Where the Tentacles Can't Reach

 

If I hadn't spent all night in Bierfabriek drinking lager straight from the tap in the middle of our table and eating monkey nuts off Tom English's bare chest then I might have turned up in time for the preliminary hearing of the Amsterdam Six who are an assortment of rapscallions who have been arrested for nothing if you believe the noises coming out of Parkhead.  I was at the ground yesterday and all I witnessed coming out of there was Keith Jackson, head first through a window.

 

If only I'd stayed to help Keith and not hopped onto the flight to Schiphol with Tom who said there was bound to be a big story here, that the Celtic fans arrested for rioting and police assault were bound to be found to have no case to answer and would be released into the adoring arms of the Green Brigade who had saved up their Alpine bottles and Green Shield Stamps and travelled over in support.  Not only that but Lawwell had come to keep an eye on the Scottish press so even if we couldn't report the facts, at least we'd be employed in some capacity by him to show the young scuds of the media how we do things around here when the good name of Celtic is at risk.

But all that was by-the-by as we got beastly drunk the night before and only appeared at the end to find Lawwell being dragged out of the court by security as the Amsterdam Six were taken to the cells and not allowed access to social media which might at least have allowed them to delete their Facebook pages full of the usual IRA glorification.  "What would the press do with that dynamite if they knew?" I asked Tom.
"Oh they know, Spiers.  They're just too scared to mention it, would you?"
"It's a shame though, all these young men, alone in a foreign jail..." I said but Tom interrupted.
"Well that's what happens when you get pissed and attack trams and Dutch police.  Imagine it had happened in Scotland - do you know what would have happened there?"
"Kenny MacAskill would've intervened."
"Exactly," nodded Tom.  But this lot aren't Ryan Caird and this place isn't soft touch-don't upset Celtic-Scotland."
"What're you two mincing squirts whispering about?" shouted Lawwell, approaching us with one eye twitching.  "Never mind, just get on that bus and show these fuck-wipes how to deflect from this disaster, you've been doing it for long enough, you can probably do it with your eyes closed by now.  And hurry up about it, we need to get back home and deal with this SPFL thing, fucking morons can't even be trusted to rape another two hundred and fifty big ones from Rangers; I swear, if they've hired that fat fuck of a lawyer again then I'll have their eyelids off with my whip."