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. In today’s piece he gives the biggest clue yet about who he is!
Hiya Internet Pals,
What a week! We just keep winning! You might say, ahem, that we’re ‘Simply The Best’! Nudge nudge. Wink, wink. Hint, hint. Say no more.
On Sunday there was some confusion before the game. The Captain comes to see me. He asks who we’re playing. When I tell him, he looks puzzled. He says: “Is Queen of the South no the woman from Game Of Thrones?”
I say: “No, that’s the King in the North”.
“Is that no tha Chairman?”
I say: “No, that’s the King of South Africa”.
“Ma heid hurts. Who’s Queen of The South – an am I gonna see sum boobies or no?”
“Oh, you know nothing,” I say, slipping in a cheeky wee Game of Thrones reference, but he doesn’t notice. I’d have been surprised if he did. He really does know nothing. Last week I tried to teach him the difference between fact and fiction. But it didn’t work – he still believes man’s first trip to space was on the Starship Enterprise.
“BOOBIES!” he says. But there’s no point reasoning with him when he’s got boobies on the brain so I promise to buy him a copy of Razzle for the bus on the way to the game and calms right down. Good boy.
Tuesday was a busy too. It was the last day of the transfer window and, after missing out on Pedro last week, the Boss was working on more last minute deals than GroupOn.
“Who are we buying?” I ask the Boss.
“Buying?” Says the Boss.
“Sorry, force of habit,” I apologise, “who are we getting on loan?”
“Take a guess.” Says the Boss.
“A Scottish championship player who knows the league inside out?”
“No.”
“An SPFL player who can help the squad this year and next?”
“Colder.”
“Don’t tell me – it’s not a proven international player is it? A superstar signing who will prove once and for all that we’re back among the big spenders?”
“Spot on! The Chairman said name any player in the world and he’ll buy him for us. So, I told him we want Neymar from Barcelona. Now, Neymar probably won’t get a game straight away due to our brilliant start to the season but imagine how good he’ll be coming off the bench in the last 20 minutes. We’ll be unstoppable!”
“Brilliant” I said, and we settle down to wait for the Chairman to call and tell us it’s a done deal.
And we wait.
And wait.
But the Chairman was probably working so hard on all our transfer dealing he couldn’t get to the phone.
We try calling again at 6pm for an update. The call goes to voicemail Which is a good sign – he must be working on lots of deals! We try again at 8pm. It’s still voicemail. How exciting. He must be buying a whole team of superstars!
The Chairman finally phones back at Midnight.
“Good news, boys, have I got a lekker player fo’ you – I’ve only gone and bloody done it, Neymar is ours! Now, how long do we have left to register him?”
“It’s too late,” says the Boss, “the transfer deadline has closed.”
“But Neymar is here and he’s ready to sign!”
“Si, señor,” says a muffled voice in the background . A voice that could only be Portuguese-speaking Neymar – though the telephone connection did make him sound exactly like the Chairman doing an impersonation of Manuel from Fawlty Towers. How weird is that?!
“The deadline was midnight,” said the Boss, “we’re too late.”
“Ay carumba!” says Neymar.
“Bugger,” says the Chairman. “And I’ve got David de Gea here too.”
“Mamma mia, notta againa,” says David de Gea with a surprisingly strong Italian accent for a Spanish goalkeeper.
“And none other than Irish superstar, Gareth Bale”
“To be sure, to be sure, to be sure,” says “Gareth Bale”.
“Is Gareth Bale not Welsh?” says the Boss.
“Never mind that,” says the Chairman, “what are we going to do with them now?”
“We don’t need them,” I say, “we’re already winning every game, we can buy them in January when the transfer window reopens.”
“Perfect,” says the Chairman, “you can count on me. I won’t let you down!”
We know he won’t. He’s a great guy. Not only was he willing to sign Neymar, Bale and David de Gea he then told us he’d got rid of two players and cancel free lunches at the canteen. What a clever Chairman. He knows a lean and hungry squad is more likely to win trophies!
Onwards and upwards
Yer pal,
The Secret Assistant Manager
As told to Andy Todd.
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.
