What Keeps Lawwell Alive?

Wearing a wig and cocktail dress, I was in disguise at Peter Lawwell’s Hogmanay party, as staff. I was serving drinks and it gave me a terrific view of all the great and good of the Celtic Minded as they went about their business. Which is exactly what Donald Findlay wanted and why he had me infiltrate the function. It wasn’t hard, I wore a low cut top and wobbled my jugs so no one looked at my face except Steven Purcell who looked me straight in the eye briefly before turning, puzzled to find a loo. Alex Mosson leered over me for a bit but then I noticed he was only distracting my attention and had his hand in the till. Alan Thompson was brought in on a lead and a barrel organ struck up somewhere and he did a cute little dance before being rewarded with bananas and stuck in a cage. I also noticed Neil Lennon and Scott Brown staggering around, moaning and drooling; of course they’re zombies these days but no one noticed. Johan Mjallby was there, dressed badly and feeling out of his depth much like he does every Saturday; he didn’t last long though, after spotting the black drummer from the house band and following him down the corridor racially abusing him – he must’ve thought he was back in the Ibrox tunnel chasing Kyle Bartley and El Hadji Diouf. John Reid was back for the night and was over at the cocktail bar slurring on the shoulders of some young Parkhead secretary, ‘Come on, you know you want it…’ he slithered before collapsing into an ice bucket. I caught a glimpse of Kenny McAskill in a corner looking shifty until he was joined by Barking Phil Tartaglia who stood glowering at him until McAskill handed over a document of some kind – it all looked very odd indeed.

The problem was, I was seeing nothing that I hadn’t seen a hundred times before so Findlay was going to be very disappointed when I reported the same old rubbish, a bit like my old editor at the Times must have felt every time I handed in my weekly column. Ah, those were the days: working for the Times, mixing with the cream of Scottish football, a member of Lawwell’s inner sanctum, coffee at Hampden, tea at Parkhead and trebles all round with the BBC Scotland bhoys down at the Chip where we’d drink all evening until it was time to be ravished in the toilet by some coked up little squirt. Now all I have are memories; memories and a cracking set of tits. I served Joe Ledley with them in full view and he sniggered and pointed at them, ‘Look, a woman’s breasts, hee hee hee…’ and he sloped off.

The whole thing was becoming quite dull and I was considering leaving when the band struck up and everyone stood back expectantly as the lights went out and a spotlight hit the stage at the end of the hall. Peter Lawwell walked on, kicking his feet, wearing a white fur coat and hat and singing:

‘Now, let me see: those gentlemen who think they have a mission - to rid us of the seven deadly sins - should first sort out the basic food conditions.
Then start their preaching, there it all begins.
You mean this lot who make the wars and give us hell?
Should learn for once the way the world is run. However much they twist, whatever lies they tell - first they should feed us, then can have their fun.
For even honest men may act like sinners, unless they've had their customary dinners.
What keeps a man alive?’

This was astonishing, Lawwell was giving us a song and dance, the band oompah-ed away and he continued as the entire room stood, grins fixed, hoping not to attract his attention.

‘What keeps a man alive - the fact that people are being tortured, beaten, punished, killed, oppressed.
Man lives on other's pain, could be his brothers; for his own greed he will just keep us all repressed.
Remember if you wish to stay alive: just once, give something back and you'll survive,’
and as he sang this last line I saw him winking at the SFA referees in the corner.

Then to great cheers from the crowd, some dancing girls came on, dressed in traditional can-can dresses, kicking their height and exposing their bloomers – it was Jeanette Findlay, Joan McAlpine, Gillian Bowditch, Roseanna Cunningham and Stephen McGowan. They high kicked onto the stage and joined in:

‘You tell us girls our daily work is sinful.
You leave your wives and then to us you run.
You make us sweat and want us to be grateful.
First fill our stomachs, then come have your fun.
All hypocrites who talk of high morality - those institutions that create the law.
They take their pleasure putting us to shame - they'd better feed us, we are not to blame.
For even honest wives can act like sinners - unless they've had their customary dinners.
What keeps a man alive?’

And then Lawwell joined in again and urged everyone in the audience to join him and before I knew what was going on, the whole place was singing and dancing, the band skipping around the room, tubas blowing, harmonium whirling, Joan McAlpine pulling Lorraine Davidson onto the stage where the pair of them did a striptease, then the Young Bhoys of the BBC came running, sniffing out of the toilets and joined them naked in a dance and that's when the room descended into orgy and I decided it was time to leave. As I was tip-toeing out I heard a door open and from inside the room a voice rang out above the merriment.
‘I know it’s you, you know,’ it was Steven Purcell. ‘Happy new year Spiers! Happy new year every one of us!’

The Threepenny Bits Opera

Perhaps Souness was right when he suggested in the middle of a bloody melee that this is where I belong? Last season, or was it two seasons ago, somebody called me a weirdness magnet and insinuated that I was useful to all and sundry because I seem to attract all the freaks and monstrosities in the land and you know, it’s very hard to dispute this when I’ve just witnessed the waterfront slaughter of a battalion of the Green Brigade by that science pirate, Richard Gough and his cut throat Sikhs and have just sailed around Scotland in a great iron beast, the Nautilus while Gough waits for things to quieten down a bit.

I had been given my own quarters and was only there an hour before Donald Findlay knocked on my door; he was in a jovial mood and was whistling Mack the Knife which I found unusual since he’d only recently witnessed the murder of his housekeeper, Mrs Hudson and should have been in no mood for jollity.

‘What-ho, Spiers. I hear you had quite the blood lust last night, what? Blood lust? That’s a new one for you but then again, so is losing your dick and gaining a whopping great set of thrupenny bits, eh? Ho ho ho!’
‘I’m pleased you find my predicament amusing,’ I sneered. ‘But these blasted things have been the ruin of me – who takes seriously a woman sports journalist?’
‘Who took you seriously when you had a penis?’ chortled Findlay.
‘Laugh all you like Findlay but I’m done being used and abused by all and sundry. Last night was just the beginning. I had the power to save those wretches in the Brazen Head – Gough gave me the choice; me, Graham Spiers! I had their lives in my hands and I told him to spare not one of ‘em!’ I was quite ranting by now but Findlay interrupted.
‘Actually, you had nothing in your hands. I was the one who gave Gough the order to raze the waterfront. They dared break into my house and murder my housekeeper? They dared attack me and my guests? How dare they? Well now they’re reaping the whirlwind because last night I sent in the navy. Today we rest, consolidate and ensure Ibrox and Murray Park are secure but tomorrow? Tomorrow I let slip the dogs of war, tomorrow the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos are coming out of retirement.’

He wasn’t jovial anymore, that was for sure. His eyes darkened and he stood by a porthole gazing out into the murky blackness of the North Sea.
‘For too long we’ve sat back and allowed ourselves to be attacked. First it was the small things: I was in purgatory for singing a song at a private party while practically the whole Celtic team was caught on film singing their own offensive songs with nary a whimper from the press – where was their banishment, eh? Where were their years in the wilderness? Then individuals weren’t enough, they came after the fans en-masse and next thing you know the Billy Boys is gone as they disingenuously changed the meaning of one word, claiming it offended them. Well if it offended them so much, why do they still use it to refer to themselves? If all this wasn’t enough, they then discovered there was capital to be gained by complaining to anyone they could think of about Rangers fans and look where that’s got us, freedom of speech gone, thought crime on the statute books and halfway towards Dystopia. Yes, some thought the new legislation would even things up but what do they say now that we’ve witnessed fifty thousand Celtic fans singing about the IRA and then calling us all huns only for the Assistant Chief Constable to praise them for their good behaviour? Imagine that shoe was on the other foot, Spiers? I can almost hear the squeals from the cabal of Celtic Minded academics as they rush to condemn the whole of Scotland of bigotry. The same type of bigotry they’d see in themselves if only they weren’t so pompous and standing on a moral high ground built of sand.

‘You know, I used to think that the whole sectarian charade was a convenient smoke screen for Lawwell to hide the deficiencies of his team but now I’m not so sure. Now I think there may be an even greater end game although what exactly it is, I couldn’t say. Once Souness and his commandos have shaken things up a bit then maybe we’ll know a bit more. I can just imagine him now: dressed in black, knife between the teeth, swimming towards Parkhead. Or Hampden. Our enemies are everywhere now, Spiers. Even in here, in this room.’
‘Me?’ I squirmed.
‘Have you forgotten the last ten years? You think that just because you now have a marvellous pair of tits that we’re going to forget all about your behaviour? Your constant attacks on the club and support? You were their main cheerleader. No more though. What are you now but a big unemployed lassie? You’ve been overtaken by the young turks, Spiers and if you know what’s good for you then you’ll do as we say and maybe, just maybe, you’ll end up alright.’

He ended that sentence with a tip of his top hat and left me alone to think about what he’d said. I could hear him whistling down the corridor and then he stopped whistling and started singing quietly and I remember the words because they were in German which seemed odd.

Denn die einen sin dim Dunkeln
Und die andern sind im Licht
Und man siehet die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht.

Pirate Jenny

As seedy waterfront bars go, the Brazen Head used to be my favourite. Before, when I was a man, I used to frequent here to hear ribald tales of a perverse religion centred around football and violence. Oh there were characters in those days; city councillors and MPs mixing with dollymops and doxies, cracksmen and fawney droppers. Sit long enough and you’d meet every kind of rogue and villain, all joined in the one cause: Celtic, a football club. I drank there as a respectable journalist and campaigner for the rights of these curiously tribal people in order to further my Celtic Minded credentials – more’s the better in order to advance in the media in Scotland these days. Then, while not exactly accepting me as one of their own, at least they humoured me.

Now, having been fired from the Times and turned into a woman by Peter Lawwell for some nefarious purpose, I can’t get work anywhere and tired of moping around my Ayrshire hideaway, I came into the city and got a job in the Brazen Head as a cleaner. Nobody recognised me as the previously dashing, corduroy clad champion of the downtrodden. They watch me as I’m scrubbing the floors and they never know who I am. They growl and snarl at me if I get in their way and they never know to whom they’re talking. The night of the Celtic win over Rangers I was there, on my hands and knees as usual, scrubbing vomit and urine from under the tables when I heard a contingent of the Green Brigade wondering aloud how they would have reacted had it been a Celtic goal not given in the manner Rangers had a perfectly good goal ignored. Such an innocuous query and yet it led to such scenes of violence as the very thought of it happening brought out the beasts in them and they began fighting amongst each other; blows were traded, chairs were smashed, one chap called Macheath even pulled a knife and I got caught up in it all, pushed from one groping ruffian to another until my shirt was half off and my bra ripped. The sight of one of my poonts popping out quieted them for a moment and then a lascivious look came over them as one and I was backed into a corner as the crowd advanced on my, their thoughts being most ungentlemanly. Not even the zombie Neil Lennon smashing his way into the Sky broadcasting room at Parkhead live on television could distract them and I feared that I was about to be gang raped until everyone stopped and looked up as reports were heard from the direction of the Clyde and a whistling sound heralded something coming towards us. I grinned. ‘What’s she got to grin for?’ asked one green and grey clad flimp. Then there was a scream from outside and I gazed out the window. ‘Who’s that kicking up a row?’ asked a doxy.
‘What’s she got to stare at now?’ cried a glocky.
‘I’ll tell ya,’ I said. ‘There’s a ship, the black freighter, turning in the harbour,’ and as they all rushed to the windows to look, a great crashing explosion tore the room apart. Down in the Clyde, Richard Gough’s Nautilus was firing mortars from its gun ports and his Sikhs were streaming onto the wharf and pouring up the street towards the Brazen Head. All their thoughts of raping me were now gone as everyone dived for cover or fled in the face of impending massacre but it was too late, the Sikhs were upon them and every man jack of the Green Brigade and all the assorted villains rounded up and held among the burning timber, the flames the only illumination in that horrid place. What was left of the door was kicked open and in marched Gough.
‘This is for Donald Findlay’s housekeeper, from now on you don’t attack us with impunity. Spiers, I can see you cowering there, come out.’
I pulled my torn shirt over my breasts and walked towards him, eyeing the chained men who moments before were about to molest me.
‘Kill ‘em now or later?’ was all Gough asked me.
A fog horn sounded miles away and in the quiet of death I said, ‘Right now.’
The bodies piled up and I said, ‘That’ll learn you,’ and as Gough and his Sikhs returned to the Nautilus I walked with them and as the ship disappeared out to sea, on it was me.

Magic, Mayhem and Melancholy

Blackbirds sing outside. I can’t see them but I have grown to know their sound from my enforced solitude in an Ayrshire barn conversion. I’m lying on the floor gazing up through the dormer windows at the grey sky, the only movement the steady stream of rain water as it trickles down the window. I have one hand clutching my phone and the other absent mindedly caressing one of my breasts. Yes, this is why I am living in self-enforced exile, I’m now a woman.

Of course the gathered ranks of the Scottish football media used to call me a big wuman all the time anyway but now I find myself sans-penis and although exciting at first, I now don’t know quite what to do with myself. I’ve also been fired from the Times which makes it worse. I thought I was so untouchable, me – Spiers, the curse of Rangers and champion of downtrodden Celtic fans everywhere, but then I pulled a gun on Magnus Linklater only to discover later that he had one of Lawwell’s agents hiding behind me with an even bigger gun, one that fires darts and can knock out Elaine C Smith at full charge from fifty yards. Then I woke up, post-op in one of Lawwell’s underground chambers with Graeme Souness eyeing me most maliciously and before I knew it I was in 221b with Donald Findlay laughing at me so hard he coughed on his pipe and had to hold onto the fireplace while his housekeeper fetched him sherry.

‘Oh, oh, oh, Spiers! What are we going to do with you?’ he roared. ‘I mean, I’m not complaining – that’s a magnificent set of bouncers you have on you but in the name of the wee man, what possible good was this going to do Lawwell? I simply don’t understand and that worries me.’
‘Honey trap, it has to be,’ muttered Souness darkly, his moustache bristling.
‘Sex magic,’ suggested Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter without expanding which was a shame as this sounded quite interesting.
Findlay recovered slightly and straightened his back, ready to expound some theory of his own but then he looked at me and burst into shrieks of laughter again and had to be helped into a chair.

Once Findlay had calmed down they sat around a table by the huge bay windows and pondered how best to approach the current stalemate with the SFA.
‘Lunny’s working to nothing but the BBC’s own pro-Celtic agenda,’ growled Souness. ‘He doesn’t quite realise how he’s being manipulated in that he doesn’t know or doesn’t believe that the Pacific Quay CSC are working for Lawwell, suppressing anything damaging to Celtic while highlighting ad nauseum all minor incidents involving Rangers. He told me this under torture so I believe him. Regan knows fine well what’s going on but he’s been nothing but a Lawwell puppet since Celtic annexed the SFA before the season even started. Our problem lies not only in the disproportionate punishment of Rangers by Lunny but also the knock on effect it is having on referees who are now too scared to award anything our way for fear of being dragged through the media mud once the Young Bhoys of the BBC have edited the footage to suit Lawwell. This is extremely concerning to us as we have a game against Celtic in a few days. My suggestion is that you allow me to take out Lawwell once and for all – I’ve never understood your desire to give him a free hand to do as he likes, not when you’ve got me, and indeed Jorg Albertz at your disposal, not to mention Richard Gough and his navy or the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos. With all this in our armoury we should be taking the fight to Lawwell, not letting him ride roughshod over Scottish football while his confederates, Devine, Kearney, McBride and all the others do the same to Scottish society. The country is teetering on the edge of something awful and for what, a game of football?’
‘Now now Graeme,’ puffed Findlay, composed at last and sucking on his pipe. ‘You’ve trusted me for three seasons and haven’t I always delivered? I think you should have more faith in my reasoning and calm that itchy trigger finger of yours. A time for cool heads, I’ve always said, don’t you think Spiers? Eh? Cool heads? Now,’ and he regarded me with a smirk. ‘Now, I think I have a use for you after all,’ but before he could continue his sitting room door burst open and there was Findlay’s housekeeper standing with eyes and mouth wide open, the business end of a huge sword sticking out of her belly – she’d been run through from behind.
‘Mrs Hudson!’ screamed Findlay and in a twinkling had opened a vial of orange liquid he’d produced from his pocket and was gulping it down just as Souness had produced a pistol from his dinner jacket and Albertz began trying to find an unlocked window.

It was the Green Brigade. We knew instantly as they were but teenagers although very dangerous teenagers since they’d been brainwashed by the old rapey looking guy who was leading them and who’d run through Mrs Hudson. They screamed in delight as they saw us trapped in there and pushed the housekeeper aside and made for Souness first, cutlasses held aloft. Souness downed the first eight with his Walther PPK so that the next wave had to jump the bodies of their comrades to reach him by which time he’d picked up a fallen sword and was busy pinking anyone who came near. Their numbers soon told though and Souness was forced into a corner and had to resort to the Maltese Cross manoeuvre to keep them back. I was pressed against the window which Albertz had failed to open and was now rushing with a chair. ‘Don’t break my bloody window!’ shrieked Findlay before convulsing and writhing on the floor, his body growing and tearing open his lounge suit and smoking jacket, revealing muscle upon muscle out of which coarse black hair was sprouting – I’ll say it again, one touch of the hard stuff and that Findlay is an animal! He stood up and his head nearly touched the ceiling. The Green Brigade who almost filled the room now, all stopped and stared at him, perhaps remembering tales of how the beast Findlay had ripped the heads off the first incarnation of their little organisation.

There was a crash and I turned to see Albertz had thrown the chair through the window; an absolute shame as it had been the original Georgian glass. This was the final straw for the Findlay beast and he reached down, picked up three of the Green Brigade and took off their heads with one bite. The room was now a chaos of struggle and screams and gore. I heard another crash and Souness had fallen backwards through the middle bay window from the weight of the Green Brigade who were hurling themselves on him.
‘Sorry guvnor, time for me to go,’ winked Albertz before taking off through his hole in the window. Looking up one last time before following him, I saw Findlay holding the rapey looking leader of the Green Brigade by the neck with his teeth, he was shaking him like a dog would a doll until old rapey stopped thrashing and his body fell limp into the fire, his cheap nylon shell suit catching light and just as I plunged out the window, tits first, I could tell that the room was going up in flames then I was rolling across the lawn and I came to at the feet of what looked like a giant Sikh sailor. I looked up at him and it was Richard Gough!
‘By the gods, Spiers! You’re a woman!’ exclaimed Gough before throwing himself into the fray, his Jack Tars in turbans right behind him waving their tulwars.

The scaling ladders went up and as Gough and his sailors poured into the room to aid Findlay, I felt for broken bones as usual and realised for the first time that I was no longer checking my manhood first to make sure it was still there.
‘Yes, you’ve still got a fanny,’ muttered Souness who kneeled beside me reloading his Walther and when he finished he got up and looked down at me, almost in pity.
‘This is where I belong, Spiers; amongst the madness and bloodshed. You do too, only you don’t know it. I’m going back in there, you can do what you like,’ and he started to leave but I called out to him, ‘But it’s crazy! It’s beyond lunacy,’ but before I could finish he winked at me and said, ‘You think this is mental, wait till you see the game against Celtic on Wednesday.’

I ran as fast as my jiggling boobs would let me and as I left the grounds of 221b, an explosion rocked the neighbourhood and sent me sprawling. I got up and kept running and didn’t look back.

That was Christmas Eve and there was nothing merry about it. Now here I lie, in my secluded barn watching the grey sky turn into night; the blackbirds the only sound I can hear. My phone sits quietly in my hand. No one’s asked me to work at the Rangers Celtic game yet. I’m becoming desperate.

A World Well Lost

So I’m a woman. I sat regarding my tits and struggled to remember anything after Magnus Linklater had me shot at the Times. I thought I was dead. Well, I didn’t think anything but it certainly felt like I was dead, all that nothingness, the cut to black but here I am, lying on an operating table in Lawwell’s dungeons and in possession of a remarkable set of diddies. I gave ‘em a little jiggle to see how it felt but this only brought a sigh from Souness who was eyeing me with suspicion from the other side of the room.
‘What are we going to do with it?’ he asked. Jorg Albertz was with him and he thought for a while.
‘Well we can’t leave it here, who knows why Lawwell had this done but I don’t trust for a moment what he’s going to do with it. Nothing good, that’s for sure.’
‘We’ll take it to Donald Findlay, he’ll know what to do with it,’ suggested Souness. ‘He’s a politician. Well, he’s a QC but you know what I mean. He should have some idea just what new monstrous outrage Lawwell is planning to carry out with a female Graham Spiers.’
There was no denying it, I’d pulled the sheets back and my cock was gone.

I didn’t argue with Souness or Alberz as they bundled me up and out of Parkhead, I wanted to get to the bottom (not for the first time) of this. Why in the midst of fighting off a concentrated attack by his own people in the media had Peter Lawwell taken the time to give me a sex change? If I’d known the trouble it’d get me into and the danger and being scared half to death, I’d have let it lie and just got on with life as a man with a woman’s body – it’s worked for Janette Findlay for long enough – but I just had to know and as we sped through the streets of the east end, the rattle of defensive machine guns sounding behind us as Lawwell fought off everyone with any media interest except BBC Scotland who remained sandbagged within Pacific Quay broadcasting the Boys of the Old Brigade, I thought to myself that this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship with my new body if only I had the slightest idea what to do with a vagina.

Souness: Revenge of the Ranger Part Five

Peter Lawwell’s Celtic is a wounded beast, limping through the undergrowth trying in vain to hide the painful and open wounds inflicted by the UEFA fine and unprecedented media attention on its fans’ sectarian singing. I’m Souness and I saw those open wounds and decided what they needed was a dose of vinegar.

My first thought was to arm up and take the Mini Cooper through the front doors but a phone call from Jorg Albertz warned me that there was an easier way.
‘How did you know what I was planning?’ I asked.
‘Because I know what you’re thinking.’ He replied.
‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’ I asked.
‘Because I’m Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter,’ he replied.
Satisfied, I met him at George Square and wore the cheap suit and emerald green tie he’d requested. When Albertz turned up he was wearing the same. The disguises got us into the City Chambers without anyone batting an eye and there he showed me the tunnel that led from the headquarters of Glasgow City Council to Celtic Park.

A half hour yomp later and we came out inside Parkhead from a broom cupboard. The first thing that happened was that we met a Celtic security guard. I was reaching for my Walther but Albertz held up a pack of cigarettes and said to the man, ‘This is an ID card. It says I’m an employee and so is this man. You’re going to let us go on our way.’
It worked and the man left us be.
‘Oh, and you’re going to leave here and go take a shit in Alan Thompson’s office,’ he shouted after him. I’d seen this before, auto-suggestion, hypnosis, call it what you like. Albertz calls it magic, I call it dealing with morons.

We made our way to Lawwell’s dungeons, Albertz remembering the four digit code to get into the subterranean base: 1967. They hadn’t changed it since he was last here with Richard Gough. They never change it. So caught up are they in their own self-mythologising, they make it easy for us to access every code they have. We crept past the torture pits, past the skin flats and the inquisition chamber until we got to the operating room. This was where I intended to plant the first high explosive, not to bring down Parkhead – no, that wasn’t my plan at all. The football club was safe with me, my intention was to strike at the bristling underbelly of the institution and where better to start than Lawwell’s underground empire?

I was reaching into my bag of tricks when Albertz nudged me and motioned for me to follow him into the operating room. It was empty save for one table in the centre. Barely lit, the only illumination came from this table where a body lay covered in a single sheet. It was a woman, we could tell from the protruding breasts. Intrigued as to what Lawwell was doing with a woman inside his dungeon retreat we walked cautiously towards the table and Albertz leaned over and pulled back the sheet. What fresh madness was this? It was Spiers!

Souness: Revenge of the Ranger Part Four

I hooked the pulley over the zip slide, jumped from the roof of the hotel opposite Pacific Quay and in seconds I was careering towards the headquarters of the greatest enemy of Rangers outside of Celtic, BBC Scotland. The BBC in Glasgow is just an extension of Celtic these days, much like the SFA. My job tonight was to do something about that. Celtic had been found guilty by UEFA of sectarian singing by their fans but the media in Scotland, under orders from Lawwell were playing it down. The BBC more than most. Word had reached me that they intended to give it ten seconds, buried at the back of the programme in the sport section. The memory of the headlines attacking Rangers when they were in a similar position a few years back made it more clear than ever that the Pacific Quay CSC had an agenda, I couldn’t contain my rage and set off for a little revenge, Souness style. Findlay didn’t know of my work tonight and wouldn’t have sanctioned it had he known. Something about this made my zip slide across the Clyde more invigorating. I was back in the shadows, working for no one but myself.

I hit the roof and rolled and coming to, spotted a dark figure approaching me. Recognising it immediately as Stuart Cosgrove dressed as a bat, I fired three shots into his chest anyway and he staggered backwards and fell off the side of the building. A stupid way to die. The grappling hook appeared as expected and Cosgrove was back on the roof.
‘Souness, you maniac – you knew it was me, lucky my Kevlar breast plate saved me but then you knew I was wearing it, didn’t you? What were you trying to do, put me in my place?’
I grinned and said nothing. Didn’t have to. He had me sussed.

I asked him what he was doing on the roof. ‘I work here, where else am I going to begin my nightly patrols?’ he complained.
Nightly patrols. I have so much in common with this man and yet so little. I’ve never understood him and for that I detest him. I put this to the back of my mind and smiled as I remembered his expression when I shot him over the edge of the roof.
‘Are you here to gather information on the BBC’s burying of Celtic’s UEFA fine?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m here to shoot the people responsible for it,’ I replied. No point in gathering information. We know the BBC is culturally and institutionally biased against Rangers. Nothing will change that. Shooting a few of them will make me feel better though and that’s all that matters just now.'
‘Well I wouldn’t hang around here too long if I were you,’ said Cosgrove. ‘It’s dark, and they mostly come at night. Mostly,’ and then he shot his grappling hook skywards and took off towards the Science Centre.

I wondered what he meant but before I had time to ponder his words too much, I heard a noise from behind me and there was Chris McLaughlin crouched by a door, hissing at me. My Walther was out of its holster in a second and I fired two silenced shots into his chest. He kept coming. I put another two through him but he only halted briefly before coming on again. One right in the forehead snapped his head back but he straightened it and snarled at me, fangs glinting in the moonlight. One each to the knees and I was off back across the Clyde on the zip slide.

Back in my car, burning rubber as I tore through the streets I thought about Neil Lennon and Scott Brown, spewing filth across Scottish football. I thought about Chris McLaughlin sucking the life out of it. Zombies and vampires. This is a new world and I don’t like it. I don’t like anything that won’t stay dead when I shoot it.

Souness: Revenge of the Ranger Part Three

I move in the shadows; silent, deadly, moustache bristling.  I was at Parkhead and had infiltrated Lawwell's inner sanctum - the underground dungeons where he skulks and plots.  And tortures.   He had Vincent Lunny on the rack and Lunny was squealing like a stuck pig, promising anything Lawwell liked if only he'd make the pain stop.  I let him continue longer than I should have, enjoying Lunny's discomfort and because I waited, I left myself open to two of Lawwell's goons stumbling upon me in the corridor.  They reached for their weapons, their first mistake; I didn't allow them another.  Two shots from a silenced Walther PPK and one fell forward, his left ventricle in tatters while the other buckled at the knees and collapsed, his right ventricle exploding in his chest .  I wonder if they appreciated the symmetry?  Lunny screamed and I decided it was time.

A casual observer might think that the silencer was resting on Lawwell's temple but it wasn't, it was touching it and every inch of the pistol was under my control.  Lawwell knew this, Lawwell knew me and silently unstrapped Lunny who dragged himself from the rack and sobbing, gathered his clothes.

'Thank you, oh thank you whoever you are.   This man's a maniac, a sadist!' cried Lunny as my pistol stayed aimed at Lawwell's head as the beast himself regarded me through evil eyes.  That's why I'm here; to battle a monster you must use a monster.  Lawwell thinks he's a sociopath?  Wait till he gets a load of me.  'See you later you lazy eyed psycho,' I grinned and winked at him.

Getting out was easier than getting in, I just held onto Lunny and ran through the corridors shooting anything that moved.  As I passed the players' changing rooms I came upon Neil Lennon staggering towards me, his arms outstretched.  I put two through his lungs but it made no difference and he kept coming at me and that was when I remembered Spiers's wild claims of Lennon being a zombie.  I was aiming for the head when I was disturbed by Scott Brown coming at me from a side door.  He had a bite mark on his neck and looked as brain dead as Lennon, thick black tar drooling from his mouth, skin pale, eyes vacant, moaning.  Instinctively I put one in his heart but he too kept coming.  Zombies, both of 'em.  My boot crashed open a fire exit and I was out of there with Lunny bleating behind me about how thankful he was to be rescued.   My car roared and as we left Celtic Park I could see Lennon and Brown stumbling out of the open fire exit and heading off into the night, towards Ashton Lane no doubt.  No one would notice they were any different.

'Listen, I don't know who you are, I'm not really that knowledgeable about football but thank you anyway,' gibbered Lunny.  'Thank you, thank you, thank you!'

'You're welcome,' I said.  'But one thing intrigues me.  Lawwell's one of your own and he's doing that to you.  What I'm about to do is because I'm your enemy but one of your own?  Why was he doing that to you?  Think about it.'

I let him think about it until I got him to my warehouse.  I let him think about it as I tied him to a chair.  He was still thinking about it when I attached the crocodile clips and and turned on the power.

Souness: Revenge of the Ranger Part Two

The interesting thing about the Green Brigade meetings is that they’re always the same – some rapey looking old man will stand up and rave about social injustice, blame it all on Protestants then he’ll get a round of applause and everyone will burst into a few verses of Boys of the Old Brigade before they all get tanked up on Buckfast and go out looking for Church of Scotland ministers to attack. It’s not sectarian though, it’s political. At least that’s what people you’d think would know better would have us believe. A cabal of bigoted academics have been pushing this agenda since Strathclyde Police had the temerity to report Celtic to UEFA for their fans’ sectarian chanting. The academics aren’t alone as they’ve been joined by the Scottish Labour Party who have been taking it in turns to speak up in defence of songs glorifying the IRA from their complimentary seats in the main stand at Parkhead. Then there are Lawwell’s poodles in the media; they’re all on my list if only Donald Findlay would sanction my plans for a massive punitive strike but he won’t although he’s tempted to let me loose on BBC Scotland which I’m looking forward to.

The rafters were dark and cold as I observed the Green Brigade’s latest meeting and for a change they had something a little different this time.
‘Comrades, we are pleased to announce a very special guest this week,’ announced the rapey old man and a hush fell over the assembled teenagers and juvenile delinquents. ‘I introduce to you, Phil McGillivan!’
There was uproar as a door opened and in staggered a putrid and rotting figure of a man. He shambled onto the makeshift stage opened his mouth and spewed filth and excrement over the front three rows, lost whatever balance he had and then collapsed in a pile of his own vomit. He got a standing ovation.

‘Comrades,’ said old Rapey, standing up and continuing the applause. ‘I think you’ll find that Comrade Phil is never wrong so you all know what to do,’ and at this, they all got up and left the building and headed to Dundee to prove their edgy Marxist credentials by singing songs in praise of terrorism and ethnic cleansing. I would have liked to have done a little cleansing of my own, the Sterling submachine gun snuggling cosily in my arms but I had strict instructions to observe only. Such is the life of a soldier.

Souness: Revenge of the Ranger

I'm Souness.  I’m a soldier. Donald Findlay’s a politician. Well, he’s a QC but you know what I mean. He’s had me hamstrung since the beginning of this season, putting the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos out to grass and allowing me only to work on my own and in the shadows. To make matters worse, he’s become too caught up in Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter’s mumbo jumbo and now they’ve brought in Mo Johnston, a powerful ally to have with a proven track record of bringing fear to our enemies but the problem with him is he’s a renegade and you never know whose side he’s on at any given time. So after I'd rescued the mincing fool, Spiers from Tartaglia’s hit squad in Val D’Isere and using him to flush out a Lawwell assassin who was stalking Ally McCoist, Findlay got Spiers all riled up about something or another and he ran off to Queen Street to confront Magnus Linklater about his future on the Times. That was the last we heard of Spiers, apart from some whimpering on Twitter and now he’s gone.

I can’t say I’m sad to lose him; Findlay liked to play him like a pawn in a giant chess match against Lawwell but all I could see was a prancing queen with a hard on for corduroy and a sociopathic need to attack Rangers. Craig Whyte called him an irrelevance as nobody reads the Times in Scotland anymore and Spiers lost his fan base among the Celtic community the moment the Times put a pay wall on their website. Reduced to writing provocative rubbish on Twitter, a medium which seems to attract narcissistic morons like Spiers and which seems to take up all of Stewart Regan’s days now that he has nothing else to do with his time, the SFA having been annexed by Celtic, Spiers was no longer a threat to Rangers. Even his influence over politicians waned when Stuart Waiton exposed him during the recent summit to discuss the SNP’s proposed sinister, dystopian sectarianism in football bill which meant there would be no more dripping poison into the ears of anyone with the clout to pursue UEFA in an attempt to have Rangers banned from Europe in order to affect their revenue stream and give the government team, Celtic an advantage.

So the weirdness was gone, his legacy being one of immense double standards when it came to offensive singing from football fans, a topic he raised to the same level of importance as football itself and paving the way for the SNP’s illiberal legislation. So you could say that if Spiers had kept his mouth shut then freedom of speech wouldn’t be at risk in Scotland right now. After all, what are a few fruity songs amongst all the industrial language at football matches? Then again, the fool did his damn best to have a clause inserted in the new legislation allowing Celtic fans and the Green Brigade in particular to sing anything they like, no matter how offensive or even illegal in existing law. He wasn’t the only one but he was the main cheer leader, sometimes right down to the little skirt and pom poms and that is why I’m sitting here in the rafters of a derelict building in the east end of Glasgow, listening to the Green Brigade as they discuss their plans and hopefully give me a clue as to Spiers’s whereabouts. You see Donald Findlay wants him back. Donald Findlay believes only an imbecile like Spiers can help him in his latest plan. I don’t know what that plan is though; Findlay keeps it from me in case I’m captured because Findlay is a politician. Well, he’s a QC but you know what I mean. Me, I’m a soldier.

Made in America

The past few weeks have been a blur since Donald Findlay tricked me into meeting Mo Johnston again. In spite of Tom Devine’s insistence that it was all an elaborate con, I know what I witnessed at St. Mirin’s Cathedral that night and no amount of Celtic spin can make me change my mind or say otherwise. BBC Scotland employs vampires who are sucking dry the husk that is Scottish football and that’s that and if that makes me sound like an idiot who doesn’t deserve to work for the Times then so be it, let them try to sack me, they wouldn’t dare.

Jorg Albertz explained to me before we started that being in the vicinity of so much magik would affect my perceptions of time and reality. He said this before deciphering the runes from the island where we were cast up after the awful crash of the Celtic AGM.

‘The first line says, ‘know the law well because it is not true’. Well that’s very interesting, can be interpreted in a number of ways, don’t you agree?’ asked Albertz. Mo Johnston nodded, his golden face radiating beauty and quite putting me off our task.
‘On one hand,’ piped up Donald Findlay. ‘It could mean we must know the forthcoming legislation well as it might be dangerously illiberal and threaten freedom of speech.’
‘No might about it, it is dangerous,’ interrupted Souness. ‘I insist that you allow me to let loose the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos and we’ll soon put Salmond back in his place. In fact, I’ll bring him to you in a cage.’
Findlay smirked, ‘Again Graeme, this is not the time for running off half cocked with a knife between your teeth, the runes could mean something else entirely. Know the law well… Know the law well. Know the Lawwell? Know the Lawwell! If anything isn’t true it’s that bastard! Could these wise and ancient magi have been warning us about Lawwell, the beast who would terrorise their island before returning to Scotland to continue terrorising the Scottish media?’
‘If this is true then we must get to Stewart Regan and warn him what he’s dealing with,’ exhorted Albertz.
‘Are you joking? You think Regan didn’t know exactly who he was climbing into bed with when Lawwell offered him the job at the SFA?’ growled Souness.
‘Of course I’m joking, squire. Anything to lighten the mood, it’s all getting a bit morbid around here and for good reason, I sense impending doom for one of our little band of brothers and if all these years of arsing about with demonology, witchcraft and magik has meant anything, it means my sixth sense is never wrong.’

I bridled at this, feeling very uncomfortable looking around the room at all these old warriors and me sitting with them, never been in a fight in my life. If someone here is facing destruction, it sure as damnation’s not going to one of these ruffians which left me. I looked up and noted that Mo Johnston was gazing down at me, his blue eyes glowing. I blushed and looked away and then everything went hazy and the next thing I remember I was in a toboggan with Souness, racing down a hillside, gunshots sounding from behind, snow kicking up all around as Phil Tartaglia’s men pursued us.

Everything went blank again and the next thing I remember is standing with Souness, looking down at a body bleeding out into the snow, awful crimson wings of gore spreading from behind someone I recognised as one of Lawwell’s goons. A little puff of smoke played around my nose and I glanced at the steaming silencer on the end of Souness’s pistol; it intrigued me, this man’s end.
‘Do you think he felt any pain, knew he was finished?’ I asked.
‘He knew nothing, one minute he’s aiming at Ally McCoist’s head, the next, it goes black then there’s nothing. There’s no afterlife, Spiers, no heaven. Death isn’t a door from this life to the next, it’s just death. Darkness forever and the sooner you religious types begin to understand that then perhaps we’ll have less trouble from extremists like Lawwell and his fellow travellers. We’re all the same you know, pieces of meat trying to get through life; the days of attributing God’s works to anything we don’t understand are long gone and anyway, I’ve never met anything I didn’t understand that couldn’t be explained by a double tap from a Walther PPK.’
Well that cheered me up no end and that’s where my memory of the snow ends. My recollections by now are like old film stock flickering through a dusty projector: lucidity followed by gaps and jumps.

‘This isn’t a Catholic problem; it’s a Celtic supporting Catholic problem,’ said Findlay, filling his pipe and tugging at his whiskers. ‘Most Catholics don’t give a damn about the IRA but the majority of Celtic supporters do as they glorify them in song every week as they follow their team and it’s hardly the minority of a small group of one particular supporters’ organisation as every Celtic Minded politician, journalist, or academics with Lawwell’s pistol pointed at his head is claiming. No, it’s most of the crowd as any of these fools could hear if they’d stop singing Boys of the Old Brigade long enough to listen.’

Do you know what I’d love to see? What would please me now more than anything, even Rangers winning four in a row? For one, just one eminent Roman Catholic to come out in public and say that they’ve got a bit carried away, that they’re not being persecuted and that everyone should calm down. I think I’ll settle for four in a row though as there’s no way any of them will speak out against this offensive tribal posturing.’
There was no stopping him now, his pipe was ablaze and he puffed furiously as he considered what I’d told him of Lawwell’s latest mischief.

‘Unlike other years when I’d rather forget these, my declining days and thus ignore my birthdays, next year I’m rather looking forward to it what with Celtic playing at home on St. Patrick’s Day especially after they came out and lambasted Rangers for cynically ‘abusing’ St. Andrew’s Day for their own purposes. I’m sure I’m not the only one filing away Lawwell’s thinly veiled diatribe until next March,’ and he got to his feet and kicked the coal scuttle. 

Then I felt dizzy and when I came to I was in the office of the editor of the Times and I had a pistol in my hand. How it got there I don’t know, what I was doing, I also can’t recall but there was one thing in my mind and that was to take out Magnus Linklater and for some reason, scratching away at the back of my mind was the idea that it was him or me. Wobbly old Magnus looked at me with sadness and rose from his desk. ‘I’m sorry Graham,’ he said and