[transcript begins]
Mint: “This is Sir David Murray. Sir David, to you. Murray. That’s Sir. David. Murray.”
Watty: “Boss, gonnae gie’s some dough fir some new players?”
Mint: “Walter, I telt you already, naw.”
Watty: “How naw?”
Mint: “Ah’m skint.”
Watty: “Are ye f*ck. Ye’re loaded. That’s why yer caw’d The Mint.”
Mint: “Mibbes by that tw@t Billy Williamson. Nobody else calls me that now.”
Watty: “What about Chick Young?”
Mint: “He’s a tw@t as well.”
Watty: “Aye, right enough. Gonnae gie’s some dough fir some new players?”
Mint: “Ah’ve f*ckin telt ye – ah’m skint. Can ye no sell wan – whit about that Lee McCulloch?”
Watty: “Ah wish some **** would have him. Look, ah’ve got rid o’ Hemdani, that’s 25 grand a week, and Fergie, same again, and I got a million for him an ‘aw.”
…
Walter (suddenly realising): “Can I spend that million?”
Murray (businesslike): “No. It’s in the tin.”
Walter: “Tin? So it’s true then?”
Murray: “I never said tin. There is no tin. I meant bin. It’s in the bin.”
Walter: “The tin… I thought it had gone forever. McGinn’s tin. Now it makes sense. You’ve got McGinn’s tin.”
[transcript ends as Murray hangs up]
…
———
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The digital recording of the transcript above came into Billy’s possession recently. It presents clear proof of the rediscovery of something that most serious Scottish football scholars considered lost to history – Jack McGinn’s Parkhead biscuit tin, which has now fallen into the possession of Rangers chairman Sir David Murray (known as “Sir David Murray” to his friends) and thus explains the one-way transfer activity at Ibrox this summer.
…
The tin first appeared in recorded history in the post-war era at Parkhead, a time of record high attendances and surprisingly slim gate receipts for Celtic FC. The official explanation for this phenomenon was the Parkhead policy of free admittance to members of the cloth; however there was significant scepticism of this given that there were only a few thousand priests in Scotland at the time, while estimates of attendance were often thirty or forty thousand over the number given to the taxman.
…
The legend of the tin grew through the years until its apogee in the early 1990s, a time when Carl Muggleton and Wayne Biggins were “entertaining” the Celtic faithful. It is believed that at this point, the tin lid was so firmly shut that even faithful tin custodian Jack McGinn couldn’t prise it open, setting off a chain of events that led to the Royal Bank of Scotland threatening liquidation of the club over the unpaid bill for Willie Falconer’s transfer from Middlesborough – the act which led the “old board” to cede control to Fergus McCann. The rest, as they say, is history.
…
The tin was thought to be lost to history during the turmoil of the takeover and the subsequent regeneration of Parkhead. However this phone recording and a source deep within Ibrox led me to Yokohama, Japan, where in the last few weeks I have been under deep cover as a high-ranking boss within the criminal Yakuza society.
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My research indicates the tin was stolen and sold by Lou Macari, presumably to pay off gambling debts, with a Yokohama-based steel company paying a high price for the chance to assess the super-strength, virtually indestructible construction material of the tin. Boffins were unable to discover its secrets, though, and when the company folded in 2003 its assets were acquired by none other than Murray International Metals. All Japanese property was quickly sold off, save for one small package which was hand-delivered to Charlotte Square, Edinburgh.
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The next month, Rangers released Arthur Numan and signed Paolo Vanoli on a free transfer; now we know why. The tin lives, and is painted blue.
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Billy.
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PS. You may ask, whatever happened to the money gathered in the tin over many fruitful years at Parkhead? Well, I have heard two theories: one is that the tin was so tightly shut that it created a black hole, sucking the cash into a parallel dimension, where the Rangers 9-in-a-row never happened and where Ronaldo and Kaka stalk Parkhead, not the Bernabeu; the other explanation is that the Kelly family had over the years helped themselves to the cash, basically robbing from people who week-in week-out turned over their hard-earned pennies and pounds to people they trusted to look after their beloved football club. Which story do you believe?
