Staff at Dundee FC were in a flap after getting a request from a fan to have his auntie’s budgie’s ashes scattered at Dens Park.
Keen to respect the fan’s wishes, the club was happy to agree to the request and offered to send someone to his Aunt Jessie’s house to pick her up with the remains.
However, it was a double-bluff from sharp-witted club secretary Laura Hayes, who realised the request was probably a spoof.
Laura said she even had a file named ”Auntie Jessie”, as the correspondence went on for some time.
She said: ”We knew from the start that it was probably a wind-up but we didn’t want to take the chance that it might be real, so we said we would be happy for them to come.”
The request came from Struan J Marjoribanks real name Fraser Syme who has sent a series of letters to football clubs over the past few years.
He has now gathered the responses together and written a book of the correspondence.
In one, he offered Celtic youth players work experience in his soup factory: ”To show them where they would end up if they don’t work sufficiently hard at their game.”
My Book of Absurd Letters to British Football Clubs by Struan J Marjoribanks will be published by Cargo next year.