Blow the Bloody Doors Off

I’ve been to Murray Park many times but only in the last two years has a more sinister aspect about the place become known to me. It was here last season that I watched in astonishment as the Rangers scientists probed Neil Lennon and discovered he was an android although such was his behaviour then that nobody noticed that wily old Walter Smith had switched Lennon for the robot. It was also here that I gazed in wonder at the careful study Rangers made of Peter Kearney after it had been discovered that he was the Torquemada super freak flying around Scotland wreaking havoc in the name of the Catholic church. Of course Kearney escaped and the chase led to his Inquisition 4 space station which I’ve hinted at before but the full lurid story of what went on up there will have to wait for the publication of my collected diaries in the near future.

My visit this time to Murray Park though was less grand, fallen on hard times Rangers had sold off most of the secret underground lair where Martin Bain and Donald Findlay used to plot the saving of the western world from Lawwell’s fiendish plans and my meeting with Bain this time took place in the canteen where in the background, a man in an emerald green tie checked the dishes being given out to players and counted the beans to make sure no one got any over the dozen allowed.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked Bain.
‘That’s the man from Lloyds Bank,’ replied Bain wearily.
‘I’m sure I recognise him,’ I noted and Bain said he wasn’t surprised as he’s a regular in the VIP section at Parkhead.
We sat in silence after that until we were joined by Souness who’d been changing out of his rally driving overalls and shortly behind him strolled in Donald Findlay, resplendent in evening wear and top hat, diamond topped cane tapping the floor as he sat down beside us.
‘So what’s this all about?’ I asked, looking around at these faces who had sworn off ever helping me again after my usefulness to them had come to an end at the end of last season when I was left holding the can for Rangers winning the league.
‘It’s a big weekend ahead of us Spiers,’ said Bain. ‘We’re playing Celtic and although not under confident, we have heard rumblings of a plot to discredit one of our players in an effort to unsettle the team.’
I laughed, ‘Surely you should be used to this by now? Why this happens every time you meet Celtic, you can set your watch by it!’
‘Oh we’re only too aware of that,’ said Donald Findlay, leaning into the table and speaking in a barely audible whisper, all the while glancing up at the man from Lloyds. ‘Yes, we’re only too well aware of that but this time we feel that it’s time for pre-emptive and punitive action – our enemies will never suspect it coming from a Rangers who are in a position of weakness. Your office is in the same building as the people who are hatching this scheme so we need you to be our inside man. We need you to be our way into the News of the World.’
‘Me?’ I squawked, arse dancing a tango at the thought of it. ‘Christ, I barely make it in and out of that place with my dignity intact as it is, I’d be hopeless undercover, I’m just not made out for it.’
Bain fixed me a look that froze my soul, ‘You didn’t seem to have a problem working undercover for Lawwell on HMS the Walter Smith that time you betrayed Stuart McCall. We brought him back you know, Jorg Albertz demon hunter and master of the black arts brought him back from the dead and we installed him over at Motherwell, we could take you to see him if you like?’
I recalled my close shave with McCall in Machrihanish and shivered.
‘No thanks, I’ll do what you like, just don’t let onto McCall that you know where I am – bad enough that my editor is wondering why I wasn’t at Fir Park for your last game there, the bastard docked my wages when he found out, gave ‘em to the janitor again. Let me know what you need me to do and I’ll be your man.’

And that was how I fetched up dangling by the ankles from a hot air balloon above Ibrox, but I’m getting ahead of myself.