City of Night

In the old days during the reign of the coward Murray, a European defeat at Ibrox would have been followed by bacchanalian scenes in republican bars throughout Glasgow as the Scottish media joined their Labour Party chums for a celebratory knees up and the only worries anyone had were who would host Peter Lawwell and his entourage since he liked to end the night with some casual murder of anyone he imagined had slighted him or Celtic in any way over the past few months. These days however, we have to step more carefully. Murray is gone and suddenly Rangers have teeth again. Oh they always had teeth, I know that only too well having been bitten on the arse too many times as a consequence of becoming involved against my will mostly but sometimes with my full cooperation, in most of Lawwell’s lunatic schemes. The difference now is that those teeth are visible to the public where in the past they were hidden as various people and groups plotted and planned on behalf of Rangers without letting Murray find out in case it interfered with his quest for a knighthood.
So now journalists have to look out not only for Lawwell, his Stasi and assorted grotesques all keen to terrorise and maim to keep the good name of Celtic out of the mud, but now also have to keep a keen eye open for Craig Whyte’s dogs of war, let loose at the end of last season and this is why after Rangers lost to Malmo, instead of laughing it up with the Green Brigade, every journalist was attending a secret meeting to discuss the latest worrying events.

I wasn’t invited for some reason. I’d quizzed Marjory Brianbanks as we like to call him down at Bennets, on why this was and he shrugged.
‘No one likes you Spiers. I suppose it could be that. Or just that the meeting will be in an enclosed space and we don’t like to have to breathe through our ears whenever you’re around. That’s the thing about B.O., sometimes your O leaves your B and gets right up our noses. No, when the sports journalists of Scotland get together in a confined room, the only stench we want around is that of stale whisky breath.’

So I had to find out the hard way and flirted with the Mail’s Celtic obsessed queen, Stephen McGowan who whined at me in that nasally ned way as I fumbled in his trousers getting him worked up with one hand while picking his pocket with the other, a trick I learned off Jack McConnell from his time as a pickpocket on the streets of Glasgow before the Labour Party got a hold of him, divested him of any inclination towards his old team Rangers and got him a seat at Parkhead from where he ruled Scotland for a number of years before eventually being binned as his useful idiocy ran out.
Armed with information stolen from McGowan I made my way to the location of the secret meeting, a ruined and abandoned Alexander Greek Thomson building which Glasgow City Council never think to preserve because ‘he wis a Protestant ‘n’ ‘at, know?’ The meeting wouldn’t start until it was dark according to McGowan’s note and I was reminded of Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter telling me there are no ghosts in the daylight, and of Stuart Cosgrove telling me he never went out as Bat-Cosgrove during the day; I thought of these oddballs from my past and it reminded me that Glasgow summers have only a few hours of proper darkness especially during hot spells like this one so when I sneaked into the Thomson ruins it was almost midnight and a full moon too by the looks of things as Jim Delahunt was being chained to the floor because he’d started to sprout hair on his face and grow claws.

It wasn’t easy getting in as Hugh Keevins and Tom English were manning the door so as I approached the candlelit entrance to the secret meeting I was thinking up excuses for being there uninvited I realised there was no need to worry as Keevins and English were having a hard enough time keeping out James Cook of BBC Scotland.
‘Look sonny, it’s because of you that we’re down here in the first place,’ snarled English.
‘Indeed,’ droned Keevins. If it hadn’t for your lot completely forgetting the rules and going after Ally McCoist then we wouldn’t be sneaking around in subterranean chambers at midnight in the first place so there’s no way you’re getting in – there’s no telling what misfortune you might bring with you. Spiers, what are you doing here?’
But before I could even make any excuses or plead to be let in I noticed English and Keevins looking at Cook in horror, I turned and gawped as a lump moved up Cook’s cheek – there was something under his skin! It stopped at his eye and as we all took a step back towards the door, little legs felt their way out of Cook’s eyelids and a cricket crawled out and fluttered off.
‘Jesus, what was that?’ exclaimed Cook, holding his head in his hands and gazing in incomprehension at us as more lumps moved around his face and then he began to choke, collapsing to the ground, retching as more crickets freed themselves from his eyes, flew out his ears and as he vomited, they came spewing out of his mouth too.

That was enough for us and my lack of an invitation didn’t matter anymore as we left Cook outside and fled behind the safety of the old oak door, Keevins slamming it shut and calling for help to hold it while he found a padlock and chain.
‘This is what comes of messing with the new Rangers under Whyte,’ shouted Keith Jackson at the top of the table as his fellow football hacks sat around and sweated. The underground meeting place was cool, a welcome relief from the heat of the sultry summer’s night outside but they were sweating nonetheless, from fear I reckoned as they’d just witnessed one of the more notorious members of the Pacific Quay CSC consumed by insects.
‘It seems we can no longer attack Rangers with impunity which leaves us in a difficult position,’ interrupted John Greechan. ‘On one hand we have Lawwell forcing us to bury Celtic bad news and encouraging us to lay into the Huns with threats of torture if we don’t comply with his every request and that was okay in the old days but times have changed and although we can’t be certain these crickets are the work of Rangers, it does seem odd that they affect anyone working against them.’
‘Well not quite,’ pondered Roddy Forsyth. ‘They’ve not affected Spiers yet and he’s the biggest pain in the arse for Rangers in this room.’
‘Not just for Rangers,’ muttered some wag at the back of the room and everyone laughed but the merriment was short lived as all the candles which were the only illumination in that room save for my beamer, dimmed as one and then went out leaving us in the dark, the only light peeking through the floorboards above us where the plaster had fallen from the ceiling. Everyone cried out and small comforting lights appeared through the room as people lit matches, lighters or pulled out their mobile phones.
‘Listen!’ shushed Keevins and everyone stopped babbling and listened as slow, heavy footsteps made their way across the floor above us. Dust fell from the ceiling as a dark figure passed, blocking out the peeping light and then it paused and what little light there was upstairs faded and then disappeared. Then there was a fluttering noise. First one and then two and then the whole room was full of crickets flying around until the sound of their wings was obliterated by the screams of sports journalists as they scrambled and clawed their way to the door to escape the horror inside.