Coyne failed medical

It has emerged that a Gortin taxi washer, Ian Coyne (62), almost succeeded in selling his wife of 40 years to Liverpool Soccer Club for £2.8m three hours before the deadline for accepting new players yesterday. Sources have confirmed that the deal was only scuppered after she turned up for the medical and Liverpool discovered she was a 61-year old Plumbridge woman with a plastic hip, severe arthritis in both legs and a pacemaker in place.

Liverpool director of transfers, Kenneth Dogleash, admitted it sounded too good to be true:

“Yes, it seemed like all our Christmases had arrived at once. This boy with a fierce Irish accent rang us and said he had an offer to make us about a player called ‘Ouldoll’. We had been on the look-out for a cheap striker to act as cover for Sturridge and Suarez so this was a dream come true. He said his ‘client’ was a real battle axe, causing havoc wherever they went. He said Ouldoll was good up front for their age and had a powerful kick on them when angered. He added that his client had become an expert dribbler in recent years and had scored in every town in Ireland in their younger days. We settled on £2.8m”.

With a deal thrashed out, Jenny Coyne boarded this first plane at Belfast International Airport, thinking her husband had booked her in for a week’s health spa session in Liverpool:

“It wasn’t until I was met at the other side by three men in suits that I began to think that all wasn’t right. They kept giving me strange looks in the car. Why they put me through that fitness test I don’t know. The hip was squeaking like mad on that treadmill. The weights were easy though. This nice young man called Brendan Rodgers came in and said the deal was off but that I should keep my head down and work hard. I was a bit confused and gave him a hard boiled sweet but I took it off him and clipped him around the ear when he said ‘thanks oul doll’.”

It appears that this was Coyne’s second attempt at offloading his wife after trying to sell her on The Antiques Road Show in 1999.