14.

"Watch out for that first step, it's a doozy!" Ned Ryerson, Groundhog Day

***

Monday, April 14

5:59 turned to 06:00. I Got You Babe played on the radio; I leapt out of bed, ran to get a piano lesson, carved an ice sculpture, and caught a boy who was falling from a tree. Pretty much my usual routine every time I won a league.

I'd won two in two days! After beating Gateshead on the Saturday I had watched the women record their second 8-0 win of the season. They hadn't mathematically won the league - Cheadle could overhaul them if we lost and Cheadle won their final game of the season 30-0. I didn't think there was anyone in Cheadle looking at the final fixture and the league table and thinking 'could we?'

Nah, it was all in the bag. Job done!

Sandra had sent me loads of texts worrying about complacency. I replied:

Complacency? I don't know the meaning of the word!

She told me, through the medium of emojis, that she would like me to address the issue. She was going to be in charge for the Cheshire Cup final tomorrow night and a repeat of last year's victory against Crewe would be a real feather in her cap. Losing it because the squad were mentally checked out - add 'on the beach' to your football glossary - would be the worst way to lose it.

I sent a text to Pascal asking him to suggest during the meeting that since we were all but promoted, could he have a new contract? He said it was a strange request but that he would do it if it meant he finally got the twenty quid rise everyone else got during the takeover battle.

The squad was all present and correct for the weekly planning meeting and it's fair to say Morale was high. There were more maximums than Torvill and Dean at Sarajevo '84. There were more maximums than at a darts final. There were more maximums than in a quadratic equation.

"Good morning," I said, in a voice lacking in energy. "Good result at the weekend." Cheers. Yeahs. One whoop. I frowned. Scowled, even. "All right so we beat Gateshead but now it's time - "

"We drew," said someone, but that didn't fit with how I felt about the outcome so I ignored it and ploughed on. "It's time to think about this week. Two big games. Cup final tomorrow, Ebbsfleet United on Saturday."

About nine people replied at the same time. "It's Friday, boss!" "It's Easter weekend, boss!" "Matches Friday and Monday, boss!"

"Fine, Christ, relax. I'll buy you some Cadbury's Mini Eggs. Just stop going on about it, holy shit. It's Friday Monday instead of Saturday Tuesday. It's the same. Scratch that, it's better for us because we rotate and don't need as much rest. Oh, Pascal, you had your hand up."

"I did? I did." He stood and performed the text I had sent him. He had memorised it and to me it seemed all kinds of fake, but the winces and cringe from the other players, the way they shrank into their necks as he spoke, made me think Pascal's delivery sounded like his normal self. "I understand you are going to be discussing next year's budget with MD today. Since we are going to the EFL I can now freely sign a new contract and I would like to open talks on a new deal that properly reflects my value to the team."

I gave him a death stare for the ages; he sat down. "We're going to the EFL?" I glanced at Sandra and we shared a disgusted look. My lips fell into a snarl that I just barely controlled. "The EFL? Says who? You think we've achieved something? We've done nothing, mate. Nothing. If the season ended right now we would get fuck all. If I died they'd write on my headstone, this guy never won the National League and couldn't even afford a headstone." Youngster started to put his hand up but thought better of it. I stewed for a few seconds - the lads looked suitably cowed. "If you think being second in the league is gonna get you some sort of medal, go and get your heads fucking checked. We've done nothing, we are nothing. The season starts today, mate. Tomorrow's a cup final. Are we gonna fucking prepare for that or are we gonna have a sleepover and paint each other's toenails?"

Pascal shot to his feet. "I apologise! I will double my efforts!"

I looked at him like he was a huge bird poop on my windscreen. "You're lucky Sandra's picking the team. Now shut the fuck up and listen to her. All right? I've got to go run a football club."

There was a general shuffling as the lads sat up straighter, more alert, more focused. I gave Sandra a curt nod and I left the room shaking my head. I thought about kicking something but that would have been too much. I settled for closing the door a little more forcefully than normal.

A few strides away, I fell into a lazy shuffle, broke out a grin, and sent a couple of texts.

To Pascal: Thanks! That was perfect. I'll give you a big raise on condition you take acting classes.

To Sandra: There you go! Piece of piss. I am the greatest motivator of all time. Bosh!

***

I strutted all the way to the stairs and was about to go up when I had another idea. I called Brooke - she was up in my office already. I asked her to come down for a second.

"Watch out for that first step!" I said, in the annoyingly cheerful way of Ned Ryerson in the movie Groundhog Day. "It's a doozy! I've seen dozens of people trip on it."

"You're in a good mood," she said, checking me out.

"No, I'm not. I'm really, really angry." I gave her the toothy smile of a Photoshopped cat. "What does doozy mean, anyway? I assume it's American."

"It's like, unusually good or bad. I took a doozy of a photo. I had a doozy of a job interview at the soccer club."

I smiled at the memory of our first meeting. "Would you be a doozy and please go to Best's Bistro and get a coffee?"

"I got one a couple minutes ago."

"Oh, get me a tea, then. I'll follow in a second. You and I will do some acting."

Surprisingly, she was into it. "What's my role?"

"Your role is to react naturally, so just go with the flow. I'll be there in a second."

Brooke was intrigued, but got her face back to neutral and strode out. I counted to twenty and followed.

Patricia was chatting to Brooke while Pete made a cup of tea. I pretended not to know it was for me. "Pete, can I get one too, please?"

"That's for you," said Brooke.

I was staring into space, doing some more great scowl-face. "What? Oh, thanks."

"Great result on Saturday, Max!" said Pete, as he jiggled the tea bag. "You must be buzzing."

"Buzzing," I mumbled, as I visualised one of the many things in the world that made me furious. That time I was thinking about the way famous gammons sometimes made good points I agreed with. "Yeah, buzzing."

Brooke shot Patricia a worried look - perfect! - and said, "Are you okay, Max?"

"I'm just a bit livid. Just a bit livid."

"Anything I can help with?"

"Nah, nah." I made a superhuman effort to come out of my funk. "Might need to make an example of someone. Enjoy the weekend, yeah, then it's back to work." I picked up a napkin and started carefully tearing it into strips. "Go for one of the big dogs. Make them feel no-one's safe. Or Game of Thrones it. Someone they least expect. One of the kids. Know what I mean?"

"Not really."

I scrunched the napkin up and threw it into the nearby bin. "See who trains the worst. Bin them off for the rest of the season. Fucking come to work, be ready to work," I chuntered, as I stormed back towards my office, tea forgotten. A minute later, Brooke came through the doors and I took the tea from her. I sipped it. "Ah! That's the spot!"

Brooke gave me a doleful look. "Was all that really necessary?"

"Yep." I beamed, took the first step with exaggerated care, and we went up and into my office for the big budget meeting. Lots of numbers. Numbers go up!

***

Brooke and MD took seats by my desk. While standing I picked up the old-fashioned phone I had found in a second-hand shop. It wasn't plugged into anything. "Aisha," I said into the mouthpiece. "Buy plastics. Sell aggregates. Cancel my four o'clock. Find out how much statues of footballers cost." I hung up and did a tiny dance. "Look at Max, he's the best," I sang. "Best at songs, best at dress." I laughed and went back to my normal speaking voice. "I've been thinking about my statue. I think it should be animatronic. Me doing this." I bopped.

MD smiled and crossed his legs. "You're in a good mood. You're confident of our chances, then."

I laughed for the hundredth time that morning. "There's no room for complacency!" I gave the chair a big spin and peered at MD. "I'm on top of the world. I'm in dreamland. I'm the happiest bunny who ever hopped. I'm so happy nothing anyone could say could possibly put me in a bad mood!" I flopped into the chair. "So, MD, let's talk about next season's budget."

It was his turn to laugh. "Can't we do some small talk? Are you fit for the final? I heard you got a few knocks. How are your ankles?"

"They look like Tutankhamun's dick," I said. I clapped my hands. "Let's numberwang! Hit me!"

MD got shifty for a second, then summoned up some courage and pulled two slim A4 binders out of his case. "Let's start with what happens if we stay in the National League."

I groaned and looked up at the ceiling. "Let's not! You know why? Because that isn't Scenario B or C or Z, it's Scenario Null. We live in a simulation and if you read out any of those numbers it'll be like releasing a virus into the mainframe. Okay? Those numbers don't exist. They aren't real. They're figments."

MD's moustache would have trembled if he had one. "This is your idea of not being complacent?"

"Brooke told me about a great book. It says you have to only write what you want and you will definitely summon it into being. What was it called? Oh, yeah. The Secret."

"I didn't," she said, to MD. It was interesting she cared about his opinion. He was a sucker working for his local sports team for free in his spare time but she respected him.

"Scenario A," I said, clapping my hands and rubbing them hard. "Here we go. This is it. This is the big one. Max Best's Christmas. Will it be a hundred K a week? Two hundred? Oooh the tension!"

MD made a big show of getting control of his face before slipping his useless document back into his case. He opened the other one. The real one. "May I present, your majesty, the estimated budget for our inevitable ascent into the English Football League Two."

"Yes, please."

A lot of numbers would be thrown around in the next few minutes but the key one was my budget for the first team squad. For the current season that number was 22,000 pounds a week. I was actually over budget but that was because I'd used some of the Raffi Brown money to cover Christian Fierce's future wages, and had used the extra money we had generated on our FA cup run to pay for Chipper.

MD said, "As requested, I've done it without what you call 'the TV money'."

Brooke stirred. "Sorry to interrupt. I know you're desperate to get to the point, Max, but this makes no sense to me. Why are we taking a million pounds out of the budget?"

"The prune juice effect," I said.

"Ah," said MD, smiling. He looked at me with fractionally higher respect, even though, as Manager of the Month for March I was objectively the greatest living Englishman and greater respect should have been impossible.

"Is anybody gonna explain that?" said Brooke.

"There's this guy called Alan Sugar," I said. "He got rich - great story - and for a while he owned Tottenham."

"Hold up. Now you have to tell me what's so great about his story."

I smiled. I was getting further and further away from hearing the magic number but I was in such a good mood it didn't affect me. "Okay. He had a tech company in the 80s. 70s? 70s and 80s maybe. It was going okay until one of his engineers cobbled together a tape-to-tape recorder. I'm not sure I'm saying it right but it's like you can put a filled cassette in one side and a blank one in the other and copy paste. So MD would go to his local music shop and buy a Pet Shop Boys cassette and the latest from, er, New Order. He goes home, copies the tape, gives the girl he likes the originals. Bosh!"

"The Cure, Max," said MD, inexplicably.

"Okay so Alan Sugar has this killer product, right? But how can he market it? Its primary use is to do something illegal - copy music. But he was a wily old fox in those days, so he slaps a big warning sticker on the box. Do not use this product to copy music!"

"Genius," said Brooke.

"Right? What's a better explanation of what the product does? It's amazing marketing. He made hundreds of millions."

MD raised his voice. "Max! How do you know all these things?"

I scoffed. "You think I'm overworked, and I am. I train, I do a meeting, I check the youth teams in the evening, do some scouting. That's a busy day but it still leaves eight hours of dead time. Movies, TV shows, podcasts, books. I'm powering through autobiographies. Sugar's was a lot of fun." I looked at Brooke. "Okay so prune juice economics. Imagine Grimsby spend five million a year on players and whatnot. If you give them another million, how much will they spend on players?"

Brooke got a playful look about her. "Six million."

"Right. Money goes in, and like prune juice, goes straight through."

"Vivid," she said.

"Yeah. I don't like prune juice." I shuddered at the thought of the stuff. Bleurgh. "Okay so let's hear the plain numbers and then there's a million left that we can try to use to avoid the money going straight through into player wages otherwise we're never going to get anywhere."

MD flipped back and forth between a couple of pages. Finally, he settled on one. "Brooke and I have agreed on a target turnover of 3.5 million. That makes assumptions along the lines of selling out the stadium for every home match and hammering food and drink sales. It includes optimistic but attainable commercial revenues. It doesn't include the TV money, doesn't include player sales, doesn't include cup runs, and excludes a few items we can discuss momentarily. Assuming a player wage to turnover ratio of 45% - an amount that will not bankrupt the club - your player budget would rise to a hair over 30,000 pounds per week." He slid the document across the desk.

Fucking MD knew how to kill a vibe all right. The prick did this to me every year. Every year I found myself head down on my desk. If there had been a piano nearby I would have smashed into it with my forehead like the guy from Sesame Street. "Note to self," I mumbled. "Get a piano."

"Max!" said MD, spreading his arms. "You wanted the numbers without the TV money! With that, it's closer to 40,000. Almost double what you have now."

I stayed in my position for a while, trying to cling on to some of the joyous feeling of the weekend. "Brooke. See that paper under my ear? Can you get it?"

She did - pulling it much harder than was ladylike, in my opinion - and read the title of the page. "League Two gross wages per week. It's a list of the 24 clubs in League Two. At the top we've got Wrexham paying 113,000 a week for players."

"Triple what we have," I mumbled. "Triple again. Grimsby and Barnet again. Groundhog Day."

Brooke went on. "There are several clubs in the 90,000 a week range: Gillingham, MK Dons, Bradford City. The rest of the league slides down through the eighties, seventies, all the way down to 35,000."

"Accrington," I said. "We would be poorer than the poorest team. Blowing our TV money would shoot us up the table to a princely 23rd out of 24."

Brooke scanned the numbers looking for comfort and found none. "Mike, can't we loosen the purse strings just a little? He can't perform miracles every year."

MD looked away, but looked back at her. "I'm sorry, Brooke, but I can't risk the club's future. Not even for Max."

"It's okay," I lied, slowly unfolding myself. "I mean, I agree with that." I rubbed my temples. "Maybe we have to do a consolidation season. Fuck." I squashed my eyes closed. "I was hoping for sixty. With sixty I could fuck things up. Thirty is nothing. That covers my pay rise."

"The TV money, Max."

"The prune juice, MD."

Brooke got in between us. "What do you mean exactly, Max?"

"I mean, okay, we might have to put the money into wages just to survive but from my point of view, that's just burning the money. There's nothing left over when it's gone and you might as well stay in a lower league. If it’s young players, it’s already better. The first thing I did when I took over here was I signed Pascal to a long-term contract and I signed Youngster. That was the kind of long-term planning this club hadn't been doing and look at them now. They're killing the National League. One's playing for his country, one's a true ally in the dressing room. He's young but I see him taking a leadership position before he's, like, 22. Then, here, this section." In the Expenditure part of MD's proposal, there was an entry called 'Light and Heat'. The number had plummeted since I took over. "The solar panels. They're paying off, big time. I want to do more things like that."

"Reduce the cost base."

"Right. I'm looking at this line. Rates and water. When we build new stands I want to put in huge water tanks in any space that doesn't get used. We'll collect water from the roof, store it, use it. Boom. Savings. But that's years from now. Just, er, just give me a second. This has been a bit of a shock, to be honest." I got up - my ankles suddenly hurt like an absolute bastard - and went to look out the window. The players weren't out from the planning meeting yet. I wondered what Sandra was cooking up. "I suppose we'll save some money the season after next when we fully move out of BoshCard."

"That's true," said MD, trying to be encouraging.

What could I do with a budget of 30,000? I stopped moping and went to my desktop and opened up a private, password-protected spreadsheet hidden in a folder called 'Positive Media Mentions'. My hope was any hackers would think the folder was just me being a narcissist and wouldn't open it. Just to be sure, I had actually collected a lot of newspaper articles and YouTube videos and whatnot. You know, to help me hide the important file. I wasn't stupid enough to write CAs and PAs in there, by the way.

I copy pasted the current state of the squad and started deleting players and editing weekly wages. I told the others what I was doing.

"Sticky won't stay for less than two grand. For all I know he's agreed a deal already but he's a pretty open guy; I think he'd have told me. Let's put him at two grand. Glenn's got an offer. Let's say he's out on loan."

"Pardon me?" said MD. I ignored him.

"Carl and Aff are sold. Cut them. I'll have to see if Vivek will move to Saltney or West. I'd fucking love to give him an appearance in the Chester first team but I don't think it can happen in the next two years and I can't carry his wages. Kidderminster like Steve. Eastleigh will take Wisey back. Ziggy and Chipper are gone. I need my pay rise or I'll go mental. Bit more for Wes, Wibbers, Pascal. Shit, Henri needs more. That's already 22,000 including no bumps for the Brig and Sandra. This year's entire budget to keep the same squad with eight fewer players. That's grim. Okay so that's a squad of 20. We can ease Dan Badford into the first team squad I suppose. He's miles off but he's so talented I think he'll improve. But he's the only one of the youth team who can step up to League Two this season."

"What about Noah Harrison?" said MD.

"I told you! He's not going to make it. So 21 players. Bring two high quality lads in at two to three grand, leaves me space for two from the Exit Trials. What am I missing? We need a reserve centre back and a right back. If I'm lucky that will be the same person. A Carl type. If money's this tight we have to throw Sticky into goal and hope he improves very, very quickly. He might but that's a dodgy ten games at the start, isn't it, until he catches up to Ben? Brooke, MD, we are going to be very reliant on Magnus so whatever happens we need to schmooze him. Make him feel special. I'm deadly serious about that." I inhaled and stared at the cells. "Loads of left backs. What do we do with Lucas Friend? He doesn't have a pathway. Saltney? Need another central midfielder. Box to box goalscorer. We've actually got guys who can play left mid: Sharky, Pascal, Josh Owens. We could get by without replacing Aff, though we'll never really replace Aff. Tom will be a good League Two striker but I'd want at least one other experienced forward. Okay so centre back, right back, centre mid, striker."

I closed my eyes and calculated what would happen if I put out a 4-1-4-1 with the squad I'd described plus a couple of guys with CA 80. A couple of weeks into the season we would be around CA 71. My reckoning of League Two was that it normally ranged between CA 75 and 90.

"We would be closer to being competitive on Day One than we were in the National League, so that's positive. And this National League was brutal. If the NL is overpowered, League Two has to be relatively weaker. Give me a second."

I went through my mental notes on the strengths of League Two teams. Wrexham were going to be promoted into League One, which wasn't good for our fans but was good for me. They were distorting the league, big time. There were a gaggle of good teams in League Two but four would get promoted out before we got there. My real worry was the teams dropping down from League One. The weakest of the likely candidates for the drop were Crewe; our Cheshire rivals were fifty-fifty to go down. It was always hard to gauge their CA because they rotated a lot and used young players but I was sure that if our facilities were up to scratch, we could catch them in CA terms by the halfway point in the season.

I hadn't scouted League Two much in recent months, but CA 71 would put us within a few points of about six of the poorest teams; a very solid platform. Perhaps we would go hard at those easy games and get scrappy in the ones against the big boys. It was perfectly possible, depending on the fixture computer, that we would start next season slightly better than we had this one, and this one was three games away from being one of the best in Chester's history. Most of my squad still had plenty of room to grow.

"Okay," I said, feeling much calmer. "30,000 is shit but if we can keep everyone more or less happy with small pay rises, pick up two quality free transfers, a juicy Exit Triallist and two stars from Brazil, we could have a super talented team. I manage the shit out of them and everyone kicks on, we could creep into the playoffs. Or if things go well with the training we could get pretty good pretty quickly. It depends who I find but if I can only get prospects instead of starters, it'll be tight at first. We will have almost no wriggle room. If Christian gets injured, or Henri, or Pascal... If Cole or Josh or Tom decide they're big stars and need a big pay rise, if one of the new signings turns out like Chipper, if Sandra or Sticky decide I'm not paying enough..." I shook my head.

"Don't forget you," said MD. "You're worth twenty points a season on the pitch."

"The more I play, the more I get kicked. I want to build a team that can win without me because otherwise we're hoping I'm fit and hope is not a strategy. I think we'll have a good team and I might be needed to fill in at different positions when we've got injuries and suspensions. League Two's another step up in terms of managers, by the way. It's another level of tactics, of reactions, of planning, of execution. It's tiring! You're thinking of me at Tranmere and yes, I fucking slapped and was Player of the Month as voted by a panel of experts. But player-manager, guys. If I have to play more than twenty minutes we're not going to achieve shit, do you know what I mean?"

"I do, Max. Sorry. I get excited."

I gave MD a friendly finger gun. "No worries. What you're seeing now is me at the end of a season. I'm used to the mental load and I'm more willing to spend more time on the pitch. It's easy to get carried away but I know this summer I'll go right back to square one. Okay, I think that while 30,000 is a nightmarish number, our current squad is so good I could just about make it work. I'm worried we could miss out on some staggering prospects if we stuck rigidly to that number, but we've got the TV money. Let's talk prune juice. The new EFL TV deal is quite good and the solidarity payments from the Premier League are up. All told, that's going to bring in 1.14 million pounds."

MD coughed. "Please don't forget a couple of things."

I had just been getting back to a place of optimism and now he was going to drag me back to the real world! "Mate," I said, elbows on desk, head in hands.

"I like to front load the bad news, Max."

"I noticed."

"But you spent 150,000 pounds of next year's season ticket sales."

"When?"

He smiled. "When you wanted to get the first training pitch at Bumpers Bank built."

"Shit. That sounds familiar."

"It gets worse," said history's greatest villain. I was three pieces of bad news away from curling up into a ball on the floor. "You told me to send 40,000 to Banbury United so that you wouldn't have to worry about William's appearance fees. He isn't close to an England call-up, is he?"

"Not that I know of," I said, into the desk. "Is that it?"

"No. We need to keep 25 K in reserve for Roddy Jones."

I tried to remember the terms of the deal I'd agreed. I sat up so fast I was lucky I didn't tear something. "That's when he turns 16! He'll be 15 next season!"

MD tried to be haughty. "This might be our only year in the EFL. We should syphon off some of the income to pay for these promises you keep making."

"Mike," complained Brooke.

He doubled down. "Max should count himself lucky I'm not withholding the second payment for when the child turns 18! Another twenty-five thousand!"

I tutted. "Forget that. We're not budgeting that this year. We'll be in League One when the first payment is due, for Christ's sake. Stop harshing my buzz. How are we gonna get relegated, dude? That's mental. If we finished, like, 16th it would be the biggest shock since Benjamin Franklin said hey let's put some metal on this kite and let's fly it in a storm. Fuck me, if you mention that again I'm quitting. Right. I've got 1.14 million minus 150 minus 40. What's that?"

"950,000," said Brooke.

"Great. That's loads."

"One moment," said MD. I flopped to the desk again. "Good news, this time. You've forgotten to include incoming transfer fees. Aff and Carl's fees are already spent, but there is Steve Alton and James Wise. What fee did you agree for Wise?"

"24,000," I said.

"Why so low?"

"It's not low, it's double what I paid for him. He'll get a decent wage if he chooses to go. That's good for us."

"How?"

"Because for every Chipper who badmouths us we will have five Sams, Affs, Carls, Steves, and Wiseys who say Chester was the best thing for their career. It'll help us attract ambitious players."

"So for those two players it's another 54,000 pounds. That's not insignificant. And what about the income from cup runs?"

"We've been using it to buy equipment and create a party pot."

MD nodded. "I know but if we are going to get to the third and fourth rounds of the FA Cup every year we should perhaps be more serious with it. For example, half the income goes to the club, half goes to the players as a cash bonus. If you want to incentivise them to take cups seriously, there you go. If they go far enough it could be like getting another couple of month's salary."

I gave the desk a rap of my knuckles. "Awesome. I like that. There's loads of fucking cups in the EFL, isn't there? Yeah, it could add up."

"You're a player, too. You'd get some of it."

"That is a very interesting point you have just made. We'll split the treasure pirate style. Player-manager gets four shares." I picked up my phone. "Aisha. Calculate how much I personally will make from winning the FA Cup." I hung up and clicked my tongue a few times. "Let's go shopping. I've got about a million pounds to spend, right? First up, no negotiation, no discussion, 150,000 for a dental clinic. We rent a space, hire a d-dude and an assistant who also does the admin. Procedures will be priced to make a slight profit in case I die and some ghoul takes over. He won't be able to shut it down if it's profitable. We, the football club, only need to do the capital outlay to buy the chair and some dental hooks and that light they shine right in your eyes for some fucking reason. 150 and we're up and running." I wasn't sure if the curse would rate the clinic as part of our medical setup and make it easier for us to attract players, but to a very large extent I didn't give a shit. I would take care of my staff, the end. "I do think it'll help attract talent, though. Later, when we've got permanent buildings instead of cabins, we'll move the clinic to Bumpers Bank and players and their families will be able to pop in and get a quick filling or whatever. Bosh. Any questions?"

"No, Max," said MD. "Part of me wishes you would use the money on a striker, but I think it's a good investment. It's very community-minded and there's plenty of money left. I approve."

"Top," I said. "You won't like the next one."

MD groaned.

I fished around my desk for some printouts. One sheet had some photos, another had some graphs and charts. I kept them to myself for a moment while I looked at MD's proposed budget. "This line here. Hotels, travel, and subsistence. That's the cost of taking our teams on away trips, right?"

"Yes," said MD. "The men's first team will have a lot of early starts, late matches in London, that sort of thing. I've based it on our costs plus data gleaned from calling colleagues whose teams were promoted from the NL to L2."

"Oh, I'm sure it's about right," I said. "450,000. Okay so what I'm about to pitch is this year's version of the solar panels but with a less certain payout. I think it'll be good but I can't be sure of the exact sums. So..."

I laid out the printouts in front of them. They leaned in to peer, both frowning deeply.

"What's this?" said Brooke.

I inhaled, ready to fight my corner. "That is our new team bus." I had paid a guy on the internet twenty dollars to do a quick Photoshop job for me. The team bus was all white, gleaming, with a huge Chester crest near the back. It was staggeringly beautiful. To me, anyway. "I've been thinking about what car I want to get when The Duchess dies. It can't be too expensive because, you know. And I don't know why it took so long but suddenly I realised - it should be electric. Hybrid, maybe, because there are days I drive a lot. But we've got a huge solar array; we are one of the biggest power plants in Cheshire. I'd love to buy, like, five little Chester-branded Smart cars - you know those little ones? - for staff to zip around Chester running errands. We will do that one day, next year maybe, but for now this is what I want."

"An electric team bus?" said MD.

"Yeah. These things are 300,000 pounds. Ish. 450 mile range, so that's almost everywhere. Could be we can't use it for Norwich or Brighton or something but it goes to London easy enough. We arrive a bit early, plug it in, and by the time we've finished the match, showered, and eaten, it's charged. Once we've bought this, we stop paying fuel costs. If we teach Youngster to drive it, we don't even need to pay a driver. Er, that was a joke, Mike. Don't get ideas. On Saturday the men's team use it. We go home. Sunday, the women's team use it. Tuesday, the men's team. If the 18s have a match, if there's a Friday night match - you get the idea. We use the hell out of this bad boy. The vehicle should last ten years and I'm pretty sure we're going to make bank over that timescale but I couldn't get hard data. We might be a trailblazer on this one but I'm happy to be the guy who says, fuck it, let's take a shot because when our fans see this bastard driving around the streets they're going to freak out. When the women pull up to some shithole in our superbus they're going to feel superhuman. This is an evolution on what we are. This is progression. Look at the detail - the seats are like Premier League dugout seats. It's luxurious. Okay, Premier League coaches are nicer but this is going to be the sexiest thing in League Two by miles."

I waited for some sort of reaction but they were both staring from me to the photos.

"So, look, maybe it works out very slightly more expensive than what we currently do, though I can't believe that's true when you factor in the women and the kids will use it and we've already got the solar panels, but it's such an upgrade for the players. If we've got a three-hour trip we're going to feel twice as good on this as on the current bus. It's a ten-year investment. Actually I think in five years we'll buy a new one but we'll still use this for other stuff. Maybe we'll use it to bring fans to away games, I don't know. For me it's all positive - global boiling, mate! - the only thing is if we miss out on the playoffs by one point and someone goes 'typical snowflake, shoulda bought a striker instead of that electric crap'."

Still they didn't say anything. I found myself floundering, trying to explain myself. The problem was I'd been thinking about it for months and my thoughts were extremely positive but jumbled up.

"You have to think that the players are the talent. This is a talent industry. What can you do to keep your talent happy? You do everything! Youngster. Wibbers. Pascal. When they see we've got an electric coach they're going to be proud of it! Okay, it's 300,000 up front that we need for loads of other things and half the TV money is gone already but this is a statement. This says Chester are back. This is epic." I trailed off when saying the last three words, which defeated the point.

Brooke frowned. "Three hundred up front?"

I kept explaining like an absolute loon. "I've got a nickname for it already: The Dopemobile. Er, because it's dope. I was thinking we could get Glendale involved in this. If they sponsor the bus for ten grand a year, over ten years that's a hundred K, a third of the cost, and they'll want to sponsor it because I will talk non-fucking-stop about how this was all their idea and I love the bus and I love Glendale and I love having a habitable planet to play football on. Christ, ten grand for that will be the bargain of the century. But I get that in year one it's three hundred out versus ten in. And, yeah. Maybe the financial benefits can't be calculated. Maybe it's mostly intangible. I don't know. I kind of really wish someone would say something."

"I love it," said MD. “Apart from the name. That’s a no-go.”

"Max," said Brooke. "You don't need to spend three hundred up front. Many vehicle companies will let you pay in instalments. I got zero percent finance on my Huntsman."

"Sorry, I don't follow."

"Spread the cost over five, even ten years. If we're paying thirty a year - it'll be more than that but bear with me - and we're saving twenty and making ten in sponsorship... It's good. It's great."

I stood and walked to lean against the filing cabinet like Vimsy. "So... I can get what I want and still have money for other stuff? I mean, it's debt. MD won't let me."

Brooke smiled at me and turned to MD. He nodded. "It's not debt, it's finance. Even if we were relegated we would still save with this. I'd want to check the numbers but I think this is a no-brainer."

The surge of energy was a wild echo of the final whistle on Saturday. Then, I felt a million pounds richer. Now, I felt like I'd suddenly been given 270,000 English pounds. I clapped so hard I would never hear at that frequency again. (Slight exaggeration.) "Whoo! Brooke, any year now I'm going to get you that pay rise. All fucking right!" I heard the clip-clopping of football boots on concrete. I looked out and saw Jude and Well In had left the meeting. The players were probably in the changing room putting their boots on; they would be out shortly.

"Some other investments I want to make. We're going to need some of those electric charging stations in the car park. I have no idea what they cost but we'll need one for the team bus, one for me, and let's just put, like, six more in at random."

"I'll have one," said MD.

"Huh?" I said, in an exaggerated Manga style.

He shrugged. "I might go electric one day."

"Sold!" I said. "Where am I? I've bought a dental clinic and a Dopemobile. I've got 800,000 left. I want to give at least 50 to the women's team. I want to give some to Dean for medical shit. The Brig wants to spend some time this summer learning performance stuff from the Welsh FA. They'll train him for free but we'll need equipment to make use of what he learns, and we need indoor bikes, rowing machines, treadmills, all that cardio stuff plus more weights. I'd love to top up the wages of Inga, Secretary Joe, the match stewards, and all those people. That might not be possible but even if we do a little bit extra every year it'll add up and I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

"I want to put an amount to the side for education. UEFA badges - I need to do my A licence, by the way - referee courses for players who aren't going to make it, just anything that anyone wants to do even if it isn't footy related. I know we can get grants for that kind of stuff but I want to budget for it anyway because that's going to be a big deal for this club. Leave no man behind. Use the whole lemon. I want to hire an editor to bring the match programme to the next level - I don't have the time and motivation to jazz it up myself. There's demand if we do it right so let's do it right. Again, it should break even if the guy's writing website copy and so on, too.

"Yeah, the website. That needs a major fucking overhaul. We need more cameras so we can put unique match highlights on our socials and offer something different to what the TV companies make. We need to grab Sophie, the documentary maker and chain her to a laptop and make her churn out content because she is to video what I am to nutmegs, squad building, haircuts, cheeky grins, and one thing that isn't suitable for polite conversation." I took a breath. "We need a data guy. We need a sports psychologist. Optional: I need a PA who is considered too beautiful to be a model." I closed my eyes, trying to visualise what I was missing. "I mean, Christ, we need some buildings at Bumpers Bank otherwise our training centre is one pitch. Toilets, showers, a room big enough to do our team meetings, storage for our gear, a substantial fence around the whole area.

"The council are going to bring us water, sewage, electricity, and broadband - it's just down the road from the Deva and the pipes are all right there. But we'll need some temporary buildings. We'll need another mobile kitchen, I think. What am I missing? There's something big. Oh! The pitch at Hoole." I looked at Brooke. "Where are we with that?"

She was reeling from my endless list of costs, but she had the detail to hand. "You hoped the 150 we're getting for Carl and Aff would be enough, but I'm afraid it won't be. Many of the grants are one-time deals. I'm reaching out to different charities and organisations but I suggest we plan for the total cost being above 200K. And the third one will be more, and the fourth more, and so on."

I nodded. Getting the pitches for a third of the price was too good to last. "Yeah, no, I expected something like that. We definitely do the one at Hoole, though. So look. Not everything on my list is mega urgent. The sports psychologist is a must, I think, but the data guy could maybe wait a year. I propose we do things one by one and if we've still got loads of cash in January, that's absolutely fine because spoiler alert - we might need it."

"You didn't mention the pitch rental," said Brooke, looking at her own notes. "That could come to 3,000 a week, easily. Enough for a good striker."

I jutted my chin towards MD. "Can you add that to my budget?"

He squirmed. "When it's built and being rented out at the numbers you predict, yes."

I did a big sigh and didn't try to hide it. "By January we should have a few months of data. You'll see the money coming in and you'll bump me by three K. That could be decisive."

MD thought about it. "I can give you a tentative yes on that one."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I tutted again, but Brooke had some much more agreeable news. She was scrawling on a thick notepad; she jabbed a full stop into existence. "I have a couple of factors we haven't considered yet."

"Go on," said MD.

"Grindhog," she said. I groaned, but she pressed on. "If we go with them they are talking about selling 7,000 replica kits. At an average price of 60 pounds with a 7% commission, we would earn in the region of 32,000 pounds. That's enough to cover some pay rises or to recruit another Exit Trial boy. We're still doing that, aren't we?"

"Big time," I said. "We should be able to get the cream of the crop this time." No more sending the best boys to Tranmere. "Only problem is Grindhog are shit."

"Max," said Brooke, almost slumping.

I held up a hand. "They're coming to our next home game, right? We will talk to them after the match."

"Are you going to behave?"

"Yes," I said, because her question was full of loopholes.

"We should get some money from the computer game companies. EA FC and Soccer Supremo. I wouldn't count on it being much but it might pay for the plinth of your statue."

"Plinth," I said, luxuriating in the mouth-feel of the word. "Plinth."

"Another potential outlay is... Can I have some money?" said Brooke.

"Pay rise?"

"No. I mean, yes, please. But I meant something for the marketing budget so we can do slightly bigger projects and plan them farther ahead."

"Oh, sure. Yeah. Good point."

"I'll propose some numbers soon. And I'd like to do a trip on the company's dime."

"Where to?"

"The most valuable women's football club. One that would be perfect as a future transfer destination for Angel."

That was surprising. I hadn't told anyone about Angel going to PSG, but she was in regular contact with Brooke. "Paris."

"Los Angeles, Max. Angel City."

"What's that?"

She laughed. "It's a soccer team, and I'm allowed to say soccer because it's in the States. Angel City was founded by Natalie Portman. They get 20,000 at home matches, they do community projects, it's exactly what you want to do here but on a much, much bigger scale. It was sold for a quarter of a billion dollars - that's more than most Championship teams would fetch. I'd like to invite myself over to study their marketing and learn how they do things."

"Yes, absolutely," I said. "We'll reimburse you for economy class and sleazy motels. We don't have lobster money round here. If you need help with translations I can ask Zach to go with you."

"My last thing, I think," she said, ignoring my comment so completely it was as though I'd never said it, "is about financing the women's team."

I hadn't expected that. "Oh?"

"You were talking about sending them fifty thousand pounds."

I nodded. "We have to keep adding quality so they can power through the leagues. Fifty K barely gets a male Exit Triallist we have to spend years training up but it would get us two She-Hulks. The disparity in price from the men's game to the women's is still absolutely wild."

"And you're not willing to sell the documentary to Netflix or Amazon even though we could get upwards of a million pounds if they were interested."

I gritted my teeth. "What's the point doing it if only eighty-six people watch the doc? Netflix has documentaries about any sport you can think of. It's beyond saturated. Formula One, Footy, NFL, b-ball, running, sliding, swimming, jiggling, Rubik's cubing. I hate the idea that no-one will watch it. If it doesn't get watched then no amount of money is worth it. I don't give a shit how much they might pay us and it's depressing to be reminded of it all the time. There's this British show from the olden days where the host would get the losing contestant and put his arm around him and say, aww, here's what you could have won. Can we just please accept that I'm thinking long-term and I don't need to be reminded of every little pound coin I passed on the way?"

Brooke was unmoved by my rant. "I thought perhaps I might remind you of the million pounds because not ten minutes ago you were lamenting the fact that you lacked a million pounds."

"The women's documentary money goes to the women. Obviously. It won't help the men win League Two."

Brooke gave me a placid look. "You want it on the BBC, ideally. Sophie, Henri, and I went to the BBC for preliminary discussions and they were interested. They don't have much in the way of modern sports documentaries, ah, because one could earn so much more by selling to a streaming service."

Jabbing the wound! "What the fuck."

She nearly smiled, I know she did. She kept talking, though. "The BBC is sprawling and to try to maintain some semblance of cost control it uses a strict matrix to determine how much to pay for content. Our documentary would come under categories FL2 or FL3."

"Naturally," I said.

"I'm sure we would be at the lower end of the range, certainly for season one, but from what I've heard we couldn't be paid below the lowest in the range. FL3 is for a documentary series with a strong narrative."

"That's us!"

"I agree. That pays 170,000 pounds."

"Whoa!" I said, my mood surging to the levels of the morning.

"FL2 is for ‘contemporary and specialist documentary’."

"That's us!"

"I agree. That pays 125,000 pounds as a minimum."

"Huh. I'm guessing the bands are unclear by design."

"Probably."

"Still, 125,000 pounds will make our women's team pretty fucking formidable." I got my calculator out - it was close to 2,500 pounds a week. I could absolutely clean up with that sort of money. Easy ride to tier three!

Brooke made an unusual scoffing noise. I wasn't getting it and I wasn't even close! "Max! Those numbers are per hour. Henri tells me the footage can easily be reordered into eight thirty-minute episodes. Four hours!"

It was like being hit by a truck and reborn as the King of Women's Football. I shot to my feet and stumbled around, overwhelmed by the riches, blinded by the sheer volume of gold. "I can't do the maths!"

"Half a million, Max." Brooke and MD exchanged a smile.

"Ah." I let out a hideous little exclamation of shrivelled joy. "Half a mill! That's like having a budget of fifty million in the men's game! Are you kidding me now? If this is a prank I'm telling you I can't take it."

Brooke was genuinely happy. "If they want it, that's the least you'll get, per their own rules. Early signs are good and Sophie and Henri have done a great job. There's not much to improve. Some background music, maybe. It's more or less good to go. If the BBC don't want it, there's Channel 4. If they don't want it, I hope you'll reconsider the streaming platforms."

"Yeah, sure," I said, dazed. The country's top women's players were being paid about 50 grand a year. With my new bounty I could bring in ten of them. TEN! I mean, I couldn't because they wouldn't come to tier four and they wouldn't tolerate our facilities. But I could absolutely get the best squad in tier four by miles. Miles! "I need to talk to Ruth."

MD perked up. He'd had a crush on Ruth for at least two decades. "Why?"

I shook my head. "I honestly don't think we could spend all that money on the women's team. I could demolish the league and still have half left over. I could get a couple of Exit Trial boys. Build our first permanent building. All sorts. But I sort of promised her I'd keep all the women's income with the women."

Brooke spoke, but seemed uncertain if she should have been saying it. "Sorry, Max, I know you have these high ideals and you mean what you say but, ah, you're the star of that documentary as much as any of the women. Maybe in season two Angel will take over."

"Season two!" I chirped. "Are we going to get half a mill a year for this?"

Brooke stuck her bottom lip out as she considered the question. "If the ratings are good enough, sure. It seems to me like the sort of show that will get spikes of watches every time you're in the news."

"Every week, then," said MD.

My head was spinning. "The women's team subsidising the men. Who'da thunk it? Take that, gammons. Okay, so... There's a bit more cash than I thought. We can go a bit faster than I thought. Half a million. Wow."

It was almost too much money. The men's team would start with the lowest or second-lowest budget in League Two. The women would go into Division One North, as the next league was called, being bankrolled by Auntie Beeb. Super Scout plus a vast budget was literally unfair. I felt bad for the other teams for at least seven seconds.

"What?" said MD.

"We need to hire Elin, the Welsh coach who knows sign language. Right now. Dani loves her, Emma loves her, she's always smiling and willing to learn. She's exactly what we need around here. Oh, do you hear that? Come and watch this!"

The players were strolling out from the bowels of BoshCard, clomping their way towards pitch 3. Patricia called out as the first gaggle walked past her kitchen. She said something, the players asked if she was sure. They looked up at my window (they couldn't see in during the day) while Pete confirmed what Patricia had said. Youngster zoomed towards the pitch, the others copied him, and soon they were all helping Jude and Well In get the session set up.

"Keen, aren't they?" said MD.

"No complacency here," I said, smugging pretty hard. I turned to Brooke. She gave me a mock bow. I said, "Okay. Please get me one dental clinic, one Dopemobile, one sports psychologist, toilets, cabins, another mobile kitchen. Hire Sophie on a permanent basis and pay the documentary crew for the hours they've already put in. Investigate the other things I talked about but hold fire on those until we see what we get from the Exit Trials. Wow. I'm exhilarated. Meeting's over. Thanks for coming bye."

MD went back to his chair and licked his lips. "I'll just leave the Scenario B document here for you to look through. I know you won't need it," he added. "But just in case. Maybe talk to Ruth about moving some of the documentary income to the men's team. Just in case."

I walked around and took the hateful document. I slid it back where it had come from. "Just in case," I said, which got a rare laugh from Brooke.

MD tried to hide a smile. "I do love these budget meetings."

"Mmm," I said. For some reason I was imagining I was in a large dome and people were firing bank notes through tubes and I was dancing around catching the money. "Oh, wait. Brooke. How can we sell a documentary when we don't have a name?"

"We have a name."

"Er, no we don't. I set the names around here."

"That's right," said Brooke. "It's one of yours." She paused to enjoy a few seconds of the agony I felt as I tried and failed to guess what she meant. Finally, she said, "It's going to be called Chesterness."

***

Tuesday, April 15

Cheshire Senior Cup Final: Crewe Alexandra versus Chester FC

The Cheshire Cup was Sandra's gig, and I was happy to let her be properly in charge for the whole event. It was like I had a day off and I loved it. While Sandra and Vimsy did all the admin and coaching and warm ups and whatnot, I pottered around in flip flops and sunglasses - optimistic, given the weather - and did newspaper puzzles and read on my Kindle.

The final was being played in Wincham, 40 minutes from Chester, in the stadium of Witton Albion where Dan Badford was having a great season on loan. Last season, in the same fixture, we had done a marketing blitz and generated a lot of interest. This time we hadn't and it showed in the attendance and how many were listening on Seals Live, but the overall trend was up. Sadly for the atmosphere, Crewe were having a terrible season and were quite likely to get relegated. Would their fans trade a defeat in the cup for three points on Saturday? Absolutely they would, and judging by their team sheet, so would their manager. But more on that in a moment.

My only real contribution to the planning had been to negotiate what team Sandra could name. She surprised me by wanting to do 4-2-3-1. She explained that while 3-4-3 was growing on her, it hadn't looked quite right in our recent matches and she agreed with me that the squad wasn't quite at the levels needed to make it work. She wanted to name the strongest possible team and I was basically happy with that, but I had to take the rest of the season into account. I asked her if she would be okay using Sticky and Glenn, and she said yes instantly. I think she couldn't believe just how strong I was letting her go.

Even with the two changes I'd asked for, our average CA was 64.8.

Sticky would be protected by Eddie, Christian, Glenn, and Carl.

Youngster and Magnus would patrol in front of those guys.

The three CAMs would be Aff, Pascal, and Wibbers. It was interesting to me that she had asked for Will instead of Sharky but she explained that Will was better in the middle and she would ask Aff and Pascal to go out wide and spread our threat. That was sound and demonstrated one major way that Sandra had an advantage over me - she wasn't limited to what the curse screens would allow.

The lone striker was Henri.

On the bench we had Ben, Zach, Josh Owens, Sharky, and me. I didn't really want to play but if the lads weren't suitably motivated I would enter the field and motivate them right in the gob.

In last year's final, Crewe had put out a hybrid team of experienced pros and young guns. Their CA that day had been 65.4 and if they had named the exact same team this would have been a sensational final. But they didn't. Their league crisis meant no first team starters could play - if they didn't win on Saturday they were doomed. The Cheshire Cup was a sideshow. A nuisance. They named their backup goalie, a couple of decent players returning from injury, and loads of their under 21s.

Average CA? 55.

Morale? Three and a half points lower than ours.

It was unlikely to be much of a contest. I spent as much time watching Sandra as the action, wondering if she had improved as a pitch-side manager during her time at Chester and thinking of ways I could help her get to the next level in her personal development.

***

Match report from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.

Author: D.Cox

Chester 3 Crewe 1 - Sandy's Got the Blues... Another Cup!

It was just another case of history repeating as Chester overpowered Crewe in the Cheshire Cup final. Sandy Lane named a very strong team which dominated from the word go. Chester were so on top that when Crewe scored in the twentieth minute, the recent accusations of complacency seemed to have merit.

But a sensational five-minute comeback saw Chester score two great goals. Just as Crewe seemed to have worked out the Seals' attacking patterns, Sandy switched things up with Aff and Bochum taking up very aggressive wide forward positions and Will Roberts trusted to link play from the midfield to Lyons. The equaliser came from Aff beating his marker and firing in a low cross. It was too far in front of Lyons but Bochum got it on the right of the box and fired a shot that the keeper could only parry. It fell to Roberts and he cleverly bounced the ball down and over a defender's despairing slide. His teammates accused him of mis-kicking the shot, but the technique seemed intentional from where I was sitting.

The second goal came after a rare spell of possession for Crewe. Their young team lacked confidence and match experience but they can pass a ball sideways as well as anyone in world football. One of their rare forward passes was cut out by Evergreen, who combined brilliantly with Roberts. Evergreen continued to surge forward and passed to Bochum. His decision to retreat was baffling until it became clear he was waiting for Carlile's overlap. With Crewe's defenders somewhat scattered and Chester having four players attacking the box - Lyons, Roberts, Aff, and Evergreen - Carlile had plenty to aim for. He chose Roberts, whose snap shot was again brilliantly saved only for Evergreen to slide in and hook the ball home.

Two-one at the break and Crewe's heads went down. They fought valiantly in the second half and tried to scrap their way back into the match but the sight of Max Best strolling onto the pitch with twenty minutes to play was dispiriting. Best replaced Roberts and his first act was to control a knock-down from Lyons and smash it from thirty yards into the top corner. Three-One! Amazingly, Best tried to get himself subbed off at that moment! One minute, one goal, that's all you get! Sandy Lane was having none of it and ordered him back into action. Taking Best's lead, the squad fell into energy-saving mode.

As seems to be traditional in this competition, all five Chester subs were used - even the goalkeeper, so sixteen players can say they played in a cup final. As seems to be traditional, Chester ran out winners once more. Another league and Cheshire Cup double is very much on the cards and Crewe will surely dread playing us twice in the league next season.

Amidst the joy and satisfaction of lifting another trophy there were bittersweet moments. Aff and Carl have been sold and will not be pulling on the blue and white shirt in another cup final. James Wise and Steve Icke's futures are uncertain. And club captain Glenn Ryder may find himself playing elsewhere next season. The cheer as he brought the cup, his wife, and his daughters to the Chester fans was almost as loud as when he lifted it during the trophy presentation. One half of the perfect send-off is complete. Fingers crossed we can maintain these levels on Friday.

***

Good Friday, April 18

Match 44 of 46: Ebbsfleet United versus Chester

We had played Ebbsfleet at the Deva earlier in the season and their manager had tried to out-tactic me. For a long time I had been looking forward to a rematch but the guy had been sacked when the Fleet slipped into the relegation zone in the new year. The new guy was an old-school 4-4-2 guy, not interesting in the slightest.

The Fleet's Kuwaiti owners had splurged on new players in the January transfer window and that plus the new manager had helped to stabilise the club. Now that I saw the new signings in the flesh I knew the money had been wasted. Average players on big wages. Criminal! Prune juice economics in action.

Still, the fact that we would have a relatively easy game simply added to the sense that I was gliding towards glory. The little-loved Cheshire Cup was in the bag and thrashing Ebbsfleet would put us miles clear of Grimsby on goal difference.

I went with a similar lineup to the cup final. I brought Ben and Zach back into the first eleven and swapped Sharky for Wibbers. At 67.2 it was close to the maximum CA I could muster. The plan was to run up the score so we could rotate heavily on Monday.

That was the plan.

Instead we found that we weren't on it. Passes went astray. Shots flew wild. I switched to 4-1-4-1 to see if that helped. It did, slightly, but in what was becoming a trend, Ebbsfleet scored first.

I changed to 4-4-2 with Pascal as the second striker but used my screens to drop him into the CAM slot.

Something clicked. Pascal's movement in the central zones was too clever or too unexpected and he ran riot. We put pressure on and Fierce scored from an Aff corner. Then a good move involving the evolving Magnus Evergreen led to one of our idiosyncratic overlapping moves. Carlile centred and Henri deflected the ball into the net.

I decided I would let the situation ride until half time and then make some tweaks. I really wanted to go on a goal spree and blow Grimsby out of the water. They were winning one-nil, while Barnet were nil-nil in theirs.

Ebbsfleet blasted a ball high that Youngster and a striker competed for. Youngster was a foot shorter but did enough to put the guy off. All he could manage was to deflect it on a diagonal as though he was a sprite in Emlyn Hughes International Soccer.

My heart skipped a beat as I realised what was happening. That shit header was actually the best assist of all time! Ebbsfleet's winger was racing forward - he was much faster than Carl - and the guy was going to get a one-on-one with Ben! They were going to bloody equalise from a hopeful long punt!

Our only hope was Zach. He had just about enough pace and was just about positioned well enough that he would get to the ball at the same time as the winger. Could he bail us out?

Well, yes, in a way.

It's hard to know if he did the right thing - the podcasters got twenty minutes out of it - but Zach decided it was better to stop the winger getting away and he would risk getting a red card.

He stopped the winger getting away.

He got a red card.

It wasn't dangerous, the way he grabbed onto the guy and hauled him to the turf, but he was the last defender and if you stop someone running through on goal like that you're in big, big trouble. Zach tried to argue that Christian Fierce was close enough to intervene so it was a yellow at most, but the referee didn't agree.

We were two-one up, then - Zach had preserved our lead - but would be down to ten men for the rest of the game. A full hour!

I had Glenn on the bench but there was no room for sentiment. I brought Sharky off and put myself on as the second centre back.

The match was no longer about running up the score but holding onto those three points. We didn't create much going forward, but we didn't give Ebbsfleet much of a sniff.

I didn't check the Live Scores while playing because I had to concentrate on my task and nothing but my task. At the final whistle, I saw that Grimsby had won 3-1 but Barnet had stayed 0-0.

P GD Pts 1 Grimsby 44 40 88 2 Chester 44 38 88 3 Barnet 44 35 86

Positives:

* We had breathing space between us and Barnet.

* We had kept pace with Grimsby.

Negatives:

* Grimsby were now two clear in goal difference.

* We had two games to make up the difference, but Zach wouldn't play in the first one - he got an automatic one-match ban. (Unlike Chipper, he didn't make it worse by slagging off the referee.)

* My starters had played three games in a week. Players like Ryan Jack, Wisey, and Andrew Harrison were fresh but didn't carry a lot of goal threat. Our average CA against Southend was likely to be below 60 for the first time in a while.

* The simulation we all live in seemed to be forcing repeats of scorelines on me. Crewe had been a repeat, Ebbsfleet was a repeat. We had beaten Southend 3-1 earlier in the season. A repeat of that would make the final game of the season unbearably tense. No thanks! Six-nil against Southend, big party on the last game of the season. That's the ticket.

***

Easter Sunday, April 20

Match 22 of 22: Chester Women versus Salford City Lionesses

All I really wanted was for this match to end as anything except for 2-0, which was the score in the previous encounter between the sides. Our training had been going well but the women seemed to get stuck in the region of CA 50. Getting promoted would blow that particular glass ceiling away, I was sure. Anyway, we had kicked on a little more and were approaching double the rating of the away team.

Double! We were getting formidable.

The away team's average CA was a meagre 27.

Our women finished the season with a humongous CA of 45, and it could have been slightly higher had Jackie not preferred Pippa to start over Kisi.

This had 5-0 written all over it. 6-0. Maybe even 10-0!

So why the actual FUCK did it finish exactly the same as the last time? 2-0. Was the curse fucking with me? Or did results repeat sometimes and nothing REALLY WEIRD MATE was going on?

It was easy to hide my worries during the trophy presentation, the photos, the party. The women had lost once in the league but their overall record was near flawless. Played 22, won 21. Goals for: 89. Goals against: 5.

A momentous, joyous day. My only regret was that I couldn't go out on the lash with the ladies and couldn't stay late - the men had a vital match in the morning and winning three-one was not going to cut it.

***

Easter Monday, April 21

Views of the Blues - Chester 3 Southend 1 First Impressions!

Summary:

That was absolutely horrible. Not the match itself but the tension of the situation. I was feeling fine the whole morning, really really confident but when Southend scored fear gripped me and wouldn't let go. We've been going behind in games and showing great character and composure to get back into them and yeah we're winning but the situation means winning isn't enough. We need to batter someone and Max Best knows it.

When he came on he ran around like a blue-arsed fly trying to make something happen because even one more goal would have been amazing. We had to keep numbers back to make sure Southend didn't score again, so it was tough going for the forwards.

The squad are knackered and I never thought I'd say this but we missed Zach Green today. You don't realise how important it is to have someone like that pinging passes into midfield until he's not there.

I'm torn between being pleased with the win and being absolutely terrified that Grimsby are going to win this league by one goal.

As for the goals, Southend's was nice, to be fair. It got a bit scrappy in midfield and they broke. Three quick passes tore us open and they got a shot away at the back post. Cavvers should have done better with it but to be fair to him, he made up for it a few minutes later with a great save and he was decent on crosses.

Our first was a penalty for a foul that Lyons scored. The second was a screamer from Aff, who came on as a sub. Another sub scored the third: Pascal. He ran onto a header from Lyons and pushed the ball past the goalie. From there we thought it would be goals galore but the players felt the tension all of a sudden and they couldn't shift it past three-one, despite a pretty phenomenal cameo from Best.

Full match report to follow!

Formation: 4-4-2 (Second half: 4-4-1-1)

Line up: GK: Ben. Back four: Cole, Glenn, Christian, Carl. Midfield: Sharky, Ryan, Wisey, Andrew. Strikers: Henri, Ziggy.

Subs: Sticky, Magnus, Aff, Best, Pascal.

Bullet Points:

* The Deva was close to capacity! Southend always travel in numbers and sold their allocation. There might have been a few empty seats here and there but I reckon we had 5,200 in, at least. Amazing to see and the noise was cracking. When Southend got in our half in the last ten minutes, you could hear thousands of nails being bitten.

* We were all convinced Grimsby had choked and that was them done, but they're back winning. The only consolation was a late goal against them that made it 2-1.

* That means that we go into the last game of the season level on points but they have one better goal difference. We have scored far more goals, though, so if both teams win their final match, we need to win by one more goal than them.

* Our final match is against Woking, who we beat 2-0 in September. If we repeat that score, we have to hope Grimsby only beat Wealdstone by one goal.

* Grimsby thrashed Wealdstone 4-0 in their last meeting.

* I hate the last bullet point.

* That was when Marcus Wainwright was on fire, though. Grimsby don't have the same kind of firepower. We certainly have more goals in our squad, though not today.

* Cough, Chipper, cough.

* It was frustrating seeing the lack of goalscorers on the pitch, but to be fair, Best was spinning plates the way only he can. Magnus Evergreen got a break. Glenn Ryder played okay and Zach will be fresh for the final match. Cole Adams put a shift in while Eddie Moore rested. Aff, Pascal, and Best played less than a half. Best's feet are clearly killing him but he's got five days to heal up. Youngster wasn't even on the bench. Fitness shouldn't be an issue going into the final game and Best gets big credit for that one even if he overdid it for the Cheshire Cup.

* Quite a few lads played their final games at the Deva, unless we get sucked into the playoffs. Ryder got a big ovation before and after the match. Aff and Carl are gone - see for my assessment of why the fees we're getting are far too low - and Wisey and Steve Icke seem to be nearing the exit. Ziggy almost certainly played his last game for the club. I like the guy and he's not as bad as he seemed when we brought him in but for once Best is massively overrating a player and it won't be us fans with egg on our face. Not on that one. Still, he works like a trojan and I wish him well.

* The men waiting by the side of the pitch at half time to form a guard of honour for the women's team brought the house down. Nice touch, and the Southend mob were generous with their applause, too. Bonnie showing us the league trophy and being joined by Glenn with the Cheshire Cup was absolutely amazing, incredible, but my God it ratcheted the tension up something rotten. We're so close to winning the National League. So close to getting that trophy. I feel sick. I'm drained. I want to stop thinking about everything that could go wrong next week, but I can't.

***

At full time I was quiet and did the post-match handshakes and whatnot in near silence. A Southend player asked to swap shirts and I mumbled something about being down to our last couple of match kits, which was true, but my mind was elsewhere. I was heading inside when Pascal stopped me and said that it was the last home game of the season and that with 91 points in the bag already we had earned what he called an 'honorary loop'.

The lads didn't need to be told twice. We walked around the stadium, waving to people we recognised, clapping the fans, the usual. The season wasn't resolved and it was possible we would be back in a couple of weeks for a playoff game, so from my point of view the lap of honour was pretty weird and I wanted to get the lads into the dressing room and talk to them. If I did, though, the fans would leave and no-one wanted that.

Eventually I couldn't stand it any more and I ordered Glenn and Christian to gather the lads. Vimsy collected the coaches and physios and I did my post-match debrief right there on the pitch.

What I had to say was based on the league table we found ourselves with going into what we hoped would be our final game of the season.

P GD Pts 1 Grimsby 45 41 91 2 Chester 45 40 91 3 Barnet 45 37 89

"Lads," I shouted, as they stood arm-in-arm, as close as poss so they could hear me. "Great game. Another win. We took this season all the way to the fucking wire. Unreal. You are unreal. You've heard the scores from the other games. We're gonna need to score at least two goals. We're gonna need to outdo whatever Grimsby have left in the tank. If they win 4-0 like last time, we have to win 5-0. Simples. We're gonna turn the intensity of training all the way down. Tomorrow you're off. The rest of the week we'll go through some attacking drills. Low energy, nice and easy." I looked around and saw some families were waiting for their dads by the dugout. "Your kids can come on the pitch for a minute but we might have a playoff game here so mostly stick to the touchlines if you don't mind. I've got to go and get us a sweet new kit for next season. Well played and see you on Wednesday."

Glenn and Christian yelled stuff and the players ran off to gather their families. A small pitch invasion perpetrated by lots of very cute toddlers ensued. I went to get a shower, get changed, and get my head into gear for the big meeting.

***

It had been arrogant to plan the meeting for after this match, but I really thought we would be top of the league with a gap of three or four goals between us and Grimsby. I'd also thought I would be able to arrange things so that I wouldn't have to play in this match at all.

But we weren't clear at the top and I had played hard. My increasingly frantic attempts to get the fourth goal had surely made me look ridiculous to the founder of Grindhog, a guy who had played for Tranmere Rovers.

Before going up to the executive lounge, I popped into the manager's room for a spot of peace and quiet and to decide what I wanted. My vague plan had been to be a cocky twat in the meeting for the simple reason that I didn't want to work with Grindhog. Brooke absolutely loved the company and their explosive growth, but while I respected the founder's hustle, there were far too many complaints about the products. I wanted Brooke to finish the meeting being the one who said 'thanks for coming but I don't think this will work'.

Now, though, I knew I wouldn't go down that route. For a start, I was too tired to be cocky. But this bizarre run where scorelines from earlier in the season were happening again was freaking me out. If that trend continued, we would lose the league by three goals. It was insane to think Grimsby would outscore us on the final day of the season without Marcus Wainwright. The thought was literally crazy-making.

Pascal had said 'loop of honour'. Henri had been telling me about Mater Studorum, one of the weird books he read that was told in the form of a time loop. And of course, the fact that Emma had taken to calling today 'Grindhog Day' brought to mind the movie with the chipmunks where Bill Murray repeated the same day over and over until he banged the woman he fancied. I had repeatedly tried a similar method to end this particular loop and it hadn't worked.

I forced myself to go up to the room - being late wasn't my sort of power move - and saw that Brooke, Emma, Ruth, MD, and Gemma were schmoozing our VIP guest. He was on his own, no entourage, which was a huge plus point for him. They saw me and stood. MD and the waiters applauded.

Brooke said, "Max, this is Ken Carr."

I shook the guy's hand. His grip was solid but not obnoxious. Good start. "That was amazing," he said. His Liverpudlian accent was pretty much all gone; he must have worked at it to make his business life easier.

I frowned. "What, my entrance?" I looked back the way I had come. Had I accidentally come in like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice?

Ken was in his mid-thirties, shorter than I'd expected, but he was fit and had the kind of healthy vibe that came from being filthy rich. He had a wide, likeable face and I rated his haircut. It straddled the boundary between being in the sportswear industry and being a serious b-boy. He was perfectly at ease up here in the posh seats being admired by incredible beauties (and MD) but he wouldn't have looked out of place down in our dressing room, either as a player or a coach. Not as a manager, though. He didn't have the scintillating intelligence, the charisma, the encyclopaedic knowledge of movies, and worst of all, he was from Merseyside. Only three managers from Merseyside had ever won the top prize in England and two of those were from before Scotland was discovered.

He laughed. "I meant how you played. Absolutely amazing. You were like Messi and Ronaldo's lovechild."

"That's a distressing image. But thanks."

Emma rubbed my arm. "Babes, are you okay?"

"Yes, why? I mean, yeah, I'm fine. Ace. Top. Maybe a little weirded out. No, cut that."

Too late. "Weirded out?" She pulled me onto the sofa that had been dragged into the middle of the space and continued to hold my arm. To my left, MD shared a sofa with Gemma. Brooke and Ken were on a two-seater ahead of me. Ruth was alone to my right.

I did a little head shake. "It's just crazy. We couldn't get that fourth goal. It's like the universe was blocking us. I know it wasn't," I said, testing how it sounded. It sounded true. "I know it wasn't," I said, with more conviction, "but I was really convinced we were going to finish level on points and goal difference with Grimsby."

"You still might," said Ken.

"Yeah, but today. When we scored our third I was sure we'd get the fourth and we would go into the last game of the season as a kind of straight shoot-out. Score the most goals, you win the league."

"It's still like that," he said.

"Yeah," I mused. "It's just off. Makes me nervous."

"Oh, my God," said Emma. "I just broke out in a cold sweat."

"Me, too," said MD.

The group had a lovely old chuckle and I realised I wasn't part of the little gang they'd formed during the match. It was like going to a party and everyone else was drunk and talking about things that had happened before you got there. It made me feel even more tired, and vaguely sad. "I hate to be a bore," I said, "but I didn't expect to play that much today. Can we do the meeting while I've got a modicum of energy?"

Ken was very smooth. He showed no annoyance or any negativity whatsoever. I suppose he was used to dealing with highly-strung athletes. "No problem, Max. Let me do my spiel. I created Grindhog because I saw a gap in the market for a British sportswear company, one that could compete with the big boys. If you're a football club and you're partnered with Nike, Adidas, or Puma, you'd better be Real Madrid or Man United or you're not going to get much attention. Football clubs are horribly underserved and there's a big opportunity for a scrappy upstart.

"My origin story. My co-founder and I played sport to a decent level and we knew a bit about which fabrics felt good and what worked and so on. When our careers were cut short we got into finance but we would always go home and talk about building Grindhog. It was an addiction, a passion. We had to get it out there or we would come apart at the seams. We flew out to factories and fabric mills. They were all about huge minimum orders but we found a mill we loved. They did unbelievably good work and we went on a crusade to get them to give us a chance with small orders.

"We put the work in, Max. We were the original grindhogs. The mill owner, this old Italian who didn't speak English was finally won over by the passion of these mad lads from Liverpool. Finally, he cracked and said we could do a small run if we would shut up about it and leave him alone. We launched our first range and never looked back."

"Amazing," sighed Emma.

"We were grinding, growing pretty fast but from a small base, when the pandemic hit. I don't mean to be crass but we had built the company to be digital-first so it was great for us. We're a data-driven company. We get huge data from our website and we use it to drive sales. Sports teams who partner with us can't understand how we generate so much more revenue than they did. On day one they're sceptical of our projections because they think they've saturated the fan base but we prove them wrong every single time and they're delighted."

I nodded. "Brooke raves about the digital aspect."

"I do," she confirmed. "For us, coming from our current base, it's a quantum leap."

I mumbled, "Ziggy loves that show."

Ken continued, but again I had the strangest time loop experience. The same words, the same phrases. We had done all this! I was in a Groundhog Day scenario! Seconds before I had a freakout, I realised it seemed like I had heard all this before because I had - on a podcast. Ken told this story often. "We use data and habits and patterns to build a genuine, more meaningful relationship with fans. No offence to Chester but what you do here is like football in the old days and not in a good way. You buy your season ticket, turn up, get a pie, go home. That's fine in and of itself but there's so much more you can do. I heard about these programmes of yours, the Chester Chatters and the dentist thing and they are brilliant - brilliant - but I was walking around before asking people and nine out of ten people didn't know what I was talking about."

"Try the home end," I said.

He laughed pretty generously. It was obvious why my friends were so on his side. "Marketing is communication. Chester fans want to hear more from the club; we can help with that. Build your community, monetise that community."

Brooke was nodding along, her business crush growing with every minute. Ruth and MD were into Ken, too. I waved at Kian, the youth team player who was earning a few extra quid as a waiter. He dropped whatever he was doing and lugged two large kit bags over towards us. I said, "Thanks. Can I get a beer, too?"

"A beer?" said Ruth.

"It's isotonic," I said. "Okay I think in different circumstances I'd love to talk at length about how to better rinse our customers but any relationship between Grindhog and Chester will primarily be built on player kits and replica kits. The kit is so absurdly fundamental to the experience of the players and fans that I have to get the decision right or I know the whole dream will collapse. Maybe that's how I break the loop?" I wasn't sure if I said the last part out loud and hid my discomfort by taking a big swig of the beer just as Kian brought it. The calories went straight to my brain and I got a huge kick of energy. "The kit is the main thing a fan looks at. It touches their skin; they are wearing the club. It has to look good and feel good.

"I don't know the first thing about graphic design, fabrics, manufacturing constraints, shipping, or order fulfilment, but Ken, we're lucky to have two legendary fashionistas right here." I unzipped the first bag, realised it was the wrong one, unzipped the second. "Gemma, Emma, you be the judges. I'll give you replica kits from different football clubs and you sort them into hot," I tapped the left of the table, "and not." The right.

"What about me?" said Ruth.

"You're hot," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't you think I have good taste in clothes?"

"I didn't know you would be here so I didn't plan for that," I said.

"I run a rapidly-growing sports agency, Max, and my clients want swag. It's obvious I want to be in the room if I can."

"Good call," I said. I pulled the first kit out. It was, to me, stupendously beautiful. There was a sort of interlocking diamond pattern with blues, reds, purples, and yellows. I had blacked out the manufacturer's logo with tape, but the shirt was vivid and colourful and the balance of the crest size and sponsor added to the overall effect. I was delighted that Emma and Gemma cooed over it and grabbed it away from me.

"Wor, that's fun!"

"That is awesome. Is this an option? Can we have this?"

"I didn't know football kits could be like this. Why do football kits always look shit if you could have this?"

I smiled. Ken didn't. "Hot or not," I said, tapping the table. They put it in 'hot' but MD leaned forward to get a feel for it. "It's made from recycled plastics," I said. "Eco." I got the next one out. It was green with a sort of gradient effect, getting darker to the bottom. The graphic underneath the logo and crest was indeterminate but made me think of stepping through a jungle. I had taped over the maker's logo on all the kits.

"Yeah, that's nice," said Emma. "Not as gorge as the first one but I like it."

"It's quite good," said Gemma. She held it up, turned it round, looked away from it and back again. "Actually, I really like it. It's more subtle than the other one. Ruth?"

"I'd be happy with that as the third kit. It's much better than anything I've ever seen our teams wearing."

Emma took it and put it in the hot pile, smiling at Ken as she did.

"Going well," I said. I took the next one out. It was almost completely blue with a thin red stripe down the shoulders, an all-white crest and logo, and not much else.

"Erm," said Emma, giving Ken an apologetic glance. "Not my favourite."

"It's a bit bland," said Gemma. "Especially compared to the others. They had more life. This one's a bit, a bit... generic. It doesn't stand out."

I took out another. It was white with a hint of a blue sash and strange blue things at the ends of the sleeves. It joined the previous one in the 'not' pile.

The mood picked up with a gorgeous burgundy and yellow thing, a red and white checked effort, and the women went nuts for a dark number with a sort of fleur-de-lis pattern on which the crest and logo were so subtly different in colour from the rest that it was practically invisible. In between, they dumped some bland ones into the 'not' pile.

It was only when the first bag was empty that Emma realised something was wrong. She was giving Ken a wide-eyed look. "Oh, no, what have I done? Max! What have you done?"

I smiled and took a final hit of my beer. It had given me some brain fuel and would help me sleep, but one was enough. "You've given your honest feedback, haven't you? And I agree with you completely. The dark one is maybe too out there to be an actual kit but that's the sort of brave design I want to be offered. I'm happy to say that all these on the table were made by British sportswear companies."

Emma looked to Ken. "What's he done?"

Ken tried to summon a smile. "The ones you liked were from a different company. Elgar, I think. The ones you didn't like were ours."

"Fucking hell, Max," said Ruth.

MD chipped in. "Clubs give design briefs that can be hard to work with. What are you supposed to do with an all-white kit like Preston's? I thought that was very nice, actually."

I unzipped the other bag. "Here's a few other bits I bought. Emma, what is being promoted here?" I held up a t-shirt with an enormous Grindhog logo. In small letters underneath it said 'Preston North End'.

"Preston North End," said Emma, showing incredible loyalty to her new friend.

I shook my head and pulled out a few other items - beanies, caps, hoodies. They all had colossal Grindhog logos even though they were sold in a football club's shop. "This is not what I want from a partnership. This is all about you, Ken. You're mint as a person, don't get me wrong, but how did this get made? This is the merch equivalent of a striker who never passes. That's not how we do things here. It's team first. Club first. We work for the glory of Chester FC. The idea that you would fill ninety percent of a t-shirt with your logo and write Chester at the bottom is just bizarre to me. It's like you don't understand your role or you want to use all these football clubs to promote your own brand. That ain't right. You might have billions in turnover but you're not bigger than this football club. You can't ever be. You know that."

Ken looked around; he was losing the room. Even Brooke. "Can I defend myself?"

"Of course."

He picked up a beanie. "This sells. This makes money for the football club that they can use to invest. People like this, Max. They buy it and wear it. Mike is right about the design challenges on some kits. We have others we're proud of. Ones that really slap."

I smiled. "Slap?"

He had been doing a lot of research considering we were a tier five club of a size he wouldn't normally deal with. Another point in his favour. "I heard about the coursework you did for your UEFA badge. You make a splash everywhere you go. You've got strong opinions and that's why you're a brilliant leader of this football club. But this shirt," he said, rummaging for the very first one, the colourful one, "wouldn't be allowed in the EFL. Sunday League? Yeah, it's a banger. No doubt about it. The dark one? If you're Arsenal and you do a huge campaign around it, yes, but your sponsors are going to freak out when no-one can see their branding and the moody effect will be ruined when you put a player's name and number on the back in brilliant white which you would need to do because those are the rules of the league.

"Kits are a compromise and, okay, I'll admit some of these may have been a compromise too far and I didn't enjoy seeing your demonstration, Max." He kept using my name to build rapport and, annoyingly, it was working. "We're a new brand. We're not even ten years old and we've made mistakes but we keep grinding. In this business you're a target and every time we release a new kit we get slaughtered. Absolutely slaughtered by keyboard warriors. By the end of the season they've usually flipped and they love the kit."

I leaned back and closed my eyes for a second. "My problem is that I love Elgar's designs but they only do kits and not the rest of the stuff. You do great marketing but you're so in a rush and you're growing so fast what you mostly make is money. I need money but I can't bear the thought some mum is gonna drop a hundred pounds on two replica kits for her boys and they turn up weeks late with threads hanging off and the numbers fall off in the first wash and anyway the design is boring. The club will make seven pounds off that deal and potentially lose three fans. That's an absolute no from me.

"The home kit is going to be boring, that's okay, striped kits are hard, but the quality has to be impeccable. If you want to be part of this story I'll be a nightmare to work with because I'll want you to treat Chester better than any other club in your portfolio, the way some companies have a special relationship with the royal family. But then again, why wouldn't you want that? We're going up again next year. League Two will be a piece of piss, League One is a doddle. We could get to the Championship before Wrexham."

"Striped kits are hard?" said Ken. "Why do I get the feeling you know more about kits than you're letting on?"

I stuck my bottom lip out. "All I know is that I want washing instructions to be put on heat transfers instead of labels. I'd like an embroidered badge instead of a rubberised heat press. There can be zero buttons on the kit, ever, especially those rock-hard ones by the throat you seem to love. Christ, man, if I put that on I'll be in surgery ten minutes later. The colour matching needs to be top notch, the fabrics comfortable - I love a Jacquard. The women's team get their own cut. If you give me 'shrink it and pink it' the deal's off. You can sell the player's edition for lobster money if it's substantially better, and I'd like a low-cost kid's version. I want to grow fans more than I want to extract money from parents. I want the employees that handle Chester to understand what I just said because it's fundamental.

"I want a lot more quality control than you seem to do normally. The overlocking has to be neat, no bleeding, no hanging threads. If someone from Grindhog presents a design inspired by a 'vintage' kit and it turns out that kit was from five years ago, that's the immediate end of the contract and you don't get your money back. Ditto if I see anything where your logo is bigger than ours. To help you come up with good designs and to stop rinsing our fans, we'll switch to a two-year life cycle. In year one, people will buy an amazing home kit that lasts. In year two, there will be a new away kit. Last year's away kit becomes the third kit. There is no fourth kit.

"We will agree on how many emails you send to our fans per year and the number will be no more than ten. Finally, the design process will go quickly because you will send me the kit and I will put it on and do laps around the Deva until I'm sweaty and gross. If it doesn't wick sweat or it turns into one of your wet-look Mr. Darcy specials we'll know within half an hour and you can try again."

Ken had started out frowning, but it had turned into a small smile. "You've just designed the first five-hundred pound replica kit."

"Nah," I said. "Doing it right will cost more and eat into your margins but I'm fine with that."

"Are you?"

"Yes. It's win-win-win. You make some money, I get good kits, and our fans are the only ones in the country who don't pile on as soon as you release, well, anything."

"I think you might have unrealistic expectations."

"I know but it's strange how often I want something and then make it happen. This is a great opportunity for you. If you put my fans right to the top of your internal food chain I will blow your Italian cotton socks off." I spun my finger around. "This is the story of the century. The women's team just got promoted. Back to back champions. Brooke, did you tell him about the documentary?"

"I did."

"Can you get him a preview copy? We're going terrestrial instead of streaming because we want more eyeballs on it. You should sign with us before we're huge stars and I get a big head."

"Ahem," said Gemma.

"The athletes you sponsor are so bland. Take a risk! Sign deals with Dani and Angel from the women's team. Kisi, too. The men's team have a few characters. We have the best young player from England and Wales. That’s, er, one of each. Pascal's popular. It's a niche sort of popularity but that's what your data is for, right? To find the weirdos who like that weirdo. Henri could do perfume ads or he could be wearing Grindhog. Your call. Zach Green is wildly popular with the elderly and infirm. And think of the opportunity to have the lovechild of Messi and Ronaldo wearing your logo!" I shook my head. "If you keep doing things the same way, you're going to get the same results."

I'd been planning to continue my rant but I froze. The same results. That was the thing Chester most needed to avoid in the coming week. So far in the meeting I had been pushy and slightly belligerent. That was the same as always. How could I be different?

I looked at Ken. I knew from the podcasts that he was a lot like me. He was driving himself so fast he couldn't help causing a few crashes here and there but he was mostly crushing it in an industry where the little guy, the new guy, wasn't supposed to have a chance. He was further along his journey than I was mine; maybe I could show a tiny bit of humility. Maybe I could be honest.

"This deal terrifies me. We have a thing here called Chesterness. It's a culture of high performance based on a fanatical devotion to teamwork. It works because I'm at the top getting rid of people who don't buy into it but if we do this, there's an outsider in charge of something that's a fundamental part of the player and fan experience. You will have the power to elevate that aspect of the club to new heights - or to ruin it. A profit maximising deal is bad risk reward for me. If we do this for money we'll lose the magic. Here's my offer," I said, excited, suddenly seeing a way through my doubts into a better future. "Design a home kit and a yellow third kit. Take some of your margin and put it into the shirt and into quality control. Take my whole margin and put it into the shirt. Let's make the best fucking kit in Europe as our starting point."

He looked from MD to Brooke to me. "You don't want a cut?"

"No. I'll give my 7 percent to the fans in the form of awesomeness if you'll take a step in that direction, too. I want an amazing kit, something we're both proud of. Let's start there. Fans first, money second. If you're into that, if you're excited by that, we can do something special. If being in these b-boxes and c-suites has dulled your edge, no problem. I'm not judging. I'm sure there'll come a day where I'd rather play golf than absolutely fucking crush every minute of my life."

Ken stared at me without blinking. I'd hit one of his buttons and some of his native Scouse accent came out. "I don't play golf; I play jai alai. I'd love to give you a game one day."

"Is that the one like squash where you've got a tusk instead of a racquet and the ball goes a hundred miles an hour?"

"A hundred for you, Max. Two hundred for me."

I looked at Emma. She shook her head vigorously. "Sorry, Ken. I've seen that movie before. Veto. He's more fragile than he looks."

We waited for Ken to say something; it was his turn.

He was quiet for a while. "I've never heard that. I've been in this business for nine years. No-one's ever said I don't want a profit. I wasn't expecting dat."

"Neither was I," said Brooke, giving me a look. MD was feeling one of the unloved Grindhog shirts. It was much better quality than what we had now. I think he was daydreaming about having a gorgeous kit and not thinking all that hard about the lost income. Deep down he was a true football fan.

I pushed myself to the edge of the sofa and looked at Ken. "I don't need more budget; I'm a cash machine. I need intangibles. I need a player's edition that makes my team swoon with how nice it feels. Makes them feel like stars. If that takes us from fourth to third in the league that's worth more than the commission. Every time I see some kid in our new kit I'm going to get a motivation boost. That's almost priceless. So that's the first step. We can make bank in years three to five as long as you never forget that we're not doing this for us but for those fans out there. What do you think?"

"You want us to design and make the best kit in Europe on a small production run."

I had him. "Same as when you went to Italy and won the guy over with your passion."

He grinned - hoist by his own Jacquard. "Make the best kit in Europe on a small production run." He scoffed and shook his head. "That's the first step?" He shook his head some more.

Brooke decided she was happy with my performance. She pushed Ken on the shoulder. "Watch out for that first step," she said, and I joined her to finish the quote. "It's a doozy!"

Ken was a pretty unflappable guy but he had come to the Deva out of curiosity and to pick up a small client for his portfolio and it's fair to say the meeting hadn't gone as expected. "You've given me a lot to think about, Max."

MD looked at his watch and stood. "I have to go. I hope you'll come on board, Mr. Carr. I love your work, I think you'd be phenomenal for us, and Max is honestly not as difficult as he comes across. He's quite reasonable, in fact."

"Oi!" I said. "Take that back!"

"But Max," said MD, sagging a little. "Please tell me history will repeat itself."

His words were eerie. "What?"

"We're going to do the double again. Cheshire Cup and league winners. We're going to do it. Aren't we?"

I leaned back and squeezed Emma. I shook my head and got a bit of a grin on. "These business boys are so out of touch, babes. Trying to sound like the kids." I tutted and scoffed. "It's not aren't we. It's could we."

MD was on the verge of being exasperated. "Max. Could we?"

"Yeah," I said, dismissively. "Piece of piss. Score more than Grimsby to win the league? Mate. Relax." I picked up a Grindhog beanie and spun it around my finger. "It's a done deal."