Player Manager - A Sports Progression Fantasy - 10.4 - One Man Banned
4.
After beating Eastleigh, Emma and I went eastly (lol) to spend a day and a half with TJ and his latest girlfriend in Crawley. We very much didn’t talk about the shithead striker he had fobbed off on me, but we did spend a frankly delightful Sunday morning nibbling on croissants while TJ practised the guitar. He had the wotsits – the notes and which order to play them – from an album called One Man Band.
It was technically challenging for TJ but easy listening for the rest of us – Emma found the music boring but she tolerated me playing the album in the car on the long drive home, mostly because she was asleep before the end of the first track, Something in the Way She Snores. I found myself playing the album a lot in the coming days. It was good background music to work to, the Brig and Vimsy liked it, and as you’ll see, the song titles in no way seeped into my subconscious.
***
On Monday morning at nine a.m. I started sketching out my plan for the week. It’s fair to say I was extremely confident.
By taking three points from James Wise’s former club, we had eased up to seventh in the league, the last of the playoff places. In 2025 we had played five league matches, won four, and conceded precisely zero goals. Under Sandra’s management, we had also thrashed Hyde United in the Cheshire Cup Quarter Final, earning ourselves a semi against Cammell Laird 1907, a semi-pro team from Birkenhead. That was tomorrow night’s match, but I started by picking a team for Saturday and working backwards.
By five past nine, I was wobbling.
The squad and I were at the King George training centre and the first team were being put through their paces. The grass pitches at the Deva and BoshCard were recovering well but, guided by the fixture list, I had decided to let the grass rest until March. Our next two league fixtures were at home to Barnet and Solihull. Those games would mash the Deva up some more, then we’d get the pitch stitching done, and Jonny would have the best part of two weeks to get the surface up to par.
The George was okay in the meantime, though it lacked privacy and was generally alien. I glanced around. Sandra had called in sick, as had Jackie and Livia and loads of young players. “There’s a bug going round,” Vimsy had said. He was a lot more chatty at the George, which I put down to him not having a filing cabinet to lean against.
He was leading the current session, which didn’t fill me with confidence for squeezing some much-needed CA out of the bunch. Rates of improvement had tanked since the winter monsoons and I was starting to seriously fret about our prospects. The transfer window was closed so when it came to players, I had what I had – the tenth best starting eleven in the National League. Our only hope was to keep my squad improving. To that end I’d assembled a ludicrously overpowered group of supercoaches. There was Sandra herself, who hadn’t looked out of place at Manchester City; Llewelyn, our on-loan future Wales manager, was rated 20 in most key attributes; Clive OK had coached at the top level in Germany; Ray Hart was a tactics whizz who was amazing at Working With Youngsters; and Jude, Spectrum and the rest of the usual rotation stacked up well against most coaches for the level. A few of us also took private sessions with Cody Chambers, who drilled us on technique or finishing.
When I thought about the coaching numbers versus the current CA growth, I felt an expanding sense of dread. It seemed I had massively underestimated the need for better facilities. I had spent all my money on a luxury centre back and a fucking useless striker I couldn’t trust. Had I spent the Christian Fierce money on facilities at the start of the season, Chester would now own a 3G pitch and a set of attractive portacabins and my players would have kept improving all through the winter.
“Boss, I got you a tea.”
“Thanks, Noah. Why aren’t you in the sesh?” Noah was Andrew Harrison’s younger brother and his school didn’t start until Monday lunchtime. He said. I kept meaning to check that. He was at one of those places that had a school song. Posh or what? So why did they have Monday mornings off? It didn’t make sense.
“Got a knock. Andrew said not to aggravate it.” He looked worried. “Was that right? I can join in if you want.”
“I don’t want. Andrew was right and you did the right thing telling him. That’s one of the things we’ve done well.”
“What is?”
“We’re managing our workload and not getting big injuries.” I scanned my screens to see if anyone was carrying a secret knock – Noah didn’t show up because he wasn’t part of the first team squad. I had the option to add the under eighteens but it would cost 2,000 XP and I had recently spent a lot more XP than I had intended. I wasn’t sure what my next direction of improvement needed to be so I was trying to be thrifty. “People aren’t happy with the rotation, though.” The curse showed me a player’s current Morale, and while the group as a whole had better Morale than most teams, it had been sliding since I started Project Super Shrimp. Zach, for example, was not happy only playing when the pitches were good, Ryan Jack felt I was being a helicopter parent by being so careful with his return from injury, and Ben Cavanagh felt that he had lost his spot at the number one goalie despite me promising him he hadn’t. “Have you heard any grumblings?”
Noah’s eyes widened, but then he got shifty. Obviously, Andrew had warned him about telling tales. “We’re all one big happy family,” he said. He pointed to my notebook. “What are you writing?”
“Something strange and vaguely upsetting,” I said. “Thanks for the tea.”
“You’re welcome.”
“That was me telling you to fuck off, but with diplomacy and sophistication.”
“Right,” he said, and he scooted off to stand next to Vimsy. I couldn’t hear but I was pretty sure Vimsy said something like, ‘You made him a tea but not me?’ because Noah ran off in the direction of the little hut with the kettle.
The reason I was wobbling, apart from the slow growth in our CA, was that I had planned out the starting elevens for the semi-final against Laird and for Saturday’s titanic battle against Barnet. What I discovered, as they say on clickbait headlines, shocked me.
Against Laird I would use our smaller, more technical team in a 4-1-4-1 formation. Ben in goal behind Eddie, Zach, Christian, and Magnus. Youngster would play DM in his last match before flying out to Togo for the finals of the African Cup of Nations. Ryan would play central midfield for a maximum of an hour. Then Pascal, Sharky, and Wibbers would rotate around the rest of the midfield. I imagined William would be central more often than not, possibly pushed into a CAM slot. The lone striker would be Ziggy.
Not a bad team by any stretch of the imagination and they would be three times as strong as Laird in terms of CA. But slow down a second. Ryan Jack back from a long-term injury. Sharky. A very callow WibRob. Ziggy. Quite ragged, right? A bit weak? Remember that feeling.
So here was the plan against Barnet. Huge. The Beef Brigade. Hard Shell with Spikes. Sticky in goal, with Cole, Glenn, Christian again, Carl. Magnus would also play twice in a week, this time as the DM. The midfield was one that had done well for us before: Josh Throw-Ins, Wisey, Andrew, and Aff. Up front was everyone’s favourite Frenchman. I wrote out the CAs and was thrilled to see that no fewer than three guys had smashed into the 70s – Carl, Aff, and Henri.
Amazing!
But what’s this?
My awesome, powerful Saturday team, my big boys, my terror turtles, had an average CA of 57.
My wimpy, feeble, delicate Tuesday night flowers… had an average of 59.
Now, there were obvious reasons why I’d split the squad the way I had. Pascal and Eddie Moore weren’t going to play to their highest standards on mud. If I wanted to get huge, then it made sense to choose Glenn over Zach and Sticky over Ben.
And neither eleven included the guy I’d spent all our FA Cup money on – Chipper. We played in blue but he preferred red: red dragons, red mists, red cards. The prick had got a yellow card for calling the referee something unspeakable, then got a second yellow for throwing a punch at a player. I mean, that’s a straight red normally but the ref actually showed him a yellow. The guy could have got away with it if he hadn’t vented his spleen at the guy in control of the match! Getting aggressive at the ref was moronic on countless vectors. Example: after Chipper’s initial outburst, the ref switched from being neutral to making our lives harder. It’s not correct but can you blame him? I didn’t; I blamed Chipper. The Welsh prick was seventy thousand pounds down the drain and once again we were down to the bare bones in strikers. Henri plus Ziggy equaled the entire list.
Anyway, fuck Chipper and fuck his career. He was dead to me.
All I cared about was this 57 versus 59 mess.
There was just something about seeing the numbers in black and white that freaked me out. Our absolute best eleven – including Youngster and Simply Red – had an average CA of 67. Why was the team against Barnet going to be eight points lower? Because Chipper was banned. Because I didn’t want to break Youngster the day before he got on a plane. Because the pitch was a bog.
The beefy boy plan made sense but in the past I had always picked my highest CA teams against our key rivals and it had normally gone pretty well.
I thought about calling Sandra to talk things through and discuss my doubts, but she was ill in bed. The last thing she needed was a call from her idiot manchild boss.
No, tomorrow night we would ease into another final and at the weekend we would get huge against Barnet, keep a clean sheet, and try to snatch a goal on a set piece.
Stick to the plan. The plan is mint.
***
Tuesday, February 11
Cheshire Cup Semi Final: Cammell Laird 1907 vs All-Conquering Chester
The Kirklands Stadium was close to Tranmere Rovers and a mis-hit Youngster shot from the River Mersey. The air was cold and damp and the stadium was ramshackle to say the least, but it felt like home.
Maybe that’s because twenty Tranmere fans had turned up to support us. Support me, more specifically. At the start of the match they cheered every time I left my one cubic centimetre dugout. The soggy pitch sucked some of the life out of the match, so the Tranmere mob fuelled up on beers and pies and at the twenty-minute mark they started chanting, “Max Best! Give us a wave! Max Best Max Best give us a wave.” They kept it up for a full minute and I made the mistake of waving at them. It shut them up but the on-pitch action was slow and sloppy – not enough to distract the mob – and so the chant started again. When I refused to wave, they booed. Two minutes later they asked again. I waved. Big cheer. Two minutes later, I refused. Boo!
So they were having fun, and Ryan Jack was loving life. His Morale was maxed out at the thrill of starting one of the lowest-level matches of his entire career. But for me the match was pretty gruesome. The pitch wasn’t as bad as the Deva’s, but it slowed passes down and made it hard to build moves. Pascal and Sharky were nerfed. Ziggy was bullied by his marker. And even WibRob, who I would have expected to love these conditions, was subdued. His match rating quickly slipped to 5 out of 10 and flirted with 4.
I had Carl, James Wise, Henri, and myself on the bench so I wasn’t worried about losing, but I did wonder what the best thing for William was. Stay on, get frustrated, learn some lessons? Or would it be better if I took him off at half time before he could stink the place up even more?
I slid his icon off the tactics screen and at the next break, he came over to the side of the pitch. While some Tranmere fans begged for attention, I told William to get simple. “One-touch it if you can. Two-touch. Get some passes under your belt. And relax!” I said, beaming. “Wave to those fans over there.”
“What?”
“That’s your fan club. Wave and see.”
He didn’t want to, so I did it. William rolled his eyes, but as the locals cheered, his Morale went up a sliver. “Two-touch. Okay.”
“Why don’t you go striker for a bit and help Ziggy out?”
I switched to 4-4-2 and made that change.
A few minutes later Will’s rating had climbed to 6. I stuck my bottom lip out and nodded. Top manager over here!
“Is there anything I can help with, sir?” The Brig was my assistant manager for the evening. His primary job was to keep the opposition bench away from me.
“Not really,” I said.
“I’m bored, sir.”
I laughed. “Yeah. It’s not a classic. Oh, shit.” My entire body tensed as Ryan Jack flew into a fifty-fifty challenge. I prayed for him to get up. He did; I breathed out.
“Ryan is back to his best?”
I made an unimpressed little noise. “His best was fifteen years ago at Everton. Wish I could have signed that little tearaway; I bet no-one ever used him right. But he’s back to his Chester best. Almost. Lacking a little match sharpness, maybe, but in a couple of weeks he’ll be back to bossing. Back to bossing. I like that. Put that on a whimsical mug.”
“Tell me about the others.”
“That’s fun, is it?”
“It’s interesting to hear how you assess them, yes.”
I considered that. It seemed boring to me, but life was full of surprises. “Okay so Ben’s in goal, desperately trying to impress to move back ahead of Sticky in the pecking order. Only problem is we’re so dominant in defence he doesn’t have anything to do except take a few goal kicks.” I chuckled. “Life’s shit sometimes. It’s funny, though. He has just been quietly improving the whole season and he’s nearly at his limit.”
“How do you judge a player’s limit?”
“Hmm.” I slowed my flappy mouth down. “It’s the quality of his movement. His agility, reflexes, stuff like that. I don’t know if it’s clear to you but Sticky can improve a load from where he is today, but Ben’s not going to get more, like, smooth or agile or whatever.”
“I do see what you mean with Sticky. He exudes an aura and I have a lot of trust when I watch him.”
“That trust you’re describing. That could be what I’m seeing. The irony is that right now Ben’s quite a lot better, but Sticky’s catching up fast. I might just have a dilemma on the last day of the season.”
“A good dilemma?”
“All dilemmas are good, aren’t they?”
“No,” said the former army guy.
Ryan tried to exchange passes with WibRob but we lost possession. Magnus soon took it back. “Magnus keeps getting better. He’s solid, he doesn’t have fitness problems any more. He was adding some craft to his game but that got postponed. I’m chill about him. We just need to make sure he stays next season. Eddie Moore at left back – another guy who quietly just gets on with it. He doesn’t score or assist much so he doesn’t get noticed. We paid twenty-five thousand for him and he’s worth three times that, now.”
“If you could improve him in one particular area, what would it be?”
“Huh. Have you been listening to those self-help podcasts again? Erm… I mean, he does everything fine, he’s neat and tidy, he’s pretty fast, pretty consistent. Maybe he doesn’t have one stand out quality. Like, if he was twenty out of twenty in one particular thing that’d boost his career a lot.”
“Why not ten out of ten?”
“Because I’m a Gemini.”
“Of course, sir.”
Eddie competed for a header – inconclusive – but was then much sharper going for the second ball, which he passed to Pascal. “See that? That’s fine. It’s just in times of stress where you look around for something extra. It’s hard to remember we’re a National League team. Christian is amazing and he galvanises the players around him. No goals conceded since he rocked up. Zach was settling in but he’s regressed to trying too hard since we bought Fierce. It’s hard to tell him to relax because you know he won’t. I’m not too worried about him but I really wish he’d focus his willpower on useful things. Youngster’s the bees knees. I’m nervous about him playing for a different manager but it seems like a good group they’ve got. Lots of hungry young players who are supportive. I just hope he doesn’t blast the ball into orbit at a vital moment. I don’t even know if I want him to play. Just going and being on the bench is probably fine for him right now.”
“It’s a long way to go to not play.”
I shrugged. Youngster got the ball from an opponent and played it back to Glenn before blocking the runner to give Glenn more time on the ball. The block was pure Vimsy and the pass was pure Jackie Reaper. The way Youngster backpedalled into position for a bounce pass from Christian Fierce was pure Sandra Lane. “There’s my boy! Sweet baby James Yalley. If he does that in Togo, he’s allowed to play.”
“Very magnanimous of you, sir.”
“Sharky’s interesting. What do you feel when you watch him?”
The Brig had come to football late in life, but some things were obvious even to the casual observer. “I have more confidence he will do something productive than previously.”
I nodded. “That’s Sandra. She’s been working hard with him. Yeah,” I mused, “he’s getting there.” How fast, though? He had started at CA 20 and fairly quickly got to CA 40. My best guess was that 40 had been his previous peak because since then his development had slowed a lot. He was breaking new ground on our shitty facilities and not featuring much in the team. If he got to CA 50 by the end of this season… with better facilities and tougher opposition next season… could we get him to CA 70 at the age of 27? His PA was 86, so he could keep improving… at his next club. “We’re by far his best home for now. I think I want to keep him the whole of next season, too, and then he can have, what, four years at more or less his best level? It’ll be fascinating to see what happens when he loses his pace. These lessons with Sandra might kick in and help him get more crafty. Less pace, better movement.”
“What troubles you, sir?”
“It just seems like an intractable problem. We have to get players like Sharky who never quite made it elsewhere but we can’t quite improve them fast enough.”
“Fast enough for what?”
“Fast enough to achieve my goals.”
Pascal popped up in the D and played a ball behind the left back. Sharky hared onto it while Pascal and Ziggy stormed into the penalty box. WibRob was no slouch and he was trying to get forward, too. Sharky took one touch, looked up – Hallelujah! – and played a simple square pass that Ziggy passed into the net.
One-nil!
“Fast enough to achieve your goals, sir?” said the Brig, after defending me from an attack of the Vimsys.
“Don’t get cocky, kid,” I said, and stepped around him to hug Vimsy.
***
At half-time, I went over to the Tranmere fans and signed shirts and posed for selfies and asked them what the hell they were doing. They gave cryptic replies such as, ‘We know what you did’ and ‘the North remembers’. On a random surface, there was a rectangular sticker with the Reading badge and the words Never Dai Yongge. Henri had played for Reading – I wanted to ask him what it meant, but I forgot.
I popped into the dressing room to tell Ryan he had another fifteen minutes and to ask the subs if any of them wanted to play. They all said yes. That surprised me but then again, this was a cup semi-final. It didn’t feel like one because there were barely a hundred fans and Laird couldn’t really get any moves going.
I announced my plan. In twenty minutes or so, Wisey would replace Ryan, Henri would replace Wibbers, and if we were still winning with ten to go I would make a very special change.
They thought I meant I would come on, but seeing eighty minutes on the clock and Laird having no shots, I went full Max and replaced Ben with Sticky.
“Going headlong towards your delectable dilemma, sir?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“What would Sandra say?”
“There’s really no way to know,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ve arrogantly used all my subs while only winning one-nil against a determined bunch of plucky underdogs. You can close your eyes; nothing can go wrong.”
The Brig gave a wry smile, but nothing did go wrong. We saw out the rest of the match with a professional if drab performance.
One-nil, into the cup final, and I hadn’t used Bench Boost or Triple Captain. We would play either Crewe or Stockport in the final and if I was in charge, the boosts would be very handy. Sandra would be manager for that one, though, unless she was poached by a bigger club.
I fretted for fifteen seconds before Vimsy jiggled me.
“What?”
“Your fan club,” he said.
I turned and heard, “Max Best! Give us a wave!” I laughed, waved, and they let out one last boozy ‘wayyy!’
My phone vibrated.
Sandra: Alsager Town: 4-0. Congleton Town: 4-2. Hyde United: 7-0. Cammell Laird: 1-0. One of these results is not like the others.
Me: Yeah but wait till you see tonight’s Expected Threat graph!
Sandra: Smiley face. Bicep emoji.
Me: Going to be fit for Saturday?
Sandra: Nothing can stop me.
Narrator’s voice: Something stopped her.
***
Saturday, February 15
Match 29 of 46: Title-Chasers Chester vs Always the Bridesmaid Barnet
The first flush of Sandra’s illness had passed, only to be replaced by a violent, hacking cough. Jackie was equally stricken, which meant that on Sunday I would heroically step in to manage the women against the worst team in the division, backed by Bench Boost and Triple Captain.
First, though, was the small matter of winning the National League. If we beat Barnet, currently in second place, our odds would rise to approximately a hundred percent, with a one percent margin of error.
Our best player, Chipper, was banned and so the starting eleven was tall and full of running. We had Josh Throw-Ins and the Deva’s pitch was a fraction better than in our last game. Jonny had smothered the corners with clay stuff so I hoped to be able to send in some wicked set pieces.
There was nothing to say tactically, so before the match I told the lads about three Barnet players they wouldn’t be familiar with but who I had seen in the warmups.
“Okay, here’s the sitch. Barnet will do 4-4-2 like they always do. Solid, compact, narrow. They’ve spent big on a new central midfielder, Larry Goldings, and he’ll be a handful but he’s only a slight upgrade on what they had. Bit strange – they’re normally good at talent ID. They lost the loan players they had last time – got recalled by their clubs – but they’ve found some new ones. Two wingers, in fact. The new right mid, Taylor, is basically Sharky – fast and powerful – but if I were him I’d be looking at our pitch wondering how I was supposed to dribble. Then they’ve got Richard James, a tall left mid. No jumping ability but he can bosh a header. Overall, they’re slightly better than when we played them last, but we’re much better than we were at the start of the season.” Barnet’s average CA had improved from 74 to 75 – League Two standard. The worst thing from my point of view was that they didn’t have any weak links. “Our bench is much better than theirs,” I said, clutching at straws like a pro. “It could come down to that. Vimsy, tell them to get stuck in and all that stuff.”
A few minutes later I was in the dugout and I dialled my concentration down just enough to listen to the fans. Barnet were the Bees and wore a sort of amber honeycomb kit, and their fans were – I’m terribly sorry – buzzing. They were making a hell of a din in the away end, which you’d expect if you were doing well.
The home fans seemed quiet. I would have asked Sandra if she felt the same, but I was basically alone for this one. To my right, Ben, Zach, and Ryan were mad at me for not starting them in this huge match, while Ziggy had so much nervous energy on game days he either fidgeted heavily or went jogging up and down the touchline. Vimsy was in the technical area, shouting encouragement, while the Brig was stationed between the dugouts to make sure any shithousery Barnet started didn’t boil over.
The first few minutes passed with lots of blood and thunder tackling and much head tennis. Barnet were that rare beast – a team with higher Morale than us.
After five minutes there hadn’t been any shots, but Barnet were winning the territory game. My defenders were just about holding their own, though. Carl was fine against the tall left mid and Cole Adams had played a lot against Sharky in our practice matches so he had some coping strategies.
The blow was so unexpected and simple it stunned me into thirty seconds of motionlessness.
Barnet’s manager switched the wingers. The fast one went against Carl and the tall one went against Cole.
Evergreen wins the header.
The ball is picked up by the powerful Barnet number 25, Goldings.
He clips the ball forward.
Cole Adams jumps, but his amber-shirted rival James flicks it on.
James chases his own header.
Adams slides in – reckless! He doesn’t get the ball.
James pushes on. He crosses high…
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Sticky gets a fingertip to it. Just enough to direct it away from the incoming striker!
But there’s still danger.
Taylor outpaces Carl Carlile and he has the chance to shoot on his favoured right foot!
GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!
Great football from Barnet!
Their title charge is very much alive.
After the shock of seeing a rival manager damage us so easily, the enormity of the situation hit me. Hit me like a Wrexham-ball. It wasn’t just that we would slip twenty points behind Grimsby and thirteen behind Barnet. It wasn’t just the fact that we would need to beat Barnet in the playoff final – which on today’s evidence seemed a stretch. It was also the fact that my star loan signing was sulking in his house in Crawley while Barnet’s loanees had combined to score that goal. Barnet were evolving. Hard rock with teeth! We had a thicker shell but no teeth yet.
Not getting promoted this season was unthinkable. I had mentally spent the million pounds in TV money countless times. A hundred and fifty thousand to outfit a dentist’s clinic. Fifty thousand for training and courses. Thirty for a sports psychologist. A hundred on beautifully ugly Chester-branded portacabins. And so on, and so forth.
What if we didn’t get promoted? We would lose WibRob, Youngster, Sticky, and more.
If I kept the squad together we would probably win the National League next season, but it would be an agonising year. I could maybe, maybe countenance a consolidation year in League Two, when the daily grind would be enlivened by going to EFL meetings and sleeping on a mattress stuffed with a million pounds in cash. Staying an extra season in the National League would be gruesome and there was no guarantee we would win the title. If Barnet didn’t go up through the playoffs they could improve to Grimsby-ish levels. The same could be said for Forest Green or Solihull. What about the teams getting relegated from the EFL? Bradford City were having a shocker and the thought of competing against a team with a 15,000 average attendance was nightmarish.
We had to find a way. We had to evolve, and fast.
When I recovered, I took action. I moved Aff to left back – he wouldn’t be outpaced, could compete in the air, and wouldn’t make rash challenges – Cole to left mid, and Josh to right mid. I used the Seal It Up perk to give us a fifteen-minute bonus to our Positioning.
Then I returned to some mental calculations I had made about what the team might look like in a month. If everyone added a couple of points of CA, if I used Chipper, the prick, and if Youngster wasn’t too exhausted by his AFCON adventure, I would be able to put out a pretty great starting eleven with an average CA of 69.2. Without Chipper and Youngster I could get to 65.
Miles off the pace.
Shit.
If we didn’t get promoted, I couldn’t sign a Brazilian.
Shitting shit.
Ryder slapped a long ball forward. Henri chased after it, but slowed because I’d told him not to waste his energy. Some fans got on his case. A defender eased forward, unopposed. More shouts from the Chester fans, but the lack of pressure was because Cole Adams was not used to being stationed at left midfield – he didn’t like pressing into the other team’s half. It felt unnatural to him; he had spent his whole life in one particular spot on the pitch.
I switched Aff and Cole back into their more natural positions.
Almost immediately, Barnet returned to hitting long balls to Cole’s zone. Cole won one, lost the next one. Aff tried to scamper back to help but Cole lost his head and fouled the winger.
Talk about a sinking feeling.
The Bees send their left back all the way across the pitch to take the free kick.
He cleans the mud from his boots and signals. Looks like it will be an inswinger.
Ryder stations his men at the edge of the penalty area – a neat line of blue and white.
The cross comes in…
Three players fall over. Fierce appears to be held back, others are blocked.
Sticky comes off his line to punch clear.
Barnet’s tall midfielder gets there first. He glances a header…
GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!
Disaster for Chester! They complain to the referee.
He’s not interested. The goal will stand!
“That’s weak, that,” spat Vimsy. “That’s weak as piss.”
I said nothing. All I could do was sit in the aspect of prayer. Two-nil down, at home, against one of our main rivals. We were being crushed. Our season was being crushed. My plans were smashing against Barnet’s hard shell and disintegrating.
The away fans were chanting, “Are you watching, Grimsby Town?” They didn’t even see us as rivals. We were uppity little nothings to them. Low-rent no marks. Chili dogs to be gobbled up on the way to glory.
My bench: Ben, Zach, Ryan, Ziggy. Who could make a difference? Well, any of them might but realistically, none of them would.
What about a formation change? Go 4-4-2 and put Ziggy as a second striker? Barnet were several classes above him. 3-5-2 and control midfield? On this pitch, against better players, we could control jack shit.
While I dithered, Barnet’s guy switched his wingers back to their best positions.
It looks like Barnet are adopting a more defensive approach.
I shook my head. They would sit back, let us grind our way up the pitch, and either absorb our attacks or hit us on counters. Their superfast winger haunted my strategic thinking. Whatever I came up with ended with him chasing a long bomb from the goalie. The pitch would slow him and the ball down, but if they got three tries at it you’d back them to score one.
All I could do was the one thing I hated doing – nothing. I sat, passive, as my lads fought their duels. Josh launched long throws but Barnet’s defenders headed them away with absolute disdain.
Then the moment that sticks in the memory.
James Wise with a rare moment of space in midfield.
Simple pass to Andrew Harrison. He turns right and sends it out to Owens.
Owens to Carlile.
Carlile to Harrison. Nice passage of play from Chester!
Harrison to Lyons.
The French striker holds the ball up and finds Aff.
Aff combines with Adams.
The crowd are up!
Adams plays a perfect chip down the line. Aff chases.
Aff knocks the ball past the right back.
Lyons makes a darting run…
Aff with the cross!
But it’s an air kick.
He missed the ball completely! It held up in the mud.
Rotten luck for the home team.
To add insult to insult, the right back kicked the ball against the prone Aff and it went out for a goal kick. Aff shot to his feet and got in the guy’s face, but there was no real heat in it.
Time passed slowly – the Cambrian age creaking to a halt. What happened to all those magnificent creatures that evolved? They all died.
***
At half time I let the lads work out their frustrations while listening and trying to plot some other way of playing. I would have taken almost anything else, to be honest, because what we were doing had no chance of working. It was clear I would have to go on early and try to manage my fitness.
First, I looked at 4-2-3-1. The back four would be supplemented by two defensive midfielders – Magnus and I. That would be an even more solid base. But who would be the three CAMs? Aff, yes. Ryan Jack? Ziggy? Maybe against a semi-pro team in the Cheshire Cup but not against a League Two quality team.
4-3-3? I could play as the third striker and go where needed. Aff could be the left-sided striker or the left-most CM. Bombard Barnet down the centre and hope to turn a half-chance into a goal. Get one back, get the crowd going…
I took another look at 3-5-2. Glenn, Christian, and Carl as centre backs. Aff left, Andrew right. Wisey, Magnus, Ryan Jack in midfield. Henri and I as the strikers. Or I could bring Ziggy on and go to centre back myself. But if we didn’t have full backs, Barnet’s wingers would smash us up.
Abysmal as the thought was, the 4-1-4-1 we were doing was the best we could do. All that was left was beefing up the CA.
“Zach, you’re coming on,” I said. “Glenn and Josh, you can take a shower. Ryan, you’ll come on for the last twenty.” If I was CA 80 or so, we would play the end of the match with CA 62. 75 against 62, Jesus Christ. How had I ever thought we could win this league?
“We could really use Chipper,” said Vimsy.
I snapped. “Could we? Oh, great. Let’s get him here. Light up the twat signal!” Losing your temper is almost always bad, but this time it at least shifted the mood. Everyone was watching me – I hadn’t spoken to the group about the Welshman. “The prick got a pointless red card before two of our biggest games of the season. He wasn’t stopping a goal or looking after his mate or something understandable.
“From my point of view he wants a lovely old break while we slug it out down in the trenches. He wants to go to fucking Willy Wonka World. I’ll give him more holiday than he can handle. He can have a fucking six-month holiday at our expense. Where does that leave his career? Can’t get a game in the National League? Who the fuck cares? He’s not one of us. It’s my fault he’s here; he was my choice. That’s on me. But we’re in the shit today and we have to try to get out with the squad we’ve got. There’s no tactics. No tricks. Just fucking hard work and keeping in it and trying to nick a goal and seeing what we can do.
“Fucking old-school make-it-happen football like your daddy used to play. If we can get a point out of this, it’s party time. I kid you not, that will be the sweetest fucking point in history. But forget that – it’s not about the result; it’s all about the next header, the next tackle, the next pass. Live in the moment. Live every second. We work hard and when Ryan comes on we’ll up the tempo. Drop balls behind the defence and they will drop back. That will be our chance. We’ll be able to load the box and try to get crosses in and all that.
“I’ll try some long shots and there might be rebounds. Who the fuck knows? But I know one thing – those bastards aren’t going to let us build up a head of steam. They’ll slow the game down, pretend to be injured, all that shit. We use that as a time to catch our breath and go harder at the next phase. The more they cheat, the more we bring the quality to what we do next. Oh fucking kay? I don’t want whining and excuses. I want to go hard at this because this is for all the marbles. Do you get me? Our whole season is on the line here. Do not come back to this dressing room wishing you had done more. Fucking come on!”
***
Extract from Seals Live
Boggy: Second half about to get underway. Reminder that it’s two-nil to Barnet, while Grimsby are winning at Fylde. The big news is that Max Best has brought himself on. He’s got the captain’s armband. Does that mean Glenn Ryder is off?
Spectrum: There’s Zach.
Boggy: So he is. Zach Green on for Glenn Ryder and Best is on for…
Spectrum: Josh.
Boggy: No more long throws, then. Got to say that while they weren’t getting us very far, it was our best chance of getting the ball into the box.
Spectrum: We’re sticking to 4-1-4-1 with Best right midfield. Oh, look. Look there. Barnet have switched the wingers again. The fast one’s left, the tall one’s right.
Boggy: And we’re off! Let’s hope the second half is a little more positive than the first.
***
Things went from bad to worse.
Yes, Zach was an upgrade on Glenn. He could do the physical stuff and his passing was better, even if that meant a slightly less wild punt forward.
And yes, I was an upgrade on Josh Owens. But I wasn’t… me. Even accounting for the conditions, there was something off.
I spent five minutes jogging around trying to understand what was happening, but it was simple. I had less control. I felt less power when kicking. When I got a free kick my technique felt ragged.
After a pass from Carl ran under my foot and out of play for a Barnet throw-in, I literally slapped myself on the forehead because the reason was suddenly clear.
I’d lost a few points of CA!
I hadn’t trained and had barely played. Why hadn’t I trained? Partly complacency, sure. After all, I’d been at my max level all season – why would I suddenly tail off in February? But it wasn’t just that – I was overstretched. I could oversee training, make sure the coaches were busy and productive, have meetings with the groundsman, check in on the youth teams, scout, watch videos of future opponents, and so on and so on. But I couldn’t do all that and train.
It was possible I’d only dropped from CA 80 to 77, but it was enough for me to notice. Something to fix, urgently, before the match against Solihull.
In the meantime, what could I do to affect the game? I could turn into Vimsy’s dream footballer, is what I could do.
I swapped places with Andrew. He went wide right, and I would play from the centre.
***
Boggy: Quite stodgy, isn’t it? Barnet are a very well-organised team and we’re finding it hard to break them down. Meanwhile, they look dangerous on the break. And here they go! Good move on the Barnet left and their fast winger is one-on-one with Carl Carlile. Knocks it past! Sprints down the line. He’s clear!
Spectrum: Go, Max, go!
Boggy: Wha – ? Max Best is tearing back! It’s a foot race. Best… Gets there first! What a tackle! That was HUGE. The ball’s gone out for a Barnet throw-in, their winger is down in a heap, Best is leaning over, shouting medical advice.
Spectrum: Wow.
Boggy: What just happened? The winger kicked the ball past Carlile and ran around him. Carl slipped just a fraction as he turned and we were in all sorts of trouble. Best was already in full sprint, though, and he ate up the ground. He tracked his man like… like a guided missile! And exploded!
Spectrum: That player will have shell shock. Welcome to non-league, mate.
Boggy: The first big contribution from the manager is to give away a throw-in.
Spectrum: [laughs]. You’re a mean old man. You should stand for the board.
***
Boggy: Ten minutes gone in the second half. Chester currently on top without achieving much. Long ball pumped forward. Cole Adams, the ginger Anglo-Irish full back, leaps. Ball loops up again. They compete again. James, Barnet’s tall winger wins the contest! Turns and holds oh! Best smashed him! He turned right into Best who took the ball and crashed into him. Fairly, says the referee. James is down, but Best is away. A few strides and he pushes the ball to Aff.
Spectrum: That was like a rugby hit.
Boggy: Best had a brief rugby career, though I thought he only kicked the ball. Guess he learned the basics. Aff to Lyons. Lyons to Wise. He tries to spray the ball wide but it’s overhit.
Spectrum: Good idea. We had numbers right.
Boggy: This is better from Chester but time’s starting to run out. Barnet slowing the clock down. Already twenty seconds just to go over and pick up the ball. Some in the crowd giving the left back a piece of their mind. Finally! The ball’s thrown in. Barnet’s impressive new central midfielder Goldings, wearing shirt 25, powers forward. Best thunders in! Shoulder barge! Both men stumble. They go again. Best edges it. No! Goldings is back. James Wise slides in. Barnet’s left mid tries to help. It’s a four-way tussle! Best wins and clips the ball back to Carlile. But he’s not there! He’d run to join the maul. Barnet’s fast winger is off again! Chased by Best! The crowd are going bananas. It’s like the end of the Grand National! Best making up ground, starts to slide, the winger jumps – but Best didn’t go to ground! He simply flicks the ball infield and strikes it left-footed to Zach Green.
Spectrum: He backed out, that winger. Didn’t fancy getting wiped out again.
Boggy: This is a battle! It was tough in the first half but this is brutal. Max Best is a one-man wrecking crew. A one-man band. Surely that’s a foul? Henri Lyons was manhandled off the ball. Yes! Free kick to Chester in a decent position. Max Best territory.
Spectrum: Perfect for an inswinger.
Boggy: Barnet complaining about where the ball is spotted. Wasting time. One of them kicks the ball back a yard. Zach Green doesn’t like that! He has sprinted twenty yards to push the culprit away. Now there’s an even bigger delay. Oh, Zach.
Spectrum: Come on, man.
Boggy: It’s fair to say the referee is letting Barnet push the boundaries of what’s acceptable, but then again, there’s no yellow card for Green, and he couldn’t have had any complaints if he got one. Best is giving Green a hell of a lecture out there. It’s a fearsome blast.
Spectrum: Stop helping them.
Boggy: Indeed. Green seems to have got the message. He trundles away and lines up behind Fierce and Carlile. Cole Adams is a little further away. Quite a formidable lineup, but so are Barnet. We finally get the kick. Best… What will he do? Please don’t slip. Best, slow approach, clips the ball with spin and swerve for Fierce. Good head! Scores! But no. Offside! Barnet, as one, pushed forward just before Best took the kick. Four Chester players were offside!
Spectrum: That’s great coaching, that. Hundreds of hours on the training pitch.
Boggy: Not everyone in the crowd agrees with the referee. They’re desperate to see Chester score to set up a grandstand finish. Best signals to the sideline. Ryan Jack goes for a jog! Generous applause from the main stand. Could he be the key to unlocking this obdurate defence?
***
Boggy: Twenty minutes to go. Ryan Jack replaces James Wise – slight surprise there but I suppose Best is happy with what Andrew Harrison is offering at right mid.
Spectrum: He works so hard and Carl needs help that Max won’t always give him.
Boggy: So this is it. All changes made. Max Best has been a man on fire, crunching into tackles all over the pitch, trying to inspire his players, but he’s visibly slower now.
Spectrum: He’s knackered.
Boggy: After the fire, the rain. He combines with Ryan Jack, though. Simple to Adams. Adams to Aff. Barnet well in their shape. Best walks forward but signals he doesn’t want the ball. Hands on head. Taking a breather. Funny way to do it. Ball’s circulated to the right. Bobbles off the surface – Carlile does well to keep it in play. He draws a couple of Barnet players to him but passes back to Green. Green fizzes a pass to Jack – first time lob – Best is in acres of space – how did that happen? Best with a rare chance to maraud! He’s fighting fatigue and the pitch. Defender comes but Best finds another gear! He’s into the box! Cuts it back. Lyons shrugs off his marker! Goal! Goal for Chester! Incredible! How they produced that football on this pitch I don’t know. What a goal!
Spectrum: Hang on.
Boggy: What’s this? The referee is standing where Lyons tussled with his marker. He’s… Has he given a free kick? What for?
Spectrum: Let’s check to see where this ref was born. Bet you fifty quid it begins with B.
Boggy: I can’t believe my eyes. Henri and Max Best both have their hands pressed together, praying that the referee will explain himself. Best is livid. His good friend pulls him away.
Spectrum: That’s our goose cooked. Can’t believe it. There were six fouls like that from Barnet players for their free kick. Henri was stronger, that’s all. This is painful. You can’t beat the conditions, a good team, and the referee. Horrible. I’m gutted. I’m absolutely gutted.
Boggy: You can’t help but feel that with Chipper available, we would have got something from this game.
***
My burst into space and Henri’s insanely disallowed goal sent Barnet into full men behind ball mode. It had been a while since I’d seen someone use a proper low block against us, and it was pretty stupid. I was almost completely spent and couldn’t have sprinted if you’d paid me, which is what Chester FC were doing. But with Barnet sitting so deep all I had to do was stand on the right, find a patch of turf that looked solid, and smack crosses into the danger area.
I’d have loved to see an Expected Threat graph because it looked to me like we were turning the screw big time.
Case in point – Ryan defied the conditions to hit a nice ball full of side spin into Andrew’s path. He scampered, used his strength to turn back down the line and had the choice of hitting me or Carl. He faked the Carl option but hit it diagonally into my path. I shaped to cross, allowed the ball to roll on, and pushed it onto my left. At that point, the defender I was up against kicked my standing foot away. Free kick!
I picked the ball up and my guys quietly took up their positions. Barnet tried to dick about, tried to wind the clock down, but without anyone falling into their trap it didn’t do much except wind the home crowd up and give me a chance to take some deep, restorative breaths.
While waiting for the ref to finish fussing around and making himself the star of the show, I mentally replayed the last free kick. Barnet had rushed forward and caught us offside. Okay, well, try that again.
I placed the ball down and took two big steps back followed by one half step to the left. I would Beckham the shit out of this one. I raised my arms, used the Free Hit perk to increase our chances of scoring, and used Masterpiece Theatre to make Henri and Zach start a couple of yards back. That pair moved but the line of amber shirts stayed as it was. Amber? In the current light it was more like copper. A copper line. Line ’em up. Good name for a perk. Get on it, imps!
I took a big step towards the ball and the Barnet line rushed forwards. But I took another step, way past where I could possibly strike the ball. It was like I was going towards the corner flag. I turned back and from my mad new angle, as the Barnet line was reforming, I clipped the ball left-footed into the space between the line and the goalie. Zach and Henri ran forward – clearly onside, in acres of space. Zach nodded the ball square – yes, mate! Henri took a touch and smashed it past the goalie.
We waited for the referee to disallow the goal – a preview of life in the Premier League, perhaps – and I was more surprised than excited when he pointed to the centre circle.
Huh.
Two-one, then, and while I was way into the red zone, I’d shaken up a couple of Barnet players pretty bad. Their new CM had shrunk as I’d beaten him in duel after duel, and their rapid winger had been well and truly cowed. Cowed. Was that why people were called cowards? Because they were easy to cow?
Cow?
“Max!” screamed Ryan. I blinked. The match was ongoing and Barnet were trying to push higher than before. A few tackles, a few passes, and we pushed them all the way back again. We had ten minutes to get an equaliser and save our season. Save our dentist. Save Brazil. Save football.
***
Boggy: Incredible fightback from Chester. They looked on the floor, they looked beaten, but they’re still going. It’s the twelfth round and they’re behind on the count, but they’re still throwing rights. Looking for a lucky punch. One thing’s for sure, Barnet do not have a glass jaw.
Spectrum: They’re so professional and that trick of switching the wingers isn’t letting us get completely settled.
Boggy: We’ve been knocking on the door for a while. We’ve actually had more shots.
Spectrum: That’s mostly game state.
Boggy: What do you mean?
Spectrum: I mean if it was nil-nil Barnet would be doing most of the work. When it was nil-nil they were dominant, right? Now they’re winning so they are holding us at arm’s length. The raw stats might say we’ve had more shots and possession but that’s because Barnet have already done enough to win. Does that make sense?
Boggy: I think so. Ryan Jack has been very good. Spraying passes all around, and for the last few minutes Barnet’s big new signing has been following him around like a puppy. Ryan, you’ve got a friend.
Spectrum: That’s clever, though. Mark Ryan and we don’t have much quality.
Boggy: Mark Ryan. Who’s he? Oh, I see what you mean. Harrison tries a cross – headed away. It falls to an amber shirt. Hoofed away, anywhere will do! That tells you what the game state is. He could have taken the ball forward but he chose to welly it.
Spectrum: Everyone’s tired. They’re all suffering. Both sides.
Boggy: Eighty-eight minutes on the clock. Green. Fierce. Adams. Aff with the ball on the left. Ryan Jack shows but he’s marked. Aff hesitates. No options! A very weary Max Best jogs forward. Aff squares it. Best looks to shoot – too far out, surely? He slips slightly, stumbles, regains his balance, nice ball to the right. Harrison with a better cross! Lyons was close to that! Was that the chance? It’s rolling out of the penalty box. Chester push forward to stop the right back clearing. Aff’s up, Adams pushes on.
Spectrum: No!
Boggy: That’s, er, no! The right back didn’t touch it. He left it for his keeper. The goalie came out of the area, dribbled back in. He’s allowed to pick it up! He launches it. It’s gone miles! Who’s – Barnet’s fast winger is tearing after it. Where’s Best? He’s on his haunches in the other half. He can barely watch. He knows what’s coming – we all do. Here comes the third… Does it? Yes! Taylor slots past Sticky with ease. Wow! What a break. That was so, so clever from the right back and the goalie.
Spectrum: Suckered us into the press and went long. Shit. Wow. That’s it. Title’s gone. Title’s gone.
Boggy: Barnet are cock-a-hoop. They know they’ve been in a hell of a game today and they know they’ve knocked the stuffing out of this Chester side. If we meet again in the playoffs, Barnet will be heavy favourites. It’s three goals for Barnet, three points for Barnet, three points for Grimsby, and Chester slip back to twenty points behind. Twenty points, Spectrum. That’s that, isn’t it?
Spectrum: That’s that. We need to lick our wounds. Find a way to build the players back up. This is a kick in the teeth.
Boggy: A few minutes to go but it’s all over bar the shouting. Chester one, Barnet three, ninety of the most gruelling minutes you’ve ever seen.
***
The final whistle went and I slipped into a crouch and closed my eyes. Twenty points behind. Although my players had competed hard, we had been outplayed for the most part. Our title charge was not mathematically over, but I couldn’t deny reality. Would we finish third? I was pretty sure we would. Finish third, playoff semi-final, then we would face this Barnet team at Wembley.
I had signed Sharky hoping he would make a difference for us at the end of the season, but Barnet had signed a guy who could make a difference already. I thought I’d cowed him, but he had simply been biding his time. Good player, great resolve. Sharky was on 500 a week and this guy was trousering three thousand three hundred. Barnet and I didn’t go to the same shops. I walked over to the guy.
“Hey,” I said, offering my hand. He shook it. “You were amazing. Well done.”
“Er, thanks,” he said.
That was all the energy I had for conversation. Just one problem – with Sandra away, I had to speak to the media. The chance of me saying something I regretted – about Chipper, about the fans, about the referee – was one hundred and one percent, with a one percent margin of error.
***
I stood in the corridor, mentally drained, not sure what to do. Quick shower before the interview? Or do it muddy to show how hard we had battled? Or have a shower and scrape some mud on me to have the best of both worlds?
While I was standing there, torn between three equally valid options, the frozen man, someone took me by the elbow and pushed. I fell into step and eventually realised it was MD.
“Sorry,” I said. The guy had let me take the club right to a financial cliff edge. Slightly past it, even, and I’d spaffed the money on Chipper. My analysis of the season was way off, and for once that wasn’t me catastrophising.
“Shush you,” he said, sounding so like a Mancunian it made me laugh.
“Hold up,” said someone from behind. Physio Dean handed MD a few sachets of marathon paste and a water bottle.
“Thanks, Dean.”
“Why do you need those?” I asked, and MD frowned when he realised I wasn’t joking.
He dragged me through a couple of sets of double doors and we found ourselves in our medical room. Pretty much the first space I’d entered when I’d come to Chester the first time. It was where I’d met Livia, Dean, Magnus Evergreen, and some of the players. It was Jackie Reaper’s way of making me feel special, and it had worked. I always felt special in there.
“Max,” said MD as he pulled a chair and pushed me into it. He repeated the trick and sat facing me. “I’m your boss. It’s time for your mid-season review.”
“What.”
He tore the top off a paste sachet and handed it to me. “Do I get the sense you are dismayed, distraught, embarrassed?”
“Why would I be embarrassed?”
“Because when you went full Max at the Fans Forum we were twenty points behind and we’re still twenty points behind but today we’re even further behind on goal difference.”
“Oh,” I said. “I wasn’t until just now. Yes, I feel embarrassed. Mostly I’m humiliated. Our title charge lasted two and a half games. That is cringe on toast.”
MD nodded for a while. “Okay, I hear that’s how you feel, but it’s not cringe on toast. It’s not. We scored three perfectly good goals. We went for their throats and it was only the ref… I know you don’t like hearing it but he pulled our pants down today. Regardless, we’re just not going to steamroller the National League.”
“I’ve got the steamroller blues.”
“You’re a very forward-thinking person.” One of the new physios came in with Andrew Harrison. “Not now,” said MD. They turned right around. “Forward-thinking. And that’s great. That works. But we’re going to take a minute now to look back. When you arrived here in your little wheelchair – why was that again?”
The past was cloudy. I’d got myself smashed up somehow. “Can’t even remember.”
“When you came here we were about to plummet through the bottom of tier six into tier seven. Now you’re gunning for Grimsby.”
“Gunning for Grimsby. That’s great. Write that down.”
“We’ve got Brooke selling tickets – three and a half thousand today! She’s getting more commercial revenue. We’ve got the, er, option of stadium naming rights. Now that’s cringe on toast, but we’ve got the option. We didn’t always have companies who wanted to be associated with us. And just this week we eased into another Cheshire Cup final. I know it’s not the barometer you want but we’re making short work of all these teams who used to give us problems. Another final, Max! And another titanic top-of-the-table clash against an excellent team. You felt like this after Kidderminster, right? You were all depressed and Mancunian about it. And we won the league by miles while you went off for a couple of jollies. Today is the same. It’s a bump in the road.”
The paste was helping. Giving me some brain food. “It’s not quite the same. We’re not secretly on the right path. It’s like we’re in a plane and we’ve tapped the instrument thingy and we’re flying five thousand feet lower than we thought. We’re going to struggle in the playoffs.”
“Please listen to yourself. We’re going to struggle in the playoffs. We might lose at Wembley. That’s actually amazing.” He held a hand up. “I know. That’s the kind of defeatist mentality that got us into trouble in the first place. I know. But you know I’m right. Our budget is a third of Grimsby and Barnet’s. They’ve got three times as much money on the pitch and what I saw today was that we got pretty close. The difference was that our loan star was banned and theirs was on the pitch. Does that sound right? It’s so close. It’s fine margins. It’s nothing to be depressed about. It’s something to be proud of. You’re doing well.” He smiled. “And when you sprinted and took the guy out… mwah!” He did a chef’s kiss. “You won back five hundred fans doing that and five hundred more when you went over to the other side of the pitch and took care of that guy, too.” He grinned. “Please keep a sense of perspective. You are doing great. Everyone can see the progress. Even I can. We had two competitive teams on the pitch this week. Tuesday to Saturday, two amazing teams. I couldn’t pick our best eleven from what we’ve got.”
I let out a slight smile. “Yeah, you could.”
He checked his watch. “You need to talk to the papers. But listen. I have two instructions for you. Well, one instruction and one idea.”
“Let’s start with the idea,” I said, eyes narrowed. MD rarely abused his position as my boss by trying to boss me around. It was a good system.
“If I understand it, the title is off? We’re going for the playoffs?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, the fatigue in my legs trebling.
“You’ve got some time, then, to spend with the players. Shower the people you love with love. Like Sharknado.”
I perked up. MD had always refused to use the nickname. “Like who?”
“Like Sharknado,” he said, twinkling. “You already spend time with William. What about doing a winger masterclass with Sharky and Andrew Harrison? A morning with the Exit Triallists? Work on moves with Magnus. That sort of thing. From what I’ve heard, the players really respond when you spend time with them. The next few weeks seem like a good time to do that. No takeovers, no transfers, no particular need to go scouting. And no pressure to attack every game like it’s the World Cup final. You could get up close and personal.”
“Okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
“The other thing is Chipper. It seems you feel let down and you’re ready to bin him off.”
“Yep. Just need to find a bin with all spikes inside.”
MD didn’t laugh. “As you know, during my time volunteering at Chester I have only ever been the managing director of a non-league team. We’ve had some big personalities but nothing like you’re going to get in your career. I personally have no doubt you’ll manage at the highest level, and the highest level means the highest level of talent, which means…” He struggled to find the right word.
“Twats,” I said, helpfully.
“Quite. Now, since we don’t need to rush headlong at every match, let’s treat it as an opportunity. A slightly more relaxed pace – okay, that’s good for my blood pressure, too – where you build up your players and find a way to manage this difficult person you’ve hired. Because don’t forget, Max, he earned us six points in his first two games.”
“Four,” I said. “We would have got two. Six minus two is four. And he cost us a point today.”
“So he’s plus three, net. That’s not bad, I think. Look, even if you can’t get through to him and the move turns into the disaster you fear, you’ll learn a lot just by trying. Won’t you? Even if you can only use him as a sub – I mean, no disrespect to Ziggy but he’s not going to score in the playoff final, is he?” He made a few clicking noises and nodded to himself. He stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “My ears are still ringing. I love being a Chester fan, Max! I love it. And I’m not the only one. I was talking to Crackers and he was saying the same.”
Crackers was a blind fan who had been on the board when I was trying to get hired. “I feel bad for him. It’s been quiet recently.”
MD frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? Today was deafening. Didn’t you hear it? When you started running around kicking people up the arse there was absolute bedlam. I thought I saw the roof shake. They could probably hear the cheers for all three of our goals from Wrexham.” He sighed. “Talk to the media. It’s just advice but don’t say anything controversial. We’ll take a pause, you’ll work with the players, and we’ll smash the playoffs, just like you said.”
“I said we’d win the league. That’s why you gave me the funds for Christian Fierce.”
“I gave you the funds because you created them and because he strengthens the team. How many headers did he win today? Ten?”
“Eight,” I said, without thinking. It was a bad habit I had of spitting out hyper-accurate match data. But then again: fuck it. “Seven out of ten match rating. Sixty-four percent pass accuracy. Four tackles. All right. All right… Good. Yeah, okay, thanks. This was good. I feel better. Hey! You’re good at this.”
MD leaned back and looked up for a few seconds. “I’ve had some experience. You know, I’ve even been in your shoes. My company and a rival were working on similar products. They beat us to market and we were dismayed. Distraught. Embarrassed. We worked so hard and it seemed like it was all for nothing. But the company that got there first, their product is off the market, now. And ours is the market leader. Turned out, they cut corners. We did it right. It paid off.”
“Barnet are doing it right. We’re doing it right. Alty, Rochdale, and Oldham are doing it right. We can’t all win.”
MD beamed, his biggest smile of the meeting, and got to his feet. I looked up at him as he gave me a friendly push on the shoulder. “That’s why really smart people don’t get involved in football.”
“You’re involved in football.”
“I know! Now take some advice, one dimwit to another. Go and give the most boring post-match interview in history!”
“Put them to sleep after four minutes. Yeah… Okay. I know what to do. Have you got a guitar?”
