Endless Night: The Papes of Wrath

The night after Rangers beat Celtic, every member of the Scottish sporting press was in hiding from the Lawwell Stasi who were rounding everyone up in unmarked vans and anyone who wasn't already taken was keeping a low profile. Of course being as cowardly as an Ayrshire fireman, I was holed up in a coal bunker in the back court of a block of tenement flats in Partick.

It was around midnight when I heard the stomp of men running down the close and the crash of a boot kicking open a door. There were screams from the flat as they dragged some poor soul out as a woman cried and begged them for mercy only for her sobbing to stop suddenly as the truncheons rained down on her. It was just my luck to hide out in the close of some minor sports writer for a local rag of some sort - Lawwell's goons were collecting everyone then, this must be serious. As I pondered this, a lump of coal rolled from on top of me and fell to the ground, the noise catching the attention of the Stasi who stopped beating the woman and opened the door to the coal bunker where I was hiding in the corner. A torch shone in and one of them laughed, 'We've got a big one here - it's Spiers. Come on you orange bastard, it's payback time' and before I could object I was being dragged from the coal and could feel the smack of truncheons on the back of my legs. I was thrown to the ground and my head fell beside the battered and bloodied face of Bryan Young. Just as I thought I was going to meet the same fate as him, I heard a strange sound, like the soft rustle of leather wings and then the noise of bones cracking as my assailants fell silently, one by one until I was the only one still conscious, sitting there in the dark trying to see what was happening. Then from the blackness of the night a shadow moved towards me, and as it appeared slowly under the neon fizz of a courtyard lamp, I saw a man dressed all in black with a cape and pointy ears. In a rough teuchter accent he told me, 'There is evil abroad tonight, go home and lock your doors and think long and hard about the sides you have chosen of late.' Then he reached skywards and there was a swoosh from his hand as a grappling hook fired upwards and then he rose and disappeared over the rooftops his cape flapping in the wind. I couldn't believe it, was that just Stuart Cosgrove who'd rescued me while dressed as a bat?