City of Light

One thing the disastrous secret meeting at midnight taught the Scottish football journalists was that when you’re dealing with a creature that moves in the shadows, don’t sit in the darkness and complain when he comes to terrorise you. From that week on all the secret meetings were held in the middle of a park at three in the afternoon and only if it was a sunny day.


After a lot of soul searching everyone decided that it was Lawwell who got us into this mess so he should at least help get us out of it but when a volunteer was asked for to approach him with our request no one was brave enough to step forward. So Ronnie 'Crespo' Cully was forced to do it as it’s been noticed that Lawwell quickly tires of beating the sycophantic little squirt. Cully was dispatched to plead for Lawwell’s help just as news filtered through to us that the BBC had caved and apologised to Rangers for stitching up Ally McCoist, then we heard that Lawwell had thrashed Cully to within an inch of his life after he put four of his finest men on the case only for all of them to go missing one by one, dried cricket husks arriving at Parkhead and addressed to Lawwell every time one of his agents disappeared. Things were not going well for the Scottish football press and we weren’t taking it well. Having got used to the days of wine and roses when we could lay into Rangers without fear, it was difficult for many of us to adjust now that we realised that those days are not long.

Days turned into weeks and everything went quiet. Nobody reported any cricket based activity and the bhoys at the BBC began to think they could get back to normal and were preparing another editing-based outrage to perpetrate against Rangers but then even although McCoist’s team fell to Maribor, Celtic ruined the night by failing to turn up at Parkhead and another early European exit stared them in the face. The screams from Pacific Quay could be heard from the Alea Casino where I was spending an enjoyable few hours with the Osmonds, losing at roulette and drinking appletinis.
‘You’ve been quiet recently, Spiers’ said Donny as I put a fiver on red.
‘Black’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit! Well not quite Donny, my stuff is still appearing in the Times but nobody reads it anymore so it doesn’t really matter what I say, I can’t get everyone quite as worked up as I used to. Fiver on black.’
‘But what about Twitter?’ asked little Jimmy although he’s not really all that little anymore, weighing fourteen stone and sporting a beard.
‘Red’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit! Listen Jimmy, I’ve hardly got any friends left on that either as I’ve removed so many followers recently it’s not true. Every time someone asks me a challenging question regarding the establishment’s approach to Celtic fans’ sectarian singing I have to bump them as I have no sensible response. All I have left are swivel eyed Celtic fans themselves following me and half of them write in text speak so that I can’t understand a word they’re saying. Fiver on red.’
‘So no one’s reading anything you write these days?’ asked Marie.
‘Black’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit! Well, doddery old Magnus still reads it. And someone from Lawwell’s office too I suppose as he monitors everyone lest they stray off message. Fiver on black.’
‘I’ve always meant to ask you about Magnus Linklater, why on earth does he still employ you? You’re poison’ said Wayne with a little too much malice in his voice.
‘Red’ pointed out Jay.
‘Dammit!’ cried I and it was around this time that security asked me to leave for creeping out the other gamblers by speaking to myself which I didn’t understand and neither did the Osmonds who left with me but didn’t intervene as I was escorted out. Still, leaving early gave me the chance to tell my new friends all about why shaky old Magnus suffers me.

It all started a long time ago when I was but a boy…