So, the Sunday Scot then.

I’ve been slightly obsessed about the paper since I heard stories about it while at the Record. But until Christmas, I’d never actually seen more than a screen grab of the front page.

So what was it?

In the early 1990s, then Rangers owner David Murray decided to enter the already ridiculously competitive and crowded newspaper market, and launch what would be the 14TH Sunday title available in Scotland.

Scotland was filled with newspaper junkies then.

The big beasts of the Sunday market were the iconic Sunday Post, published by DC Thomson, with a circulation north of 1.25million, and the Sunday Mail - sister paper to the Daily Record and selling a hefty 800K.

Plus you had the Scots editions of the English tabloids too.

Murray went all in on the venture, at least initially. Jack Irvine, who’s editorship of the Scottish Sun had turned it into a cheeky and legit rival to the Record, had been introduced to him by Rangers boss Graeme Souness and was MD of the new paper.

Meanwhile Steve Samson, who’d been making waves at Anderson Quay with the Record, came in as editor. They were seen as the enfant terribles of Scottish tabloid journalism - and a statement of intent of Murray’s bid to enter the market.

The chequebook was opened and a parade of big names hired - the likes of Derek Stewart Brown, Bruce Waddle, Ken Gallacher, Andy Lines, Louise Macdonald and Bill Leckie. It was a signing approach like his stewardship of Rangers.

Carol Smillie, former model and co-presenter of STV’s Wheel of Fortune at the time, was signed up as the fashion ed.

They weren’t mucking about. Ian Broadley, who came in as a sportswriter, said in one interview: “It was terrific. The money was fantastic. I got a nice new Volkswagen car, company phone and a weekly expense allowance running into hundreds of pounds.”

New premises were secured in the City Centre (St Vincent St, where All Bar One, the TSB and the Apple Store can be found these days). An expensive new publishing system bought. Flash company cars for staff on good wages. There was a lot of hype around the title…

Such as BBC Breakfast covering the launch…

…and in the build-up, Irvine and co had made clear they were aggressively going after their rivals. So much so that they gave over half of page two of their first edition to an attack on the Post by the Herald’s Tom Shields, republished from a trade mag…

But what of that first edition? Well, it’s safe to say that when it came out, the industry wasn’t exactly left quaking in its boots…

The front and back page weren’t quite the ones the management intended to run. Jack Irvine recounts in the excellent documentary Deadline that they’d been working on a splash about the judiciary that didn’t come off. And as for the back page…

Various folk who worked there say the original lead was meant to be Rangers manager Souness leaving for Liverpool. Kenny Dalglish had quit the Reds a few weeks earlier, and Souness had reopened talks about taking over. But at the last minute, it was pulled…

Leaving the back page a piece of utter kite flying.

The eventual splash by @NeilTGibson - who would go on to found PR behemoth Big Partnership - on lax security at Yarrow Shipbuilders, isn’t actually bad, despite Samson’s comments above. It’s just not the big launch scoop you want to make a splash with…

In fact, if it was a few weeks into the paper’s life, you’d look at that first edition and think - it’s a solid Sunday tabloid. Not blow away, but not in any way crap.

There’s a solid bit of survey work on P4-5 on what Scotland thinks of the Royal Family…

There’s some good old-fashioned journalism about the business history of a Scot trying to buy Spurs, fall-out from the Orkney investigations, the DSS hounding a parent after the death of their child, under equipped polis… although the prizegiving’s a bit dubious…

The worst you can really say about it, looking at the paper now, is it’s a bit drap. Beyond the splash, and @carolsmillie1’s fashion page, there’s a notable lack of colour pages spread throughout the issue.

The back of the book is solid sports coverage for a Sunday. Premier Division match reports, some big name interviews… again, the back page lead aside, there’s not much there you look at and go ‘that’s pish’

And for those of you so inclined, here’s the horoscope and the TV pages. Apparently my life is going to get more serious on Tuesday…

March 10th 1991, the Sunday Scot hit the streets - as captured by a terrifyingly young Gordon Waddell . https://twitter.com/gordonwaddell/status/1343948439416139776

But all was not well. It wasn’t just at their rivals - which had block booked TV ads to promote the Mail and Post to steal the Sunday Scot’s thunder. Inside St Vincent Street, folk were unimpressed with their first edition.

“We were all summoned to St Vincent St on the night the first edition was put to bed and I can remember the champagne flowing and the cheers going up,” remembered Broadley.

“While were some were cheering, I looked at the first edition and thought, ‘We’re finished”.

“It was abysmal, full of stock features from the Press Association and lots of grey and boring pages. It had been rushed onto the streets, for what reason I’ve no idea. There was no way back from that first edition. I knew that night it was all over.”

The first edition of the Sunday Scot would sell around 300,000 copies - just ahead of the breakeven target set by David Murray to keep it afloat. But circulation dropped quickly. By the end, it was selling around 90,000, and ad revenues were falling even quicker.

Talks were held about a relaunch to try and give the paper a fresh impetus, or even the launch of a daily edition to supplement the Sunday and draw in extra revenue. But neither came to pass.

The end came swiftly and brutally. Staff were told after just 14 issues that the axe was falling, and with camera crews lurking outside St Vincent St to capture their exits, the paper was closed.

Allan Rennie, who was chief sub and would go on to edit the Sunday Mail, recalled: “Murray ran out of patience, decided to cut his losses and we were given 30 minutes to pack our stuff in black bin liners before departing for our local pub  Caskies and a hell of a wake.”

Staff at the launch had been promised two years to make the paper a success. In the end they barely got three months. The failed venture had cost Murray an estimated £3million pounds.

“It was a very difficult decision,” he would later tell the Herald. “There are some good people on that paper and I felt sorry fro them.”

And thus ended the saga of the Sunday Scot. Despite failing, the number of high profile figures - from journalism and beyond - tied up in the story make its brief life an even more remarkable story. Most of the folk at St Vincent St went on to bigger roles in the Scottish media.

Irvine founded Media House, Gibson went on to make Big. Folk from the Sunday Scot would go on to edit the Record, Mail, Scottish Sun and more. The biggest names in Scottish journalism briefly, expensively, under one roof.

Next March marks the 30th anniversary of the paper’s launch - a story that brings together Scottish journalism, popular culture, sport and finance. There’s a cracking documentary to be done about the paper’s life…