Thank goodness for Murray Park, Ally thought, as the training session came to a close. What with all this administration malarkey, there was rather depressing air around the corridors of Ibrox these days. The two men from Duff & Phelps resided there these days, doing what Ally understood to be important things designed to rescue Rangers. What these things were was beyond his understanding; all he knew from a few surreptitious looks in an office window was that they involved an abacus and lots of tearing up of paper tissues.
But Murray Park felt like a mile away from all that, where he and the players could at least pretend that all the off-the-field stuff wasn't happening.
He was just collecting the cones when one of the youth team players came up to him, looking nervous. Ally looked up, and saw two stocky, heavy-set men dressed all in black, with leather jackets, right behind him. "Gaffer," the pimply youth squeaked, "these guys have come to see youse. They say they're bailiffs."
"Bailiffs?!" Ally exclaimed. He turned to the men; they might have been intimidating to both men, but years of showering with Dave McPherson and Mark Hateley meant that it took a lot to scare him. "What's all this about, then?"
One of the men took out a document from the pocket of his jacket, and handed it to him. "I'm sorry, Mr McCoist, but we've been sent from Edinburgh."
"Okay, what do you want?"
The man looked slightly awkward for a moment. "Uh...Lee Wallace".
"You what?"
"We've been sent to bring Lee Wallace back to Edinburgh. You see, Rangers haven't paid the £800,000 they still owe Hearts for him. You know how, if you don't keep up payments on your car, it gets repossessed? Same idea. Or, at least that's what Mr Romanov said." Ally tried to get a word in edgeways, but the man appeared to be reading from a script in his head. "It's all there in that documentation."
Ally looked down at the form and read it, his lips occasionally moving as he did so. He showed it to the man, pointing at it; "Can you tell me what that long word is?"
"Repossession."
"Bugger. Okay, this all seems in order, damn it." He turned round to the youth player, who was still standing nearby. "Go and get Lee, will you?"
Lee came out a few minutes later in his training kit. "What's going on, boss?" Ally sighed. "I'm sorry, Lee, but you've got to go with these bailiffs. We haven't kept up our payments to Hearts, so they've got a court order to get you back".
Afterwards, Ally could have sworn that he saw the whites of Lee's eyes. "Naw, naw," he stammered, "I'm no going back to Tynecastle!" He turned and fled in the opposite direction. "Damn," muttered the other Heavy, who had stayed mum up to this point, "Mr Romanov said it would be like this. I'll go get the syringe and straitjacket out of the car".
When, a while later, a comatose Lee Wallace had been bundled into the trunk of the car and been driven off down the M8, Ally was just grateful that there had been no journalists around to see the full-back trying to climb one of the ten foot high fences to escape. It would have cost a fortune in lamb dinners and red wine to cover that up.
He and the players were just leaving Murray Park for the night when, to his horror, he found another two men waiting for him. Before he could say anything, one of the men spoke. His accent was Italian.
"Mr McCoist, we have come from Sicily, to take back what is ours. Give us Dorin Goian."
Ally was, by now, completely confused. "Goian. Why?"
"Palermo have not received the latest installments of his transfer fee. So they want him back. Now and again there is a use in Serie A for a big, immobile, clumsy centre back."
"And if I say no?"
The man leered, "Do you remember the film The Godfather? When the man woke up to a horse's head? Now, imagine how scary that would be if it was you, in your bed, waking up next to the head of Craig Whyte, huh?"
Ally thought briefly of Whyte's bulging eyes. Even Steven Naismith wasn't worth that horror. "Okay, okay, you win." He turned round and shouted at Doian, who was just getting into his car. A few minutes later, the Romanian defender was in a large cardboard box with FRAGILE and THIS WAY UP written on it, and that was the last Ally saw of him.
But it was not the last situation he had to deal with that day. That evening, whilst relaxing at home, the front doorbell rang. Surprise, surprise, it was two men dressed in black and wearing leather jackets.
"Our apologies, Mr McCoist, for bothering you so late in the day. But we have flown all the way from Vienna to pick up Mr Jelavic."
Ally furrowed his brow, not for the first time that day. "Jelavic? But he's been gone since the end of January."
One of the men looked sceptical. "Now, Mr McCoist, I know you will do anything to keep your star striker. But Rapid Vienna are owed £1 million from his transfer, and we demand Jelavic back."
"No, seriously, he's not in Glasgow. In fact..." Ally had a rare brainwave, "I know exactly where he is. All you need to do is go and visit a Mr D. Moyes. His address is Goodison Park, Liverpool. I'm sure he'll be able to help you. Good night". He shut the door.
That night, Ally reflected in bed on what had been a pretty rocky afternoon. Just as he was about to fall asleep, the phone rang. "Hello?" he said in a dozy voice.
"Sorry to bother you Mr McCoist," said the voice at the other end. "I am calling from the Swedish club Orebro. You haven't paid the fee for Alejandro Bedoya, and so we wish his registration returned to us."
"Oh, right. Thats, um, a shame. Well, please let me give you his address, telephone number and car registration so you can track him down as quickly as possible."
As the saying goes, McCoist thought, every cloud has a silver lining.
Of course, Rangers players will not be repossessed during all this rubbish. However, the list of creditors published by Duff & Phelps last week includes the above clubs, several other teams (to a total of £3.8 million), Strathclyde Police (£50,000), the company who made a glass decanter which was given to David Weir as a retirement gift (£350), the local newsagents (£500), the local deli (£260), and a plethora of other small companies who seem unlikely to ever get the money they are owed.
L.
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