2.
Tuesday, 21 January
Match 24 of 46: Chester vs FC Halifax
After studying our remaining fixtures from all kinds of angles, I decided to spend five hundred of my experience points on something from way down the bottom of my wishlist. The Live Scores perk did one simple thing - it told me the current scores from other matches, which would be helpful when I was locked into my Match Overview screen. In the age of the smartphone, this didn't seem like a critical purchase. But while we were chasing Grimsby there were bound to be times I needed to know what was happening in their match. If they were losing and we were level, maybe I would turtle up and take the point. One point closer to glory, right? 500 XP was a small commitment. A small dose of retail therapy to make me feel like I was evolving towards my end state - being a level 9000 football manager.
XP balance: 5,749
***
In November - weirdly one of our most recent matches - we had beaten Halifax 3-2 away. Their team boasted an average CA of 69 and since it had been the second big away trip in three days I had put out a weakened eleven. No such luck for the Yorkshiremen today - I was going with my team of beefy boys.
For the first half I decided to go with my favoured 4-1-4-1, which meant Chipper was on the bench. He was a soft-spoken guy, superficially polite - actually, scratch that. Politeness is politeness whether it's heartfelt or not. He didn't complain when I told him he wouldn't start, but his subsequent body language displayed some low-level grumpage. Not starting in the National League. What the hell am I doing here?
Sticky in goal was CA 43, almost twenty points behind Ben, but Sticky was crazy tall. If Halifax tried to bombard us with high balls or crosses they wouldn't get very far. Sticky's career had been derailed by his inability to combine with defenders in modern passing sequences, but today I didn't want anyone doing a short pass. What would be the point? Even in the warmups the ball had been bobbling up at random or getting stuck in a soggy patch. Going for a quick sprint, my left boot had been sucked off my foot. Bad day for anyone trying to pad their passing stats.
My back four boasted the tallest guys in their positions, starting with Christian and Glenn as the centre backs. Christian's CA 71 made Glenn's 54 look feeble, but in this kind of match Glenn was the non-league warrior you wanted. Weak link? Not today, bruv. At left back I had Cole Adams, unusually tall for the role. Perfect! His CA of 41 would be almost irrelevant if the game went as I expected. His job was to win headers and kick the ball away. Ditto Carl Carlile. He was CA 69 and winning a lot of admirers for his athletic, committed performances. We were getting offers for him but I had sent his backup, Steve Alton, on loan to Kidderminster as part of the Christian Fierce deal. Carl was staying put until the summer and he was ay-okay with that.
Magnus Evergreen was my defensive midfielder. He was a perfectly good DM, the way he was perfectly good anywhere I put him. His CA was 59 and showed no signs of having peaked, despite his weird minus 2 PA. Magnus had been trying a little evolution himself, working hard to add a little more craft to his game. That had been going well but there was no call for subtlety today. As a former champion bodybuilder, he was yet another imposing specimen.
Josh Owens was left mid. Only CA 40 and one of the least intimidating players in this particular group, but he had a long throw. He would be able to hurl the ball into Halifax's penalty box from miles out, and he could handle himself in a scrap, too. Let's just say he hadn't grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth and he wouldn't let anyone take liberties. Aff (CA 68) was the perfect player for these conditions, and I had moved him to right midfield. He was extremely limited on the right - he didn't like it and couldn't get into the groove. Today wasn't about grooves, though. It was about ploughing furrows. It was about carthorses and work and graft and sweat and mindless running. To that end, I had James Wise (54) and Andrew Harrison (50) in the centre. Andrew's loan spell away had been a huge success - players who started their careers late needed lots of minutes in their legs. They needed to play meaningful matches and lots of them, and he had got six months of action at FC United. This encounter would be meaningful but whether he learned much from it was another question. Mostly he would learn that football is supposed to be played on a flat surface.
Up front we had Henri Lyons, CA 68. I had told him not to press the defence too much and to save his energy for headers and for any chances he might get. He told me it didn't make much sense to play with a lone striker who didn't work hard. "You'll get help in the second half," I said. "And you need to be able to do all this again on Tuesday night."
All in all, it was an average CA of 56, but only two guys were under six feet tall.
I checked Halifax's lineup and saw that their average CA had slipped to 68. They had replaced their out-of-form striker with someone faster and more dynamic, but he was completely unsuitable for this kind of pitch. I set Glenn Ryder to mark him and left Christian as the spare man.
The stadium wasn't even half full. A couple of hundred away fans made all the noise. Halifax's manager - tactics 10, motivating 15 - went over to them before kick off and clenched his fists. They roared. I settled back into the dugout and pulled my hood down.
"Let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel," said Sandra.
I laughed. "What?"
"Don't you know that song?"
"No."
"You're more into movies." She watched as Henri passed the ball back to Glenn. Glenn waited until Halifax's striker came close, then smashed the ball long down the pitch. Sandra clicked her fingers. "Let's get medieval on their arse."
***
I like tennis sometimes. Those guys smash balls at each other for four hours and maintain a level of accuracy that's pretty unbelievable. The rhythm of the sport works - you turn your head left and right to track the ball because every stroke could be a winner or could cross the wrong side of the line. Every stroke could earn or lose a point. There are stakes to every single moment.
Ball goes left, ball goes right, ball goes left, ball goes right.
Take the same rhythm and apply it to football and you have created... Wrexham-ball!
Okay, that's not quite fair. You've created 80s football. Win headers, win duels, win tackles. Keep your shape at all costs. Get muddy while keeping a clean sheet. Get bloody while putting your body on the line for the team. Fans in the Main Stand get the centre court experience without the strawberries and cream. Ball goes left, ball goes right. Technique? Flair? Imagination? Nope. Get it launched.
Wrexham's innovation was to get premium players doing rudimentary tasks. Win a header, knock it long for Muggles to chase. Win a header, knock it long for Hardy to win a header. Win a header to win a header to get a long throw to get your big boys forward so they can win a header. On Wrexham's superb pitch, the style would eventually lead to mistakes from the oppo or a neat little bit of interplay or yes, a moment of magic from Muggles.
The problem with having a swamp for a pitch is there's almost no stakes to anything. If Henri's competing for a header on the edge of the centre circle, it almost doesn't matter if he wins it or not. He can't chase the ball, dribble past three players, and slot home under the keeper - not with the pitch trying to suck his boots off and everything reduced to two-thirds speed. If Cole plays a ball down the line for Josh to chase, it almost doesn't matter if it goes out of play. The chances of anything leading to a shot on goal were pretty slim. Two thousand six hundred people were urging their team forward, but what they were really doing was waiting for a mistake. A mistake big enough to lead to a goal.
***
Extract from Seals Live
Boggy: Twenty minutes gone here at the Deva, still nil-nil. Spectrum, what do you make of it so far?
Spectrum: [Sighs.] There's not much to say, is there? It's attritional. Deadly dull. At least we're on top.
Boggy: In a game like this with so few chances, how do you measure that?
Spectrum: We've got quite a high line and we're getting to Halifax's clearances and keeping them penned in their half. Christian Fierce is absolutely dominant and Halifax can't create anything. As soon as they cross the halfway line, Fierce is all over them. So most of the match is being played in their half and we're getting long throws and set pieces. Nothing's come of them yet but if you put pressure on a team for ninety minutes you'd hope they would eventually crack.
Boggy: Josh Owens has got a throw, now. He dries the ball with his special towel -
Spectrum: They're available in the club shop and online. Sorry, Max asked me to say that.
Boggy: I'm sure they work for the dishes just as well as for footballs. Christian Fierce is up. Glenn Ryder is up. Everyone's up except James Wise and Andrew Harrison is ten yards outside the box as cover. Here comes the throw - it's lobbed high. Comes down with snow on - Fierce helps it on - someone - cleared! Harrison chips the ball back. Lyons jumps. Ryder jumps. Cole Adams is there. He plays it out left to Owens. Owens hits a cross. Hits the first defender! Some groans from the fans. That's not helpful.
Spectrum: That's right. It's not.
Boggy: Owens with another chance. Much better this time! Who's - ? Ohh! That was a chance. That was a half-chance!
Spectrum: Magnus.
Boggy: Magnus Evergreen got a little flick and directed the ball just wide. But that's the gameplan in a nutshell. Keep Halifax in their half and load the box when we can. It isn't pretty. Let's check the chat. Pretty quiet in there, today. What've we got? Message from Caesar_the_Geezer. You wanted to be more like Wrexham? You've got your wish.
Spectrum: [Stifles a laugh.]
Boggy: Ball pumped forward. Fierce wins the header. Ryder kicks long. Out for a goal kick. [Sigh.] Let's play a game. I spy...
Spectrum: No, please.
Boggy: I don't spy, with my little eye, something beginning with M.
Spectrum: You want Max to go on? What would he do in a game like this? Can't dribble, can't pass. No, it'll be like this until the end.
Boggy: Lord have mercy.
***
At half-time it was still goalless, and while we had had a few half-chances, Halifax had done the square root of fuck all. Our defence had made mincemeat out of them - Cole, Carl, and Glenn were winning their headers and not giving anything away, but it was Fierce who was really breaking Halifax's spirit. He was too tall, too powerful, too fast, too well-positioned. It was fun to think that no-one would ever score against us ever again.
"Guys," I said, early in the break. Normally I liked to have a quiet time where everyone could decompress and I could see what changes my opponent made. Today, he had plumped for an early substitution and had already decided to take off his nippy striker and put his bigger guy on. "Their nine is coming on. We know he's having a shocking season but he only needs one chance to ruin our day. Right? Christian, you take him. Shut him all the way down. Don't let him get a kick." I stepped to the magnetic tactics board. "We're going 4-4-2. Andrew, you get first dibs on the hot water. You're welcome. Magnus is going to CM and Chippy's going on up top with Henri. We're doing the right things, lads, but these headed chances we're getting are super low quality. Unless you've got a free header, can you head the ball back square?" I showed what I wanted with a swish of a marker pen. Basically, instead of trying to score I wanted them to 'pass' the ball sideways into the mass of bodies. "Once the ball drops it's fifty-fifty if it lands at our feet or theirs. Way better odds of scoring from that. Er, Vimsy, that's right, isn't it?"
Vimsy was from the old school and had played this type of football almost his entire career. "You're right, boss. You're a natural at this."
I made a face like I'd bit into a lemon. "That's cruel, mate. Cruel. But yeah, if we're playing horrible percentage football, let's play horrible high percentage football. Anything else? Vimsy?"
He scrunched his face up. "Keep battling, lads! You've got this! Keep winning your duels and the goals will come. But look, clean sheet, yeah?"
"Why is it called a clean sheet?" said Ziggy.
"In the olden days," I said, "like after the Cambrian period but before MacBook Airs, reporters used to tally goals on a fresh piece of paper, one for each team. If it was still clean at the end of the match it meant no-one had scored against that team."
Ziggy was impressed. "You know what's weird? I like history. I never liked it at school."
"Yeah!" I said, enthusiastically. "Let's go make some history!" I pointed to the doors with both hands.
"Boss," said Sandra, checking her watch. "There's still twelve minutes left."
I stood straight again. "Right. This is why we do the speeches at the end of the break. Lesson learned. Twelve minutes? God. Oh, Livia. I heard you made a TikTok about me. Can I see it?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. TikToks are, like, eleven minutes long, right?"
***
CLOSE-UP: LIVIA STRANTON IN HER WORK OUTFIT
> Just want to do a quickTok about one of the things going round on Friday at the Fans Forum. I heard a lot of people saying Max Best wants to change the badge. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Football traditionalist Max Best wants to change the badge? Are you serious?
WIDE SHOT: MAX'S OFFICE
> I'm in Max's office. My partner, Jackie Reaper, sometimes works in here so I know it well.
CLOSE-UP: LIVIA STRANTON
> Apparently, some of you are stressed or pretending to be stressed that some guys in Max's inner circle have been talking about the logo being a lion when it's currently a wolf.
CLOSE-UP: THE CHESTER BADGE ON LIVIA'S TRACKSUIT TOP
IT'S A WOLF
> I had the same thing with Jack. He'd talk about lions and I used to get confused but I didn't think much of it until this stupid takeover got out of hand and people started throwing lies around. I got my detective hat on and I've cracked the case. This is the filing cabinet where Vimsy leaves his unfinished cups of tea.
MEDIUM SHOT: A FILING CABINET
CLOSE-UP: HALF A DOZEN MUGS
SUPER CLOSE-UP: ONE MUG
> See this? It's the Chester crown at the bottom as normal, but someone's put a lion coming out where there should be a wolf. There are five or six of these in various offices here. I've never seen them in the club shop or at the Deva. But Jackie, Max, Vimsy, the Brig, they're drinking from these mugs all day every day.
CLOSE-UP: LIVIA STRANTON
> Maybe one of you knows why these mugs got made but I'll tell you what, you can tell by the stains they were made before Max Best was even born. Slight exaggeration there but he isn't from Chester and he sees this mug more than the real badge. There. Mystery solved. Case closed. I'm going to buy six mugs with the proper logo on the side. Now grow up.
***
I handed her phone back. "Who needs Christian Fierce when I've got you?"
She bit her lip. "Sorry if I was out of line. They wind me up."
I shook my head. "No, I get it." I wondered if I should ask her to delete the video, more for her own career than anything. Nah. "Weird logo on the mugs. That's amazing. Imagine if it had gone to a vote and, like, seven people voted the wrong way because I drink so much tea and those seven people thought I wanted to vandalise the badge and their votes swung it." Brooke had said that her father would come at me in twenty different ways. Max Best wants to change the badge would not have been in my top fifty guesses for one of them. "I'm going to warm up," I said, and went into my private room and compared the curse's scores to the ones on the BBC to see if there were any discrepancies - there weren't.
I stared at the wall. It stared back.
***
With Chipper on the pitch we carried a lot more threat and Halifax dropped a couple of steps deeper. Interesting - I had wanted a DM to give us extra security but the extra attacking potential was even more effective as a shield.
The origin of his nickname was something of a mystery to me. TJ said it was because he was a non-stop barrel of laughs, and given I was whizzing around Crawley like a hyperactive bee it had been possible to believe him. A rose by any other name would trap a ball just as sweetly, though. Chipper's very first act was to catch the ball on his chest while the guy marking him crumpled to the mud. Chipper turned and chipped a pass to Henri, who volleyed it back first time. Chipper cracked a thunderous volley a couple of yards over the crossbar.
The Welshman was rusty, but he was mint. Our match ratings were mostly on 6, but Chipper went right to 8. I could almost see Henri's eyes light up, and the Halifax players who weren't complaining to the referee about some perceived foul realised we had lost a couple of inches of height but gained a couple of sharp elbows.
Henri and Chipper got closer to each other and now there was a point to winning the headers, to closing down the defenders. Our percentages had gone all the way up, and Halifax responded by dropping still deeper.
Long throws, lobbed crosses, a few corners. Time and again we loaded the penalty box and created havoc. A couple of times, Halifax broke but simply couldn't get a counter going. Either we would shut it down with a tackle or interception or a winger would dribble into some mud and all the energy would leave the break.
I pulled my hood further down.
***
Boggy: Seventy minutes on the clock. Chester nil, Halifax nil. The game is one-sided but neither team really looks like scoring. On Chester's bench is Zach Green, Ziggy, and Max Best. What change would you make?
Spectrum: This isn't a match for tactics. This is a match for height and work rate. We're winning our headers so there's no point bringing Zach on. He might get a goal from a set piece, I suppose, but so might anyone.
Boggy: Max Best has gone to warm up. I think it's him - he has his hood up. It's not raining, is it?
***
With seventy-four minutes gone, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. Cole and Josh had locked their side of the pitch down - no worries there, and Aff was more likely to score than Magnus, so I took the latter off and went to the centre of midfield. It was a horrible bog so I changed my mind and shuffled Aff to be the left-sided CM with Wisey to his right and me playing right wing.
I walked up and down the side of the pitch looking for patches where the ground seemed firm. There were some.
But mostly my early role was to run up and down and compete for headers when the ball was fired at me. I won one, lost two, and watched three sail miles above me and out for a Halifax throw.
Grim.
Seventy-eight minutes. Seventy-nine.
Chipper took a long pass on the inside of his thigh, holding off his marker with impressive strength, and volleyed the ball to my feet. Thrilled to see some real football, I forgot the situation. I dropped my shoulder, nutmegged the left back, and raced past him. My speed was nerfed by the mud and the ball held up on the pitch. The left back barged me away and defied the pitch by running away with the ball. Chipper was trying not to show his displeasure at my ineptitude. Fucking disaster.
Grimacing, I chased the left back as he waded away. I slid to the side of him and hooked the ball out for a throw-in. A whole lot of calories burned to achieve precisely nothing.
I used my new perk and saw that Grimsby were winning.
Grim. Grimace. Grimsby.
While Halifax made a like-for-like substitution, I skimmed the scores from other matches. West Didsbury were winning, as they usually did. And the Saltney Town adventure had finally got underway! They were winning three-nil and Tom Westwood had scored two.
Grin.
Halifax threw the ball. I chased it, barged the guy off balance, and copied Chipper's technique of chipping the ball over most of the mud. I hit it to Glenn, turned, and chugged towards Henri.
He won a header. Chipper closed down a defender and blocked his clearance. The ball span in my direction. The left back was going to get there first but I was sure he was going to try to clear the ball down the line. I got in his sightline and he saw a chance to get clever. He would try to kick the ball against me and get a goal kick or a throw in.
I jumped as he made contact with the ball - he simply kicked it out of play.
Grin grin grin.
I yelled out, "Come on, Joshy boy! Square heads, lads, square heads!"
While Josh squelched across from the other side of the pitch, my centre backs lumbered forward. So did Cole and Carl. I decided I would send everyone into the box and defend the halfway line on my own. For a second I even thought about sending Sticky up to cause even more mayhem but while I was confident I could deal with any counter attacks, it wouldn't have been congruent with what I was saying about keeping clean sheets. I had to hold on to some semblance of normality while my new signings - on and off the pitch - settled into the club.
Josh hurled the ball into the box. A defender got his noggin on it, but only as far as Aff. He nodded it back into the mixer and there was another load of messing about. Finally, a defender made contact with a huge right. The ball flew miles up and away from me. Tricky take. Even worse - the new player who had just come on, fresh and not covered in mud like everyone else, was zooming towards me. If I miscontrolled this, he would be one-on-one with Sticky with no defenders anywhere near him.
The ball reached its apex and started to descend. I put my body between where the ball would land and the Halifax player. He angled his run to a point between me and Sticky.
The ball dropped - the player ran five yards.
I got a panicked look on my face - I had misjudged the flight! Shit!
The guy couldn't believe his luck! In his mind's eye, he was already through on goal, deciding what to do.
The ball fell to ankle-height and I booped it behind me. Basically a mid-air Cruyff turn, no big deal. Technique 20, Flair 20. The guy chased shadows. Buh-bye!
I pushed the ball onto one of the solid-looking patches I'd found. It was miles too far out but I concentrated and launched a hard, fast, Beckhamesque cross that swerved from the right of the six-yard box to the left. Just as it was running out of steam, Henri dropped back a couple of yards and redirected the ball square into the mass of bodies.
Not quite square, though. A foot or two ahead of the defensive line.
Too far?
A foot appeared and twatted the ball on the volley. Too high! It would go miles over!
The ball crashed into the top-left of the net. A full half-second later, Halifax's goalie threw his hands up to block the shot.
One-nil! Chipper! How did he keep that shot down? He was leaning back so far he was practically horizontal.
Henri led the charge into the Harry McNally stand. Chipper, Christian Fierce, Cole, Josh, jumping onto each other's backs like they were trying to form a human pyramid. Seemed like fun. I walked to Sandra to tell her what I wanted to do next - move Glenn Ryder to midfield and play centre back myself. "Why?" she said.
"Because I used all my money to buy Christian Fierce and I want to play with my new toy."
"That's not how football works," she said.
"So I shouldn't do it?"
She blew air from her cheeks. "You want to do a high line? Makes sense." She shook her head some more. "Vimsy's right. You're a natural at this. Maybe you evolved from a mud creature."
I scoffed and on my way back, moved Aff to right mid and Glenn Ryder to central midfield. I used the Without Ball screens to drop Glenn to the DM slot and pushed the back four as high as the curse would let me.
Our defence was now Cole, Christian, me, and Carl, and by playing high we would catch Halifax offside if they tried to go long behind us, which they would. If they managed to get past without the offside flag being raised, Christian and I would race each other to be the first on the scene.
"I'm way too fucking good at this," I said. While my players slowly made their way back from the celebrations, I bent and looked at the grass again. I dipped my finger into the mud - that glorious, point-rich mud - and scraped it under my eyes like a commando.
When I got to my feet, Christian Fierce was peering down at me. "You're fucking crazy, you know that?"
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"You wannabe a soft rock all your life?"
His eyes widened and after a moment of pure disbelief, his jaw set. He bent and got some dirt on his fingers. He dragged them across his skin. He growled, "Reporting for duty, sir."
"Ten minutes, mate." I yelled out, "Keep it tight last ten!" This caused me to laugh far too much, but the match was underway.
From his unfamiliar DM slot, Glenn jumped for a header but glanced it, redirecting the ball to my left where the striker might have been able to get it. I leaped and did a fucking amazing diving header. The ball went towards Cole. For once he lost a duel and the winger came away with the ball.
"Go!" I shouted.
Fierce ate up the ground between him and the player and slid in with a thunderous tackle. Fierce, the winger, and the ball slid off the pitch like curling stones. Fierce got up and glared at the rest of the sitch, but I was perfectly positioned between where the winger would have gotten and the striker. Yeah, mate. Maxy boy knows how to play.
While Halifax were in our half, I switched places with Glenn on the tactics screens to make him drop next to Christian. I beefed up the line as a third CB. Their right back took the throw to the winger, who volleyed it straight into our six-yard box. Sticky plucked the ball out of the air and threw it to Chipper. I swapped Ryder back to DM again and insisted on the high line.
For a minute, I focused on the sitch. We seemed to have Halifax absolutely on toast, but I scanned and scanned, triple and quadruple checked my workings.
I relaxed enough to enjoy the man-mountain next to me. Fierce looking fierce. That was the expression we were going to plaster all over town. He was so good he would open up all kinds of new tactics and formations.
I continued to admire him until suddenly he shifted his bodyweight, dropped five yards, jumped, and headed the ball right to me. I caught it on my thigh, did a couple of playful volleys, and joyously smacked it out of play close to the corner flag, fifty yards closer to Yorkshire. Get back, you dogs!
It would be fun to say that for the remaining minutes we fought like lions, attacked like wolves, and wallowed like seals, but the truth is we pushed our opponents into the mud like they were our younger brother. We sat on them while pinning their arms down and laughed until an adult told us to stop.
Three points, clean sheet, job done, and the look on the Brig's face when he saw my war paint was priceless.
***
Sandra did the media while I had an extra-long shower. Fierce was first in next to me. I said, "When's the last time you got called a soft rock?"
He tilted his head. "That was the first. The last, too, I hope."
I smiled. "Can't promise. It's a great theme. By the way, you were man of the match."
"Oh! Thanks. You do that every game?"
"I choose one every game." The curse automatically picked a guy from each team. "Don't always announce it."
"What do I get?"
"You get to tell your grandkids you played centre back with Max Actual Best."
"I was thinking maybe there was a board with our names on and we get a gold star and it's a race to see who gets the most. Like at school."
Carl Carlile was listening. "Don't give him ideas! It'd be just like him to get loads of hard-nosed pros chasing achievement stickers."
As Fierce turned to banter with his fellow defender, I went internal. I'd earned 460 XP from the match and would get something similar on Saturday. The women's matches were giving me 270 a pop. My income was going to be fairly predictable until the end of the season - Old Nick would be delighted.
I was tempted to buy the 1,000 XP Live Tables perk so that I could see the effect of the current scores on the tables. It wasn't just that I had no idea where we were in the table right now - I could shout to Dean or Livia or pretty much anyone who had their phone out. No, I was thinking ahead to frantic, high-pressure end-of-season matches.
If Grimsby were drawing and Barnet were winning two-nil and we were winning four-nil, what would that actually mean? It could mean, for example, that all three teams were level on points but that Chester needed to score two more times to go top of the league. There were plenty of situations where that knowledge could make the difference. Famously, when they were still a football team, Manchester City found themselves in a last-day-of-the-season nailbiter where a player thought their current score was good enough - he took the ball into the corner. He was wrong - City needed another goal. They were relegated with their player fighting hard to keep the score as it was.
Buying the Live Tables perk would surely protect us from that - I would know exactly what was needed even if I was on the pitch.
I wasn't going to be able to afford Relationism by the time I got to Brazil so there was no point stressing about it. I had calculated that saving up for that one would take 47 National League matches in which I played twenty minutes, and that was if I used my current balance and the ten percent discount.
No, it definitely made sense in the current situation to buy the Live Tables perk to go with the Live Scores.
I scratched my head. Maybe it would have made more sense to go straight to the Live Tables? I'd have been able to work out the scores from there.
Nah. Too much work in the middle of a match. I was getting used to using the With Ball Without Ball screens without it costing too much mental energy but the whole player-manager shit was exhausting. I couldn't do maths on top of everything else. I probably shouldn't even have been looking at the perk shop, but the idea had been creeping up on me and not knowing the current situation was just annoying enough to make me slightly rash.
I stopped the water, bought Live Tables and checked it out. The Live Table wasn't exactly live, since all the matches had finished. It was simply the league table, but the screen was in my head now, permanently, and would be, even mid-match. Evolve me, sensei!
P GD Pts 1 Grimsby 28 30 61 2 Barnet 29 20 54 9 Chester 24 10 41
Barnet had played the most games and were comfortably ahead of us in points, but I was only really looking at Grimsby. We had played four fewer than them. In football-speak this is called having four games in hand and it is traditional to assume you will win all of those matches. Adding twelve points to the final column made the situation look a lot healthier!
I grabbed a towel and started to dry off.
Grimsby's goal difference was so superior it was barely worth looking at. Goal difference, you remember, is goals scored minus goals conceded. Chester had scored 42 and let in 32 for a goal difference of plus ten. If teams were level on points - for example, if we got exactly twenty more than Grimsby in our remaining fixtures - goal difference would decide who was placed higher. Given their huge advantage, Grimsby's GD was rather like having an extra point.
That was all for the future, though. For today, we were still ninth, but if we kept this kind of form going we would shoot up the table. We had actually won five of the last six, with the only defeat being against our next opponents, Forest Green Rovers.
One thing the curse couldn't tell me was what Rovers planned to do with the million quid they had made in the FA Cup Third Round. No doubt they would do what we had done - bring in a few wily old campaigners.
"Dean," I said, stopping next to my head physio en route to my corner. "Where are the kids?"
I said kids but mostly I meant WibRob. He was the jewel in the crown, even more than Youngster. Jones, my new Welsh right back, came close in terms of raw ability but goalscorers were far more valuable than defenders. Dean was checking a nasty cut Chipper had got. Just my luck if my best player went septic in his first match. Dean paused in his work long enough to say, "I saw William and Noah heading into the Main Stand."
Some of the old fear. The Main Stand, with its legions of scouts and agents looking to make a fast buck off my work. I tried my best to shake it off.
"Lads," I said, turning the music down for a second. Everyone looked at me. "Great win. Hard shell and spikes. Love it. Don't forget training's at King George tomorrow. Anyone late because they went to BoshCard it's a fifty quid fine. You're on your own for breakfast. Sorry to dampen the mood but you need to eat at home so don't forget."
"No, Max," said Henri. "Leave breakfast to Henri Lyons. The ocean is full of minerals and we must feast before the other creatures get there. Ladies and gentlemen, bring your appetites to the King George! Ah... and some napkins. Cutlery, perhaps. Has anyone access to twenty thermos flasks?"
Half the lads pressed forward to help Henri organise.
I slipped into my corner and got dressed, then sat with my head in my hands. Wrexham-ball in a mudbath once was abysmal, but twice in a week was a cruel and unusual punishment. It was all so very hard to stomach, but stomach it I would, because this was it right here. The Chesterness. Togetherness, team spirit, in this world it's just us.
Just us.
***
XP balance: 5,214
***
Saltney Town 5 - Brickfield Rangers 1
Saltney move up to fifth. Two goals for Tom Westwood. Apparently, Rainman made a mistake that led to a goal. Young goalkeepers make mistakes. No big deal. Get it out of your system, lad!
West Didsbury and Chorlton 3 - Irlam 0
West remain miles clear in first place. Captain and Sevenoaks came on near the end to make their debuts. Jay Cope helping me win next year's Youth Cup!
***
Saturday, 25 January
Match 25 of 46: Chester vs Forest Green Rovers
The pitch had not improved in the four days since we had churned it up. I stood on the halfway line next to Jonny Planter and I'm not sure which one of us was closer to tears.
"I'm sorry, boss," he said. He usually called me Max so I knew how low he was feeling. Lower than me.
I tried to cheer him up. "Not your fault, mate. Not your fault."
"I tried, and the lads helped."
"The volunteers, yeah. When we get promoted we need to hand out a couple of proper contracts. Do you know who you'll choose?"
"I do, yes, boss, but that's not what I meant. I meant the lads."
"The lads?"
"The lads. The eighteens. Tyson and Benny and William and Noah and the whole lot of them who could make it. Three nights in a row they were here, helping out. Trying to get her in shape." He looked up. "No good, though. No good."
So that's what the kids had been up to. Sneaking off to volunteer to help. You know those thin sachets that you shake and they heat up? That was how my entire body felt. I could have run for days... on someone else's pitch.
I slapped Jonny on the back. "One day we'll have a Premier League quality surface. You'll get everything you need to make that happen."
He blurted out, "I need a see-through roof."
"What?"
"Like Newcastle got. And Twickenham. It lets the light in. I saw the drawings at the Fans Forum and you've got a solid roof." He trailed off. "Better if it's clear."
I smiled. "We'll have to move the solar panels to the outside. You can help tell us where, maybe, or there will be patches where it's dark. I'm having trouble imagining what you mean to be honest." At light speed, he summoned a photo of Newcastle's stadium. It did, indeed, have a mostly transparent roof on one side. "Huh. Did I only go to St. James' Park for night games? I don't remember noticing the roof. But yeah, sounds sensible to let as much light in as we can. I'll talk to my contact at the stadium builders and see what's poss. Yeah. Good call, Jonny!"
"I'll work even harder this week."
"You'll do no such thing. You'll pace yourself and do your best. We can play on this better than any team in the league, anyway. We'll turn it into an advantage."
"But boss," he said. "The Halifax manager called it a disgrace. Said it was the worst pitch he's ever seen, shouldn't be allowed, all that stuff."
"Prick's a bad loser. Don't listen to outsiders. It's just us, mate. Remember that."
***
"What do you think?" I said, sliding into my chair in the manager's office. It was time to make our final calls.
"Four-four-two," said Sandra. "Only real question is Magnus versus Andrew and Andrew versus Aff."
"I think we need Aff," I said.
"Andrew can lock down the right just as good as him. Aff's one of our best weapons for when we, ah, evolve. No need to grind him today."
Aff gave off the vibe of being almost indestructible but I remembered he had torn a hamstring from being overplayed. "Yeah, okay. Magnus and Andrew start, Aff comes on for twenty or thirty. Done." I picked up a match programme and turned to the back page. It showed most of the current squads for both clubs, with shirt numbers so fans could tell who was on the pitch. The away team's squad hadn't changed so far this transfer window. "FGR have all that cup money but haven't spent it. What are they thinking?"
"Waiting for the last day of the window?"
I threw my hands up. "Yeah, but why?"
"This is their only match before the window closes. It's not urgent, is it? They might be waiting on other clubs to do their business. Player chain. A has to move so that B can come in which frees up C as long as D... and so on."
"It'd drive me crazy. Bid for a player, get him, move on. Do it early in the window if you can. Makes no sense to do everything in a rush on the last day."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah." Why had she asked that? "Everyone's doing extra. Putting their back into everything. It's amazing. I'll do my part. I have to do my part. It's just... Fuck, Sandra. I want to smash a free kick but I can't put all my weight on my off foot without sliding. I, like, can't do what I'm best at. What the team needs." She didn't say anything, but waited. "Will you take a point today?"
She nodded. "A point's... decent. Four points from six is good, right? And it's two full matches for Cole and Josh. And Sticky. This show of faith in them could pay off at the end of the season." Her watch beeped and she got up. She jerked her head towards the dressing room. "What's the message?"
I closed my eyes. "Keep it tight first ninety."
"Understood."
***
We scrapped. We battled. We slipped. We slid. It was ghastly. Beastly. Inhuman. No-one in their right minds would have wanted to play in such conditions.
"Boss," said Zach, taking an opportunity to sit next to me on the bench while Sandra was up shouting.
"Yes."
"I can do this."
"What?"
"I can scrap. I played in games like this. I can hit a better long ball, too."
I pulled my hood back just a fraction so I could side-eye him. "If you're pulling a trailer full of forty to fifty feral hogs out of a muddy ditch, do you use a Rolls Royce or a four by four?"
"They're not feral if you can get them up in a trailer."
I pointed. "Sit over there and look pretty. That's your job today."
"But you know I can do it, right?"
I looked up, exasperated. People begging for praise always exhausted me. "Sure, Zach. You can get down and dirty. If I ever need someone to help me er, what's the word... drive some cattle from Texas to whatever is next to Texas, you'll be the first guy I call."
"Glad to hear it. And if you're doing any more science themes I can help you with that, too."
"I'll one million percent take you up on that," I said. "If I ever come up against a topic I can't immediately top to bottom understand within three YouTube videos."
"That's," he started, but shuffled back to his place.
If only he could go on instead of me. I wasn't in the mood for this ocean-bottom football, but I could do the defensive work as well as anyone and I had a greater chance of creating or scoring than anyone - with the possible exception of Chipper. The guy was better than I'd thought. Tough as nails, could hold the ball up, tidy layoffs, combined amazingly with Henri. Our patterns of play were subconsciously turning towards him and that was a measure of how quickly he had earned the trust of the other players.
There was only one slight problem.
He was a nutter.
Fierce clips the ball left.
Owens competes for it, but loses out.
Adams is there to help. He scuffs the ball forward.
Owens clips it to Lyons.
Lyons turns and gives it to Thomson.
Thomson is being held - unfairly!
Free kick to Chester.
Now Thomson has his marker by the throat!
It's all kicking off!
Here come the peacemakers.
Now the peacemakers are getting stuck in!
Chester's manager pulls his hood down.
Corners, free kicks, long throws - any time there was a mass of bodies, Leslie “Chipper” Thomson was kicking, lashing out, standing on someone's feet. The ref kept pleading with him to stop but the guy had a genius for being able to throw his weight about without getting booked. I mean, in the first half alone he could have had six yellow cards.
This was probably why TJ had looked for an upgrade - at higher levels, referees were much less tolerant of this crap. It was why I'd worked to ease this out of Henri's game. Would I do the same with Chipper? As long as he didn't get a red card at a bad moment, it didn't really affect me. Today, for example. If he got sent off we would turtle up and get a nil-nil. Everyone agreed that would be a good result.
I checked the Live Scores - Grimsby and Barnet were winning. Pulling away from us. Dropping twenty-two points behind would virtually end our hopes of catching the league leaders.
"Urgh!" I said, pushing my hoodie back. I got to my feet and for the first time in the match took over the shouting duties. In particular, I gave Chipper a volley of what some might call verbals but what others might call constructive criticism. He gave me a death stare in return.
I moved the back four a few yards forward and got Zach to warm up as a warning to Glenn not to retreat. I experimented with dropping Chipper into the CAM slot so he could be even more of a conduit between the midfield and Henri. It was a good idea and I planned to return to it, but on this occasion I sensed our expected threat had dropped considerably so I moved him back to being a second striker.
We had the better of the first half, but once again there hadn't been many shots.
***
At half-time, I took Vimsy into my manager's room.
"Mate, this is awful. Am I doing it right?"
He shrugged. "There's not really a way to do it wrong, Max. It's like, you win your duels and get rid of the ball. You can't concede if you do that."
"So there's nothing I can tweak? No trick? What about putting Zach on and using Fierce as a third striker? Sort of a Goliath thing?"
He shook his head. "Sorry, lad. Not when you're on top. That'd only let them in with a chance. You want to suffocate the life out of them. But what are you worried about? It's going great and you'll come on and hit a couple of your crosses and that'll be that. It's all like you said."
I put my knuckle against my lips. "Yeah."
"What's up?"
"I was trying to think like an anomalocaris."
"That's your killer shrimp thing."
"That's our killer shrimp thing, Vimsy. It's your planet, too. So, how do we evolve for this situation? I got some boots with longer studs and had a play on the grass at BoshCard. The long studs didn't help much and I couldn't control the ball very well. So that's out. And that's all I could think. If I go full whack at a Beckham, my standing foot doesn't stand. It slides. If I go for a cannonball, my left foot slides. Whatever I do, I slide. And that's a problem unless I want to take shots like the guy in My Left Foot."
"You know what I learned from watching that video Zach sent around?"
"Video?"
"He said it was for anyone who sort of wanted to know what you were talking about in maybe slightly more accurate terms. I learned that necessity is the mother of invention. If a predator's coming, you improvise." He looked worried. "That's right, isn't it?"
"Basically, yeah. Get good or get eaten." I leaned back and looked straight up. "So there's no tweaks you can teach me? What would Ian Evans do now?"
"He'd break out the fucking bubbly, Max, because you just put out one of the best forty-five minutes of Ian Evans football I've ever seen."
Still looking up, I scoffed. "Amazingly, that doesn't make me feel better."
"Come on, Max. Let's go inside. Moping on your own in here does you no good. Come on, lad. One of us, yeah?"
I blew air out of my lungs over the course of about five seconds, took a few beats, and said, "Josh is getting outfoxed by that right back. Can you talk to him? I think his starting position is wrong. Bring Wisey into it and see if he's noticed. He might understand it better than Josh himself."
"Yes, boss."
***
Long throw. Josh Owens dries the ball on the towels - now in stock in the club shop - and hurls it. Men jump and the ball pinballs around. The ball is having a lovely old time deciding which patches of mud to stick to and which kicks to veer wildly off course.
Corner. I haven't set a taker because no-one on the pitch stands out as being particularly good and it's fascinating to see who goes over. For a while it's Andrew Harrison and he does some feeble, powder-puff chips that don't clear the front post. It's maddening.
Defensive header. Ball helped forward. James Wise tries to win the ball high up the pitch but only gives away a free kick. The keeper takes a minute off the clock and booms it all the way down the pitch to Sticky. He boots it all the way back.
"Holy fucking shit!" I say. The plan is working. The plan is mint. The football is diabolical. Grimsby are winning and our title charge is dying in the mud. "I can't watch this any more. I'm going on!"
***
I decided to take Magnus and Andrew off, with Aff going to the left of central midfield as had worked pretty well in the previous game. It didn't really matter, though. This was a new sport where you needed to like heavy ground and you needed to be tall.
The patterns continued as before, but being the one jumping for headers was way better than watching a guy jumping for headers. I almost started to enjoy the work. I would push forward to put pressure on the left back to make sure he couldn't put quality on his pass - as if - then head back to midfield to support Carl. Then I'd push forward, go back, an endless loop that achieved nothing except the preservation of our precious clean sheet.
I entered a zen-like state of absolute, perfect misery and marvelled at the difference Christian Fierce had made to our back line. We were solid ay eff! Kidderminster had two great strikers, too. Why weren't they in the playoff spots?
Because they hadn't evolved from the National League North. They hadn't added strings to their bow.
I found myself sprinting to the right and that was because Chipper had collected a pass and was laying it off to Henri. He hit it in my direction and I got my head down and sprinted to get it. It must have been a fair impression of a racehorse - mud flying up, beautiful, powerful form. I glanced left and decided I would cut the ball back into Chipper's path.
As I was about to hit the ball, I stumbled.
I stumbled because the ball was two yards behind where it was supposed to go. The traitorous mud had held it up. The chance to strike was gone. Would there be another?
I put my hands behind my head as I walked back, one step at a time, sucking in air after the sudden exertion.
It was no-one's fault.
It was no-one's fault.
Ten million pounds for a new stand including drainage and undersoil heating. Some of that fancy equipment the big boys used. Big lamps that rolled across the grass helping it grow.
Fierce, Ryder, and a striker went up for a header. Fierce cleaned the other two out. Wisey got the ball and hooked it forward. Henri competed and sent Chipper after it. He hit it out to me - why? I'm shit. I stared at the ball and clipped it with side spin in front of Chipper. He threw himself forward and somehow got a volley away - the keeper flew up like a dolphin exploding from the sea and tipped the ball over the bar.
Corner kick! At last a chance to do something useful. I collected the ball and ambled to the corner quadrant. There was no point rushing because my entire back four was jogging into the penalty area, while Josh and Wisey dropped to stop any counters.
What to do?
I had to go hell for leather. Sprint at the ball and give it the full Beckham, the full wrecking ball, otherwise nothing was going to happen. Andrew Harrison had been lobbing in those pitiful snail mail deliveries and wasted approximately a million corners.
All or nothing.
I placed the ball and tested the soil to its left. Nightmare. I moved the ball to the right. I moved it up, down, I spotted it everywhere. Mud, mud, swamp, pond. James Pond getting his revenge.
The referee whistled hard like I was timewasting.
We're at home and I've got a chance to win it, you dick! Shove your whistle up your -
I took four steps back, inhaled, checked where Fierce and Ryder were, and rocketshipped myself towards the ball. I planted my left and swung with my right... and slid, and slid, and slid, taking the ball with me.
I had achieved... a goal kick to Forest Green and a video clip that would get record plays on fan forums in Wrexham.
I wanted to sit up and slap the turf, but that would have been a slap in the face for Jonny Planter. The guy had worked his arse off. My fucking under eighteens had gone to the stadium twice after training and on their free Thursday to do running repairs on the pitch. No fucking way would I treat them the way Chester's fans had treated me.
Sorting my limbs out was not the work of a moment, but I got to my feet - filthy dirty - and tossed the ball towards the goalie.
I walked away, trying to keep it together.
Two minutes later - disaster. We got another corner on my side.
Shaking my head, I looked for a spot to plant the ball. There were no spots. There was only primordial soup. Wherever I put my weight, I would slip and fall. The only solution was what Andrew Harrison had done - to try to float the ball without twisting, to kick straight, knowing that if you slipped, at least the ball would go into the penalty box. I wanted to slap myself in the face. Andrew wasn't a fucking idiot - why was I so arrogant to think he didn't understand his own environment? Fucking tiny eels five hundred million years ago had learned to loop-de-loop to avoid the megashrimp. Why was I so keen to assume a human being in 2025 couldn't make rational decisions?
I stared at the ball and all kinds of images whizzed past - the moon, an egg, Wales the beer belly, a gluey French cheese, a speech bubble in a cartoon.
It didn't matter what the ball was. It mattered that all around was, as far as my balance was concerned, ice.
What would Max Best do?
Max Best would fucking go for it.
I took four steps back, inhaled, tried and failed to stop my face turning to absolute furious stone, and I launched myself at that fucking round thing. I sprinted, I went all out, I took a big swing and if I made proper contact this would be the textbook definition of an outswinging corner. Fuck you, universe! I am Max Best and I am a floating megabrain and I float above your shitty surface! Your rules do NOT apply to me!
The rules did apply to me. My left foot got no traction and my left leg collapsed. I fell to earth harder than before and watched as the ball rotated once, twice, three times, and came to rest a sarcastic distance behind the goal line.
Goal kick to Forest Green.
Nobody's fault. Nobody gets slapped. Nobody can see the tears waiting behind my eyes. A point is fine. Four points from six. Grimsby leading two-one. Okay, so what? So we go for the playoffs after all.
The playoffs are in summer. The pitches are firm and fast. The final's at Wembley on a huge pitch and my Pascals and my Sharkys will annihilate their foes.
Christ knows how but I made it the first five yards without bursting into tears.
Vimsy. "Necessity is the mother of invention."
Andrew Harrison. Smart guy, raised his siblings almost single-handed. Fucking good footballer even if he didn't do nutmegs and madnesses. Chipping the ball forward in a straight line.
Invention. Evolution. Shells and spikes and burrowing.
A man. A ball. The man cannot kick the ball.
"The creatures of the Cambrian period tried on every possible anatomical design."
I stopped, hands on hips, and looked down, defeated. I walked forward. After five yards, I stopped. With a tremendous effort, I walked on again.
The match, stupidly, was still going on. Was there any sound? Who cared. Who fucking cared about anything? Not your reliable narrator, Maxy Two-slips.
Stuff happened. The ball went here and there. Then it went there and the referee signalled for a corner. I picked up the ball and while holding it, changed the right-side corner kick taker to Aff.
Maybe with his left foot he would get more purchase on the cross?
Would he fuck. It was soup, mate. Soup for miles.
"Aff," I said, handing him the ball. I pointed furiously, gesticulating like a proper manager. "I'm pretending to be telling you things."
"Yes, boss."
"What you're going to do is, when I walk away I'm going to stop. I want you to kick the ball to there. You get me? Kick it there. I'll have moved on a few steps but kick it there."
"Solid ground, boss?"
"As solid as it gets round here."
I walked off and when I got to the spot, I gestured that Wisey should do this and Josh should do that. One of the Forest guys got suspicious - I had developed a slight reputation for tricks and whimsy, but then I trudged away and there was no disguising how shit I felt. The defender took a couple of steps back.
Aff went through his routine but, instead of whipping the ball in, he played a kind of skimming stone shot, putting the ball more or less exactly where I needed it. I had walked back towards him when he started his move. I touched the ball to bring it under my spell, and - facing towards the penalty spot - hit the kind of toe-poke pass that would have been considered cringe in the Cambrian era. With my left foot more or less planted, I did a simple, straight swish of my right, kicking the ball exactly forwards in the manner of a child. It was much less technical even than Andrew had been doing, but the angle. The angle, mate!
Aff takes the corner. It's played simply to Best.
Best takes a touch - retaining his balance, just - and toe pokes it into the area.
Adams leaps at the far post. This could be a chance!
He elects to play it back across goal.
Thomson is quickest to react...
He leathers it past the goalie!
It was struck with genuine ferocity!
His second goal in two games has won it for Chester!
There is pandemonium at the Deva! The home fans are raising the roof!
I pottered down the line, wondering what to do next. It was eerily quiet in the stadium but I could see Sandra's mouth moving. I couldn't hear her, though, and I decided I would drop Chipper to CAM and move myself to DM to keep things tight for the last few minutes. If Forest Green sensed opportunity on our right I would simply station Aff there and that would be that.
The last few minutes came and went. Fierce won a header. I won a tackle. Henri held the ball up, drew a foul, and the ref decided to end things there. Another one-nil win. More human pyramids in front of the Harry McNally.
I was almost in the dressing room when I remembered I had been keeping an eye on the other scores. It was another win for West and another win for Saltney. Another two goals for Tom Westwood! Good for him.
Hang on. Go back.
Grimsby... had drawn.
I stopped dead and tried to refresh the screen by blinking. In disbelief, I got my phone and summoned the BBC.
Grimsby had drawn. We were two points closer.
P GD Pts 1 Grimsby 29 30 62 2 Barnet 30 21 57 8 Chester 25 11 44
The Brig came in. Without anyone saying anything, since the Fans Forums he had gone back to being something of a bodyguard. "Sir," he said, with a hint of a smile. "You remember we talked about your desire to know how the pitch at Dorking Wanderers is getting along?"
"Yes." We had discussed it at a senior staff team meeting and the upshot was that the Brig had promised to take care of Dorking while Fleur, our only actual scout, had gone to Eastleigh.
"I can't tell you everything but I have an old colleague who lives in Surrey who specialised, during his career, in reconnaissance. I sounded him out for the mission and he was intrigued enough to do it."
My heart skipped a beat. The Brig was smiling. Surely not... good news? "Go on," I said, not daring to believe.
"He said it's like a snooker table, sir. Actually, he said it's like a billiards table, but he always was cripplingly posh."
"Billiards table," I croaked. Chemical reactions of a thousand kinds were coursing through me. Enzymes released, endorphins by the hosepipe, testosterone by the gallon. "We can... we can pass? We can slap?"
"I believe so, sir."
"John," I said.
"Yes, sir?"
Blood was pulsing so hard through my ears it was like someone had set up a drum kit two inches behind me. Dorking would set up to defend against a team of giants. I would slice them up with Pascal's intelligence and Sharky's speed. They would have an idea of how to counter me coming on at the end, but I would start the match in a forward position, trusting Christian to keep us solid. I would storm around for twenty minutes and win the game. Then after unleashing our awesome firepower, I would sub off. We would control the match and conserve energy for Tuesday night's slog against Dagenham. One of our games in hand and a safe bet to bring us three points closer to Grimsby. "John. It's happening. We're going to do this."
His smile broadened. "I know, sir." He brushed about one trillionth of the mud off me and smiled. "We all know."
***
As I was about to leave, Secretary Joe found me. Relief washed over him. "Ah, there you are. I got this to give you. Seemed urgent and important." He handed me an expensive-feeling envelope.
"Who gave it to you?"
"Someone left it in the Blues Bar in an envelope for me." He smiled. "I think someone knows my routine."
I frowned slightly. Would someone want to hurt Joe to get at me? He was an ally but mostly he was a Chester fan. Surely not a target? I opened the flap and pulled out two items.
The first was a ticket to a football match dated this coming Wednesday. "York City under eighteens versus Redditch United under eighteens. Hmm. Not terribly exciting, is it?" As I said that, I realised it wasn't true. There was something about this I found INSANELY exciting.
"What does it say?" said Joe, looking at the letter. On closer inspection, it wasn't a letter; it was formatted like a fancy party invitation with embossed edges.
"You are cordially invited," I read, "to witness the future of English football. See you there, Max Best. Kiss, kiss, kiss. That's too many kisses."
"So you won't go, then?"
I grinned. "Envelopes within envelopes. Shadowy characters." I wafted the card under my nose. "No scent. If this was some sort of honey trap, I'd have squirted some of my favourite perfume on it, which as you know is Flowers by Miley Cyrus."
"Do you want it to be a honey trap?"
"Of course I do."
"But it's a trap."
"But there's honey."
Joe shook his head and smiled. But then it was his turn to look worried. "Will you take John?"
"Hmm," I said, wafting the card under my nose. The whole thing hinted at some kind of lady spymaster summoning me to join a secret society. Why didn't it have some perfume? "Might just do that." I looked at the text again. Witness the future of English football.
Huh. Don't mind if I do.