Scottish Comedy FC has acquired the rights to an upcoming best-seller – “The Secret Assistant Manager” – which will tell you what really happens inside Scottish football.
The author has asked us to keep his identity a secret but in coming months he’ll tell it straight from the main man’s mouth, or, technically, straight from the assistant to the main man’s mouth to our correspondent Andy Todd, all about the next chapter of a remarkable 143-year-old story that has spanned the ages.
Hiya pals,
I want to start by saying ‘Hands off, pals, the Boss is going nowhere!’
It’s been a strange week so it has. It started on Wednesday night when I got a text message from the Goalie. He’d lost his keys and couldn’t get into his house. He wanted to know if this would affect his chance of playing for England. So, I told him that you never hear about Joe Hart crashing the night on Sergio Aguero’s sofa. I added: “Keep it quiet so no one else finds out”. I thought he was smart, but the next morning I switched on the Twitter and he’s tweeted everyone that he’s dropped his keys and cannae find them. Did he listen to a word I said?!
I phoned him immediately to give him merry hell but, when I asked why he did it, he said: “I just wanted to let the world know that I had another lock out. I thought the gaffer Roy Hodgson would hear and pick me for his next squad”.
I told him that Roy doesn’t use Twitter mentions to pick his squads. If he did then Katie Hopkins would get a game.
I thought that would be all the fun and games this week but, no sooner had I dealt with the Goalie, than the BBC was on the phone asking about rumours that a top London club poaching the best English manager in Scotland. I said “Alan Stubbs is happy at Hibs” but they weren’t talking about him – they were talking about the Boss.
Blimey, I thought, the Boss won’t be happy about that. He hates being linked to other clubs. Just the other day, I heard him tell Rodney, his agent, that he was going to “have words with QPR”. I assume he told them where to go!
At training, the next day, the Boss was still raging. He’d been on the Twitter too and he told everyone that there’d not been an official approach to the club and that he’d definitely not spoken to anyone officially so, officially, nothing had happened. See, a clear denial.
The Boss then gathered the lads around and told them: “I’m going nowhere. I can’t think of a single reason why I’d move. This time next year we’ll be millionaires! Cushty! Now, this club I’ve been linked with might be closer to my family; it might have the best youth setup outside of the Premiership; it might be in the best city in the world and offer the chance to manage in the best league in the world; it might even pay three times what I’d get paid here plus a million pound bonus for promotion; it may promise a transfer budget that’s not kept in a war chest and working WiFi in the stadium so I can check the Twitter at half time, but does it offer the chance to build a team made up entirely of youth players who will leave at the end of the season? No! Does it offer the chance to win the mighty Petrofac Training Cup? No! So, I’m going nowhere! Luvly jubbly! And that’s official!”
The lads then cheered. I cheered. We all cheered. Because, when he put it like that, why would a smart man like the Boss even think about leaving?
Yer pal,
The Secret Assistant Manager
He’s a part-time comedian and in 2014, he supported Eddie Izzard in ‘Please Don’t Go’, Izzard’s show about Scottish independence and worked with BBC Radio Scotland as a weekly guest on Referendum Tonight.
