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Jumping Through Hoops


Celtic_1967
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Thanks Elrithral, I'm still enjoying writing it, even if my ridiculously long shifts at work get in the way of the actual putting words down on paper! Glad you're still enjoying reading it.

It was a surprise to walk into my hotel and find Jen had checked out. Apparently she’d checked me out too.

‘She left about an hour ago Mr. Kowalski, she settled the account and left.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘No sir.’

‘Thanks, guess I’ll have to ring her and find out.’

‘You might struggle; she left her mobile behind after she’d paid.’

What to do now? She’d left and taken all our stuff, I had no way of contacting her, no way of finding out where she was and no idea why she’d gone or if she was ok.

‘Are you sure she didn’t say where she was going?’

‘Positive, she just settled up on her card and went.’

‘O.K. thanks,’ I was already running for my car and reaching for my wallet. I suspected I’d be able to find her now.

***

This hotel was much more high class than the one I’d left half an hour ago, it made sense given that Jen had wanted luxury that she’d be here. A quick call to the bank had confirmed that after paying the original hotel bill there was a second authorisation on the card to a second hotel. The standard practice of the hotel taking a swipe of the card as a guarantee on your room had given me her location.

I’d barely made my way across the foyer and stopped at reception when the young lad behind the desk handed me a key card whilst grinning from ear to ear.

‘Welcome to the Radisson Mr Kowalski. Here is your key, you’re in room 1021.’

I nodded my thanks to the receptionist and headed for the lift. All the way from the foyer to the room I wondered why Jen hadn’t told me she was moving hotels. Was I supposed to know where she was? Had I done something wrong? Had she been trying to escape me? I couldn’t decide. I kept thinking that if the answer to any of these questions had been yes then surely she wouldn’t have checked out my things from the other hotel, the receptionist here wouldn’t have been expecting me and it wouldn’t have been so easy in the end to find her. So why didn’t she tell me she was moving and where to.

All these unanswered questions made me unsure as to whether I should be here. Although I’d been given a key for the room I felt given the fact Jen herself hadn’t told me I should be here meant that I couldn’t just walk in. Instead I knocked and waited. I must have stood there for a minute with no sound coming from the other side of the door. I knocked again, a little louder, but still the door wasn’t opened. Had Jen seen it was me through the spy hole in the door and decided not to open it.

I didn’t really have a choice; I inserted the key card and let myself into the room. I immediately wished I hadn’t. My wife laid, eyes closed, on a blood soaked duvet. I felt sick.

I sank to my knees and screamed ‘NO!’

‘What’s wrong?’

I knew that voice. I looked up and saw Jen sat up and swinging her legs down off the bed. I had to do a double take.

‘Wait... I... I thought you... you looked...’

‘Mike you’re not making any sense. Stop talking, think and then tell me what you want to say.’

Now that she was talking and sitting up the scene looked totally different, I could see that it wasn’t a blood soaked bed sheet, merely a red satin throw on the bed. My wife wasn’t, as I had feared, dead. She had been sleeping.

I pulled myself up off the floor and onto the bed. The sick feeling had vanished and been replaced a rush of relief. I wrapped my arms around the woman I loved and refused to let go, at least until she insisted that she needed to go to the bathroom.

***

It turned out that Jen had left a telephone message for me at reception of Celtic Park and the message hadn’t been passed on. I was supposed to know all along that we’d moved hotel.

‘I was bored Mike. I have nothing to do but sit around the hotel all day. I decided that moving us would keep me occupied for the afternoon and if I have to spend my time staring at hotel room walls then I want to do in some style.’

‘I have no problem with your choice of hotel, but I can’t have you sitting around moping. I’m sure there must be some stuff you can do.’

‘Like what? It’s not like I need to go and get a job.’

‘True, you already have one. You still have a contract as first team administration assistant if you want it. I need someone to prepare OPTA stats after matches and break the scout and opposition reports down to a manageable size. We could turn it into a more flexible role so that you can either work in my office of from home depending on how you feel.’

A smile showed at the corners of Jen’s mouth, then vanished. ‘Mike I can’t work from home.’

‘Well come into the club with me everyday then if you don’t want...’

‘It’s not that I don’t want to. I can’t work from home because we don’t have one. This hotel, nice as it is, hardly counts.’

‘O.K. go ahead and find us somewhere to live then. Also do you think, if I promised not to make you go back there, that you could deal with the sale of the flat?’

‘I can deal with that.’

She certainly could, but I didn’t expect it to be quite the way it turned out.

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Let me echo what Elrithral has said. Stay the course here. You're doing a terrific job. Don't worry about comments or views -- keep doing as you're doing and I'm sure they will both come.

P.S. Congratulations on 'going hot' with 1,000 views. See what I mean? :)

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Thanks 10-3. I certainly intend to stay the course.

I've said it before (i think it was in the introductions thread) I'm going to write this even if no-one reads it. Clearly though some people are reading it and for that I am truly grateful.

‘Have you decided on the team for Levski tonight?’

‘I have actually,’ I handed my assistant the team sheet from the Dundee United game, ‘why change a winning team, especially when the win was so emphatic.’

Copper nodded his understanding, but he wasn’t finished. ‘What about fielding Allagui? Samaras looked out of sorts on Saturday.’

‘Sammy didn’t have the best of games, but I want to give him this chance. I think he’s easily the best striker we have, even if he is a little inconsistent at times. Allagui will be on the bench.’

‘O.K., I want to give Allagui a chance so I’ll start him against Hamilton in 6 days. Low pressure game for him.’

I was happy with that. I get my way today and Copper gets to make his own decisions next week. That’s exactly how these things should work. I turned my attention to my inbox and Copper headed away to take the final light training session before the game. The team would be announced at the end of the session and then we’d have the tactics meeting with the players after lunch

.

My concentration was broken a few minutes later when a pile of papers thudded down on my desk. I looked up and saw Jen smiling at me.

‘I like being the bearer of good news.’ She fished a folder from the pile that he had tossed down and opened it as she handed it to me.

‘What is it?’

‘Physio report. Apparently there is a chance that Aiden will be fit for the trip to Ibrox on 4th October. Medical staff say he definitely won’t be ready before that and he’s rated as 50/50 for the Rangers game.’

‘Excellent,’ I pointed to some of the other paperwork, ‘are these the scout reports on Levski?’

‘Yup, there’s a DVD of them in there too. I’ll leave you to it, but before I go can you sign this please? It’s a declaration that states that you give me power to dispose of the flat without need for any further signatures from you.’

A very legal looking document was thrust in front of me. I would have normally been suspicious in these circumstances but as it was my wife I realised there was no need to worry.

***

As second seeds in the Europa league group a home game against Levski Sofia really was ‘must win.’ So was the home game against Debrecen if truth be told as I suspected we could write off the home and away matches with Roma as defeats. The Italian giants had twice as much class as us at least and could probably take us apart at will.

Tonight was about the visit of Levski and how we’d engineer a victory from this game. We were going to start with our mixed set-up and make changes as time went on if required. We should good enough to win the game so there was no point leaving ourselves exposed from kick-off.

‘Boys we must get off to a good start in the groups. The fans want a win and so do I. Let’s not be sloppy, Levski are a decent team, but we should be better. To that end let’s make sure we put them under some pressure without doing the same to ourselves. We really need 3 points tonight, go and show the supporters that we are in this competition and we believe we can win it.’

After only 3 minutes Levski had decided to ‘park the bus.’ I couldn’t really blame them as in that time we’d created two good chances that both should have been scored. Unfortunately neither was, but Levski obviously decided not to take chances in a game they were expected to lose.

Both chances fell to Fortune and he contrived to make them look a damn sight more difficult than they really were. The first was a diagonal cross from Misun that, instead of controlling on the volley and pooping it home, Fortune allowed to hit him and bounce away. The second was a carbon copy cross that was headed wide with the keeper stranded.

Unsurprisingly our early chances got the fans excited, which in turn raised expectation levels from ‘win’ to ‘convincing win.’ Clearly they now assumed this was going to be easy, I did too.

We retained possession very well and didn’t Levski play, however we seemed to have a propensity for hitting the last defender with the final ball. Every attack was repelled. The natives were getting restless, the green and white mass around us becoming increasingly frustrated every time we showed ourselves to be toothless up top.

On 21 minutes we broke forward following a Levski goal kick and McGinn, who was still in the side for the injured McGeady, played a sideways pass to bring Fortune into the game again. The forward unleashed a vicious drive from 22 yards that required the keeper to tip it wide otherwise it would have uprooted the goal. The collective groan ringing around the stadium wasn’t a good sign. I could understand the frustration though. When a team dominates a game the way we were doing it’s natural that the fans expect to score goals.

We toiled away for another 15 minutes before I’d finally had enough.

‘Copper push the team up. I want an attacking style.’

My assistant looked less than convinced. From his facial expression he clearly thought I was making a mistake.

‘I just want to get in front before the break. If we’re in front at half time we’ll pull back’.

‘All they need is some time, it’ll come.’

‘To be honest they don’t look like they could burst their way out of a wet paper bag, we need to push forward.’

Copper’s expression changed from a look of disagreement to one of bewilderment. ‘They couldn’t do what?’

Of course he didn’t understand the turn of phrase, in fact the only other person I’ve ever heard use it was my Dad. I tried a different approach. ‘Couldn’t score in a brothel.’

The look of disagreement returned, but the instructions were relayed and the team took up more attacking positions in an attempt to grab the lead and the points.

It’s often said that when playing in front of large crowds you have the benefit of not being able to hear the individual insults, however that doesn’t hold true when everyone in the crowd is using the same insult. Less than 5 minutes after urging my team forward sixty thousand people felt the need to question my ability.

‘YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!’

A neat passing move in the Levski midfield allowed the Bulgarians to set Georgiev through for the visitors 3rd shot of the match. Boruc parried the ball away, but only succeded in putting the ball directly in front of Luleyski who tapped the ball past the sprawled keeper.

I slumped into my chair. My tactical change had yielded the game’s opening goal, just not the way I’d wanted it to. What to do now?

‘Copper what do we do?’

‘Leave it alone. You made the change to put more pressure on them. Take the pressure off them and it’ll have been a suicidal move.’

He was of course right. It was a knack he seemed to have, getting these things right whilst I was busy ****ing them up.

With 30 seconds left in first half normal time Maloney played a corner right onto the midpoint of the 6 yard line, Samaras stole between two defends and collected the ball. Despite being surrounded he found time to take a touch to control the ball, pushed it towards the near post and slotted it home before any of the defenders had time to get a challenge in. That at least removed some of the egg from my face.

In the end I was pleased to get to half time level. Conceding a goal as late as we did meant that, in my mind at least, we should have been coming into the break behind. Not being behind made the team talk that much easier.

‘Good work out there lads. I know we got caught out towards the end, but if we maintain our focus we should be ok. Defence wise we need to make sure that we’re on our game. I know that most of you are on attacking assignments, but those who aren’t need to make sure they stay awake second half. We need a goal to win this, I know we can do it and clearly keeping the pressure on them and the game open works best for our chances of scoring, the first half showed that. I want you all to go out there second half doing the same things we did in the last couple of minutes of the first half. Do that and I know you’ll get us in front. Once we are in front expect me to pull you back. I’ll want to tighten it up and stop Levski playing.’

We got quick reward for our efforts.8 minutes after the restart Niall McGinn burst down the right with the ball, skinned the Bulgarian’s left back and delivered a cross into the middle of the six yard box. The ball was so good that despite being sandwiched by two defenders Samaras managed to get to the ball first and head it past Petkov in the Levski goal.

That was my cue to pull the team back. That meant deciding whether they should come all the way back or just back to their original starting positions. I wanted to maintain the lead but not at the cost of sitting back and letting them come at us. Funny thing is this ended up not being my dscision.

The ball was played back from midfield high over my defence, from a Misun clearance. Caldwell played Luleyski onside by not moving up with his team mates and the Levski striker did the damage. 60,000 now had their head in their hands. Strangely the next sound was aq rousing one as our fans tired to roar the team on to a winning goal.

Despite being back level and vocal support coming to the players from the fans I pulled the team back anyway, but only to their starting positions. Reasoning that we would still be getting the ball forward but would be less exposed at the back I was subscribing to the Horse school of tactics. Levski had created 3 chances on goal in the time that we had being playing our advanced roles and 2 of them had been clear cut. Obviously the ‘pushed up’ approach was causing the game to be far too open and could cost us dearly. The less cavalier attitude had seen us get forward in the first half but not get the breaks in front of goal. I just had to pray that going back to where we began gave us the same impetus and that our luck changed.

We went forward immediately after the 6th kick-off of the match but Fortune showed that he had well and truly left his shooting boots in the changing room by blasting over from 18 yards.

‘Sami, I know you are usually in competition for Sammy’s place but you’re the only striker on the bench. Get warmed up, you’re going to partner Sammy.’

As my new signing made his way to the goal that our fans were behind to warm up I turned to Copper.

’Give Sami 10 minutes to get warm and then bring Fortune off, he’s been appalling today.’

‘He’s not been great, but then some you win and some you lose.’

The introduction of Allagui made little difference, yes he could at least get his shots on target but Levski seemed to be able to defensively match anything offensive we could come up with.

We pushed for the remaining 20 minutes; the ball barely leaving Levski’s half. They created no further chances in the game, content instead to deny us and take a point if they could. We wasted chance after chance after chance. 29 chances in total for the 90 minutes, only 9 on target, with a total of 10 blocked by the opposition defence and a further 8 wasted by our wayward finishing.

The final whistle went with the score remaining at 2-2. In truth it felt like two points dropped and I made sure the team knew it, telling them that I was disappointed not to have one a game that we had been strong favourites for. Samaras was singled out for praise after his two goal assault on goal, but other than that there was precious little good in dropping points in the ‘easy games’ of the group.

That, however, was about to become the least of my worries.

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Just a short update, but a good one I feel.

I wish it had been the sun streaming through a crack in the curtains that had woken me. Unfortunately I was in a hotel room in Glasgow in the middle of September so that was never particularly likely. What woke me was the sound of heavy rain and even heavier footsteps. In my half asleep state I began to realise that there was more to these footsteps than someone being less than light on their feet. There was an annoyance, even anger in the sound. These were the sounds of somebody stomping. Only one person I knew stomped like that when she was upset and only one person had the ability to upset her enough to make her do it. Couple this situation with the rain and I was looking at a bad day.

I considered pulling the duvet over my head and going back to sleep, hoping that Jen would have calmed down by the time I finally got up. Realistically I was never going to manage that. The noise level alone was enough to wake Lazarus; it would certainly stop me drifting off.

Tackling whatever was eating Jen was going to be the best course of action, so that’s what I’d do. After I’d had a shower, a long shower and taken my time getting ready.

‘Morning princess,’ I tried to sound nonchalant and pretend that I hadn’t heard the noise, ’you ok?’

She ignored me, either I was dead and she couldn’t see or hear me, or she was really ****ed off with me, at which point I’d probably prefer the first option. I should probably try a more direct approach.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘**** OFF!’

I suppose it was a better answer than the usual ‘nothing’ you get when clearly something is wrong, but only marginally.

‘What have I done?’ It was a question for me as much as it was for Jen; I was racking my brains trying to think what might have put her in this mood. Surely it had to be something serious to garner this level of reaction. I couldn’t think of anything serious though. Maybe if I played recent events back in my head that would uncover something. She was talking to me last night before the Levski match, still happy when I arrived home, wasn’t upset with me when she went to bed. She had been fast asleep when I finally got into bed, therefore something must have happened in the timeframe between her getting up and me waking up.

Jen remained silent.

‘I’m sorry you’re going to have to tell me what’s upset you, I can’t think what I might have done.’

‘Oh you can’t can you not. Maybe you just can’t think what you might have done that I’d find out about.’

‘I’m not hiding anything, so you’re going to have to tell me what you think I’ve done.’

‘It’s no wonder you said you were happy to wait for me to be ready, you were getting all you wanted elsewhere.’

‘What? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

‘Stop treating me like an idiot, I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been sleeping with other women!’

My mouth dropped open in astonishment. I stood open mouthed and stared at my wife. I was truly lost for words. I searched my brain but could think of nothing to say in response. In the end Jen got bored of waiting to hear what I had to say.

‘Shocked I’ve found out are you? Not denying it though.’

‘I’m shocked you’ve accused me to be honest, so shocked I was caught totally off guard, hence my lack of denial. I swear to you that I haven’t even considered doing what you suggested with anyone but you. When you said you weren’t ready to seep with me again I said I’d wait for you and I meant it, sincerely.’

‘I can’t believe you’d try and deny it, especially in the face of all the evidence.’

This almost knocked me sideways. ‘What evidence?’

Jen threw an envelope in my direction. Being relatively light it didn’t fly very well and dropped a few feet short of me. I moved over and stooped to pick it up. S***, I was going to have some explaining to do now.

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Thank you Copper. That means a lot.

I considered trying to lie my way out of this but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how much Jen knew, if she knew very little then I might get away with it. If she knew more then I could very quickly be exposed as a liar. Then, in her head, I’d be a cheat and a liar. I could say goodbye to my marriage. For that reason it had to be the truth and I’d have to pray she believed me.

‘I honestly don’t know who the phone number belongs to. I’ve spoken to them but I don’t know their name or what they want. They wouldn’t tell me unless I met with them.’ Jen didn’t look like she was buying it. ’Which I, so far, haven’t agreed to do.’

This really was the truth. Another of these mysterious envelopes had turned up just before the Levski game and my curiosity had got the better of me. I’d decided to see who was sending these messages and what they wanted.

The voice on the other end was female and knew that it was me calling when she answered. That meant one of two things. Either she knew my telephone number or I was the only person who had this phone number. Since I was using a club phone through the switchboard my number wouldn’t display, therefore no-one else knew this number. I couldn’t narrow it down to just one of my contacts so it really could be anybody.

‘You know me but I have no idea who you are.’

‘No names, not yet. I need to speak to you.’

‘I’m on the phone aren’t I?’

‘Not this way. I want to meet you.’

‘Sorry, I’m very busy; I really don’t have time for games.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Make sure you call me WHEN you change your mind. I promise you will change your mind. I know what happened to your wife.’

That was it as far as this person went there was nothing else to say. They had made that last statement and hung up.

‘Why would someone want to contact you this way?’

I suppose it was a fair question. It was certainly one I couldn’t answer.

‘Like I said I don’t know, but I suspect it has something to do with the attack you suffered. The person said she knew what had happened to you.’

‘We should tell the police then!’

This made life difficult; there were things the police would want to know, like why I hadn’t told them that I knew who had raped my wife. Actually Jen herself would be interested in that. As far as Jen was concerned the police knew everything that we knew.

‘Jen we can’t do that. I could end up in prison.’

‘What? Why? You didn’t rape me... did you?’

‘Of course not, but I know who did.’

It was Jen’s turn to stand open mouthed unsure what to say. It didn’t take her long to figure it out though, and when she did I would rather not have been me.

‘YOU B*STARD! YOU’VE KNOWN ALL THIS TIME AND YOU STOOD BY AND LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT. I can’t believe you’d do that to me you piece of SH*T!’

‘I haven’t let anyone get away with anything. I’m dealing with it. Those who did this will suffer just as much as you did. I’m going to make sure of it.’

‘F*CK THEM! You should have been concerned about me. You should have been making sure I was ok. Leave the doling out of justice to the police.’

‘Jen I was trying to look after you the best way I kno...’

‘You know what Mike, F*CK YOU! Get out! Get out right now. Get out and don’t come back.’

Jen picked up the vase from the occasional table next to her and threw it at me. Fortunately Jen generally threw poorly so the vase missed me and smashed against the wall. Unfortunately the fragments of flying glass didn’t miss me and a large shard embedded itself in my arm. It felt like a paper cut dipped in vinegar.

I ended up back at my favourite budget hotel with nothing more than the clothes I stood up in, my car keys, my wallet and a large cut on my right arm that had been stitched and bandaged at the local hospital on the way over.

I may as well have tried to lie. I might have got away with it, I might not have done. Lying might have ended my marriage, telling the truth almost certainly had. Looks like I was screwed whatever I'd done.

I had been right today was a bad day. The only way from here is up, isn’t it?

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Thank you gents, much appreciated.

I’d gone to sleep on the 18th of September; I woke up on the 21st. My mouth felt like I’d been chewing sand, my head felt like it was going to explode and my stomach was empty. At least I was fairly sure it was empty, but only because of the acidic smell and that I suspected that its previous contents were now sticking my face to the sheets.

I peeled my sheets from my cheek and tried to sit up. My back ached with pain and I had to lie down again. My back felt like it had been hit by a hard object and with force. I had no idea what had happened.

Eventually I managed to roll myself off the bed. The evidence chose that moment to present itself. Even though I had no recollection of the previous few days I managed to piece together what has happened, or at least some of it, in my mind. The three empty whisky bottles give me the reason I feel the way I do. Couple that with the half eaten kebab I’ve just stepped in and it’ll go a long way to explaining the vomit superglue my bed sheets were using. The smashed chair will probably explain my back. Looks like I tried to sit down and missed my target, which given the state I must have been in didn’t surprise me in the slightest.

I could hardly see and barely walk, I wished I could say the same for my smell functions and taste buds, and I desperately needed a shower. Stumbling, I made my way to the bathroom and turned on the water. Catching my reflection in the mirror made me raise half a smile as I realised what a state I was in. If only Jen could see me now, she’d take me back it a heartbeat. I was oozing class, charm and sex appeal. The thought made me laugh, which hurt my head and made me wince. I turned and stepped into the shower, forgetting to remove my clothes.

***

It had taken me 3 hours from getting in the shower to being dressed and ready to leave my room. Mainly because I’d soaked the only clothes I had with me when I had a shower and had needed to wait for Copper to turn up with some training kit for me. Needless to say he wasn’t invited into the room, I asked him to meet me in the restaurant.

On my way to meet Copper I stopped at reception. Explaining that I’d done some damage and left the room in a poor state wasn’t much fun. They were very good about it, although I suspect that’s because I’ll be paying for the cleanup job, they even offered to let me move rooms. Given the foul smell in my room it took me less than a second to accept a very generous offer.

Reaching the table where Copper was waiting for me I felt ashamed of myself. I’d reacted very badly to a situation that required a cool head. I sat down and appreciated the fact that I could at least keep the facts of this situation to myself. I didn’t have to share the reason for my shame with anyone.

Shortly after I sat down I was presented with an all day breakfast. This wasn’t, as my Dad had once joked when I was small, designed to take all day to eat. As such the coffee that came with it was in a small jug and not a gallon bucket.

‘Thought you might need it.’

‘I appreciate it Copper.’

As I tucked into my breakfast it occurred to me that Copper was looking at me quite intently. I stopped eating and looked up.

‘Is this where you chastise me?’

‘No, what you did was stupid but it was a mistake. You should have told Jen what you knew.’

‘I was talking about the drinking, how did you know about the other stuff?’ It was starting to look like I wouldn’t get to keep my shame to myself.

‘When you didn’t show for work I called Jen, she told me what had happened.’

I wanted to be angry with Jen for giving away the information, but I couldn’t be because I loved her.

‘Why does life always find a way to kick you in the balls?’ I mused through mouthfuls of bacon and eggs.

‘Life? This wasn’t a random event Mike. This situation is a direct result of your actions. You made Fenton and Venus mad. You made them want revenge. When they’d had revenge instead of dealing with it properly and letting the police take control you decided to get even yourself. What has happened to you now is your fault.’

‘I never asked for the breakdown of my marriage!’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘Maybe not, but by keeping Jen in the dark and treating her like an idiot you left no alternative.’

Copper had made me see my error in very much the same way Ridgway had done to him not so long ago. Funny how everything is so clear when it isn’t your problem.

‘You’re right. I’ve got some serious making up to do. I don’t even know if it’s possible.’

‘Take it one step at a time. Anyway, enjoy your breakfast, I need to get gone. Will I see you at Lennoxtown?’

‘Yes you will. Take it easy, and Copper... thanks.’

He didn’t look back as he walked away; he just waved his hand and continued out into the car park. He knew he’d got through to me and smiled as he went.

I finished my food and headed back to my room. I had some thinking to do.

***

No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make my mind focus on my problems. Despite the food and coffee my body was exhausted. I decided to sleep a little in the hope that would give me the mental strength to start working through my problems.

As I began to drift off I was brought back round by a knock on my door. In my half sleep state I made my way across to the door and opened it without checking who it was.

I’d only opened the door a crack when it rammed from the other side. I hit the ground, sprawled and struggling to comprehend what was happening. The boot to the head from the figure dressed in black was enough to wake me up.

I lifted myself to my feet and prepared to fight back. I sank backwards onto the bed as I realised that fighting wasn’t an option. It generally isn’t when someone waves a gun at you.

The darkly dressed man was only 5’10” but he was built like a tank, and with the gun in his hand I wasn’t about to argue with him or make any sudden moves. He looked like a gorilla would if you gave him a pistol.

‘Kowalski, a message for you. You are EXPECTED to lose against Rangers in a fortnight. If you don’t then you’ll pay the price. We have ways of hurting you that you haven’t considered.’

That last line told me everything I needed to know about where the message had come from. Venus was out to bring me down again.

I nodded understanding, and hoped that would be enough to stop the ape waving the firearm at me. He did stop, but only after he’d whipped me across the face with it. He turned and walked out, pulling the door behind him and my face began gushing with blood.

This really wasn’t my week. I’d been wrong on the 18th, there was further to fall. I hoped now this was rock bottom and the only way really was up.

I’d struggled to concentrate before, but I was in full attention mode now. I remembered what happened the last time that threat had been made and I’d treated it with contempt. I wasn’t about to let that happen again. My wife might hate me currently, but I still loved her. I needed to protect her and only one man I knew could.

‘Scouse? It’s Mike... yeah, Kowalski. Look I need something.’

The fixer had been tasked with finding Venus and eliminating his threat. I knew I should tell Jen, but then letting her know this problem existed just dug me further into the mud with her. She’d hate me all the more for putting her in this situation so I decided to deal with it myself.

***

The following day my fixer called back. The news wasn’t good. The man who could find anyone couldn’t locate the target. All he had was a mobile number, it was Venus’ number but it didn’t give me Venus and didn’t remove the problem.

‘Change of plan Scouse. I need you to guard Jen. Covertly. I’ll tell Jen you will be there but no-one else is allowed to realise what you are doing.’

Jen wouldn’t answer the phone. I resorted to leaving her a very long message that explained what was happening and asking her to realise I was having her watched for her own protection and to understand that this had gone too far to take to the police. I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear back.

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The management office was empty when I arrived. Copper and Parky would be out on the training pitches with their respective teams. That left me time to ponder the pain in my face. I was sure my nose had been broken by the butt of the gun smashing into it. Why is it when part of you hurts you instinctively touch it?

I tried to distract myself with my inbox. Only one item really interests me. It’s marked as being from RidgwayR@dbf.de.

‘Hi Mike,

I have compiled a list of approximately 100 players for you. I will be at Anfield on September 23 rd and in Liverpool all of the following day if you fancy meeting up.

Rob.’

I didn’t really fancy the trip to Liverpool mid season, certainly not with all the things that were going on around here. I bet Copper would like the chance to go. He could take charge of our League Cup game on the 23rd and then fly down to Liverpool the following day to meet up with Rob.

***

‘I feel like I’ve let the club, and you personally, down.’

That was the biggest load of crap I’d ever heard and I made sure Copper knew it. A defeat is always tough to take but they happen.

‘You did what you thought was right. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. We’ll bounce back.’

‘Thanks buddy.’

With that Copper picked up his holdall and headed out to the taxi that was waiting to take him and Robin to the airport. I’d decided to let them both go as neither of them had hardly had a day off since they started working here. They deserved a break.

I slumped back into my chair and picked up the juice bottle that sat on my desk, taking a big slug of the cool liquid. Despite my words to Copper yesterday’s game was heavy on my mind. The first half had been a dull affair, only really springing to life in first half injury time when French midfielder Nicolas Bonnal rifled home a 30 yard free kick after a silly challenge from Barry Robson. What made it worse was it was Bonnal’s first goal of the season.

The team re-doubled their efforts in the second half and created chance after chance. 23 in all across the 90 minutes, however a total of 8 of these were on target. 3 were blocked and 1 hit the post, which left 9 that missed the target entirely. Of our measly 8 shots that found the target the goalkeeper managed to pull off saves for 7 of them.

That left us with one chance that beat the keeper and we ended up waiting until the 88th minute for that. McDonald played a slide rule pass to Allagui, who picked the ball up on the 18 yard line and carried it forward and right. He used the drifting momentum to round the keeper and roll the ball home.

Extra time was a blur of midfield play and a virtuoso performance from Mr. Horse. He was on his feet the whole time, prowling the technical area but never once leaving it. It was almost as if the area was a cage and he was a wild animal. The snarling and hunger for the kill only added to the effect. His eyes blazed every time we looked like we might break forward and the light was extinguished every time it came to nothing.

We were left with, to use a cliché, the lottery of a penalty shootout. We had the dubious honour of taking the first kick. Scott McDonald converted easily, knocking the ball low and very wide, scraping the post as it went in. Mensing then repeated the trick almost exactly to take the score to 1-1.

I was confident we’d score our second penalty. Barry Robson was nominated to be next and he was one of, if not the best, penalty taker at the club. For reasons known only to Barry he elected to blast the ball rather than using his superior technique. The ball went straight down the throat of the goalkeeper.

Copper turned away in disgust, the crowd groaned and I buried my head in my hands.

The next 6 penalties were all converted, including goals from players on Hamilton’s team with some of the worst technique I’ve ever seen and Allagui putting the ball in for the second time that evening. Sami’s conversion meant that we were still in it, although our fate wasn’t in our own hands. It would require Hamilton to miss to force the shootout to ‘sudden death.’

Ryan Dickson, Hamilton’s left back, was the man to step up. He looked like a man carrying the world on his shoulders as he trudged up to the penalty spot. The defender wasn’t enjoying this, neither was I. Dickson took a one step run up and swung his foot at the ball. Boruc dived to his left. He wasn’t going to get to be a hero; the ball had gone the other way as it had scuffed wildly off Dickson’s boot. I was in full on celebration mode as the ball hit the inside of the post, it was premature however as the spin on the ball caused it to bounce off the inside of the woodwork and land in the net with a ripple. Boruc didn’t stand a chance of keeping it out even if he’d gone the right way.

Copper looked like a man whose numbers have come up on the lottery on the week he forgot to buy a ticket. He curses loudly, which earns him a glare from the fourth official.

My rememberance of the evening’s events was interrupted by the ringing of the phone on my desk. With hindsight answering that call was a mistake. It was a reporter from a local radio station who wanted an interview for the luchtime news.

‘Did you expect to win the game?’

‘We never just expect to win, that would be disrespectful. We do however play to win.’

‘You didn’t look very active on the touchline last night, was there a reason for that?’

What was he driving at? I very rarely jump up and down in the manner of say, Martin O’Neill.

‘My team knew what I wanted and I have ways of conveying instruction to them that generally doesn’t require me to act like a jack-in-the-box.’

‘Your assistant was much more active last night than you were. There is much speculation that he was actually in charge last night. Are the rumours true?’

Ah so that’s what he’d wanted to know. I’d promised Copper that if the League cup campaign hadn’t been successful that he wouldn’t have to carry the can for it. Neither of our jobs were in danger as a result of last night’s defeat, certainly not as far as the board of directors were concerned, but admitting that the rumours were true could make life difficult for both Copper and I. The fans expect me as the manager to be in charge. If I’m not they’ll feel they have a right to ask why. That could undermine their confidence in me and confidence in Copper. My assistant would have been perceived to ‘not be up to the job’ and I may have been considered to have ‘made a bad judgement call’ to bring him here in the first place.

‘Categorically not true. There is no denying that Copper made most use of the technical area last night but he was conveying my instructions.’

‘The fans are, understandably, disappointed to have lost last night to a team you were heavy favourites to beat. What is your response to them?’

‘Let me tell you, I’m disappointed with the fans. How is it that they have the cheek to be upset with a result when on thirty-three thousand could be bothered to turn up. They weren’t interested in that game until we lost it. Next time we lose at home in a game we are perceived to win easily and the stadium is sold out I’ll understand that their disappointed.’

It was only after I’d put the phone down that I realised I’d made a large error of judgement. Criticising the fans was never a good idea. You needed them on your side to keep you in a job. Upsetting them might make life tough.

***

Copper was looking refreshed from his couple of days off. He’d spent all morning whistling a happy tune and had a spring in his step.

‘You’re happy this morning, have a good time?’

‘Sure did. This is for you.’ Copper tossed a CD my way. ‘Rob’s list.’

‘It’s for us then surely?’

‘Er... yeah I guess.’ Copper looked unsure now.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s something I need to ask you.’

I signalled for Copper to continue. Whatever it was couldn’t be that serious.

‘Robin told me yesterday that I’m going to be a Dad...’

‘That’s great news... why does that concern me?

‘I was wondering how much notice I’d need to give to get released from my contract?’

‘What? Why would you want to do that?’

‘Sit down, I’ll start at the beginning.’ My assistant waited for me to find my seat be for continuing. ‘I met Rob yesterday to collect the disk and we decided to go for a drink. Whilst we were in the bar I bumped into Bobby Bell who first employed me at Blyth. After Rob left Bobby and I began talking about times gone by. In the end Bobby suggested he could get me a job as a manager if I wanted it. It’d be non-league though.’

‘Surely that’d be a step down though, and a lower salary?’

‘It would, but I talked it over with Robin, which is when she told me she was pregnant. We decided that although the money wouldn’t be great we’d rather live in a small community and not a goldfish bowl, especially bringing up a baby. Also I get to be in charge again, and winning things as a manager is much more fun.’

I was disappointed at the prospect of losing my assistant, he’d been a good foil for me.

‘To answer your question you’d need to give me four weeks’ notice officially. To be honest if you get offered that job I’ll sack you anyway.’

Copper looked stunned. ‘Sack me? Why?’

‘Because you’d deserve it.’

The face of the man fell even further. ‘I don’t understand it. I’ve done a good job here, why would that earn me my cards?’

‘Think it through Copper. What happens if I sack you that wouldn’t happen if you walk away?’

A smile crossed the face of the man opposite me and in his eyes came the dawning of a realisation.

‘If you fire me you’d have to pay off my contract in full!’

‘Exactly. You’d get to walk away with nearly two hundred thousand pounds, which you won’t get if you resign. I won’t have that. You might need that money, you could certainly use it with a little one on the way and a drop in income at the new place.'

Copper pulled me out of my chair and embraced me. ‘Thank you.'

‘Copper, just know this. If you get the job then you get the money and to leave with my blessing, but if you don’t get it or decide you’d like to stay then you have job here.’

‘I appreciate that Mike, thanks again. If you’ll excuse me I need to go interrupt my wife.’

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The media love a good story and in the instance of a good story not being available they will generally either embellish a poor story or invent one. My outburst on the radio had been picked up by the newspapers who had decided to blow it out of all proportion in the name of a good story.

The news papers were full of words such as disrespect and sentiments that said I had shown a disregard for the opinion of the fans, some even going as far as claiming I didn’t care about the club. Normally things like this wouldn’t faze me, but having the fans against you can have serious repercussions, just ask my assistant.

The problem with people in general is that they will believe what they read when there is no evidence to the contrary. It was a problem I was pondering when the phone rang.

‘Mike, it’s Robin. Quick heads up, Mr Reid is on his way down to see you. He’s not happy.’

‘Right, thanks.’

I made half an effort to tidy my desk and cleared the training bag of the spare office chair before the inevitable knock at the door.

Robin was right, the chairman was definitely unhappy. He got straight to the point.

‘Mike your statement on the radio has gone down, shall we say, rather badly with the fans. The club switchboard has been jammed all morning and there are growing noises about mass cancellation of season tickets. The club want to issue a statement about this for damage limitation purposes.’

‘John I’m sorry but my commitment and that of my staff shouldn’t be called into question by fans who have shown the same themselves. That said I understand that this problem is of my making so if you leave it with me I’ll sort it. We’ll send out a press release this afternoon.’

The chairman looked fractionally happier at that.

‘Oh and John, apologise to the switchboard staff for me would you. Thanks’

As my boss left the room to head back to his office my assistant took his place in front of my desk.

‘That didn’t sound good’

‘How much of it did you hear?’

‘Every word. We need to do something and fast, fortunately I have a plan. Leave it with me.’

I didn’t really have any choice. I had no clue how to get myself out of this, a denial wouldn’t work, my words had been broadcast and the radio station would have a recording. An apology probably wouldn’t work; it’d only paper over the cracks that had started to appear in the manager-supporter relationship. Anyway it wouldn’t change the fact that the words had been said and I couldn’t take them back.

***

I found a copy of the press release on my desk after lunch.

This statement comes direct from Copper Horse, Assistant Manager, Celtic Football Club.

I am aware that recent comments from the clubs manager have caused some unhappiness amongst supporters. The club, and specifically the manager, would like to offer a full and sincere apology to any fan who felt this was un-called for.

The management team of the club are fully committed to this club and wish nothing but success for the team and its supporters. We understand that the fans are naturally upset with the manner of our defeat 2 evenings ago, as we ourselves are also disappointed.

Unfortunately the club cannot reverse our fortunes in the league cup game; we are forced to accept defeat on that occasion. We can however strive for excellence in future games. To this end I, Copper Horse, hereby promise to every single Celtic supporter a win at Ibrox on October 4th 2009. We hope that the fans will see this as a suitable recompense for our poor league cup performance and unfortunate choice of statement on the following day.

Should the following promise not be fulfilled then I shall immediately resign my post as Assistant Manager at the club, owing to the fact that I would have lied to you.

Copper Horse.

I couldn’t believe what I had read. What the hell was Copper thinking? I leapt across my desk and down towards the weights room, where I knew Copper would be. I found my assistant bench pressing 150lbs.

‘Please tell me you were waiting for me to approve the statement and it hasn’t been sent out yet.’

‘It has been. I watched Robin fax it 30 minutes ago. Why?’

‘How on earth do we guarantee a win at Ibrox? We can’t, we aren’t guaranteed to win any game, EVER!’

‘I know that Mike, but I also know something you don’t. I’ve been offered the job I told you about. I start the day after the trip to Ibrox. That means I’m going anyway. Win an I’ll depart by mutual consent, or whatever you want to call it, lose and you can tell the press I’ve resigned. Either way I’m gone, you get to spin it to suit your needs and I walk away with nearly two hundred grand. On top of that whilst everyone is talking about my gamble no-one is talking about your faux-pas with the press. Everyone wins.’

It was genius, but there was a problem.

‘Copper we may have an issue.’

‘What?’

I spent a few minutes recounting the events in the hotel room and about my guests insistence that we were not to win at Ibrox.

‘Either we lose to save Jen or we win to save ourselves.’

‘F***, that’s a tough call.’

‘I know, luckily I sorted some extra security for Jen. She’s being protected.’

‘Maybe you should try and get her away from here for the time being.’

‘Yeah you’re right, maybe I should. Wonder if my Mum would take her on holiday?’

‘So you get Jen away and we go to Ibrox to win?’

‘Sounds like a plan to me.’

Now I had to convince Jen to leave, and before I could do that I needed to get her to talk to me.

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Copper, that was the full cost of his contract according to the game. (I know because I'm far enough ahead to have had to pay it!) With regard to the threats, as you might imagine I haven't made my intentions totally clear. There will be a twist, keep reading :)

Worrying about what to do with our trip across the city was fruitless right now. First we had two other games to navigate. St. Mirren were first in what could be a tricky game. Despite having the league’s only ever female manager they were certainly going to be no push-over. Tina Powell had her team well organised and they were capable of giving anybody a game. I hoped today wouldn’t be their day.

After that we had the impossible task of trying to beat Roma. Granted it was the home tie, but Roma are one of the best sides in one of the world’s best leagues. It never ceases to amaze me that our tough league games always seem to be preceded or succeeded by an even more difficult game. I tried to put thoughts of the games to come out of my mind. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of consecutive games against ‘The Wolves’ and ‘Teddy Bears.’ One sounded decidedly less frightening and that was the one of the two our fans would pick for the win given the chance.

The starting 11 showed 6 changes from the team that struggled to a penalties defeat 4 days earlier. Wilson, Loovens, Flood, McGinn, McDonald and Samaras were all in for Fox, McManus, Zhi, Robson, Fortune and Allagui respectively.

Before I let the boys off the coach in Paisley I had something to say that they needed to hear.

‘Listen lads. All of you know that I made a mess with the press earlier in the week and no doubt all of you have seen the damage limitation press release. I want you to know that there is no extra pressure on you in any game. It doesn’t matter what the press release said. I want to win at Ibrox, but despite the promise I’ll be happy as long as we can all say we did our best whatever the result. That said, if anyone asks about this week’s events I expect a ‘no comment’ from every single one of you.’

As the squad trooped off the bus I turned to my assistant.

‘Copper, I know what I saw during the week wasn’t the upper reaches of your talent. On that basis, assuming you are still departing the club shortly, I’d like you to take the team today and show the world what you can do, even if they won’t know it was you who did it.’

A smile broke out across the face of the man who had looked totally defeated just days ago.

‘It’ll look suspicious if I’m out there issuing all the instructions again.’

‘Then tell me what you want and I’ll give them. Press can’t complain if I confer with my assistant before telling my team what I want.’

The reply was a nod of understanding. With that we had a contest against the league’s only female manager and the league’s only American non-player.

***

‘We need to get out there and show the world that mid-week was a one-off. We need to send our fans back to Glasgow happy. Go out there and give me 100%.’

The team talk was short and sweet. Copper needed few words to provide motivation. Everything he wanted to say was in the way he said it and his demeanour.

It was clear from the first minute that St. Mirren were focussed on stopping us rather than out playing us. I suspected a counter attacking strategy was what Ms. Powell had in mind. It was fair enough, it’s certainly what both halves of the Old Firm are generally used to when playing away from home. Had this been a home game I wouldn’t even have expected anything as forward thinking as counter attack. Normally SPL visitors to Celtic Park were happy to get out of there having kept the score down to a respectable level.

Copper had obviously had the same thoughts as me.

‘Mike, can you get the boys to hold onto the ball and probe patiently. We’re going have to work hard to break this team down.’

In the end we didn’t need to work that hard and we certainly didn’t have to be that patient to make a break through. Thirteen minutes into the game McDonald’s running pulled the defence apart and allowed him to slip the ball through, from Brown’s midfield pass, to Samaras. Sammy’s speed allowed him to ensure that there wasn’t a defender within 5 feet of him as he collected the ball. From there it was just a matter of sticking the ball underneath the keeper as he went down at the strikers feet. Sammy managed it easily.

It only took 3 more minutes for Samaras to repeat the trick and double our lead. He was involved in the build up too. He nodded the ball from midfield to McDonald and the sprinted forward. Skippy ignored the Greek’s running and managed to play the ball both between the centre backs and round behind of the left back that was picked up by Scott Brown. A short sprint with ball took Brown into the box and allowed him to pull off a shot. The shot was parried by Paul Gallacher in the St.Mirren goal, but he was helpless to stop Samaras picking up the loose ball and popping it into the goal unchallenged.

Happy with the way his team were playing Copper relaxed into his plastic chair, leaving me standing in the freshly falling rain. It was a light drizzle.

The fresh face woman in the opposing technical area was much less happy. She was screaming to her players to tighten up and concentrate. The defensive line was bearing the brunt of her annoyance, to a man the four of them resolved not to look in her direction, instead choosing to acquiesce to her instructions by concentrating their vision solely on what was in front of them.

The new defensive focus seemed to work in the most part, we produced nothing that required anything more complicated than a catch or punch from Gallagher for the next twenty minutes.

The weather did for St. Mirren in the 37th minute however. Samaras collected the ball just inside the penalty area and was brought down by Izzy Iriekpen. The midfielder tried to pull out of the challenge but the rain, which was now falling in sheets, had made the surface very greasy. Iriekpen was unable to halt his impending collision with Sammy and the referee had little choice but to award a spot kick and send the midfielder off for denying the goal scoring chance. I felt that it was unjust on St. Mirren, but it was really the only choice. Samaras was in less charitable mood as he insisted that Scott McDonald give him the ball. It was understandable really that a striker that had been much maligned during his time at Manchester City wanted to complete his hat-trick. He managed it by sending the ball to the goalkeeper’s right.

St. Mirren’s spirit was broken and a 4th goal followed mere minutes later. Niall McGinn cut inside from the right wing with the ball and played it to Scott McDonald. The Aussie was unmarked and had time to turn and compose himself before hitting a drive into the goalkeeper’s left hand corner. The shot didn’t have much power, but it was accurate. The precision and inclement pitch conditions were enough to ensure that the shot evaded the diving Gallacher.

Copper kept the half time team talk as short as the pre-match one had been.

‘That’s exactly what we wanted to see. Keep it going. Well done.’

Whatever had been said at half time in the home dressing room had been powerful enough to get the attention of the players, well at least for 5 minutes. Tom Brighton had won the ball on the half way line and passed it square to Stephen McGinn. The young midfielder had held up the ball long enough for Brighton to get forward before releasing the ball to him with a pass that split our centre backs. The left winger strode forward in an unfamiliar central position and spotting Artur Boruc off his goal line lobbed the ball over him and into the far corner before either Caldwell or Loovens could retreat far enough to make the saving tackle.

St. Mirren’s next touch of the ball didn’t come until we’d restored our 4 goal advantage. From kickoff the ball went backwards and eventually ended up with Boruc before it was worked all the way forward again. Scott McDonald received the ball on the Celtic front line, but due to the number of defenders whose attentions were focused on him he could do nothing but play the ball backwards to Willo Flood in the hope that he could make a move to set something else up. He didn’t need to however. Having taken a touch to kill the pass from McDonald the Irishman unleashed a ferocious shot that would probably still be travelling now had the net not stopped it. A famous commentator once remarked on a shot he felt was unstoppable, saying ‘you wouldn’t have stopped that with two goalkeepers.’ That phrase would have held true for this shot as well.

The restoring of our advantage so soon after St. Mirren had attempted to get themselves back into the game really killed off their threat. Copper however had decided to take no chances. I pulled the team back to a more conservative style to see out the second half. With our new defensive set up the two teams cancelled each other out and the next moment of crowd excited me can as Samaras was withdrawn with 3 minutes of the ninety to play. He had been outstanding today and Copper wished for him to have the opportunity to take the fans plaudits all on his own.

Not to be out done the man who had gone on in Samaras’ place, Sami Allagui, decided he wanted his name on the score sheet. In the final minute of normal time he received a pass in a central position of the 18 yard box from Shaun Maloney, muscled his way between 2 defenders with the ball at his feet and blasted it past the helpless Gallacher.

The league’s only American non-player looked delighted, the league’s only female manager was, unsurprisingly, very much less so.

A 6-1 away win was just what we needed. In fact it was sensational and Copper told the boys so.

Authors Note: A Thanks to Gav for letting me reference Tina! I'm sorry it was in such a heavy defeat, but I've still got games to come involving St. Mirren so she may get her own back.

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Authors Note: A Thanks to Gav for letting me reference Tina! I'm sorry it was in such a heavy defeat, but I've still got games to come involving St. Mirren so she may get her own back.

Cheeky bugger. Destroying her like that ;) it wasn't a problem. Next time though ;)

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hertzvanrental, glad to have you along for the ride. Quality user name btw.

Gav, I actually already know the outcome of the next game between the two sides. Rest assured however that I'm not going to tell you until it's time!

The win at St. Mirren Park was a great end to a mixed month. The media were proclaiming it as ‘a real statement of intent’ as far as the championship was concerned. I agreed with them and more importantly it had stopped them focusing on the ‘Ibrox Gamble’ as they had taken to calling it.

October started in a similarly satisfying way, with a clean sweep in the SPL Player of the Month Awards. The players winning the awards were Samaras, McGinn and Maloney in that order. Shaun Maloney also took top spot in the Goal of the Month Award for his 20 yard wonder strike against Dundee United. Coupled with all of that was the news that Aiden McGeady was back in training.

‘Despite his recovery it doesn’t look like Aiden will be fit for the trip to Rome.’

‘Copper what are you talking about, that game isn’t until mid-December, of course he’ll be fit.’

‘No Mike the trip to Rome is tomorrow, we play them at home in December.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We are less than 48 hours from one of the biggest games of our season and I appeared to have got it wrong. I lifted my fixture list of my desk and studied it carefully.

‘S***!’

Copper was right, although I don’t know why I’d have expected any different.

‘Why the hell do you always have to be right?’ I demanded with a laugh.

‘I’m not, but I can hardly help it if you’re always wrong!’ was his counter argument.

In fairness the man had a point. I had, so far, managed to be wrong on just about every possible occasion in spectacular fashion.

***

I didn’t mind flying apart from the general boredom of it. It was usual for me to want to sleep through a flight and this one was no different. Rome is 1230 miles from Glasgow and that means a flight long enough to make it worth sleeping.

We were twenty minutes into the flight when I started to feel the boredom kick in. I shuffled in my seat to get comfortable and closed my eyes. I don’t know for sure but I guess I’d been asleep about an hour when I awoke with a start. I don’t know what woke me but whatever it was left me with a sense of dread and a terrible foreboding. It was enough to stop me going back to sleep.

I needed to occupy my mind so I went to see who else I could find. Toward the rear of the plane I found a number of the party engrossed in the usual card school. Unusually Copper was playing and he appeared to be doing very well. It was actually another member of the group that I wanted to talk to.

‘Caldwell, a word please.’

Gary Caldwell, Celtic and Scotland Centre back stood up. ‘Sure Gaffer, I’m sick of losing to the Yank anyway.’ The term wasn’t meant as an insult and Copper laughed it off, probably helped by the money he’d won.

‘Gary I wanted to let you know that you will be skippering the side against Roma, and assuming you don’t make a monumental cock-up of it, against Rangers as well.’

‘O.K. Gaffer I won’t let you down, and don’t worry I won’t breathe a word to the others.’

I appreciated his professionalism, especially since Stephen McManus hadn’t been told he wouldn’t be playing.

***

The hotel was comfortable and the evening training session at the Stadio Olimpico went as well as could be expected. We were lucky to finish the evening with the same number of fit players we had started with and as such meant that I could, as I intended, name an unchanged side the following day.

Pleased that my team were as prepared as they could be before tomorrow’s game I went off to my hotel room. Around 11pm I drifted off to sleep, but was awake 2 hours later. This time I knew what had woken me and was sure it was the same thing that had woken me on the flight.

It is impossible to mistake the shape of a female limp and lifeless, especially when the sight and smell of the blood is so vivid in your mind. I couldn’t see the face, but it was Jen. I was as sure as I could be of that.

The dead figure was reaching out and calling my name, looking for help. It was help only I could give apparently.

I woke up and sat bolt upright, a cold sweat like a layer of frost forming on my back. I was sure now that losing the Ibrox game was the only way to go. Defeat was the only savior.

I grabbed my mobile and scrolled through the contacts list until I found Jen’s number. I hit the dial button and waited for it to connect. I started to count the rings; 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... welcome to Vodaf... I hung up.

‘DAMMIT JEN, I need to talk to you.’

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There are tough games and then there are tough games. This was going to be the latter. Roma are a totally different prospect to the sort of tough games are everyday lives in the SPL usually provide. On domestic duty we expect that about the most difficult thing we will have to contend with is a packed defence. The big boys of European football are canny enough to keep you out with four or five of the players they’ve named and use the other 5 or 6 to hurt your defence. We wouldn’t be able to flood forward against them, we’d need to be much more careful and try and pick them off.

‘We’re going to have to be disciplined tonight boys. Roma are an excellent side and we can only afford to attack when we have a genuine chance. I want you to sit back and soak up the pressure and then hit them on the break. I would like us to give a good account of ourselves out there. Good luck.’

The first meaningful attack of the game came in the 6th minute as Shaun Maloney made Artur in the Roma goal go down low to his left to shave a driven shot from the edge of the area. I hoped it was a statement of intent, but prayed the boys had heard what I’d said about caution.

In the 13th minute we picked up a stroke of luck. Glenn Loovens was forced into a tackle on the 18 yard line to stop Francesco Totti from shooting. The tackle was last ditch and ended up as a foul. The referee awarded the free kick but amazingly Loovens escaped without further punishment. The talismanic Roma striker was forced off with a match ending injury. Seeing a player of any team injured is never a good thing, but seeing your opposition lose a quality player is a good thing.

When your team is a good as Roma’s however losing one good player usually means that another one step up to take his place. Our luck turned against us almost immediately. Julio Baptista lined up the same free kick that Loovens challenge had afforded them and smashed it through the narrowest of gaps between the outside edge of our wall and the inside edge of the post. Boruc wouldn’t have stopped it if he’d been stood directly behind the ball, it would probably have carried him into the goal.

Not 5 minutes later and we had our own opportunity from the edge of the area. This time Burdisso had brought down Maloney whilst our winger was going directly away from goal. It was an unnecessary challenge but there was no question about further punishment. The foul wasn’t malicious and it didn’t deny a goal scoring chance for Burdisso escaped without seeing yellow or red. I hoped we could make the same of our chance that Roma had of theirs.

Willo Flood was the man charged with playing the Baptista role. The kick was a beautiful floating shot that sailed over the wall towards the top nearside corner of the goal. It had Artur beaten all ends up, unfortunately it didn’t have the post beaten and it rebounded back into play. I had started to celebrate but it was premature but I was now holding my head in my hands. There was a small eruption of noise, I looked up and was greeted by the sight of Celtic fans cheering, hugging and jumping up and down. The most wonderful sight was that of Artur picking the ball out of the goal that had previously been behind him.

‘What happened?’ I shouted over to my assistant.

‘The ball dropped directly into Maloney’s path and he slotted it home.’ Came the reply, Copper having to lean into my ear and shout to make himself heard.

We were back in this game and showing the world we could compete.

For the next quarter of an hour the game ebbed and flowed like no game I’ve ever seen before with both teams holding possession and dominance before surrendering it to the opposition. It wasn’t even end to end in the traditional sense, it was more ‘all down at one end for a couple of minutes’ and then ‘all down at the other for a while.’

Approaching the half hour mark we created the next big chance of the game, in fact it was the only time either side had successfully managed to work the ball into the penalty area since we scored. The ball broke from our defence and ended up with Samaras holding the ball up in the centre circle. Spotting the run of Scott Brown past Burdisso, who was more concerned with Scott McDonald, Sammy dinked a wonderful pass into Browns path. The speed of the move played Mexes out of the game and allowed Brown a free run at goal. The run wasn’t quite what was required as a poor first touch sent the ball away from goal. As a result Brown ended up having to try to slide the ball between the goalkeeper and the near post. The angle was too narrow and the save ended up being easy.

Being a world class centre back Mexes should never have been beaten as easily as he was and it clearly rankled with him. 2 minutes after Brown’s missed chance Mexes found himself in a similar position; with Brown running at him and knowing that there would likely be a run at goal if the Scot got the ball past him. Mexes was never going to allow this to happen as hauled Brown down by the jersey. We won a free kick and defender picked up a yellow card, but I’d have much preferred another chance on goal.

Following on from his opening goal Julio Baptista clearly wasn’t finished with us. As he tried to break free down our right hand side in a move that required Gary Caldwell to come across and assist Wilson in stopping him and clearing the ball.

Roma took control for the next 10 minutes; a period which culminated in what most people wrongly assumed would be the last chance of the half. It wasn’t the last chance, but it was Roma’s second goal. Most frustratingly it was Roma’s second goal because we put up no resistance.

The ball was played around my team as if they weren’t there. It was only a three pass move, which ended with a run from Menez to take Loovens out of the game and a shot from 18 yards that Boruc couldn’t reach. We hadn’t pressed the ball and it had cost us.

We hadn’t done badly in the first half and by my reckoning we were slightly ahead in both possession terms and the shots on target count. I seemed on that basis a little unfair that we were behind in the match. That, however, was something our first half play had convinced me we could rectify.

‘O.K. people you’ve shown some spirit out there and some considerable skill. I want you to keep it up in the second half. I have changed my assessment based on what I have seen, we can win this. First of all we need to get level so let’s make that the priority. We are unlucky to be behind, but that’s the reality of our position. Let’s give them the same again second half.’

They didn’t need much firing up but I hoped my words would stir them anyway. Two minutes into the second half I was left wondering if Nicolas Burdisso had been in our dressing room at half time. The defender was well and truly up for the second half and showed it by blatantly elbowing Scott McDonald in the face. Quite how the official saw that as only worthy of a yellow card was beyond me. It appeared to also be beyond Copper, he was busy berating the fourth official and it required Josh Thompson, our 18 year old substitute centre back, to show wisdom beyond his years and go and pull my assistant back. Copper was furious and his outburst had him breathing hard and red in the face.

‘Careful you’ll give yourself a heart attack.’

‘You’ve no idea.’

From there the game died a little with neither team really looking like scoring. That isn’t to say there wasn’t attacking play. It’s just that the defensive play was superior generally and any attacking plays that were made into a chance were wasted.

The lack of chances taken was starting to concern me. I instructed our two forward playing substitutes to warm up and on 68 minutes replaced McDonald with Fortune and Sammy with Sami. The Aussie looked to still be suffering the effects of the blow to the head and couldn’t keep his head in the game. The Greek lad had offered very little since his neat ball to Brown in the first half and just couldn’t get his feet in the game.

Within 2 minutes of the change a goal was scored and I’d like to say it was one of our freshly introduced players making the difference. I’d like to tell you that but I can’t because it would be a lie. The goal was scored at the other end of the pitch and because our defence had chosen the precise moment of a Roma corner to have a little snooze.

The ball was swung in and Mexes rose higher than Loovens to meet the ball and succeeded only in heading the ball down onto the ground. Hinkel, Wilson and Flood, who had been marking Baptista, all went for the ball and all missed it, leaving Baptista to nip between them and score from close range past a goalkeeper who was left little chance.

I made moves to push the team up almost immediately after the third Roma goal went in. Copper read my mind and made similar moves to stop me.

‘Are you CRAZY?’

‘No, I just want to get level.’

‘Going attacking isn’t the way to do that, you said so yourself. We push up in this game I promise you that we’ll get destroyed in the last 20 minutes. Accept that 3-1 is a respectable score away from home against a team of this quality. Accept that it should probably be closer and lets walk out of here with our heads up. Failing that you can throw everything at them, we can leave here with the score line at who knows what, 6-1 or something equally ridiculous, and we look like a bad team. That would be grossly unfair on you and me, not to mention them!’ Copper was pointing out towards the eleven soldiers clad in the yellow and black of our away kit. ‘Not to mention them!’ he signalled our band of travelling foot soldiers, ‘How do you think they’d feel, and more importantly what do you think they’d do to you for turning a battling performance into a laughing stock?’

‘There you go being right again!’

‘No Mike, just stopping you from being wrong.’

Three minutes later I was glad Copper had stopped me from throwing caution to the wind as a quick break forward for Sami Allagui running up our right wing with the ball and crossing to the centre of the 6 yard line for Fortune to head the ball at goal. It sneaked in, but only just. The ball headed for the far post and the keeper dived to reach it but could only manage to tip the ball onto the inside of the post which made it squirm over the line. We’d got it back to 3-2, we’d found a lifeline with about a quarter of an hour to play.

We took control on the chance creation front, creating one very good chance and a couple of half chances without troubling the Roma keeper. The next chance was to be different though, it would trouble the keeper and in fact it would result in the game’s final goal.

The ball was cleared from a goal kick and was headed on by the forward. The loose ball was collected by the right winger who sprinted 25 yards with the ball at his feet and whipped in a cross that dropped perfectly for the forward to continue his run, round the last defender and slide home at full stretch.

Julio Baptista had completed his hat-trick and sunk our chances of a comeback.

It was unfair as we had competed with them. We’d created nearly as many chances as them and almost as many clear chances. It was their superior finishing that had won it for them.

The changing room was far from despondent but I let the team know that they’d been excellent. I was proud of all of them. Copper had been right, a two goal defeat in Rome is nothing to be ashamed of, especially when you’ve made them score 4 to earn the two goal win.

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A little over 48 hours was all I had before we kicked off against Rangers. Jen still refused to answer the phone to me and I was somehow expected to both simultaneously win and lose at Ibrox. The frustrating thing was that I thought that we’d be safe enough should we win assuming I could get Jen out of Glasgow and preferably out of the country before the game.

There was a loud knock at my office door.

‘Come in.’

Gary Caldwell stepped through and stopped square with my desk.

‘Hi Gaffer, just wanted to let you know that I’ve spoken with all the other players and we are determined to win on Sunday, we won’t let you down. You may as well chalk the three points up now because we will be bringing them home with us.’

Gary obviously felt that his speech should give me confidence and fill me with happiness. Unfortunately it didn’t. It made life more difficult, I couldn’t honestly expect my team to understand if I asked them to go out and deliberately lose a game at Ibrox.

‘Thanks Gary, I appreciate it.’ Was all I could manage to reply.

‘Better get off to training now. Oh and one of the girls on reception asked me to hand this to you, just arrived by courier apparently.’

Caldwell tossed the brown envelope down on my desk.

‘Thanks.’

Waiting until I heard the footsteps moving down the corridor I picked up the envelope and tore it open. It contained a single sheet of paper on which, written in red ink, were the words ‘LOSE THE GAME OR LOSE A LIFE!’

The sentiment behind the note turned my stomach and I felt the fear rising and grip me. I needed help with this now.

I headed out to the training pitch to find the boys doing light fitness work under the watch of my assistant.

‘Copper I need your help; boys go home training is over for the day. We’ll see you tomorrow.’

Looking slightly bemused Copper made his way into my office through the veranda doors as the squad headed for the shower.

‘I’m sorry to do that to you, but I need your help.’ My voice was wavering as I spoke.

‘Mike what’s wrong? Are you O.K.?’

I handed the note to Copper, who stood and stared at it.

‘We really need to find a way to lose this game. It’s the only way.’

‘No it isn’t, we need to find a way to get Jen away from here.’

‘How do you propose I do that when she won’t even speak to me?’

‘You send a letter, she might know it’s from you, but no-one can resist a letter. She’ll open it, that much I promise you. I’ll deliver it to the hotel for you.’

I sat there for half an hour staring at the blank paper not knowing what to write. There we so many things to say. I needed to clear my head and start again. I’d hit the gym and run.

I’d expected the gym to be deserted at this time but Sammy was pounding a punch bag when I arrived.

‘Good to see the dedication.’

‘You mean frustration.’

‘Do I? Why?’

‘You would be too if your international career was over.’

Sammy appeared to have forgotten that I’d never managed to play for my country, not even at youth level.

‘I’m going running, come and talk to me.’

We both set our treadmills to a suitable pace and started out on our journeys to nowhere.

‘Gaffer I’ve just been left out of the Greece squad for the upcoming internationals for the second consecutive time. I could understand if I was injured, but I’m fully fit.’

‘That doesn’t mean your international career is over. It simply means that you haven’t been picked.’

‘But I don’t understand why, maybe I need to go to a bigger club.’

That was a thought I didn’t want to have to entertain. Sammy was easily in the top two strikers at the club.

‘Sammy I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want you to think about leaving here. I can’t offer you any great advice other than make sure you give Otto Rehhagel no reason to leave you out. Score as many goals as you can. The one thing you can be sure of is that the quality of defenders in this league will mean you get chances.’

‘Just score goals?’

‘Exactly’

‘So just keep it simple?’

‘Yes, keep it simple, always keep it simple.’

That was the answer to the problem of the letter. Let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be. Stick to the important stuff, like convincing Jen to get away from Glasgow. All the other stuff could wait, because if Jen didn’t get out of the city then she might not be around for me to deal with the other stuff and that didn’t bare thinking about.

I leapt off the treadmill and sprinted for my desk.

Jen,

I know right now you don’t trust me but I need you to suspend that feeling and please do as I ask. I want nothing more from you than for you to get yourself as far away from Glasgow as you can, for your own sake. Go wherever in the world you want, just don’t stay here.

I ask this of you because I believe you are in danger. I was recently threatened that if we did not lose the Ibrox game that there would be repercussions. I believe these threats came from the same persons who attacked you.

I cannot ask my players to deliberately lose a game without having to explain the whole situation to all of them, which I don’t wish to do. As such I am doing the only thing I can and trying to protect you on the basis that we may win this game.

I have enclosed a letter I have received today, I am certain that this is from the same source as the original threat, by way of evidence of my motives for this request.

Please get yourself away from here. Do whatever you need to do, use your credit card if necessary and take whoever you need with you, just get away.

Mike

I folded the letter and dropped it into an envelope along with the letter that had arrived earlier. I sealed the envelope and went looking for Copper. Today he had a new job; postman.

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Today was the day of reckoning. The events leading up to today were a swirling mess in my head. I was no longer sure if we were supposed to be winning or losing this game. The pundits on the radio were predicting a draw. That result was no good to anyone; I turned the radio off in annoyance.

11:30, time to go. Time to face destiny, whatever that might be. I gathered my possessions and marshalled my thoughts. I tried to look calm and collected as I strode from my office toward reception and the group of players waiting patiently to board the coach and head to Govan where our fans would be waiting expectantly.

I was last onto the coach and made a quick check to make sure we had everyone before signalling the driver to go and taking my seat.

I was still pondering which way to play this game when I felt a tap on my side.

‘You gonna answer that?’ Copper pointed at my pocket.

‘What?’

‘Your phone was ringing, you gonna answer it?’

I fished my pocket for my mobile. Once I had it I realised my phone hadn’t been ringing.

‘Text message.’

‘Good news is it?’ he asked, noticing the smile developing on my lips.

‘You could say that.’ I handed my mobile over to let Copper read the message. He smiled too.

I’m out of Glasgow, I won’t tell you where. We need to talk when I get back.

‘Mike we play to win.’ It wasn’t a question, more a statement of intent.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I do, we might not win the game but we will try. There is no reason to worry now.’

‘I guess so. You’ve never been wrong yet.’

***

‘Boys this game is potentially massive. You should all be aware that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill SPL away game. We need to be careful here. I believe we are the better team, although Ranger still have the ability to hurt us. On that basis I want to use the same strategy that we caused Roma problems with. We are going to sit back and catch them on the break.’

I was more comfortable now in my belief that the result wasn’t important for anyone’s personal safety, although it was important in the grand scheme of our season. We were 7 points behind Rangers although we had 2 games in hand.

‘Gaffer!’

I turned to see Mark Wilson limping towards me. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Turned my ankle, don’t think I’ll be fit to play today.’

What options did I have. A quick scan of the team sheet revealed an easy choice.

‘O.K. Mark, you take a place on the bench and Danny can fill in for you this afternoon.’

It wasn’t a massive blow as Danny Fox was about as good as Mark at left back, it was just frustrating that we’d have to be forced into a change before the game had even started.

***

The game kicked off to the usual cacophony of noise that the Glasgow giants supporters can create. I had no idea what Gary Caldwell had said to my players and after 2 minutes frankly I didn’t care. We’d maintained possession of the ball throughout the period and our oldest enemy had looked powerless to take it from us. As a result Scott Brown had found himself with the ball at his feet 30 yards from goal and attempted a lob over the keeper to open the scoring. Unfortunately he hadn’t struck the ball properly and it fell short of its target and was caught easily by Allan McGergor.

From the clearance Kris Boyd had tried to win the header but was pulled down by Glenn Loovens for a free kick, much to the annoyance of Boyd and the mass of blue shirts on the slopes. The resultant free kick came to nothing when after a neat passing move the ball was crossed straight into Borucs waiting arms.

Both sides had shown their intentions within the first 4 minutes, neither side was willing to lose but both sides we willing to attack if, and only if, there was a chance on.

Other than an offside called effort from Scott McDonald the game waited until the 8th minute for its next chance of a goal. We were attacking with patience and constantly recycling the ball. A four pass move between Maloney and Fox on the left hand side manoeuvred us into position for Maloney to play the ball into the 18 yard box and the feet of Scott Brown, who cut the ball back to 12 yards. This enabled Willo Flood to shoot a first time effort past McGregor and into the far corner for the games opening goal.

There was pandemonium on all four sides of the ground with three and a half sides insisting that Samaras was offside and the other half a side celebrating. Crucially the only people looking for offside were in the stands.

Unsurprisingly neither side adjusted its game plan as a result of the early goal. Both teams were still capable of winning the contest and both teams knew it.

It was Rangers turn in the next attack and as Kenny Miller wound his leg up to strike at goal from a Steven Davis cross Glenn Loovens did just enough to put Miller off and the shot was fluffed harmlessly to Boruc.

The next shot on goal came from the penalty spot. Flood was brought down by Kevin Thompson just inside the penalty area. It was a needless foul and a soft penalty to give away but it was most definitely a penalty. Scott McDonald had been instrumental in the move that earn the spot kick, having collected the ball from a Caldwell headed clearance and laid it off to Samaras he was also there to play the ball in Willo Flood’s direction as the move ended. McDonald was the man who wanted the responsibility of dispatching the kick and doubling our lead.

The kick was delayed whilst Pedro Mendes did his best to talk himself into a yellow card, but instead had to settle for a stern word from the referee. Once the official was ready for the kick to be taken he placed the ball on the spot. The sea of blue behind the goal did it’s best to break Skippy’s concentration; they were probably blowing to try to keep the ball out too. It was all in vain as McDonald sent the ball low and hard into the goalkeeper’s bottom left hand corner and gave us a 2-0 lead inside the quarter hour mark.

The second goal still brought no change in strategy from the home side. I saw no reason to change our play but was amazed that Walter Smith had come to the same conclusion.

‘I don’t understand this. I thought we’d have to adapt to counter their more attacking style now that we’re two ahead.'

‘Copper, the one thing you need to know about Rangers is that they, certainly in recent years, seem to have an aversion to attacking play and definitely in the bigger games.’

Copper thought about this for a second. ‘But if they don’t try they won’t win!’

‘Are you complaining? If things go this way we don’t have to tell the media you were fired.’

‘True enough.’

Rangers’ reluctance to change style meant that the game carried on very much in the previous vein. Rangers created two chances, on both occasions Miller found himself on the receiving end of the assistant’s offside flag and a further attack that was repelled by Loovens 12 yards from our goal.

Loovens cleared header was the catalyst for our next attack. The header dropped to McDonald who flicked the ball forward into the path of Samaras. The tall forward played a first time pass out to our left wing for Maloney to run with. The winger took the ball forward less than 10 yards before spotting the run of Samaras who he tried to pick out with a chip ball. Sammy needed a touch to control the ball as it came down and this took him of his intended course, which was to head for goal at the near post. Instead Sammy found himself in the box and heading for the goal line. Left with no option but to cross and Madjid Bougherra closing in quickly the ball was whipped in with looking up. The Rangers defence were in disarray and there were no blue shirts in range to cut the ball out. Brown leapt but it was too high, he just couldn’t reach. The ball continued on its path, crucially losing height as it went. Scott McDonald appeared on the six yard line after a lung bursting sprint and was, despite being one of the smallest players on the park, was able to head the ball home completely unmarked.

A quarter of the match played and 3 goals up. The lower section of the Broomloan Road stand was a seething mass of green and white and the stadium rang out to a chorus of ‘Hail Hail, the Celts are here...’ whilst the blue sections on the stadium were stunned into silence.

Hugs and high fives were the order of the day in our technical area. Shouting and pointing were on the menu in the home team technical area. I was astounded when I realised that all this shout and pointing didn’t include instructions for a change of systems.

‘Not making a change now is suicide.’ Copper was as astounded as me.

‘Trouble is if we can pull them apart this easily whilst they’re defending, imagine what we might do if they push up and leave us space to play in. It could be tactical suicide either way.’

Again the action immediately following the third goal involved Rangers going forward and Kris Boyd getting called for offside from a Thomson long ball. Our defence was playing the offside trap to perfection today. Our attacks were repelled consistantly by Bougherra and Weir until after 7 more minutes Maloney won a corner off Steven Whittaker.

McGinn picked out the empty space in front of the goal, which forced Steven Davis of the near post to cover it. Samaras managed to shake free of Sasa Papac and power the ball with his head towards goal. The ball passed between Davis and Rothen with near able to make a successful attempt at stopping the ball. Worse than this Davis’ new position meant that McGregor was unsighted, could come for the ball and subsequently was also helpless to stop it crossing the line.

30 minutes and 4 goals, Old Firm games didn’t come better than this. Well not if you were a Celtic fan.

Finally Rangers got a decent effort on target as the post denies Thomson a 25 yard screamer. It’s the sort of goal that we could have done nothing about. Fortunately we didn’t need to worry about it.

My team had made this the easiest half time team talk I could wish for.

‘That was nothing short of a counter attacking master class. I haven’t really anything more to say. Well Done.’

The fabulous performance I’d just witnessed enabled me to afford the boys to relax during the interval. We also agreed to continue with the same strategy for the second half. There was no need to push forward looking for more, equally there was no point in pulling right back and letting Rangers have free reign to attack us. Staying where we were allowed us to concentrating on keeping our lead but still provided enough threat up front to cause Rangers something to think about.

Rangers had made changes at half time. They’d retained their shape but had come out with a higher back line and a more attacking approach. They had also taken of Rothen and added DeMarcus Beasley to the game.

A tame shot from Kris Boyd straight at Boruc whilst under pressure and a yellow card for Andy Hinkel were all the first 10 minutes could conjure in terms of action. There was nothing that caused us any real worry.

Such was our dominance in this game that on 67 minutes our fans were out of their seats and celebrating a 5th goal. It was premature however as Sammy was unable to control Hinkel’s deep cross as it dropped over his shoulder and he ended up to far from goal to beat McGregor.

‘That would have been the icing on the cake.’

‘Doesn’t matter, this result is going to provide Rangers with enough of a s***storm of unhappy supporters without the need for extra goal.’

My assistant laughed. ‘This time I reckon you might just be right.’

The remains of the game saw Boyd get his own back on Glenn Loovens by taking him out with a hard challenge which facilitated a need for a substitution. Josh Thompson was about to make his old firm debut.

Willo Flood, who had run the game manfully in midfield was taken off to allow Marc Crosas a little playing time. It was like for like swaps in order to maintain our balance and protect our superiority.

At the final whistle less than a fifth of the stadium were celebrating, but we didn’t care it wasn’t our problem.

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mag man, CrashOverride, i'm glad you're engoying it and pleased to have you along. Thanks

The team talk hadn’t been a problem, neither had the coach trip back to Celtic Park. The problems only began when we arrived back. The coach couldn’t get all the way up to the entrance due to the presence of an ambulance and its paramedics being located there.

‘Let’s not get the lads off the coach here, they’ll get mobbed. I’ll go see what’s happening.’

With that Copper headed for the coach door and made his way up Kerrydale Street.

The distance between us and the entrance was less than a hundred yards but it still took Copper nearly five minutes to get there such was the sheer number of people celebrating our win and wanting to stop him to congratulate or get a photo. When he did finally reach his destination I’m certain he wished he hadn’t.

I watched as he disappeared out of sight. Strange thing was he appeared to disappear downwards as if the ground had opened up and swallowed him. That was all I needed to see to have me off the coach and barging past anyone who got in my way until I made it to the scene.

On arrival I found Copper sat on the ground with a space blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t see me arrive, he was too busy holding the hand of whomever it was that the paramedics were here for. I moved closer to see if there was anything I could do to help and that’s when I realised who it was.

The face was a mess and the body was twisted out of shape, almost beyond recognition. I would only have been fifty percent sure of the person’s identity had it not been for Copper’s current state.

‘What happened?’ I turned to the paramedic.

‘Hit and run we think, police are on their way now.’

The paramedics carefully manoeuvred a stretcher into place and lifted the body onto it. From there they loaded the stretcher and its precious cargo into the back of the ambulance. Copper insisted on going too, although no-one would have tried to stop him.

***

In view of the circumstances I’d sent the players straight home and now found myself sitting alone in my office. Then the phone started to ring.

‘Yes.’ I answered with more than a little annoyance that anyone would think now would be a good time to catch me at my desk.

‘I told you we have ways of hurting you that you haven’t even imagined.’

My mind was racing now. Was Jen ok? ‘What the f*** have you done to Jen.’

‘Nothing, your wife is fine. If she isn’t I assure you it was not my doing.’ I sighed with relief. The voice continued. ‘Getting your assistant involved with that press release wasn’t very smart. That’s why his wife was the target.’

‘You Bas...’ It was no good, the line was dead. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway I couldn’t tell anyone what I knew, I was already in too deep for that and spilling the beans now would land me in some serious trouble.

I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t want to comprehend what had happened. I couldn’t understand why Robin had been the target.

That was supposed to be Jen. It wasn’t supposed to be Robin. I’m glad it wasn’t Jen. I wish it hadn’t been Robin. I’m glad it wasn’t Jen. I t shouldn’t have been Robin. That was supposed...

I needed to know how Robin was. I couldn’t face calling Copper, so I called the hospital.

‘Glasgow Royal Infirmary, how can I help you?’

‘Erm... I’m looking to check on the status of someone who would recently have been admitted.’

‘Hold the line I’ll put you through.’

I waited what seemed like an eternity.

‘Hello admissions team, how can I help you?’

I repeated my enquiry.

‘What’s the name of the person admitted?’

‘Robin Horse’

‘Are you a relative?’

‘Yes she’s my sister,’ I lied.

‘Hold on I’ll check her status... sir I’m sorry we have no-one of that name on our records.’

‘She would have arrived in the last hour, in an ambulance.’

‘Hold on I’ll check with A&E, they probably wouldn’t have had a chance to tell us yet.’

The wait was excruciatingly long, and longer and my watch would have started going backwards. Finally the voice came back.

‘Sir I’m sorry to inform you that Mrs. Horse was announced Dead on Arrival.’

I dropped the phone out of shock. Staring at my desk didn’t make this any easier. A man’s wife had been killed and it was my fault.

***

‘Mr. Kowalski we understand you were present at the scene of the accident, is that correct?’

I wanted to scream that it wasn’t an accident but my sense of self-preservation prevented me from doing so.

‘I arrived after the pararmedics. We’d just got back from Ibrox and couldn’t get up to the main entrance on the coach. Mr. Horse had gone to see what was happening, when I realised there was a problem with him I followed. Unfortunately I saw nothing.’ I replied. Even if I had seen anything I wouldn’t have dared breathe a word.

‘We thought that might be the case, that’s exactly what Mr. Horse told us. We have to interview everyone who was there and is associated with the club though because it turns out the vehicle used was a club car. We found it burned out less than a mile away but there were no signs of a forced entry.’

‘Sorry Officer I know nothing.’

‘Thanks for your time Mr. Kowalski.’

I felt dirty for not sharing what I knew. I wanted to help my friend, I wanted him to know the truth but I couldn’t tell the police. I felt even worse that I now had their information as well as my own.

A club car, no signs of forced entry. So likely whoever it was who took the car also had access to a key. There must be an insider. I just needed to know who it was.

Authors Note: I hope Copperhorse doesn't mind me doing this, obviously I used the idea from his story and twisted it slightly.

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Two days had passed since Robin’s murder and still no-one had heard from Copper. He wasn’t answering his phone or responding to his emails. I needed to know he was alright. Actually, I knew he was unlikely to be alright, but I needed to know he was as good as he could be given the circumstances.

Copper’s employment file gave me his address and the admin team gave me the other paperwork I suspected I might need.

Copper had a very modest flat in a tenement building about 10 minutes drive from Celtic Park. I guess it was what he could afford on his university salary.

I knocked on his front door but no reply came. I knocked louder and even shouted through the letter box, still the door wasn’t opened.

‘Yer wastin’ yer time mister,’ came a voice behind me. ‘He’s no in.’

I was faced with a small boy, probably no more than 10 years old. ‘Any idea when he’ll be back?’

‘Naw, he’s away on holiday, seen him leaving yesterday mornin’.’

‘How do you know he’s gone on holiday?’

‘He had two suitcases with him.’

‘F***! Sorry kid I didn’t mean to say that in front of you.’

‘Dinnae worry mister I hears worse from ma da’.’

Finding Copper could be next to impossible. He could be anywhere. The words needle and haystack came to mind. I only knew one person who might know where I might find him but she’d been silenced.

I did the only thing I felt I could. I left a voice message on his mobile and headed back to the office to wait. Wait, hope and pray that he’d be ok.

***

Back in my office I’d gotten restless very quickly. I couldn’t sit down and when I’d stood up I’d very quickly found myself pacing the floor which, in turn, had driven me mental.

‘Think! How can you help him? This is your fault. Think dammit!’ I’d demanded to the empty room.

My mind, desperate for anything, could come up with nothing. I didn’t have a clue where to start looking for him. All I had was his phone number and address from the staff file. Wait, that was it, the staff file!

Rifling through the pages I found his personal information sheet. It would have emergency contact details. It was club policy, every single member of staff had a file, and they were also required to have left details of people to contact in case of emergency.

The details for his family in the United States were there. I might be able to find him; even if he wasn’t there they might know where I could find him. I snatched up the receiver and my finger hovered over the key pad. There was a good chance they didn’t know what had happened.

I couldn’t make the call, as cowardly as it was I couldn’t make myself do it. I held myself responsible and I had to find him. It was the only way I could deal with the guilt. I had to find him and tell him what happened. I couldn’t tell his family and leave it up to them. As the man responsible for all of this I couldn’t bring myself to be the one who delivered the bad news. I knew I should but I couldn’t.

***

Disgusted with myself I headed home, if you could call it that. I wanted to repress the feelings I had and I hoped by getting into bed, pulling the duvet up over my head and staying there the world might go away. It was a crap plan, but as plans went it was all I had.

It was a plan I wouldn’t get to execute. I’d reached the pulling the duvet up over my head stage when there was a knock at the door. Wary of what happened last time I opened the door to an unexpected visitor I made sure to check who it was first. The distorted vision through the spy hole was enough to convince me to open the door.

‘Mike Kowalski?’ asked the woman in a police uniform.

‘Yup, and seeing it isn’t my birthday your unlikely to be a strip-o-gram so I supposed I’d better behave.’

The WPC looked less than amused at my poor attempt at humour.

‘Mr. Kowalski I’ll over look that remark, but only because we need your help.’

‘Sorry,’ was the only follow up I could think of to follow my previous crass remark.

The WPC continued, ‘I’ve been sent to ask you to come down to the station for an interview tomorrow. It’s about Mrs. Horse.’

‘Is there any way this can be done in two days time we’ve got a match tomorrow evening and I’ll need to be around to prepare the team seeing as Mr. Horse has vanished.’

‘We suspected you might say that. I have permission to agree to that request on one condition.’

‘What?’

‘You need to surrender you passport. At the moment we don’t know whether this was an accident of deliberate so we are treating it as suspicious, and everyone as a suspect.’

I went to my cupboard and retrieved my passport from the inside pocket of a jacket.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

‘Please arrive by 10am.’

‘Sure, no worries.’

As I didn’t have enough worries with Copper missing and Jen hating me I now faced a grilling from the police. Not to mention my job of guiding one of the most well known teams in the world to winning football matches.

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Terrier, thank you for the kind words. Good luck with your own story, I look forward to reading it.

We kick-off at home against St. Johnstone in less than 12 hours and I find myself with no senior management team. My assistant is missing following, despite what the police say, what I know is her murder. My personal assistant isn’t here because she is also my wife and she thinks I’ve been cheating on her. How am I supposed to cope with this? One man alone would struggle to manage Stalybridge Celtic, from close to my hometown, never mind Glasgow Celtic.

The silence in my office was deafening. I needed noise; I needed Copper’s drawl and Jen’s soft tones interrupting me. I had neither. I had the sound of my own thoughts echoing through my head, trying to make sense of this situation and forming a plan. I turned on the radio, hoping that the sound would provide enough of a distraction to let an idea hit me. In flicking the switch I was about to make none of that matter.

The press had gone into overdrive and it wouldn’t be long before my phone started to ri...

‘Hello?’

‘Mike, it’s John. Have you heard the news today?’

‘I’ve just put it on. What the he...’

‘I know, I know. The club are going to put out a statement saying we will not comment further until after tonight’s game. After that there is a ten day period without football matches to worry about, we’ll deal with it then. Try and just focus on tonight.’

‘Thanks.’

Focus on tonight? That was going to be easier said than done. For a start I had less than 20 minutes before the players arrived for training and no assistant manager. My brain finally decided to snap into gear and start providing solutions. Well one solution at least. I’d have to hope that one solution would lead to many in a trickle effect.

The idea all hinged on one thing; whether or not a door was answered when I knocked on it.

‘Come in.’

YES! ‘Parky I need help. I need you to fill in for Copper. I know you said you didn’t want it, but will you take his job even temporarily?’

‘Look, I’ll do it as long as I can walk away when you find someone else.’

‘Yeah, fine. Done.’ It’s fair to say I was relieved. ‘Oh and your taking training, it’s in fifteen minutes.’

Parky laughed and rolled his eyes at me. ‘Bloody typical!’

***

Going back into my office I heard a separate item on the radio that made my blood boil.

‘...and now a look forward to all of tonight’s football fixtures.... Celtic are at home to St. Johnstone in the SPL, and the Saint’s manager has expressed his doubt over Celtic’s chances of winning the title by claiming that they are not good enough...’

I was raging. I picked up the phone and demanded that the receptionist get the radio station on the phone. Obviously as soon as the radio station realised I was on the line they were delighted to patch me through to the studio.

‘Let me make this quite clear to Derek McInnes. He does not know who the title winners will be. It may be us, it might be Rangers, neither he, I or anyone else will know that for sure until much closer to season’s end. We all know one thing for certain though; the champions won’t be his team.

To steal a couple of football clichés the season is a marathon and not a sprint and we’ll take each game one at a time. Therefore right now I am not focusing on where I think we might finish. I’m focusing on our next match. On that basis I’ll tell Derek McInnes something else, we may or may not be good enough to win the title, but we are good enough to beat you!’

It was gold as far as the radio station was concerned. I’m sure they would have had some questions for me based on the content of my statement, but they weren’t going to get a chance to ask them seeing that I had just slammed the phone down.

It wasn’t until just before kick-off that I’d calmed down enough to realise that I was already surrounded by fire and all my little rant had achieved was to fan the flames. We’d have been expected to win anyway; my phone call almost certainly guaranteed we were now expected to win easily.

I reckoned I might need a ladder soon if the hole I was slowly digging myself into got any bigger.

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Thanks Copper, I'm glad your enjoying it.

Getting the team ready for the St.Johnstone match seemed strange without Copper. Parky is a great friend and a fantastic football man but having him there doing the job when I knew he didn’t really want to made me miss the man whose leaving I felt responsible for.

The hatred of myself for this situation turned to annoyance of all the things that had recently gone wrong. The annoyance gave me the demeanour of a bulldog chewing a wasp which was not going to be good news for the next person who crossed me.

The dressing room door opened and with a spring in his step and a smirk on his face Glenn Loovens stepped in. The combination of a player I didn’t like and his jovial appearance irked me. That was enough to send me over the edge. Silently I reached the team sheet off my desk and crossed out Loovens’ name and replaced it with McManus. That’d teach him, doesn’t he know this is a serious match. I’ve all but promised a win and he walks in like nothing matters.

I walked over to the tactics board and posted the list. Barely 5 seconds after I moved away the squad crowded round the board to see who was in. It was a squad with only two changes. Loovens was out, not even making the bench; a decision which wiped the grin away. The only other change saw a fit again McGeady take Fortune’s place on the bench.

‘Boys, we will start with our usual formation and strategy. I’ll make changes if I deem them necessary. You will all have heard both Derek McInnes’ comments no doubt so go out there and prove I was right and that he is most definitely wrong. We are heavy favourites for this one, I EXPECT to win.’

***

Taking my seat in the dugout saw a return of the strange feeling of earlier. I was used to an opinionated American in the seat next to me, however it was empty. Parky had taken a seat further down, leaving me with just my thoughts.

I could not get my mind into the game. Every time I tried my thought process wandered away to Copper, Robin, Jen and the decisions I’d been making since I took this job that lead me to where I am now.

My thoughts were snapped back to the events at hand by the roar of the crowd. I looked up in just enough time to see the celebrations of my team. Scott Brown had crossed the ball from the right hand side following a cleared corner. The cross had dropped into the path of Willo Flood’s hammer shot and the ball had been heading for the goalkeepers chest until Niall McGinn stuck out a foot and deflected it past him.

Niall would probably tell you he ‘guided’ it past him, but in truth the ball could have gone anywhere; deflected was more accurate. I was still delighted for the lad. It was his first senior goal. For a player who I hadn’t expected to be up to much he really had spent the early season making it difficult for me to leave him out

The next meaningful attack was just after the half hour mark when Colin Samuel strode through our defence and was talked by McManus as he prepared to shoot. It was about as last ditch as a tackle could be, but it was clean.

The ball broke free and was carried by Flood into the St. Johnstone area where he preceded to win us a corner. With a beautifully hanging ball on its way into the box and Gary Caldwell rising to meet it, it looked for all the world like 2-0. At least until Saints centre back graham Gartland pulled Caldwell’s shirt to stop him gaining the necessary height to head home. Every hoops supporter in the place rose in protest to demand a penalty although by the time we were out of our seats the referee had awarded it.

Niall McGinn added another entry onto the list of ‘reason’s I shouldn’t leave him out’ by showing his ability from the spot by placing the ball home before the keeper could react. Now it was 2-0.

We continued to press our superiority and won 3 corners in succession, unfortunately none of them were good enough to extend our lead and the final one was cleared so easily that St. Johnstone were able to counter attack us.

The ball was headed forward into the path of Morias who carried the ball into the centre circle and across halfway. It was at this point Danny fox decided, having followed him all the way, to put in a challenge. The tackle was clumsy and brought down the attacker. There was at least a case for a straight red given that Fox was the last man, although he was probably saved by the fact that Flood was tracking back and closing in quickly and by the sheer distance between the tackle and the goal.

I was relieved to say the least, although judging by the look on his face Fox was more so having escaped with a yellow card and the conceding of a free kick.

The free kick ended up being a damn sight more dangerous than it should have been considering it was from just inside our half. The ball was played long and Colin Samuel ghosted through our defence as if they were asleep meaning that Boruc was required to pull off a reaction save to deny him.

I was concerned that the recent chance would give our opponents fresh impetus. Flood seemed to sense this and proceeded to break up any attack coming with 10 yards of our final third.

It was one of these moves that allowed us our next chance. Flood played a neat pass in front of McDonald, who collected the ball by dropping inside and continuing his cross field run. McDonald’s movement allowed Samaras to run across the back of him and gave the Aussie a perfect outlet for a reverse pass. McDonald threaded the ball between the two centre backs and allowed Samaras to run onto it without breaking stride. A two touch run was all that was required to get Sammy into the box where he slotted past Alan Main from 12 yards, despite the keeper only being 3 yards from his feet, to make it 3-0 with 5 minutes of the first half remaining.

I’d managed to ramp up the pressure by making sure they needed to win convincingly to stop me looking foolish and they hadn’t let me down. It was a relief.

‘Right lad’s, you’ve done a good job out there and I’m happy. As such I don’t see any need for changes right now; we’re going to keep playing our game.’

The second half got under way with more life from the away team than they had shown in the first half. They stopped us doing anything meaningful with the ball and even managed a couple of chances themselves, the first going wide from 20 yards and the second requiring another reaction save from Artur Boruc.

For the first 20 minutes of the second half we were all but hemmed back in our half as St. Johnstone tried to get back into the game. In truth it shouldn’t have been a problem because we didn’t need more goals. In reality it was a problem because it seemed the team hadn’t worked out the lack of need for goals for themselves and still appeared to be trying to get forward to score them. It was time for some changes.

I ordered the team back to our counter attacking strategy positions and removed McGinn, Samaras and Fox from the game, replacing them with McGeady, Allagui and Wilson respectively. McGinn had done so much running his legs were gone and McGeady needed the minutes in his legs to be properly fit. Allagui needed game time too and seeing as he was supposed to rotate with Sammy it made sense. This should now be a low pressure 30 minutes, so I decided to let Allagui have his chance. Fox was the only player on a booking and I didn’t want a yellow to turn red so he was forced to surrender his place.

The changes seemed to give us fresh life and we took hold of the game again with St. Johnstone struggling to find a way through our new tighter defensive structure. With them pushing harder to get back into the game we were able to exploit space that they left and nearly increased our lead on 74 minutes when McGeady released a long but accurate pass for Sami, who muscled his way through 2 defenders and was just about to unleash what looked to be an unstoppable shot when he was tackled and lost possession.

The freedom we were now afforded due to the size of our margin and the time left to play meant that we could pick and choose when to attack and we didn’t need to worry about making it count. On one such occasion Andy Hinkel palyed a square pass to the centre and Scott Brown unleashed a thunderbolt from 19 yards that cannoned off the cross bar. It was the last chance of the game for either side and would probably have been goal of the month had it gone in.

It was a good win in the end, capped off nicely with Niall McGinn taking a brace and Man of the Match. I was pleased and so were my boys.

The win sent the message I’d hoped for to the press and guys like Derek McInnes and also let the rest of the league know we did indeed mean business. We were now 1 point behind Rangers with a game in hand.

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10-3, El, Mark, Terrier thank you for your kind words. It's nice to know my work is appreciated. Thanks.

The breakfast news was not a welcome distraction this morning. The press had continued yesterdays madness overnight.

‘Yesterday we reported that it was being rumoured that Celtic assistant manager Copper Horse has disappeared following the death of his wife. Overnight an unnamed source from inside the club has confirmed that this is true.

The release of this information has led to the police taking the unusual step of announcing Mr. Horse as the prime suspect in a case that is now being considered as murder.’

The news was too much. Not only had I managed to get a man’s wife killed but now as a result they were trying to pin the murder on him; tarnishing his good name with false accusations.

I picked up my radio and, with tears of frustration and rage running down my cheeks, hurled it against the wall.

I had to help my friend; I would not let anyone take him down like this. First I had to find him. Who did I know who would know him? There was only one man.

‘Rob? It’s Mike Kowalski.’

‘Mike what’s happening there? Copper is all over the news.’

‘I know. I’m trying to find him. He needs help.’

‘Is it true then?’

‘Yes. Well at least the bit about him vanishing is. I’m certain he didn’t kill Robin.’

‘Of course, I never thought for a second he would have.’

‘Look Rob I need to find him and quick. Have you heard from him or would you have any idea where else he may turn.’

‘I’ve heard nothing from him; I’ll let you know if I do though. Other than that the only real friend he has left in the U.K. is Bobby Bell.’

‘Cheers Rob, speak to you soon.’

I put the receiver down almost immediately after I’d finished. It wasn’t to snub Rob but I couldn’t waste even a second finding Copper.

I was now running late for my appointment with Strathclyde Police. I needed to speak to Bobby Bell but I couldn’t be late. I’d have to make the call on the way.

‘Directory enquiries, what number please?’

‘Blyth Spartans Football Club please.’

‘What town please?’

‘Blyth!’ was the rather terse reply. I mean really the clue is in the name.

‘Would you like the number, or put you through?’

‘Put me through please.’

I waited for the line to connect. It was like waiting on Christmas only much less exciting and much more frustrating.

‘Blyth Spartans FC, how can I help you?’

‘My name is Mike Kowalski, I’m the manager of Celtic and I need to speak to Bobby Bell as soon as possible please.’ Time was precious and there was desperation in my voice.

‘I’ll see if he’s available...’ the voice went off the line and then came back a few seconds later. ‘Hello? Mr Bell is currently in a board meeting, would you like me to pass on a message?’

‘Ask him to call me as soon as possible please.’ I gave the girl my mobile number. ‘It’s very urgent.’

I’d hoped to speak to Bobby before I reached my destination. Sadly it wasn’t to be; the police station was in sight.

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Maybe I’d seen too many crime dramas, but the interview wasn’t anything like I imagined it would be. It felt incredibly informal almost friendly. There was no caution and no need for legal representation.

The detective sat across the desk from me was a middle aged man with grey hair and a shirt that was far too tight for the bulging stomach it was supposed to conceal.

‘Mr. Kowalski, thanks for coming down. My name is Detective Tanner. I need some information from you please.’

I nodded and waited for the first question.

‘Do you know where Copper Horse is?’

‘No, I’ve been trying to locate him myself but I only have his address and when I went there he had gone.’

‘Can you think of any reason that Mr. Horse might wish to kill his wife?’

This question enraged me. I knew Copper hadn’t killed Robin.

‘WHAT? You really think Copper would do that? He loved his wife. Anyway Copper was with me on the day.’

‘Are you sure he was with you?’

‘Are you kidding? We’d been in the dugout at Ibrox for the Old Firm game. We have 50,000 witnesses. Yes I’m positive he was with me.’

‘O.K.’ there was a short pause before the policeman continued, ‘Can you think of anyone who might have had anything against Mr. Horse?’

This was a prime chance for me to clear Copper’s name. All I had to do was finger Venus and Fenton and Copper would walk away from all of this.

‘Erm... well actually... no, I can’t.’

I hated myself all over again for it. My cowardice had got the better of me. I wanted to free Copper but I couldn’t because I knew it meant implicating myself.

‘Can you think of anyone who might have anything against you Mr. Kowalski?’

‘Me? What have I got to do with this?’

‘Well sir we understand that fairly recently your wife was subject to a terrible attack and we find it strange that someone would do that and then just a few weeks later the wife of your new assistant would end up dead. It’s a very large coincidence, don’t you think?’

I was being given a second chance to hand over the information, but it was information that he couldn’t already know about. This had to be a play to try and find any little clue. He wasn’t necessarily trying to trip me up but he was going to nudge me enough to see if I dropped anything.

Hearing Jen’s ordeal brushed off quite so easily hurt infinitely. Not being able to help Copper hurt just as much.

‘It does seem a very big coincidence, however that, I promise you, is exactly what it is.’ I was relieved I wasn’t hooked up to a polygraph machine.

‘Well this morning we have recovered DNA from the vehicle so well be able to rule both yourself and Mr. Horse out very quickly, assuming you have nothing to hide.’

I had plenty to hide, but none of it involved being in the driver’s seat of the car that killed Robin Horse. It was also Copper’s way out.

Waiting for the sample DNA to be taken lasted over an hour, eventually Tanner took the sample and I was free to go.

Meanwhile two men walked down a green carpeted corridor. The taller of the two men walked with a swagger, very much as if he owned the place. The other man, wearing a visitor’s pass followed him, playing with an electronic device in his pocket all the while.

The men came to a stop at a doorway. The visitor was ushered into the empty room behind the door as the swaggering man stood in the corridor waiting and watching. Within 20 seconds the visitor had reappeared in the corridor and the two men made their way back the way they had come. When they reached the top of the corridor they shook hand and went in separate directions. The first man headed up a flight of stairs and the second man took off his pass and exited the building through the main entrance.

***

I jumped in my car and pointed it in the direction of Celtic Park. I had just pulled out of the police car park when the built in phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Is this Mr. Kowalski?’

‘Yes, who is this?’

‘Bobby Bell. What can I help you with?’

I started to explain that I was looking for Copper. Bobby stopped me mid-sentence.

‘You can stop looking he is here with me. He has told me what happened. He needed a friend so he came to me.’

Relief flooded over me knowing Copper was safe.

‘I need to speak to him. Where are you?’

‘We’re in Blyth, at Croft Park.’

‘Stay there I’m on my way.’ I hung up the phone before anyone had time to protest.

***

I was only stopping to collect the paperwork that would allow Copper the chance to walk away. Truthfully I hoped I could persuade him to stay.

I reached the file out of my desk. There was something wrong in my office. Something was not as it should be but I couldn’t place what it was. It was probably nothing more than nerves at the thought of having to face Copper. I tried to put it to the back of my mind.

I spent the next three and a half hours going over what I would say to the man I had let down. I didn’t know how he’d react. Really that depended on whether he had worked out the Robin had been the target or if he still thought it was an accident.

Arriving at Croft Park I was surprised to see Copper standing in the car park. He was clearly waiting for me. I didn’t want to have the conversation in public so I pulled my car up alongside him and gestured for him to get in.

‘Copper it’s good to see you. I’ve been worried about you.’

‘I’m sorry about disappearing, I just needed to get away and be left alone.’

‘Don’t apologise friend. I’m here because I need to talk to you.’

The expression on the face in front of me didn’t change. He just waited for me to continue. My cowardice gripped me again and I bottled telling him what I really wanted to say.

‘I need to know you’re going to be ok and I want to know if you intend to keep your job. Obviously if you want the job that’s fine and the club will give you as much time as you need to come back.’

‘I’ve no intention of coming back. I’ll tender my resignation.’

‘No you won’t, I want the pleasure of sacking you.’ I smiled and handed him the file from my desk drawer. It contained a notice of the cancelling of his contract and a cheque.

I handed over a pen and Copper left his signature on the document to signal his understanding that this would be him unemployed and that the cheque was to cover his contract in full. The document still required my signature to finalise it.

‘You sure?’ I asked as my hand hovered over the page.

‘Yes, I’ll take the money and see where I end up. Two hundred grand is a lot of money, I just wish Robin was here to share it. I’d give it all back twice over to prevent that accident.’

Tears welled in his eyes and his cheeks flushed hot. Now was my last chance.

‘Copper?’

He tried to wipe his eyes on his sleeve and compose himself.

‘Yeah?’

‘Robin’s death wasn’t an accident.’ There I’d said it.

‘What are you talking about?’ Copper looked totally shell-shocked.

‘I’ll start at the top. I received a phone call whilst you were at the hospital. It was Venus. He claimed that Robin had been the target. I was wrong again. I assumed it was Jen he was after. I thought he wanted to hurt me, but he wanted you.’

‘Goddam son of a bitch!’ The words were vitriolic, even more so than when he’d encountered Ridgway in Aberdeen. ‘Do the police know?’

I didn’t like this but I had to tell the man the truth.

‘No. I had the chance to tell them but I didn’t.’

‘WHAT? I THOU...’

‘Listen, if I told the police I’d be in trouble.’ I proceeded to talk Copper through the whole situation. I wanted him to see that letting me deal with Venus was the best way to handle it. I’d make sure the retribution was painful. ‘If we tell the police then I’m in trouble, I’ve withheld a lot of information and they won’t look kindly on what I did to Fenton.’

‘That’s true, and what you did to Fenton was genius, they is no way you should suffer for that.’

‘Does that mean you’ll keep this to yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks. Oh, you better make yourself known to the police so they can take your DNA. They’ll need it to rule you out of the investigation.’

‘There is a catch to me going along with this.’

‘What?’

‘Make sure you nail the B*******!’

My former assistant, stepped out of the car, waved, turned and walked away. I turned my car round and, with a heavy heart but a lighter conscience headed back towards Glasgow.

I would truly miss Copper.

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Well done, my co-Copper author. Always tough to blend story arcs from different game saves. 10-3 and I know how tough it can be. This was an admirable challenge. However, I've enjoyed the effort you are putting into writing this story. The story off the pitch are as interesting as the story arcs on it. Mike Kowalski is really in a sticky situation, and I'm interested to see how you'll write him out of it (if you choose this path).

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Copper, describing me as a 'co-Copper author' really makes my work sound better than it is. That said I appreciate your very kind words. I am putting effort into this and to have it recognised by others is very satisfying. Especially when one of those people is, in my opinion, the best writer on this forum. American Pilgrimmage and Spartan Existance were what inspired me to start this 12 months ago and continue it now. For that I thank you my friend.

I lay in my hotel bed with the curtains open watching raindrops running down the window like tears. They could never be tears of joy. They were tears for my ‘missing’ wife, my departed friend and his deceased wife.

These thought brought real tears. My life was like some twisted game. All my problems were someone else’s idea of retribution, but it had all been dished to me because I’d wanted retribution of my own.

Right there and then I wanted it to all end. I didn’t want to play the game anymore. I was going to make it stop.

***

I slowed my car to a stop, pulled up my collar and pulled down my hat. I didn’t want to be recognised. As soon as I dropped the passenger side window I was propositioned by one of the vilest looking women I’d ever seen. Talk about a tough paper round!

Adopting my best Glaswegian accent I explained she wasn’t what I was looking for and she went to get her boss, who could provide the reason I was there. It took less than 2 minutes for a mountain of a man to appear in my passenger side window. I gave him £140 and he gave me my ‘goods.’

Killing yourself with a heroin overdose wasn’t cheap!

I knew very little about ‘doing heroin’ but I knew enough to realise I’d need a syringe. There was only one place I figured I could get one from. I headed for my workplace.

***

The security guard on duty seemed surprised to see me. I suppose he would be at 2am. He unlocked the doors of the reception and allowed me in.

‘Forgot some stuff.’ It was the best I could come up with.

The man just nodded and allowed me on my way.

I made my way to the medical supply room. It was locked, although I don’t know why I expected differently, it’s always locked when not in use. I needed the key and fortunately I knew where it was. Unfortunately the where was the club doctor’s briefcase. I was going to need the master key, and that was on the key ring the security guard had and they weren’t generally in the habit of just handing over a key that opened every room in the building to anyone just because they asked for it; not even the manager.

I’d need a bloody good reason to get the room opened. Then I had one. It was a good idea.

I needed a piece of equipment for this; I had loads of what I needed. I reached into the top drawer of my filing cabinet and pulled out the first file that came to hand. Glenn Loovens. So he was going to be useful, or at least the cardboard outer of his staff file would be.

I pushed the edge of the thick card into my palm and pulled hard in a slicing motion until the skin split deep and the blood flowed.

I cried out in mock pain and did my best to stem the blood as I headed up to the reception area to get the key that I needed. The guard had heard my cry and met me in the hallway.

‘I need the key to the medical room.’

The guard eyed my hand and moved to ask a question.

‘Staff file slipped through my hand,’ I offered, trying to stop him asking questions.

Unfortunately the security man didn’t give me the key I wanted, instead choosing to have me follow him to the medical supply room. He opened the door and allowed me to step inside to get what I needed.

I found the sterile wipes, bandages and plasters. They weren’t what I wanted but I had to make it look like they were. I made a show of picking up the items whilst simultaneously trying to palm a syringe with my unseen hand.

I headed back to the office with my newly acquired gear and now actually tried to clean up my hand and stem the blood flow.

I pocketed the syringe and headed for my car. I passed the guard on reception and out through the front door.

I thought I’d done a good job getting out of there without giving away my intention. I hadn’t.

As I closed the door behind me the man who had been behind me when I was in the medical room picked up the phone.

Somewhere a mobile phone rang.

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gav, thank you

m_g, thank you also

Terrier, you'll have to wait and see :D

Paris is far enough from Glasgow to make getting between the two quickly a problem. It seems very much further at a little after 3am local time when you’ve been woken by a security guard wanting to inform you of your husband’s strange behaviour.

The story she was being told of self mutilation and the stealing of syringes in the middle of the night was enough to overcome her current dislike for me and cause her concern for the safety of her husband.

***

I’d been back in my hotel room about 20 minutes when there was a knock at the door. I didn’t even have time to put down my laptop from the research I was doing in how to combine the drugs with the syringe to get the effect I wanted before I heard a voice shouting through the locked door.

It was a voice I knew well, but what was he doing here in the middle of the night? Whatever it was I had no intention of letting him know what my intentions for tonight were. I grabbed up the drugs and needle and stuffed them under the pillow. I closed the lid of my laptop and hauled myself of the bed.

‘Come on Mike! Open up, I know you’re in there.’

‘Alright, I’m on my way.’ I called back, trying to make it sound like I’d been asleep.

I opened the door to a concerned looking Parky. I made a show of rubbing my face and tried to make my fake yawns look as real as possible.

‘Parky do you know what time it is? What are you doing here?’

He ignored the question.

‘Come with me.’

It was a statement with weight behind it. Clearly not going along with him wasn’t an option. He stood in the doorway and stared whilst I dug my shoes out from under the bead and slipped them on.

I was annoyed and angry that he’d turn up now of all times. Jesus Christ I can’t even kill myself in peace. I tried to hold it in as I followed out into the car park and into the passenger seat of Parky’s car.

Pulling out of the car park the car’s engine roared as we were whisked onto the M73 and the M8. Where the hell was he taking us?

The M8 runs through Glasgow, roughly East to West and that was the direction we were headed in. I tried to guess where are destination was. I didn’t have a clue. I had no idea why Parky was here, where he was taking me and for what purpose.

I tried to get him to spill the beans but every request for information was met with either silence or a ‘wait and see.’

Then a thought hit me like a truck at a concrete wall.

What if the man I thought was my friend is actually on the other side. What if that’s the reason he won’t answer my questions. It would certainly be a way of hurting me that I hadn’t thought of, until now.

I needed to get away. I considered leaping from the car, but a leap in to traffic from a moving vehicle was a bad move at the best of times. Doing it at 70 miles an hour was suicidal. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? Well, yes, but not a painful death being hit by cars and dragged along tarmac at high speed. He would almost certainly have to slow the car down to walking pace at some point. That was when I would make my escape.

It was a pretty tense 15 minutes. Parky didn’t take his eyes off the road or make a sound for the next 15 minutes. I sat rigid wondering was about to happen to me. My stomach tied itself in a knot and rolled over. I hadn’t felt this sick since the opening day of the season at Pittodrie. That had ended well. I sensed this wasn’t the same.

It was at that point I realised where our destination was going to be; although it was likely not my final destination. My guts turned again as the concrete structure of Glasgow International airport came into view.

As expected the car swung of the motorway at the airport exit and took the road towards the short stay car park. My chance to get away was coming.

I saw the car park barrier coming from 100 yards away. I was ready to go and when the car stopped I was blocked from running. There were barriers inches from my door. Even if I could open the door I wouldn’t have been able to get out.

I needed to wait. Parky was grabbing a ticket from the barrier and I was waiting. The barrier went up and the car crawled through the gap. As soon as the car was clear I opened the door, leapt out and despite twisting my ankle, ran for all I was worth.

The car pulled up and I heard a voice shout after me. ‘Mike what the hell are you doi...’

I wasn’t stopping to find out what he was going to say. I headed for the nearest door and down a flight of stairs. I hadn’t taken any time to see where I was going. Turned out that where I was going was the arrivals hall. That suited me fine because I imagine where I was wanted was departures.

I was still running as I reached the arrivals hall. I stopped running when I landed on my arse. I’d been so busy pumping my legs I hadn’t seen what it was I ran into.

I picked myself up and shook my vision into place. That allowed me to see what had caused me to hit the deck; it was my wife.

Now I was confused. What was Jen doing here? Surely she wasn’t in on all of this.

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My legs weren’t about to wait for my brain to make a decision. I turned and headed for the exit, leaving my wife sat on the floor in a dazed state.

Jumping in the nearest cab I barked the location of my hotel and promised to double the fare if he got me there in less than 20 minutes. Unfortunately he refused and I was left with a 30 minute journey and nothing to do but contemplate my current situation.

My mind wouldn’t let me trust anyone. So far some real imagination had been shown by those who wished to get to me. I couldn’t discount that they’d do the same again here and try to turn those who would usually be my allies against me.

Arriving at my hotel I paid the cab driver off and headed for my room. It was only when I locked the door that I realised that I couldn’t stay there. If I was right then I wasn’t safe. Jen and Parky knew where I was. I could only truly be safe if no-one knew where to find me.

I probably wouldn’t have long to gather my stuff and get out before one of them turned up. Fortunately I didn’t have much stuff to gather so it wouldn’t take long.

Having stuffed my meagre possessions into two bags I picked them up and headed for reception.

‘I’m checking out,’ I called as I passed through.

‘Mr. Kowalski you’ll need to sign your bill.’

I didn’t have time for trivialities. I needed to be gone, and it really needed to have been 10 minutes ago.

I stepped over to the reception desk and waited, pen in hand to scrawl my name on a sheet of paper that would allow me to make my dash. The girl behind the desk had other ideas however; or at least her printer did. I must have stood there for nearly five minutes waiting for the document that wanted my attention. Finally and apologetically the slip was brought over and I was able to get away.

I sprinted to my car and hauled the two bags onto the passenger seat as I jumped into the driver’s side and backed the car out of its space.

I had no idea where I was heading and as it turned out less than 10 seconds later I was even less clear.

A taxi pulled up just outside the narrow entrance to the car park and Jen’s slender figure stepped clear of the cab. She saw my car heading for the exit and stepped into the road. If I wanted out of here the only way was through my wife. I’d need to face her or run her down.

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As good as a Dan Brown novel....any of 'em. Yes, a little snarky on my part, but I mean it in a good way. Dan Brown isn't a literary genius, but like Brown, you sure know how to keep the pace urgent. I'm still reading and excited to read what happens next. KUTGW!

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Copper, I'll take your comment the way you intended it, as a compliment. I'm actually quite proud of that comparison, I like Brown's books, he really knows how to make me read just one more chapter. If I'm getting close to that then I'm doing something right.

Crash, glad your still with me. I have plenty more planned, stick around to find out what!

I sat in the driver’s seat and stared at my wife. The decision was going to be mine as she didn’t so much as flinch. Time ticked so slowly it should have been going backwards. I sat there and weighed up the options.

Risk that Jen is involved and might betray me or cold blooded murder.

A solitary tear ran down my face as a swell of love filled me. I revved the engine. Still Jen refused to move, she really was going to make me do it. That left me with no choice; I slipped the car into gear and set off.

Tears were now pouring down my face. My sobs were interrupted by the voice calling my name. It sounded distant, and then with a click it was right next to me. Its sudden loudness startled me.

‘Mike you’ve backed the car in badly, you’ll need to straighten it up,’ Jen smiled at me through the open door, ‘and then we need to talk.’

***

I felt foolish going back into the hotel and checking back in only minutes after leaving, but that was nothing of how foolish I felt recounting my story to Jen, especially as she laughed at me most of the way through.

‘So, let me get this straight. You ran from Parky as he arrived at the airport and then ran from me because you thought we were involved? You thought that somehow we were playing against you?’

I nodded meekly. It sounded stupid now she’d said it.

‘You idiot. Do you want to know why Parky came for you and why I was there?’

I didn’t need to respond I knew she was going to tell me anyway. All I had to do was sit and wait.

Jen continued, ‘Parky came to collect you to bring you to me. I’d received a phone call from the club to say you’d been down there and acting very strangely. I was worried about you so I had to get someone I could trust to come and keep an eye on you until I arrived.’

‘I wasn’t acting strangely; I’d just gone to get some stu...’

‘What would you call mutilating your own hand and stealing syringes in the middle of the night if not acting strangely?’

It looks like she had me. All I could manage was a shrug of my shoulders.

‘What exactly did you need the syringe for?’

There it was, the question I’d been hoping to avoid. I was left with no choice again; I was going to have to come clean. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

I reached into my jeans pocket and tossed the small package onto the space on the bed between us. Jen just stared at it and then at me in disbelief.

I felt ashamed of myself, without a word Jen had made me see that I’d chosen the wrong option, again. Wrong choices were one thing, wrong choices with such potential for permanent outcomes were quite another.

Jen was still staring, waiting, wanting an explanation. My mouth was too dry to speak; I ran my tongue across my lips and the roof of my mouth to try to help.

It took a drink from the bathroom tap and the best part of 2 hours for our conversation to be done. Finally Jen had all the information she needed except for the answer to one question.

‘So, do you trust me?’

I stared into her face, she made no attempt to sway me, instead she just waited. That was what swung it for me.

‘Yes I do.’

The next move surprised me. I found myself wrapping my arms around my wife as she shuffled up close and kissed me full on the lips.

‘Good, me too,’ was all she said in reply as she pulled me down on top of her.

***

When I woke up it was late morning. Jen was already up and I watched her move around the room in her underwear through my half closed eyes. I was enjoying the view.

‘Oh, awake are we?’

I guess the grin on my face as she turned around had given away the fact that I wasn’t asleep.

‘Just about.’

‘Want to go again?’ there was more than a hint of suggestion in the question.

‘Maybe after breakfast.’

‘Typical, the only time you feel like doing it twice is just before you’ve done it once.’

I had to laugh at the observation. I’m a man of course I can’t do it more than once without falling asleep.

‘Jen, what made you... well, you know... want to...’ I let the question hang in the air not quite sure how to finish it.

‘Now’s not the time for that. We’ll get to it. Right now I know you want to focus on your stomach so get dressed and you can take me out for breakfast.’

‘How does a McDonalds Sausage McMuffin sound?’

A smile crossed Jen’s lips, ‘Last of the big spenders! Sounds great.’

Today, I hoped, had started the way it meant to go on.

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Thanks 10-3. I'm delighted to recieve compliments from the 2 best writers on the forum in the space of 2 posts.

All the recent excitement and Jen coming back had caused me to almost forget that Celtic had a home match with Motherwell coming up.

I was forced to remember when the press officer appeared at my office door telling me that there was an assembly of journalists waiting to speak to me.

I hated this bit of the job.

‘Motherwell are currently bottom of the league, surely you expect an easy victory?’

‘Look, there are no easy games really, everyone has something to play for and Motherwell being bottom means they are no different. We’ll do fine though as long as we stick to the game plan.’

It was a diplomatic answer, but equally I did expect my team to play according to the plan.

The questions continued to come. As was usual with the press they were just reworded versions of the same question or slight variations on a theme. It appeared I was stuck in a room with people non of who had an original idea in their head.

The final question came, ‘Rangers are also in action today, and with only 1 point between you how do you think they’ll get on?’

‘I’ve nothing to say about the Rangers match. We’re focussing on our game; let them worry about their game. It’s exactly what I’d expect to hear if you asked the same question to Walter. Rangers, at present, do not concern me.’

***

My team were stripped and ready to go. All they needed was their last words of instruction.

‘Lads, it’s been 10 days since we last played but this game is going to be the same from a tactical point of view. I expect to win this game, but we’re not going balls out from the off. We’ll paly our usual game.’

I’d made only one switch to the line-up, which saw Mark Wilson drop off the bench to be replaced by Milan Misun. It was a change borne purely from necessity, I had to make sure we had 3 Under-21’s in the match day squad.

We kicked off and retained possession for the first 36 seconds, at which point Samaras managed to hit Motherwell’s goalkeeper in the chest with a shot after being played in by Scott McDonald. It was a fantastic start to the match.

We were passing the ball like Barcelona, Motherwell couldn’t get it from us. We used our superior possession to keep the pressure on the opposition. We lost the ball in the fifth minute after it was cleared for a corner in our favour, but only after Flood had nearly split the post in two and Scott Brown had his shot blocked by goalkeeper Ruddy at point blank range. The move had started with Samaras dropping deep to collect the ball and combining with the midfield to work the ball out right to McGinn. The Northern Irishman weighted a cross found McDonald who beat two defenders with a neat spin and allowed him to tee up Flood for a diagonal shot from 18 yards. The rebound fell to Brown and the rebound from that was put out.

Despite telling my team that I wasn’t intending to attack all out from the start we had anyway, but only because Motherwell had shown little opposition to it. In that situation I couldn’t fault my team for wanting to kill them off early.

Kill them off early is exactly what we did do. A Motherwell free kick and subsequent corner was cleared long from Gary Caldwell. The ball ended up, by design, with Scott Brown on the right hand side just short of the half way line. Brown required 2 touches, which he got by virtue of being totally unmarked. His first touch controlled the ball and the second one sent another diagonal ball into the centre, this time into the opposition half and in front of Samaras. Again by design Samaras had broken forward, although he’s tall he’s also the quickest player in the squad, so we like to have him waiting around halfway in case we get the chance, as here, of a quick breakaway. Sammy also required two touches. The first was somehow enough to control the ball and push himself away from the pair of centre backs that were trying to close him down. The second touch was the one that beat the ‘keeper and saw us 1 up with 10 minutes gone.

Sammy wasn’t anywhere near done this afternoon. He was just getting warmed up.

With a further 10 minutes on the clock Flood and Brown played a neat 1-2 that allowed Flood to feed Sammy on the 18 and the Greek striker drew a diving save from Ruddy that should have doubled his tally but instead saw us setting up for a corner.

McGinn trotted over and curled the corner straight onto Lasley’s head. The clearance only reached Hinkel 35 yards out and he immediately gave it back to McGinn. Our almost unknown winger beat his full back easily and then found Sammy’s head despite the striker having to out jump 3 defenders to net our and his own second goal. It was little more than both we and he deserved.

Immediately from the resultant kick off our defence was guilty of sleeping on the job as the ball was knocked long between our centre backs. Motherwell left winger, Murphy, ghosted between the defenders and made Boruc save for the first time in the game.

They very soon wished they’d scored as we went forward looking to extend our lead. This time Brown played a looped ball into the box following a throw in from Danny Fox. The ball took a bounce directly infront of the goalkeeper as it passed in front of him which prevented him from reaching it. That meant that all McGinn had to do was get to the ball before his amber shadow did, He got there half a second ahead and was left with a simple tap in.

The man I’d dismissed as reserve team quality was proving himself a bit of a wizard and doing his best to keep Aiden McGeady out of the side.

Out third goal was finally enough for Motherwell to find some gumption. They seemed to discover unity and we were left frustrated as we toiled to break their defence down for the remaining time of the half.

Our defence again was allowed to show it’s proneness to a little nap when Lasley tried to feed a ball between Caldwell and McManus. O’Brien tried to latch onto it and McManus failed to go with his man and left Boruc no choice but to come and attempt to collect it. That left the Pole exposed and O’Brien popped it under him to show Motherwell a way back into the match. Fortunately the half time whistle went before any more damage could be done.

I was pleased with most of my team’s performance at half time. That being the case the half time team talk was easy. There wasn’t one, at least not a general one. McManus and Caldwell were both told to tighten up or risk their places. Maloney and McDonald were both off and McGeady and Allagui brought on in place. The change required as Maloney and Skippy found themselves virtually anonymous in the first half despite our excellent play.

Sammy earned himself the match ball and restored our 3 goal advantage almost immediately after the re-start.

From a Motherwell throw in Brown cleard the ball on the edge of our penalty area and found Samaras who carried the ball forward and played it sideways to Allagui who picked up with the forward movement where Samaras had left off. The opposition defence just continued to drop back and stand off as we came at them. Allagui knocked the ball backward to Flood as the defence finally stropped retreating. Flood managed to feed the ball through the wo orange shirts that were both closing him down. Samaras was able to run in behind and dink the ball past the stranded keeper and into the far corner. A fully deserved hat-trick.

A tactical was needed here. I wasn’t prepared to risk Motherwell scoring again so instructions to drop back to our predetermined counter-attacking strategy were given as well as an order to keep the ball. They can’t score if they don’t have it and if we do lose it we would be in a position to defend their advances and pick them off if they made a mistake.

A yellow card per side looked to be the last of the action however. That appeared to be the case until Flood, who had had an excellent game, looped a ball over the defence. Sammy wriggled free of his marker, controlled the ball and shot wide. He’d rushed his shot as he’d been under scrutiny from 3 defenders. It was a nothing miss though. 4-1 and a Samaras hat trick were enough to send the fans home happy.

I was delighted, he’d scored his 12th goal in his 11th match and made sure we’d kept pace with Rangers.

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El I knew you couldn't contain your desire to praise me any longer!

I wanted to spend some time with Jen after the Motherwell game but the demands of managing a team in Europe meant that we left Glasgow almost immediately after the final whistle. Hungary was our destination and Debrecen our opponents.

This was going to be a must win match in Group H. A defeat and a draw in our previous two games made sure of that. I wasn’t sure we could win; it certainly wasn’t the easiest of fixtures to need three points from. Indeed the bookmakers had the home side down as favourites.

I was going to need my players on their A game and I had two in particular in mind. Niall McGinn had been the difference maker in recent games. He had shown, surprisingly, that he held the key to unlock defences and create a chance. The other player was Artur Boruc; he might be needed to keep us in the game if those in front of him only brought their C games.

Artur and Niall were in my office waiting for me as I’d requested whilst the rest of the team prepared themselves to board the coach to Glasgow Airport for the flight to Eastern Europe.

‘This is a big game coming up and we need 3 points. I need you both to be on form that night. Niall you could be the key to winning the game and Artur you’re the key to making sure we don’t lose.’

A huge smile crossed McGinn’s lips whilst Boruc sat and stared.

‘Thanks Gaffer, I like to think I’m on top of my game right now,’ was the Northern Irishman’s reply.

The goalkeeper said nothing. As they left my office they couldn’t have looked different. McGinn bounced out and Boruc shuffled as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

***

‘If we lose here we make it very difficult to stay in the competition. On that basis were starting with a counter attacking game. They’re the home team and match favourites so they’ll be expected to take us on. I want you to look to exploit that and catch them off guard.’

The result of our first attack caught me off guard. A long throw from our right back position was flicked on by Samaras and somehow Fortune beat 3 defenders to the ball and headed it back into the path of the advancing Samaras. Sammy spotted Maloney drifting in from the left wing to fill in for the now out of position Fortune. The pass was immaculate and allowed Maloney to run on to it with just one controlling touch.

Luck was now on our side as Maloney tried to shoot but the ball bounced clear of the defender and ended up with Samaras, who had continued his forward run. Samaras tried to shoot and again it was blocked, probably because he was being triple teamed by red shirts. The deflection was defence splitting and allowed Maloney time and space to leave the keeper unable to save it. It was a priceless early lead and I hoped that it would be a good sign.

It appeared that the goal had done nothing to harm our confidence as we dominated play for the next 10 minutes. We had too much for Debrecen to handle and we appeared happy to show it.

We needed to make the most of our obvious advantage in this game. Unfortunately Debrecen had other ideas and were making sure that our forwards were outnumbered every time the ball went forward.

When Hinkel found Flood and the Irishman played the killer ball through instead of trying to cut it out the defence immediately flocked to Fortune. It was a futile effort as Marc-Antoine muscled his way through and hammered home for a 2-0 lead. We were outnumbered but not outgunned.

Debrecen still seemed not to want to attack us and we nearly capitalised on it moments later when Fortune returned the earlier favour to Flood by squaring the ball to him so he could bullet the ball towards the goal. Unfortunately the increased power meant decreased accuracy and the ball swerved away and wide without troubling the man between the posts.

It took 10 minutes after we’d nearly made it 3-0 for Debrecen to trouble us. Toth launched a low few kick from halfway that slid into the area and was chased down by Rudolf. As he was about to turn and shout McManus threw himself across and cleared the ball for a corner. It had only really been a half chance, but more than that it was a statement of increased intent from the Hungarians.

60 seconds later we were lining up to defend a free kick 22 yards out. Fortune had decided that this was the optimal place to bring Bodnar down as he brought the ball back from our clearance of the corner that had resulted from the McManus challenge.

It certainly was an optimal position, but for a free kick from the offensive perspective. I’d have loved to get Maloney onto the chance we’d just handed them. Fortunately the ball was deflected off our wall and out for a corner which was cleared with much less fuss.

Debrecen were certainly looking to get themselves back into the game and when Kiss carved our defence apart with a pass to Rudolf they had their chance. The forward finished an easy chance and gave our hosts their way back in, 2-1 with four minutes of normal time until the halfway point.

‘S***, that’s not we needed right now.’

My assistant was right. It was a long way from perfect, but we would go into the intermission in the lead if I had anything to do with it.

‘Nearly there lads, hold onto the ball. They can’t score if we have it. Whatever you do make sure we have the ball.’

Our very next move was to give the ball away via a needless free kick and subsequent booking of Stephen McManus for backing in to the attacker. However Andy Hinkel won it back very quickly as the free kick was wasted. The right back launched the ball to Samaras who in turn found Fortune. McGinn was given the ball and managed to get it through the defence to Sammy. From there Sammy used his turn of pace to beat his marker and was able to roll the ball across the penalty area for Maloney to tap in from less than 10 yards.

They couldn’t score if we had the ball but we could and we had done. The advantage was 2 goals again and the referee was getting ready to blow-up for the break.

Our late goal had changed my proposed actions at half time. Instead of berating my defence for sleeping on the job I was able to enjoy our lead and the possibility of 3 precious points. I let the lads know I was happy with their performance and gave my back four a gentle reminder about concentration.

As the second half started we looked to make the same impact we’d had during the corresponding period of the first half. McGinn led off with an inside ball and found Fortune in the position generally associated with the ‘hole’ player. A first time ball in behind the centre back and a perfectly executed run from Samaras found our number 9 in space, unmarked with the ball at his feet and time on his side. I was up and celebrating a three goal lead and the almost certain 3 points it would earn us. Sammy couldn’t hold his composure and hit it directly at the goalkeeper and I was back in my seat again, but only for a second as the rebound landed perfectly for Willo Flood to hit a drive from 18 yards. A fresh wave of frustration arrived almost immediately as the keeper got down and saved a shot he really had no right to.

Third time lucky surely? The rebound from Willo’s shot found its way back to Sammy but he couldn’t get the ball out from his feet and found the ball cleared just as he shaped to shoot.

Seeing our forward line in disarray seemed to give Debrecen hope and the picked up their game and hustled us. They started to be first to every ball and they looked to force us into mistakes.

The combination of our own poor play and increased pressure from Debrecen caused frustration in our ranks. Finally it became too much and Samaras went in recklessly against Szelesi. He was very lucky only to have the foul called against him and escape without yellow or worse red.

Fortunately the free kick was in central midfield very close to halfway. What was less fortunate was the ball that Vasas played into our box having received the ball from the free kick. Hinkel should have gone and closed him down but chose not to. That allowed Vasas to find the space behind McManus by poking the ball between him and Hinkel. That took McManus out of the game and meant that Rudolf could collect the ball and keep our other centre back, Caldwell, on the wrong side of him by running directly between our central partnership.

Caldwell attempted a risky last ditch tackle but the ball had already gone and was on its way past Artur Boruc who should, in all honesty, have been out quicker to collect the ball and only managed to leave himself helpless.

‘Christ are we doing this the f***ing hard way deliberately?’

It was a rhetorical question, but Parky understood my frustration.

’Boruc hasn’t looked himself for a few days.’

Maybe he was under too much pressure. I’d implied that it was his sole responsibility to make sure we didn’t get beaten and it was weighing on his mind and dragging him down.

Before the referee could get the game underway I called Boruc over towards the touchline. Once he was within shouting distance I imparted my message.

‘Artur tell those f*cking clowns in front of you that making sure we don’t lose is their job, you’re our last line of defence, you are not supposed to be our only line.’

The big Pole immediately straightened up and smiled. As the game restarted he sprinted back to his goal and forcefully relayed my words. Too a man the entire back line looked over to the bench and I left them in no doubt as to my disappointment.

The sideline bollocking stirred them into action and they managed to regain a foothold in the game and create a stalemate. Normally I’d be less than pleased with that, but with a slender advantage in an important game it could be a lot worse than both teams cancelling each other out. Finally with 20 minutes to play I’d had enough.

‘I don’t want you to keep the ball at the expense of everything, go back to how we were early first half.’

Retaining possession had been too restrictive on my team’s ability and as a result we’d been poor since halftime, I needed to do something about it and taking the restriction away was an easy fix.

The free flowing was a joy to see after our bad spell and was nearly rewarded when Maloney sprinted with the ball up the left hand side and found Scott Brown with a short ball. Brown had nowhere to go, so he laid it back for Flood but Willo didn’t catch it right and it was a tame shot that was easy for the keeper to save.

With less than 10 minutes to play I was celebrating again and this time legitimately we won the game. Kiss tried and managed to find Rudolf by putting the ball through our centre backs again, looking for his hat-trick Rudolf moved into the box and shot from 12 yards. Boruc showed his class to stick out a foot and squeeze the ball around the post. He looked delighted with himself. I was delighted with and for him. He’d only been AWOL a short time but we now had our stopper back.

With 3 points in the bag the trip back to Glasgow was enjoyable and I could hardly argue when I heard Bayern boss Louis Van Gaal describe Maloney as a quality player. His running on the left wing had been the difference today. McGinn, on the opposite side, had been average at best.

4 points from a possible nine wasn’t ideal although it’s what I had wanted before the game so I couldn’t complain.

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