6.

Thursday, February 20

Double training is normally used as a punishment. The lads lost four-nil at home? Midfield didn't run hard enough? Defenders were out of position? Double training! At Chester we did things different. When I sent out a text saying some people were being selected for double training the message was hearted and thumbs-upped by a dozen players, while Pascal wrote a mini-essay explaining why he should be chosen.

The first of the two sessions involved the entire squad, including me. I had asked Llewellyn to put on a fun, skills-based session. Why? I didn't want my hard shell boys to overexert themselves after their time in the mud and since we'd be playing on the division's best pitch in our next game, I wanted us to brush up our technique. Why Llewellyn? Because he was the best coach I had access to. Simple!

Simplicity was my new watchword. I was taking Occam's razor to all my decisions, shaving off hours of worry and stress by saying things like, what is the single most important thing for the club in the next two weeks? The simple answer? Increasing the CA of our players. What's stopping me doing that? The pitches and facilities. The simple solution? Use someone else's pitch and facilities. How do I do that? By asking. (And in one case, by being a tiny microscopic bit cheeky and telling a white lie to a Premier League club. But that's next chapter.)

My primary goal - increase CA.

My secondary goal - spend 'quality time' with my players. The simplest way to do that? Lock them in a car with me as we drive to double training!

Who should I choose for the first bonus session? Why, the players I would probably sell next! Carl? No! He needed to rest. Carl next week, then. Easy! And apart from players who could raise cash in the summer, anyone else? The one player who could hurt opponents from the centre of midfield. What about a goalscorer while I'm at it? Okay, then!

Keeping things simple turned out to be quite satisfying.

***

Sandra was desperate to come back to work but Dean spotted her coughing her guts out and sent her home. I called and told her to target next Tuesday's trip to Rochdale as her return and I didn't want to see her until then. I gave her the option of watching Ghostbusters or watching clips of Rochdale looking for weaknesses.

"What about Boreham Wood?" she said.

"They play 3-4-3 and the players don't know where to go," I said. "It's way too complicated for this level."

"Don't," she started, before coughing up a few lungs. "Don't underestimate 3-4-3. I can see us evolving in that direction."

That was a strange thing to say because 3-4-3 was the next formation I could buy in the perk shop. I got the feeling I was supposed to buy all the preset formations and then the curse would allow me to upgrade WibWob and ultimately develop complete tactical flexibility. I'd only ever seen 3-4-3 used badly, though. I didn't want it. "Did you say evolve because of the Cambrian Age presentation?"

She left quite a long silence before saying, "Yes."

"I'll keep an open mind. Now, will you please take some Lemsip and go back to bed? Please?"

"Yes, boss."

***

After the session we got showered and ate our packed lunches under two big umbrellas like you do in the summer. Being February, it was cold, damp, and frankly unprofessional. We loved it.

Then we drifted to our cars, except I followed Llewellyn to his, as did Eddie Moore and Ben Cavanagh. They waved to their jealous mates and got in the back. Llewellyn had one of the nicest cars out of any of us and it was a pretty smooth ride. Maybe Angel was right - maybe I should retire The Duchess.

The first ten minutes of the drive I was on my phone organising things and returning messages. Mateo wanted to see me. Brooke had some hot goss. Ray Hart had time to talk. The theme of the next couple of months was forcing my players to evolve as fast as poss so I called the coach first.

"Ray. How are you doing? Great. Here's the thing. We're playing Grimsby in two weeks and they have a pretty decent offside trap. Imagine Ryan Jack gets the ball in midfield and pings it up to Pascal. Yeah? They'll push up and catch him offside. What I want is to get the timing down on a secondary runner. Ryan does that thing they do in the NFL. What's that called?"

"Steroids," said Ben. Eddie sniggered.

Llewellyn said, "Pump fake."

"Yes! Pump fake. Ryan fakes right. Grimsby's defence pushes up two yards. Oops! There's half the pitch open. So Ryan dinks the ball left or centre and Wibbers chases. If we do that right, he's clean through and even better, Pascal's up in support. Once Wibbers takes the ball past Pascal's level, he's back onside. This is going to be deadly. This is our big shrimp claw, do you get me? What do you mean no? Never mind the shrimp thing, we need to get this move down pat and I think there's two components. One, the timing. Pascal has to go hard to sell the first pass and the second runner has to go at the right moment. In the NFL they do it all on counts. Like a two-second delay or something. Can we do that? Or does it have to be instinctive? Second thing's the trigger. We need to get the ball to Ryan at the right point where he's got time to do the pump. If he's swarmed there's no point, right, because if he pumps he gets dumped. So can you break all the steps down into little drills and we put it all together? Or do you think we do it unopposed a few times and add obstacles one by one?" I glanced at Llewellyn and inwardly smiled. As I'd hoped, he was visualising how he would do it. "Maybe one or two of the other coaches would like to get involved. Have a think about it. I see this as becoming one of our staples so I'll give you training ground time. Yes with the first team. Okay, got to go. Thanks!"

I texted Brooke and when I put the phone away, Llewellyn spoke. He was one of those coaches who thought about players like abstract numbers. Chess pieces instead of individuals. That way of thinking was both a strength and a weakness. "It'll go better with a layoff. Your 6 pump fakes the pass to the 7. Defence pushes out. 6 lays off to 8 who first times it to the 11 or the 10."

"Why?"

"The 8 has visibility on the side of the pitch that the 6 doesn't."

I nodded. I had discovered that Llewellyn was quite a cold person. He had a Coaching Outfield Players and Tactical Knowledge score of 20, but his Man Management was only 5. I could imagine him being hired by top German and Austrian clubs, winning every match for six months, then getting sacked after a few bad results because his star players were scheming against him. If he was content to be the assistant to a charismatic leader, he would have a long, glorious, and stress-free career. Or he could get to know his players as individuals and find out what makes them tick. That thought reminded me what the point of this excursion was. Time to get chatty!

"Or Max could do it," said Ben, sweeping the rug from under me.

"What?" I said.

"You can pass through the lines and you see the whole pitch."

"Oh."

Llewellyn said something pretty shocking. "And he's two-footed."

I eyed him. I was partway through a multi-year deception where I pretended to be as right-footed as most players. I used my left - sparingly - at key moments in matches but generally only used it for standing on. The goal was that one day when I most needed an edge I would be able to shock the world - and perhaps a German goalkeeper - with the sweetness of my left foot. "Soccer Supremo has me right-footed," I said.

He scoffed. "It has you at Pace 8, Finishing 6 or something stupid like that."

I eyed him some more. His profile said he was Judging Player Ability 15 but many people with equal or higher scores hadn't spotted the truth about me. Absolutely fascinating.

Eddie Moore had a question. "Boss, do you get mad when we mess things up?"

"What, mate? I don't follow."

He adjusted his seat belt. "Like, you're next level. You boss the first half against Solihull. Score two, nearly three. Everything's roses. Then, er, we let it slip. Must be annoying as hell, right?"

"No," I said, reflexively, but I paused. I didn't want to talk about me but if I did, maybe Eddie and Ben would open up. "I mean, okay, yeah, it's fucking infuriating." I showed them all my teeth. "But that's, like, ten seconds. It's goes urgh holy shit why mate no why okay is anyone injured is there anything I can tweak? Do you know what I mean? And, like, almost every match everyone does their best. And you're basically the best squad I could possibly get and okay you've got limitations but so do I and if someone isn't working in the system that's on me. And I mean almost everyone on the team now is someone I signed so who'm I supposed to blame but myself? Who's left from the old days, anyway? Ben, Glenn, Carl."

"Aff," said Ben.

"Right! Aff. Magnus."

"Magnus wasn't playing, though," said Ben.

Llewellyn turned. "Magnus wasn't playing?"

"The road, mate," I said, pointing to where the driver of a car should look. Ahead.

Ben explained. "He was player/coach but mostly he helped as a physio. Max took one look at him and campaigned to get him in the team."

Llewellyn and Eddie had apparently never heard this. Eddie said, "But he's important. He's a key player."

"He didn't look like it," said Ben. "Ian Evans thought Magnus was a weirdo. To be fair, Magnus didn't believe in himself either. He wasn't taking playing seriously like he is now."

"Is he enjoying it?" I said.

"Not sure about enjoying it. But he's serious."

I shook my head. "I need him to stay but if I put pressure on him he's more likely to go. It's hard."

"How did you know he was good?" said Llewellyn.

"I didn't," I said. "Normally I can tell pretty easily. It was clear to me Ben was the best goalie at Chester. When I saw Eddie I was like, yes, please! Magnus is weird. But he can play across the defence or midfield so why not use him for ten or twenty minutes here and there? I thought if he got minutes I'd be able to see what his ceiling was going to be. But there's no ceiling. He's like an Agatha Christie story. You've got to read to the end, right? I need to get to the end with Magnus. What's his limit? It's driving me crazy. If he quits football before I find out I will literally throw a temper tantrum. You know who's the same? Dan Badford. He's not identical because he's so good on the ball you can easily imagine him as a pro footballer, right, but there's something about him that stops me knowing his end point. It's frustrating but it's kind of fun, too."

Eddie said, "Is that why you didn't say his value?"

"What?"

"At the Fans Forum on that video with Emma. You said how much everyone's worth but you didn't say Magnus."

"Oh. Didn't I? Yeah, I suppose. We'll never get a fee for him, will we? I think he'll stay with us as long as it's interesting for him. I think the community work is motivational and we're going to do even more of that but on the other hand, maybe he'll think we've got it covered so he could do more good elsewhere, like at an avocado-growing commune in south Manchester. But he's not going to come and say boss I've signed a pre-contract with Leicester City. I mean, he might, but I doubt it. I think he'll stay until he's done with football."

"What's he worth, though?"

"He's worth zero because his contract expires in a couple of months."

Eddie exchanged a glance with Ben. I turned on the passenger seat so I could track their faces better. Something was up. Eddie said, "If he had a three-year contract, what would he be worth?"

I frowned and tried to work out what they were trying to get at. I failed "What's going on?"

Ben leaned to his left so I wouldn't have to twist so far. "Everyone's obsessed with that speech. You spat out a skipful of info like you were ChatGPT and we're going crazy wondering what you think we're worth."

Eddie leaned forward. "Have you got all that in your head all the time? Do you watch us score goals and say 'there's another ten grand'. What's it based on? Why's Youngster more than Wibbers?"

I made a surprised little scoffing noise. They seemed really motivated by knowing their transfer value. "What's the difference? I'm only guessing. The only price that matters is the price another club is willing to pay."

Llewellyn said, "It matters because the transfer value you put on them shows how much you rate them."

"And you had me and Eddie in the same bracket," said Ben.

"The lowest," said Eddie, tilting his head to show disapproval.

"Hang on," I said. I tried to think back to the Fans Forum, something I preferred to avoid. "Those weren't my valuations. It was what I imagined Chip thought you were worth. Or what he could get for you."

"Come on, boss," said Ben. "You have a good idea what we're worth. Tell us!"

I held up a hand. "This conversation is out of control already. This trip is about boosting you. Building you up. Boost the Build, yeah? Me saying Ben's worth x and Eddie's worth x plus one is the opposite of that. I want you to focus on improving your game." I looked out of the window - we were going through Ellesmere Port - I would have taken the scenic route. "We're about halfway to the Solar Campus. That's Tranmere's training ground. Llewellyn's going to do some drills with us and then I've got you a treat. While we're doing breaks and stuff I want to talk to you about your careers and that. Like, when the right time to move you on is. This summer or next. Tricky. I don't think there's a right answer, to be honest, so we're not going to get angry about it, we're going to talk and see where we're at and we're going to do what's best for your careers. At no point will I say a number that I think is your value as a human being."

Eddie nodded. "But it was fifty thousand, wasn't it? I got Dani to read your lips."

"Dani wasn't there. Look, why are we talking about this? I don't get it."

Ben said, "You like numbers; so do we. It's motivational. We're starting to get some data from the Brig about our running stats in matches and he puts them up on the wall. Goalies are always at the bottom, which is annoying, but it's cool, isn't it? Like, did you know Andrew Harrison ran the most?"

"Yes," I said.

"It's good for banter, like teasing Josh that he didn't run enough."

"Whoa," I said. "I told him not to make forward runs. He was doing as he was told. If he starts running around because you were teasing him..." I was getting wound up. Why did people always find a way to find the worst possible way to use innovations? I straightened on the seat and bashed my head against the headrest. Fuck! No more shared data. Even just having the GPS vests on seemed to change the way some players behaved. I'd spotted players doing pointless runs and it had clicked that they were juicing their stats. Tiring themselves out! I wanted to collect data to make us seem like a real football club and because Sandra, Jackie, and Spectrum could use it to motivate, castigate, and prevent injury. Clearly, it was causing almost as many problems as it was providing solutions.

I thought my dark thoughts were transmitting around the car and wondered how I was going to get back to the positive, upbeat mood I craved. Eddie helped. "Do you like being a manager?"

I twisted again. "Most of it. I like the matches. The tactics and the whole chess match of it all. I like the squad building and trying to get the most talent for the wage budget. I like trying to find ways to get the kids improving faster and I'm going to like building the training centre and the stadium. I don't like how it feels as though if I stop pushing as hard as I can, people either sit back or actively undo what I've been doing. It's exhausting having to think about every little thing and then get complaints that I'm micromanaging."

Eddie looked at his hands. "I don't think I'd last two weeks doing what you do."

I scoffed. "You wouldn't do it like me. You're too intelligent for that."

"How would I do it?"

"Quietly efficient. Eighty twenty rule. Keep it simple, stupid. You'd pick three things that needed to be fixed and you'd work on those and if someone said what about this over here you'd say if it bothers you why don't you fix it yourself?"

He had a little curve on the edge of his mouth. "I wouldn't. I'd freeze. I'd be picturing every fan and journo following me around all day judging me."

"Do you feel like that when you're playing?"

"Before matches, yeah. Like they're watching me in the warm up saying 'that stretch isn't big enough' and stuff like that." He dipped his head and looked up at me.

"And when the whistle blows?"

"Then it's different."

Ben said, "Do you get nervous, boss?"

"Me? Before a match?"

"Yeah."

"Erm... not much. I'm too busy, really. I did a bit when I was at Darlington. It wasn't nervous, it was more excited. Like I knew I was going to destroy them and I almost wanted to skip the match to read what the papers wrote about me or to see someone post a video of the pandemonium in the stands." I pinched my lips together for a few seconds. "I was never nervous about exams, either. I think it's about control. Okay in an exam I can't choose what questions come up but if you've read the books and done the work you only have to write it out. It's only stressful if you think about the outcome, like shit I need to be switched on today or I can't become a chemist. I was nervous for a job interview once because it seemed really perfect and good money and I was thinking about all that future stuff instead of what I could control. As the manager I have control. If 4-4-2 isn't working I can try 3-5-2. If the other team is better, it's not stressful to lose, is it? You expect it. If you're better, that's not stressful either. You keep tweaking until you find the way to win. No, the stressful games are when we're evenly matched and there aren't many of those in a season."

Eddie said, "Ben asked about exciting and you changed it to stressful. That's interesting."

I laughed. "You think stress and nerves and excitement are all bundled up in my mind? One more thing for the psychologist to help me with. But it's the same with you, right? Once the whistle blows, you're in control. You've got your patch and your tasks and you get on with it."

"You're in control, not me."

"When you get the ball you can pass down the line, square, go back to the goalie, hit a big diag. If a guy's running at you, you can show him outside, tackle, hold him up. Whatever you want. I might ask you to come in a few steps but you're your own boss." I looked down while I got my next thought into order. "Do I like being a manager? Yeah. A lot. I think about the pandemic a lot, about lockdown. It seems like everyone else has shrugged it off but it messed me up. We were all powerless nobodies anyway and then we were told to stay indoors. I understood it and did my best not to go crazy but fuck me that was hard. And then we find the guys telling us to isolate are having big fucking parties and driving their families to beauty spots. I mean, fuck that, right? But what can you do? You're an ant to people like that. Fast forward a couple of years I'm running a football club and I've got some control. I can get shit done and if we win we get more money and with more money I can get more shit done."

"Dentists," said Ben.

"That's just the start. I have mad ambitions. People can't pay rent. They can't feed their kids. It's wild but if I win enough football matches I can help. I can actually make a difference to those people. I don't want to be an ant. I want to be a super shrimp. I want to gobble up all the three points in the ocean and spray cash all over Cheshire. Bit of a mixed metaphor but you get me. Do I like being a manager? I fucking love it. I really do. Marcus Rashford made this country a better place by very politely explaining to the government that it would be better if hungry children had food to eat. I'm going to do that but insanely bigger and without the politeness. I am not your fucking ant, mate. Do you get me? And you two are going to help by training up into assets I can sell while getting me promoted. It doesn't matter if the fee is ten thousand or ten million. You do your bit. That's all I can ask."

***

We were met in Tranmere's Solar campus car park by Mateo, the club's owner and all-round wonderful human being. Next to him was a coach and a physio.

I introduced my lot.

"The others are already on the pitch," said Mateo.

"The others?" said Ben.

"This way, fella," said the coach.

Mateo held me up. "Let's talk when you're done, okay?"

"If it's about the money I owe you," I said, "my dog ate it." I waited for a reaction but didn't get one. He was in one of his rock-like moods. "I can pay some of it off. Got some sponsorship income."

"It's not that. Go do your thing. I'll be here."

***

We caught up with the occupants of our second car - Ryan Jack, Angel, and Ruth. Ryan was here because giving him a few more points in CA would help enormously. Angel was chosen because I wanted to fast-track her to an England squad. Ruth because our agency had three players at Tranmere and Angel was a client, too. Ruth kept in touch with them but it couldn't hurt to have some extra face time.

I sat in the little dugout next to the first grass pitch and pulled my boots on. I fell into a jog and joined my mates in a warm up. The pitch was damp but flat. More than acceptable.

Llewellyn got us doing technique drills. One I liked was where we stood five yards behind a cone. We had to dash to the cone and control a ball he threw at us. The catch was that we had to control the ball into one of three hoops in front of us that he nominated late in the process. Ben was terrible, Angel not much better, Eddie and Ryan very good, and me almost flawless. Llewellyn switched from throwing balls at me to kicking them. It turned into a contest of wills as I went to station one, dashed forwards, cushioned a kick into the left-most hoop, then ran to the next station where Tranmere's coach kicked the ball waist-high as Llewellyn called out a hoop. I leapt and booped the ball... but it only pushed against the hoop. No time to fret - onto station three where the physio kicked a ball at me. This was the hardest yet because the guy had no skills and could only toe-poke the ball at ramming speed. I flicked my right foot behind my left leg and put the ball dead centre of the hoop - only for Llewellyn to say he had said the green one, not the blue one.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"I'm colour-blind," I said. "I'm giving myself a point."

Next, I'd asked him to set up some duels. It wasn't much fun for Angel but mostly I wanted to attack Eddie. He was smart and didn't do stupid things - it felt like we would both benefit from the time.

On my first attack, I faked to nutmeg him and when he closed his legs I zipped around him. One-nil!

He came at me and I swatted him away. Two-nil!

My turn on him again. I went for the fake nutmeg move again. He thought that this time I would go for the meg, but nope. I did it exactly the same. Three-nil.

He came at me with a fake nutmeg! Cheeky fuck. I booped the ball up and flicked it away. Four-nil.

I ran at him, did a couple of fast stepovers, and darted left. Llewellyn's comment about me being two-footed made Eddie wary, though, and he had been expecting something of the sort. Four-one.

He came at me with the same stepover attack, but he was totally one-footed so it was easy to - no! He went past me on his right! Four-two.

"Ooh!" I said, delighted at being beaten. "Where did that come from?"

He grinned. "I was never gonna beat you with my normal stuff. Took a risk."

I went internal, wondering if I wanted Eddie to use a high risk, high reward move in a serious match. Probably not.

"Max." Llewellyn had come over. He turned away from where Angel was nought for five on dribbles against Ryan. "Angel isn't getting anywhere."

"Yeah. That's fine. I don't expect her to achieve anything. She'll improve anyway."

"Her basics are terrible."

"Oh?" I watched as Ryan approached her, feinted, and she took a big swish. "She's not a defender."

"I know. I mean her dribbling technique."

Ben was due to step in for a turn, but I called out and asked Angel to go again.

She took the ball and approached Ryan. It was like watching a train - everything happening on straight lines. No guile, no possibility for an explosive redirect. "Hmm," I said. "What do you think?"

"She needs to go back to basics."

I clapped my hands. "Great. A simple drill speaks to my very soul, mate. Let's start."

"Whoa," he said. "It's far too easy for you, Ryan, and Eddie. You won't get anything from it."

"Mmm, not sure about that. Let's do it anyway. Imagine we're all beginners."

"You're not serious."

"I'm deadly serious. Tell us where to put the cones."

Two minutes later we were ready to go. The first drill involved moving very slowly through a tight line of about fifteen cones. Lots of tiny, accurate touches to guide the ball around and through. That kind of thing is super boring unless you get really into it. It's possible to fall into a trance-like state doing something so simple. I went first and when I got to the end of the line I turned back.

"No, you're done," said Llewellyn.

"Aww," I said.

Ryan and Eddie went at the same time. When they got to the end, Ben and Angel set off. They made it look hard.

We repeated the drill and moved the cones again. Now there was a zigzag with cones three yards apart. We had to slalom around while using only one foot. When pushing the ball out (away from our body) we would use the outside of our foot and when pulling it in, the inside. Easy.

I whizzed around. Ryan and Eddie went pretty fast. Ben and Angel went at about one-third pace. Llewellyn stopped Angel a few times to insist on better technique. She tended to do her railway thing and he wanted her more angular, more crouched, more explosive.

Ben was our goalie so he didn't really need this. In fact, it could prove detrimental if one of his last remaining CA points was used to increase his dribbling score. I knew from experience, though, that skills he didn't practise would decay and so if his build did get warped, it would sort itself out soon enough. The main thing for me was that he felt involved and he was loving it. And who knew? Maybe someone would play him a crappy back-pass and he would have to dribble past an onrushing striker.

Llewellyn's next basic drill involved putting cones out like a swimming pool. We simply had to dribble fast down the lane. Because there were two side-by-side, I fell into competition mode and destroyed Eddie. While we were resting, Ben and Ryan went. Ryan ran like he was attached to a huge elastic but that wasn't his injury - that was how he moved. Ignoring the aesthetics, his technique seemed fluid. Smooth.

Angel had her go but Llewellyn kept stopping her to once again insist on better form. She found it hard to do it well at speed.

"This is great," I said, mostly to Ryan. "Back to basics. Find flaws in technique. Bash away bad habits. What do you think?"

Ryan was lightly sweating. "I'm just happy to be back. Back to basics? Yeah, why not? Especially when you go first."

"What do you mean?"

"No-one's gonna grumble about it if you're doing it. Maybe better in the pre-season, though."

"Hmm. Interesting point. But maybe mid-winter's when our technique gets ragged. We get into bad habits on bad pitches."

"That's smart. Yeah."

"Why not both?" said Eddie.

Ryan and I made eye contact and laughed. I said, "Look at the little workhorse over here!"

"Glutton for punishment," said Ryan.

"It's not punishment," said Eddie. "I love it. I used to love this when I was a kid. Working on my game. Used to do hours every day. Like this. And kick ups."

"Who did you want to be?"

"Sorry, boss?"

"Like, were you running around your school playground shouting 'Roberto Carlos!' or who?"

"Oh. Ashley Cole."

"That's a good comp for you." Ashley Cole was a world-class left back who played for England and famously nearly crashed his car when he heard that Arsenal were 'only' offering him forty thousand pounds a week. "Remind me not to tell you about your pay rise when you're driving."

Ryan laughed but Eddie rolled his eyes. "That story got blown out of proportion."

"Yeah, well, what a player he was. Good taste." Llewellyn blew his whistle and told us how to reorganise the cones. I let the others do it while I talked to Angel. "How are you doing?"

"I'm shit. I can’t dribble. I can't control. I'm making you look bad in front of those guys." I looked around and saw that seven or eight Tranmere players had appeared, plus Ruth and Mateo. The latter were having a conversation that Ruth was enjoying a lot more than the owner. Angel pouted. "Can I stop?"

"No. You've got an elite coach in a League Two setting."

"He's elite?"

"Yep."

"Why's he wasting his time on me, then?"

"Because your boss is friends with his boss and he doesn't have a choice." I smiled until she smiled back. "I had one-tenth of a favour to call in from Tranmere's owner - that's why we're here - and I reckon I can ask Llewellyn to come to do random sessions maybe three times before he says fuck you. Okay? I'm using all my social capital on you."

"And Ben and Eddie and Ryan."

"And me," I said. "I need this, too. I am shit."

She scoffed. "You zoom around the cones."

I scoffed louder. "You should have seen me at Darlington. I used to fly around them. Trust me, I'm rusty. I need this, you need this, now quit yer yappin'. Less yappin’, more slappin’. That’s good, that. Write that down."

Llewellyn explained the last drill while doing it in slow motion, i.e. Ben Speed. "Run to this single cone, dribble around it. Tight as you can. Sprint to the two at the end. Imagine that's the touchline. Pushing the ball on those sprint strides, Angel. When you get to the plane between the two cones, chop your foot down, stop the ball there. We're not stopping it with our studs. We're using our outstep. Then we're dynamic. We can still play. Max?"

I pushed the ball forward as I sprinted the ten yards to the first cone. I slowed, stopped, and forced myself to go back the way I'd come. As I approached the two cones I calculated the strength of the final push. The ball obeyed and slowed just as I planted my left foot. With my right I chopped down, stopped it dead on the invisible line, and found I was in perfect position to push the ball away from, for example, a defender who was sliding in to tackle me.

"Perfect," said Llewellyn. "Next."

"Hang on," I said.

I went through the process again but on the return, stopped the ball with the sole of my foot like most players would do. The action kind of forced me away from the ball and put my back to it. If an opponent was an equal distance away, he would get it by virtue of facing the right way.

"Yep. The first one."

Llewellyn cracked a rare smile. "You don't trust me?"

"Sometimes I like to understand things."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he watched as Ryan and Eddie did the drill, then Ben and Angel. The drill was a lot more demanding than it sounds so we took a thirty-second break and went again.

We hadn't planned for the dribbling drills so we were already over our time budget. I signalled for the goalposts to be brought on and gathered my little flock. "I hope you've got some energy left because we're going to play Tranmere at five-a-side."

"Yes!" said Eddie. He was so mature it was easy to forget he was only 23.

"Ben in goal," I said. "Eddie's our defence. Ryan midfield. Angel striker."

"What are you?" said Angel.

"That's the question I ask myself every morning," I said. "They've got Trev in goal. He's about as good as Ben. Jack the Lad is left-footed and he'll want to show me up - I'll deal with him. Angel, if he goes on an attack get ready for a quick counter. No offside! Their midfield general is Sam Topps. Sam versus Ryan - titanic! Bark's a right mid. Junior's lethal. Those other guys are Ruth's clients from the Exit Trials. They're super talented but if they come on my pitch I will squash them like ants."

"Why are we doing this?" said Llewellyn. "We've got a match in two days."

"Because I want to be the world's first football manager," I said, pompously, "to kill six birds with one stone. Bosh. Now, you're our coach so please yell things at us during the match." He shook his head but I clarified. "That wasn't a joke. It helps. Thanks!" I was ready to start but my players went over to do handshakes with Bark and Sam. "No!" I said, trying to pull them away. "They're the enemy. You can say hi later."

"Max," said Sam. He opened his arms.

"God dammit," I said, as I fell into the hugzone. "Okay. Are we going to play some footie or what?"

"Max," said Junior. He opened his arms. Bark laughed and got into line behind him.

"Footie!" I yelled.

***

The footie was low-stakes fun. I played as a sweeper, which most of the time meant marking Junior. Sam and Ryan cancelled each other out. Angel was miles off the level but no Tranmere guy wanted to be the one to kick her in the shins so they let her take a couple more touches of the ball than they'd have given, for example, Ziggy.

Tranmere pulled two goals ahead and Junior went off to be replaced by Lucas Cook, the PA 142 striker I'd spotted at the Exit Trials. He had improved to CA 35, but that was only an increase of 7 points since the last time I'd seen him. In that time, WibRob had improved by 12 or 13. Lucas needed first team minutes he was a long way from getting.

Even worse was when Nelson Smith-Howes replaced Bark. Nelson was another Exit Trials rescue but with his PA 139 he should have been progressing much faster than he was. He'd crawled up to CA 31.

Slightly annoyed, I jogged back as Nelson hit a shot at Ben. Ben parried and it was a race between me and Lucas to get to the rebound. At least, I wanted to preserve the illusion that it was a race because that would encourage Lucas to go hard for the ball. His eyes lit up as he realised he would get a shot away! His eyes widened further as he kicked fresh air and realised I had booped the ball all the way over him. I could feel my CA returning! I had to make sure this counted as a training match. "Llewellyn! What should I do?"

"Stop doing kick ups and play," he called back.

"I can't!" I cried. "It's happening on its own!" I chuckled as I sprang forward, bouncing the ball from left to right foot as I went. "The voices are telling me to nutmeg Sam Topps!"

"No you don't!" laughed Sam, who fell into a crouch.

As I approached I reduced the height of the kick ups. I felt Lucas sprinting back to get me, so I did a big hip wiggle, made as if to push the ball through Sam's legs, but instead passed it three yards sideways to Ryan. I sprinted diagonally to the right and took the return pass on my instep. "Jack the Lad! Get ready!"

"Fuck," he said, backpedalling as I went hell-for-leather at him.

When he finally realised he had to come at me, instead of tormenting him, I played a simple pass out to the left. Eddie passed it low into the box. Angel side-footed it past Trev in goal.

"There we go!" I cried. "One-nil! That'll do."

"What do you mean one-nil?" said Jack the Lad. "It's two-one."

"Nil to one, that's right. All right, seriously, thanks, guys. That was perfect."

The participants gathered together and formed little groups. The group around Angel was slightly bigger than the one around me, not that I noticed such things. Sam came up behind me and slapped me on the back. "Proper Chester goal, that. Overlap, side-foot pass, side-foot goal. Old school."

"Back to basics," I said. "Let It Happen. How are you getting on, here? Starting most games, I see."

He got a bit of a haunted look. "It's hard. Big step up in quality, this league."

For the first time since he'd left, I had seen his player profile so I finally knew how much Tranmere were paying him. Double what he got with us. "Money's good, though."

The haunted look vanished. "Can't complain."

I slapped him on the back. "Top bins, mate. I'm made up for you."

"Big man wants to see you."

"Yeah."

I went to Mateo and asked how long our chat would take. He said maybe twenty minutes. I said I'd have a quick shower first and told Ben and Ryan that they could hang out with their Tranmere counterparts if they wanted. Or they could wait in the car. They chose the former.

***

Mateo took me into one of the meeting rooms and handed me a tea. "Just how you like it," he said.

A suspicious start. He wanted something! "It looked like Ruth was busting your chops," I said.

Mateo winced but it turned into a smile. "She was complaining her clients aren't involved with the first team. She said she brought me three Max Blessed players and not one had got a single first-team minute. Maybe that's why you're slipping down the league table, Matty darling."

"She's right. They need to be training with the firsts. Getting on the bench. Getting five or ten minutes. It's not rocket science."

He got a flinty look in his eyes. "You're not the manager of Tranmere Rovers," he said.

"I know. That's why you're not in the Premier League."

He shook his head. "Infuriating. But if the manager doesn't think the players are ready - "

"Then the manager gets the fucking sack," I said. "Tell him it's his job to get them ready. For fuck's sake."

Mateo made a big show of controlling his annoyance, but then laughed. "Right. Onto the real business. Instead of paying me some or all of the hundred grand you owe me, you've bought a team in Wales. Can you explain that?"

I shrugged. He was rich; he could wait a minute for his money. "I was chatting to the Welsh FA and they said it'd be a laugh if I took over a team and won the third division right away, won the second division immediately after, and then won the Welsh Premier at the first attempt."

"They said that would be a laugh, did they?"

"Can't remember the exact words, but yeah. Said it would be top bantz."

"Is this to do with getting into Europe?"

I leaned back and considered him. "What makes you say that?"

He laughed. "Come on, Max. You're not the only person to think up this trick. Buy a team, buy some players, get UEFA prize money. Only problem is, it's not as easy as it looks. There are club owners all across Europe who have tried and failed."

"Football clubs lose money. Buying one to get rich is moronic."

"You're twenty-four and you've bought two already. Now, I keep an eye on you. You've had a tough season with Chester but I know the budget restraints you're working with. If you can make the playoffs - impressive." He sipped a coffee. "You've had that Saltney Town since the turn of the year, right? How many matches have they played since you took over?"

"Seven."

"How many have you won?"

"Seven."

"Are you going to win the league?"

"Easily. We're already up to second."

"How have you done that?"

"Better players, better manager."

"And how much did that cost?"

"Nothing."

"So you'll spend nothing all the way to the top?"

"No, I'll need about eighty thousand to win the second division."

"Eighty thousand a month?"

"No, for the season."

Mateo shook his head. "For the season. Okay, and you'll win the Premier first time round?"

"Maybe. Hard to say right now. We'll come first or second I should think."

"First place you'll make a million from UEFA. Second place, what, half a mill?"

"About a quarter mill for making the preliminary round of the Europa Conference. Win that you double it. Get to the league stage and it's a guaranteed three and a half million." I laughed. "It's mad. So you've thought about this before? Are you going to move Tranmere into the Welsh leagues?"

He gave me a wry smile. "Pretty sure getting to the Championship would dwarf all that prize money. But I have thought about it, yes. A lot. Not with Tranmere. If I were you, I would buy a club with an immediate three-in-eleven chance of getting into Europe. Clue - not in Wales."

He seemed to be waiting for me to put two and two together. He owned a club in England and he had strong ties to Spain. "Spain? What, you think I could buy a team in the third division, fly over a couple of times a year and make it compete against Barcelona?"

"Could you?"

I tutted and shook my head. "Of course I could. But doing it part-time would take fifteen years and I only know how to say 'play the players I sent you or you're fired, you fucking worm' in one language." Mateo replied with a stream of Spanish and smiled at me. I said, "Erm, soy Max. Vivo en Inglaterra. Tengo quince años."

"I speak Spanish, Max. We could do it together. You find the players. I do all the talking."

Together. What did he mean? I frowned. "How would that work? You can't even get Jimmy Mustard to put Lucas Cook on the subs bench. That's a ten-million-pound player you're not developing. You should be on the phone to Mustard every day calling him a dog and a worm and every week that goes past without Lucas being fast-tracked you should summon Mustard to your office and on the wall is a big piece of paper with a game of Hangman and you make him choose a letter and he very quickly realises that it's going to say 'You're Fired' and he has to delay the inevitable by saying all the other letters in the alphabet until he runs out or decides that he rates the kid after all."

Mateo squeezed his eyes closed and when he opened them he had an almost blissful expression. "If we co-owned a football club, I would not only listen to your advice but would welcome it."

Co-owned! Wow. That immediately solved over ninety percent of my objections. But not, sadly, the biggest one. "I can't own another club. It's too much legal hassle. When Saltney get into Europe they could play the other club. It's not worth the headache. I can't deal with it. I need a simple life."

"Okay. In that case, I will own it and we'll hire you as a consultant and, strangely, every year you will invoice us for exactly half of the club's profits. Now before you say anything, let me say one word to you. It's a word even more beautiful than the word Wales. It's a word ranked even lower in the coefficients. It's a word where English and Spanish live side-by-side. And Moroccans," he added, as an afterthought. "That word is... Gibraltar."

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temple. "What."

"Gibraltar is in UEFA. UEFA didn't want it but there was a court case and Gibraltar won. Now three teams get into European club competitions. In 2021, the Lincoln Red Imps got to the group stage of the Conference League and made over three million Euro. Their yearly budget is four hundred thousand pounds, Max. That's bottom of the National League money. Four hundred K well spent buys you three million. It's a goldmine, same as Wales. We're not the only people trying to do this; four clubs have been bought recently by people trying to do what we want to do. There are eleven teams in the league, no second tier, and they all play in the same stadium. We can sign British players and it's easy to sign players who live in the south of Spain. There's a big talent pool, and okay, lots of Brits go and don't like living there long-term so we might need to refresh the squad every summer but that's your special sauce, isn't it? You've got a huge list of players who are better than what we've currently got. Loads would love a year in Gibraltar and to play in Europe."

"Sorry, hang on. Have you already bought a team?"

"No. But I will if you'll come in with me. I'll put up the cash, I'll finance some signings, and we'll do to Gibraltar what you're doing to Wales."

I finished my tea. The idea was appealing in some respects but was completely impractical. "There's a danger of me getting spread too thin. I'm trying to keep my life simple for a while. As simple as poss, anyway." I thought what it would be like owning a team I couldn't drive to. "I can't fly over and deal with issues all the time. That's the opposite of keeping things simple." Although... if there was ever a perk that would let me add the squad screens from selected other clubs... Saltney. A team in Gibraltar... "Where is it, anyway?"

"Gibraltar? It's the south coast of Spain. Don't you know about the history? Never mind. You can look it up. But think about it - Emma will love it. Fly out twice a year, right? Make it a thing. I'll rent you a yacht if you want." He leaned forward and poked me. "We'll make so much money! And I'll deal with the stress. I'm not going to bother you with trivial issues. Most of those are stadium-related and as I said, all the teams use the same stadium. Really, you just need to make sure we've got the best squad."

I tapped my fingers on the table for a while. Mateo was a straight shooter and he had been incredibly generous to a strange young man who needed more help than he knew. "If my name's not on any paperwork then I'm going to have to trust you to pay up when we start pulling in millions on the regular. And I do trust you, except when it comes to football. Managers run rings around you. You shouldn't interfere in day-to-day stuff but you need to insist on some basics. Lucas Cook gets on the bench. You can tell Mustard he can do it this Tuesday or this Saturday but if the kid's not kitted up in one of those two, you're sacked. Do you get me? If you trust my judgement, trust me about those three players. Bark, Nelson, and Lucas are going to be miles better than what you're putting out on the pitch. Okay, two of them play the same position so that'll slow them down a bit but seriously, it's not that hard to give young players five minutes here, ten minutes there."

Now it was Mateo's turn to drum his fingers. "You need to know the players you pick will get used, otherwise there's no point to the whole plan. That's fair. Right. I'll talk to Jimmy. Tell him to give Lucas his debut by the end of the month. Then we'll talk about Gibraltar. Yes?"

"No. Too much too soon could be harmful, too. You and Mustard agree a plan. In Feb Lucas gets a few sessions with the first team. In March, more sessions and a couple of goes on the subs bench. April he makes his debut, gets another go in the very next match, then a break, and a third go in the last or second-last game of the season."

"That doesn't sound like much."

"That's what I'm saying. It's a piece of piss but you have to insist on it and follow through. Ruth's letting me live rent-free in her dad's old house so I'm happy to keep an eye on her clients and tell you when to step things up. Okay but look, I'm not going to Gibraltar this summer. I'm going to Brazil. Hey! If Chester don't get promoted, do you want the players I find? You're not using your ESC slots. You should use them. It's free money."

"You want me to sign two Brazilians I've never seen?"

"Yes." I drummed the table. "Actually, that might have to wait until we've overtaken you. There's a risk of me giving you eleven Championship quality players and you blocking our path." I leaned back, musing. "On the other hand, there's not much danger of you using them right. Or, tell you what, I could get you two more right midfielders. You can't play them all at once, right?"

"Tell me again about giving me a Championship-level team," he said with a twinkle before finishing his coffee.

I got to thinking out loud. "I really love what you do for the local community. It's aspirational. I feel good giving you multi-million pound players because you'll put the money to good use. Maybe I'll send you the Brazilians anyway."

"If you get promoted we can have two each," he said. He was joking.

"No, that's a good idea. Why not? I'm probably going to find like a hundred amaze-ohs. You can have the ugliest two and I'll charge you a finder's fee. Hey, let me think this through. There's loads of, like, synergy happening." I tried to slow down but my mind was racing. "I find you two Brazilian stars. You loan three Tranmere players to Saltney. That'll save me a bit of scouting. You take another couple of good Exit Trials kids. We buy a team in Gibraltar. We send three loan players each. I reckon I've got three lads who wouldn't mind soaking up the sun for six months, right? Especially if there's the chance to play in Europe. To keep things from going stale we rotate them out and send a different three in Jan. Ah, but why was I talking about going in the summer? I need to go during the season, right? I need to see the standard. What day are the matches?"

"Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They all share the same stadium, remember. You go for a long weekend you'll see the entire league."

"March 15th we're at home to Wealdstone. The week after it's Maidstone. If I'm going to miss a game, it's one of those. Can you get away then?"

He put his hands behind his neck. "I'm the owner, Max. I do what I want."

"Great," I said. "Then you can let me use one of your pitches for an hour a week for the rest of the season."

He closed his eyes as he lost that fleeting moment of bliss. I knew he wanted to ask why I thought this pitch was worth driving half an hour to get to. It made no sense to him, but he wanted me to go to Gibraltar so he swallowed the question. "Take ninety minutes if you want. Two hours." He shook his head. "Why does everything get so complicated with you?"

***

I quickly told Ruth I'd gone to bat for the three young players, thanked the guys who'd played five-a-side, and hesitated about which car to go in. One boasted Ruth and Angel and that was a fairly compelling argument. But I decided to keep it simple and got in the same car I'd come in. Another half an hour with Ben and Eddie would probably work wonders.

Sure enough, the chat flowed much more easily now that we'd trained and played a little match. We talked about Tranmere's facilities and how our site plan would differ from theirs. We talked about Angel and the women's team, about League Two, Sam Topps, Bark, and my mysterious meeting with Tranmere's owner.

Pretty much the only thing we didn't discuss were the pops. Angel had gone green in dribbling, Eddie got a point in technique. Each outfield player added a point in CA. Ben didn't get anything, which was not a huge surprise because we hadn't done any keeper work but he seemed to enjoy himself and he was a lot more talkative on the way back. His Morale had maxed out. I thought of all kinds of reasons why but it was probably simple - he felt closer to the heart of the team.

While we were nearing the King George, where three of us were parked, I mused on the coming fixtures. "Boreham Wood have good players but they're shambolic. They'll do 3-4-3 and we'll find all kinds of holes. We beat them easily last time without Pascal and if we play our best we'll dick them. You'll both play in that for sure. Rochdale on Tuesday will be a real test. They're the only team we haven't played yet so I'll probably name my most flexible eleven and rearrange to suit what they do. They normally do 4-4-2 but I haven't watched much footage of them yet. Again, I'll probably use you both. Next it's Maidenhead and that's one of our easiest games so I will think about using Sticky and Cole in that one. Then it's Fylde and that's a nuisance because they're weak but not weak enough to really rotate. Which is a pain because next after that is Grimsby. I want to get four wins out of four before we play them so I can mess with their heads a bit in the media beforehand. Put some pressure on them, maybe. Unless Blundell Park turned into a swamp without me hearing about it, I reckon you'll both start that one. So that's probably four starts in the next five, but if I can rest you for Fylde I will so you're fresh for Grims. Okay? Any questions?"

Eddie said, "I've got one. Could you give us the starting elevens for the rest of the season, like, right now?"

"Of course not," I said, but Eddie didn't seem to believe me. "Okay, look, I could give it a good go, right. But it'd be like a weather forecast. After five days the accuracy goes way down, right? The next five matches, yeah, I can predict them. But there are injuries and bans and mad shit that happens. You've got to be flexible."

"What formation are we going to use against Boreham Wood?"

"I'm going to keep this one simple. My best starting eleven. 4-1-4-1. Bosh."

Llewellyn said, "What about Chipper? He's available again."

"Yeah. I haven't had time to think about him. Maybe I'll put him on the bench. Maybe I won't. Not sure. Hey, did you hear they're trialling bodycams for the ref in some National League matches? That'd be wild footage. God, I hope our game gets chosen and I can finally find out who's telling the truth about what he actually says to refs. He was like, 'I didn't even swear' and the ref told me 'the guy's psychotic'. Yeah," I laughed. "If we get a ref with a bodycam that might be Chipper's fastest route back to the team. Back in, I see the footage, straight back out." I shook my head at the absurdity of the thought, then got back to my daydreaming. "I'll start with Aff left, Pascal right. Ryan first half? That's the only selection dilemma, really. I'd like to use Ryan for a half in the next four games so he can build fitness for Grims. If Andrew does the first half and Ryan the second, that'll slap pretty hard when I come on at the end. I might put Wibbers on the bench, too, so we can switch to 4-2-3-1 and really carve them open. Lads? You keep a clean sheet and that's a solid three points for the team. For the club. Sound good?"

"Yes, boss."

***

Saturday, February 22

Boreham Wood 0 Chester 3 - Simply the Best!

Chester climbed two places to sixth after a comfortable win on Boreham Wood's superb 4G pitch.

The Seals (4-1-4-1) needed just eight minutes to take the lead through a clinical finish from Pascal Bochum. The tiny Teutonic tearaway terrorised The Wood (3-4-3) with his pace and movement on Chester's right, but there was equal threat on the left, where Eddie Moore and Diarmuid Dubhlainn found acres of space with alarming regularity. The Wood's defensive shape had improved in recent weeks but Chester's fast passing and non-stop movement pulled their opponents all over Hertfordshire.

The Wood's best chance to equalise came immediately after half time when Dougray Morris slid in on the end of a vicious cross, but Ben Cavanagh saved bravely. The goalkeeper was shaken but adjudged to be okay to continue, and in truth he was little tested for the remainder of the match.

Former Everton player Ryan Jack arrived at the start of the second half and struggled in the heart of midfield until Chester's player-manager Max Best brought himself on. He joined Jack in the centre and together they tormented The Wood. They played short passes to each other until pressed, and when pressed they would simply ping the ball over the top. After one such exchange, Bochum and Dubhlainn linked and put the ball on a plate for French striker Henri Lyons to score the second, while near the end, a similar move ended with Eddie Moore getting to the byline and squaring for Best to score a simple tap-in.

Wood manager Jack Bridge was full of praise for his opponents. "They do simple things well and make hard things look simple. They're the best footballing team we've played this season. My lads have been given a lesson in how to play the game, to be fair. That said, the ref was bloody awful."

Elsewhere in the National League, Grimsby Town could only manage a draw, while Barnet snuck two points closer by taking all three points against doomed Dorking. Barnet moved to within five points of the league leaders, having played a game more. We could be in for a barnstorming two-horse race for the rest of the season and the loser will not be enamoured by the thought of having to play Chester in the playoff final.