; and two: I'll nail you to a tree by your balls."  We all winced because we knew how painful being nailed to a tree by the balls would be.  "It'll be a damned sight more painful than just having our balls nailed to these benches," said Tom English as we gazed down at our bollocks as they bled onto the Hampden turf.  "So are any of you fucking cowards going to include the word Celtic in any of your reports of this incident?  No, I didn't think so" and that was how it happened, how the entire Scottish media managed to report on a ten year old Rangers fan having his jaw broken after a Celtic hooligan threw a bottle at his face and not once was the fact he was a Celtic supporter discussed.  Oh it was hilarious, watching these journalists tie themselves in knots trying to describe events without a mention of the club; it was thug dressed in green this and man wearing a green beanie hat that but even although the world and its dog knew it was a Celtic supporter who'd nearly killed the kid, the fact remained missing from all reports.  And our balls stayed out of the trees. 

Later, Lawwell was pontificating about Celtic's 2-0 win, trying to have us believe it was as good as the 9-0 win he was predicting before the game but no one was having it and indeed a few of the younger scuds new to the game even dared ask him some impertinent questions.  One whelp raised his hand and asked how he compared the Rangers game with the one from the week before, knowing fine well Lawwell wouldn't even know who Celtic had played the week before, or the week before that.  "Celtic raised their game after the performance against Hearts" said one with a smirk.

"Indeed," said Lawwell, eyeing the boy suspiciously.  "Hearts put in a good shift but our faith in the manager showed and we were happy to get the result."

"Which was?"

"Erm, we won?"

"You won?  Against Hearts?" and everyone laughed until Lawwell's face turned puce and he pulled out his horse whip and laid into the front two rows.  The presser emptied after that and we heard that the youngster who'd tried to ridicule Lawwell was hanging in a cold store somewhere with a hook through his arse.

On the way home with Tom English we discussed how we'd approach the aftermath of the game considering the amount of reports of assaults by Celtic fans on Rangers supporters were coming in.  "Oh it's bloomin' easy," said Tom.  "You heard the Rangers fans sing a few songs, didn't you?"

"I did..." I said, rubbing my chin and pretending to know what Tom was talking about.

"Then we lay into the Rangers fans for sectarian singing and ignore the stabbings and hospitalisations."

"Surely not!" I exclaimed.  "Surely a few ribald songs at a football match aren't as worthy of our outrage as the chaos and hooliganism being perpetrated by the Celtic support?"  Tom looked at me and burst out laughing and I joined in and we both laughed all the way home in the taxi and we were still laughing when we wrote our reports condemning the Rangers singing.

The Chip and the Potato Head

I was sitting in my Hyndland flat with Gerry McCulloch and Patrick Harvey after a great night out when David Leask suggested we get up to some mischief.  Sorry, not David Leask, it was Patrick Harvey... Or was it?  Hold on, it was David Leask.  I think.  Whatever, it was the chap from the Herald who looked like Mr Potato Head put together by a blind toddler. 

Anyway, we'd had a few glasses of supper over at the Ubiquitous Chip and had come back to mine for a quick joint, according to Gerry.  I was full so didn't fancy a cut of whatever meat he was intent on cooking up but I quite fancied the company so said why not?

"How about we troll Rangers?" asked Gerry and David Leask looked at us with an odd look on his face, which wasn't unusual for him since his ears are an inch either side of his nose.  "Why would we do that?" he asked.

"Because it's what we do," said Gerry, fiddling with some small papers and a pungent smelling lump of plasticine.  "We get drunk and hit Twitter and troll Rangers.  I've got a cracker about Ched Evans I'm going to try out, what have you got Graham?"

"Nothing, I'm on my medication" I said, holding a finger up to my lips and shooshing him to keep it a secret.

"Well how about we get Leask to troll someone for you, who's pissed you off recently?"

"Everybody.  Most of them are violent sociopaths though so I don't want to go putting myself in any danger.  I mean, I'd hate to put anything to print even on social media that might come back and bite me on the arse."

"So you're basically self-censoring these days?" smiled Gerry.

"Like the rest of the UK media?  Pretty much."

"Anyone who isn't a homicidal maniac on Twitter that you have a beef with?  Someone who won't resort to violence?"  He wasn't going to let this one lie, I could tell.

"Chris Graham," I croaked.  "That smug bastard has embarrassed me more often than I can count, we could have a pop at him!"

"Who's Chris Graham?" asked Leask.

"Don't worry, our new chum, you'll find out soon enough." 

The next day I woke after midday and McCulloch and Leask were gone.  Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone were at the bottom of my bed arguing with little Jimmy Osmond so I took my medication and shuffled out of bed to find my laptop to check Twitter but before I could, my phone rang - it was Leask and he was in a tizz.  "I've fucked it up!" he screamed at me.  "I thought I'd have a go at his fake followers but it turns out we all have them, did you know this?"

"Of course I know this, I paid for mine in Russia, got in a bit of a fankle over it, Tom Devine pumped some Russian and we were lucky to escape with our hides."

"Well now I'm in way over my head, this Twitter thing just isn't for me and how I let you and Gerry talk me into it, I don't know.  Oh, and Gerry?  What was he smoking last night, he's only gone and suggested that Ched Evans should join Rangers and now Lawwell's gunning for him."

"Ooh," I groaned.  "He shouldn't have done that, Lawwell doesn't like anyone setting up the Rangers fans for that kind of return.  Just tell him to book into a hotel room and lay low for a while, he can fix his front door back on the hinges when things have calmed down."

"And what should I do?"

"What do you usually do at this time on a Thursday?"

"I'm usually at the corner of Argyll Street and Union Street, selling the Evening Times."

"Then just get on with it then and don't worry about Twitter, something else will come along and get everyone worked up and you'll soon be forgotten."

"Thanks Spiers," he sighed.  "You're a brick."

"Well that's not what most people call me but thanks."

Barad-dûr

"Where the fuck are they?" roared Lawwell as he smashed up his own office, pulling drawers out and emptying their contents on the floor and pushing over filing cabinets.  I had turned up to his office at Hampden where he'd been living since annexing the SFA a few years back, he had summoned me by telephone with a call full of imaginative expletives that would have meant nothing to anyone outside of the Scottish press and in spite of being pretty much outside of the Scottish press myself these days, I knew exactly what it meant and so my corduroys were a blur as I rushed over there. 

When I arrived, I wished I hadn't.  The office was a mess of papers, books, curious instruments of torture and jars full of gore.  On the ceiling was Stewart Regan, nailed there by the arms and legs, his stomach cut open with his intestines hanging down like some obscene tree swing.  "Regan, what are you doing up there?" I asked.

"Bleeding to death!  Spiers, you've got to help me, I've lost too much blood, if you can't help him find what he's looking for then I'm going to die up here."
"But what's he looking for?  This place is a mess, I've never seen him like this" I squawked, feeling that familiar feeling in my bowels as Lawwell emerged from a cupboard.  "Tom English's balls," he screamed at me.  "Where are they?"
"Surely hanging from Tom English?" I suggested, thinking I was being helpful.  Five minutes later as I was hanging from the ceiling beside Stewart Regan while Lawwell looked for a knife, I contemplated how one should never try to be smart with Lawwell.

"What's got him in this state anyway?" I asked Regan.
"First of all there was the Tonev thing, he didn't take to kindly to having signed up to the balance of probability approach to disciplinary procedure without having considered for one moment that we'd dare use it against Celtic."
"Well I'm surprised you did, I mean you go after the boss of the SFA of course you're going to fetch up hanging from the ceiling with your guts spilling out."
"It wasn't me, Spiers; the thing is, I can't remember doing it, telling anyone else to do it or even approving the bloody thing - God knows how it got this far, I mean there are procedures to stop this kind of thing happening."
"And by this kind of thing, you mean Lawwell's rules to pursue Rangers for any old thing being used against Celtic?"
"Exactly, listen Spiers, you've got to get us down from here, I don't think I can last much longer - I think he's looking for revenge on Tom English for his BBC article this morning, you've got to think of something and fast."
I thought for a moment and came up with a plan, a plan so simple that I'm surprised Regan himself hadn't thought about it.

"Excuse me, boss?" I called out to Lawwell as he tossed papers around the floor ranting about his blade being here somewhere.  "I have an idea."  Lawwell stood up and looked at me, those baleful eyes staring right into my soul as he pulled out his cock and pissed on the floor.  "I'm listening," he said.

"Let us down and I'll find Tom English for you, you seem to think you had his balls..."
"In a jar," he interrupted.
"You seem to think you had his balls in a jar but I saw them only last night - how is not important - and I can find them again for you but not if I'm nailed to your ceiling."
"That's not much, what else you got?" he growled, finishing off his urination and tucking his penis inside his trousers.
"To take the heat off Celtic, Stewart here will fine Rangers a hefty wedge and that'll give the press something with which to run and a good excuse to ignore the Tonev result."
"And what excuse does he have to fine Rangers?"
"Who gives a flying fuck?" screamed Regan, running out of time.  "I can say any old thing, who are Rangers to argue?  I'll fine them half a million just because I can, are you trying to say anyone out there will object?  Any newspaper or television journalists will raise one question about what the fuck we're doing?  Just get me down from here and to a hospital before I die!"
"Fine," said Lawwell.  "But make it two hundred and fifty grand, we want to stretch this out a bit."