Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Over the years I've found that some cities have their own peculiar scent: Paris smells of coffee and garlic; Amsterdam has the pungent aroma of grass and Berlin, well Berlin smells of shame.  I noticed this while on a research mission there with Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter and I asked him about the little brass plaques I'd noticed on many doorways.  He looked sad and told me that these indicated buildings from which Jewish families had been removed by the Nazis before being taken to the camps and murdered.  'It's so that Germany never forgets it's shameful era of genocide' he said and then remained silent the rest of the day.

 

Curiously enough, when I returned to Glasgow I recognised the same scent; not as strong though, and mingled with the smell of too many days in the heat with no rain but it did seem that Glasgow was hanging its head in shame.  I didn't find out why until later when I took a wander into the Herald office and remarkably, there was Lawwell marching out of Magnus Llewellin's office, his face puce, slicing anyone who came within range of his horse whip.  I ducked behind a work station and hoped he didn't see me.  'I can see you, Spiers' he said as he passed.

 

Once he was gone I joined the throng that'd gathered at the door of Magnus's office and goggled at the sight within: Lawwell had him crucified upside down against a wall.  'Get me down from here,' shrieked Llewellin, as he bled all over his Celtic centenary rug.  'And get me the news desk, if those bastards proceed with the reporting of the Celtic fans' antics in Brentford then that lunatic's coming back here to finish the job!'

 

Lawwell never visits his victims so something big must have happened while I was tweeting about golf while not actually being at the golf.  No, Lawwell usually summons his victims to visit him and they do, hoping that they'll only be tortured a little if they turn up on time.  So what caused him to march into the Herald and nail Magnus Llewellin to a wall?  It turns out that while I've been gone the Celtic fans have been misbehaving again, singing awful songs about drummer Lee Rigby as well as all the usual lusty hymns to violent Irish Republicanism and then to put the tin lid on things, a rumour was going round that the Green Brigade had sent a flying column out to burn the new Rangers bus.  According to Tom Devine who I met later in Cottiers, some papers felt these stories were too big to sweep under the carpet and were all set to go to print with them.  That is, until Lawwell got wind of it and swept through Glasgow on a wave of blood and horse whipping and after a few nails were hammered through a few hands and feet, the only noise you could hear from the press was the sound of silence.  So that was where the smell of shame came from then, that I'd noticed upon stepping off the plane.

 

Tom Devine didn't sit with me for long, he had more important things to do.  'I'm off to fuck Angela Haggerty,' he grimaced.  'I'm going to gallop that silly slut so hard her tits'll fall off.  I'll be seeing you, Spiers.  Oh, and look out for Souness, there's a good chap.'  I was wondering what he meant by this when I turned round and there was Souness, his fist coming straight at me.

 

I came to later and it was dark and we were in a bus yard - Coatbridge probably from the stench in the air.  Souness was beside me in the shadows and was watching intently as four men cut their way through the fence and broke into the garage containing what I assumed was the Rangers bus.  Souness allowed them some time to plant their device which I found odd and then pounced as they left.  'Watch this,' he said as he stood up and walked calmly towards them, his pistol pointing straight ahead.  Without breaking his stride he'd shot all four in the legs and by the time I dared come out of hiding, he'd zipped their wrists together and was all set to bundle them into the back of his van but then something came whistling out of the night from above us and wrapped itself around Souness - it was a batarang!  Souness struggled with it but he was held tight, his arms stuck to his sides from the wire wound around him.  Then Stuart Cosgrove dressed as a bat came down a zip slide and booted Souness over.  'That's for knocking me off the  top off Pacific Quay the last time we met,' he growled.  'Now what do you think you're going to do with these gentlemen?' he nodded at the Celtic fans on the ground.

'I'm taking them somewhere quiet where I can introduce them to my electricity supply,' grinned Souness.

'Torture?  By gawd, you've not changed, have you?  No, these men shall stay here and be dealt with by the law.  You have taken care of the device they planted, haven't you?'

'I was just about to do that before you sucker punched me with you silly little fairy rope' said Souness and just as he did, the garage exploded and the Rangers buses erupted in a huge fireball which knocked us all over and singed my eyebrows.  By the time Cosgrove had recovered himself, Souness was gone.

'Oh well, at least he left the arsonists and here come the police.  Quick, Spiers, we must leave' and he gathered me up, fired a bat rope into the air and lifted us both off our feet and away from the scene of the crime.  We waited a short while though, Cosgrove insisting we make sure the police apprehend the culprits.  Then Police Scotland arrived.

'Is that the Rangers buses in there?'  one asked.  The Green Brigade kids all nodded.

'And are you Celtic fans I take it?' asked the policeman to more nods.

'Right, you'd best be off then and don't let us catch you around here again, you jolly pranksters' and he untied them and saw them off with playful boots up their backsides.  I looked at Cosgrove and he didn't look happy at all but said nothing and we both sneaked off to go our separate ways and say no more about what we'd just witnessed.  Just like the media in Scotland would in the coming days.

The Tacitus Tactic

'Right,' said Lawwell, flexing his horse whip.  'In your new role, will you be revealing any details about the tv deal?'

'Of course I will...' replied Doncaster before being rudely interrupted by a horse whip across the face.

'No you won't.  If asked about the tv deal you will simply say nothing' growled Lawwell.

'But I'll look stupid!' bleated Doncaster.

'Any more stupid than you'll look naked in the centre spot at Parkhead with my boot still lodged up your arse?'

'I suppose not.'

'Okay.  Now if anyone asks you about sponsorship, what do you say?'

'Nothing, I stand there and look stupid.'

'Good, you're getting it now.'

 

This was what I heard discussed shortly after Lawwell interviewed Doncaster for the CEO job at the new SPFL.  As usual, I was hiding under a table, unseen, the victim of a curious set of circumstances I couldn't even begin to explain right now but fortunately for me, they put me in the right place at the right time and I was hearing Lawwell brief Doncaster how to approach his first press conference as the new Chief while Longmuir was still being interviewed by the Hampden janny in the cleaning cupboard on the ground floor.  At one point, Stewart Regan appeared and asked if there was anything he could do to help but Lawwell punched him right in the face and sent him howling back to his office.  'That looked like fun,' brightened up Doncaster.  'Will I be able to do that now that I'm the boss?'

Lawwell's brows darkened.  'The boss?  The fucking boss?  Oh for fuck's sake, why do I bother explaining?  Here...' and he reached into his pocket and pulled out another fist with which he broke Doncaster's nose.

'I'm the fucking boss and don't you bloody forget it, cock-squeak.'  And with that, he stood up, straightened his jackboots and made to leave but then he paused, looked around and said, 'And don't think I don't know you're under there, Spiers.  I haven't forgotten you breaking into my house with your pals you know' and then he walked off leaving me shaking under my table and watching the blood pool from Doncaster's nose congeal on the floor. 

Lawwell was talking about the end of the last season when he and his team's support lost all sense of perspective and spent more time ranting about the survival of Rangers than they did celebrating their own SPL win.  I'd invited Lawwell out for a meal ostensibly to provide him with a Herald platform to attack Rangers one last time that season just for the fun of it, but I was really working to the instructions of the Four: those internet guardians of Rangers who have fought the blue corner more in the past year than Jack Irvine did in God knows how many years on the Ibrox payroll.  I thought he'd never know I'd betrayed him but it was practically the first thing he said when we sat down in the Chip restaurant.  'You think you can betray me, you cunting wimp?' was precisely what he said.

'Eh?  What do you mean?  I'm not betraying anyone, what do you mean, eh?' I gibbered until I felt his hand on my knee under the table.  He squeezed, hard and I could feel tendons popping and I would've shrieked had I not thought that doing that would make him squeeze harder - he's a dirty old sadist, is Lawwell, screaming turns him on.  He looked me straight in the eye and through gritted teeth said, 'You really must think I'm some kind of moron to trust you, you little whelp.  Have you forgotten already that there are two of me now?  Two of all of us who went on that little jaunt through time and space.  Well my other me is right now springing a trap on your so called Fantastic Four, where is your other you, eh?  Probably down the Polo Lounge chasing cock, not having a shower, that's for sure.  I don't know what kind of excitement packed finale you thought you were going to find at the end of this season but it won't be anything at my expense; no, not this year.'  As he finished speaking, his hand tip toed up my thigh and grabbed me by the manhood, right on my helmet and he pulled it like a Hyndland door bell just as the waitress appeared.

'Ready to order, gentlemen?' she smiled.

'He'll have the succulent lamb,' muttered Lawwell as he stood up and left.

 

By the time I got to Schoenhausen, it was all over.  Furniture lay overturned on the floor, broken glass was everywhere and there was blood sprayed over every wall and surface.  'It was a massacre,' I said out loud.

'It certainly was,' said a voice behind me and I turned and there was Souness, his moustache at ease, a smoking pistol still in his right hand.  'One down, one to go, eh loser?' and he winked and looked over my shoulder.  I turned to see what had caught his attention but there was nothing there and when I looked back he was gone.  I hate it when he does that.

 

And then I left.  The season was over, a damp squib in more ways than one and on the way home on the bus I pondered the future, it looked bright: there was golf and tennis on the horizon and I'm more at home with them than I am with football.  Granted, Lawwell hadn't got what he wanted with league reconstruction but as he said to me once, there's more than one way to skin Scottish football alive.  I suppose his latest outrage, the wholesale takeover of the SFL by the SPL was what he meant by that.  It's shameful that not one journalist has passed comment on it but that's testament to the Celtic fear factor.  I take that back, one journalist did: Bill Leckie but you can hardly call him a journalist and anyway, he's been pretty quiet since Lawwell stapled his arse cheeks to a wall and had Peter Kearney dance a naked polka in front of him for twelve hours.

 

So we look forward to a new season with Regan, Doncaster and Lawwell still at the helm of Scottish football in a year when Lawwell finally took care of business: destroyed the SFL, got rid of Longmuir, fiddled while Dunfermline and Hearts burned and laughed when anyone asked if they'd be punished as much as Rangers.

 

Yes, this was definitely the season that Scottish football destroyed itself and as I pondered this, I recalled an old quote told to me by Tom Devine one night just before he fell into a barrel of port: 'A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of a few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquescence of all.'