Rangers splash the cash again

WORLD EXCLUSIVE
By Findlay Findlay

Rangers supremo Alex 'Big Eck' McLeish looks set to make Alex Rae his latest big name signing as he continues building a team that will be capable of scoring a goal against bitter rivals Celtic next season.

The deal is set to be clinched this afternoon after the Rangers boss agreed to up his initial offer to the player's club Wolves from half a dozen, to a dozen cans of the sponsor's product and threw in forty John Players Special as the player's signing on fee.

A Rangers source said last night 'This is the latest piece in the jigsaw of. Our master plan is to replace the overpaid foreign has-beens at Ibrox with overpaid Scottish never-have-beens.'

Reports last night suggest that Granpaw Broon may be next on Eck's shopping list with the news that the Rangers manager has reportedly offered a new pipe and bunnet in return for a one year contract at Ibrox.

If this daring swoop falls through it is believed Eck will make a move to sign Granpaw Smurf who was quoted in the German press recently as saying, 'I've always been proud of my blue nose'.

Rangers are also believed to be in negotiations with Rab C. Nesbitt about a three-year deal after the Govan man passed a medical at Murray Park yesterday.

Nesbitt, with his head swathed in bandages and oozing blood from an axe wound to the cranium, told reporters he was impressed with what he saw at Rangers' magnificent training ground at Murray Park. 'The bar facilities and medical treatment rooms are second tae none by the way!' he drooled.

The only stumbling block to the move appears to be the Ibrox club's difficulty in matching the terms of Nesbitt's current contract with the DSS.

The Rangers boss also confirmed that his move to sign English star Albert Steptoe has collapsed after it was revealed that the Englishman is actually a fictional TV character, and the actor who played him is in fact dead.

Eck is now expected to switch his attention to Spanish utility man Julio Iglesias... etc etc ad infinitum

more pen frustration for Eck

EXCLUSIVE
by
Archie McBooze

Rangers boss Alex McLeish entered the Guinness Book of Records yesterday by setting a new record for most excuses given to reporters at a single press conference, clocking up four hundred and thirty one, as he tried to explain away the club's inability to pay all its bills.

'We were always going to struggle to write cheques this season after many of our most experienced pens moved on last summer' said McLeish.

Commenting on the team's frequent below-par bill paying performances this season the Ibrox boss added, 'It's difficult to write cheques when you've got to bring in a lot of young inexperienced pens to the first team'.

McLeish made no reference to the many expensive, much-hyped foreign pens he brought in as replacements over the previous close season and which failed to produce the goods.

However he felt there were more reasons why Rangers under performed this season. 'Having as many pens out of commission with broken tips and other damage the way we were, is going to have a negative impact on any team's ability to write cheques' he said.

McLeish also took a swipe at the bank for using a controversial new artificial paper in its new cheque books. 'Our pens are not used to writing on this new surface, it gives an unfair advantage to the other teams, it's just no fair' he said of one bounced cheque to the Dunfermline Building Society.

McLeish also complained bitterly about having to write two cheques within 48 hours of each other, 'That was the powers-that-be evening up the scores because Celtic had to do it last season. It's all a big SPL, SFA, UEFA conspiracy against us'.

The public can immediately expect headlines proclaiming 'Paranoia at Ibrox' and casting doubt as to the sanity of the Gers boss, not to appear in tomorrow's tabloids (note - for precedent see McLeod, Ian & O'Neill, Martin circa April 2003).

Match officials were also a target for Eck's frustration as the manager stated his feeling that his stationary supplies are not treated fairly, 'I don't feel that the officials have given our pens enough protection from Celtic's big bad bully pens. Ours pens are clearly the more refined but just seem to buckle at the vital moment when that signature has to go on the dotted line'.

McLeish ended on a more positive note as he indicated that he expects Rangers' magnificent £12 desk tidy facility to help the club produce more new young pens for the future and assist the rehabilitation of the club's many damaged pens on the road to recovery.

This enthusiasm may be dampened by the announcement from Rangers supremos Martin 'Baldy' Bain and John 'Pinocchio' McClelland, of the plan to charge the Gers boss for the use of young new pens and that in future he will not receive any funds from the multi-million pence sale of young pens to clubs such as Partick Thistle and Scunthorpe.