14.

Monday, 18 September

Ruth's open-plan upper-middle-class fantasy home was a lot closer to my ideal space than the barn, with its cramped little worker’s kitchen and old-brown countertops. My kettle cost nineteen pounds from Argos. Ruth’s had all kinds of buttons and features, including a temperature setting for Oolong. How posh is that?

I spent a calm morning enjoying the trappings of other people’s wealth. Had a couple of teas, had a big think.

I'd pre-decided to buy the Morale perk - it should help me get the most out of my players, on match days and in training, and help me undo some of my relationship mistakes. It could also help me help my friends when they were feeling bad - as long as they played football. It wouldn't help me with Emma, more’s the pity, since I could use a few tips there.

So, morale then.

But... there was this tribunal coming up. A hearing to settle the dispute between Blackburn Rovers and Tranmere over how much a player was worth. If I were representing Blackburn at the hearing, I would try to downplay the value of Danny Prince. 'We needed a reserve left back and his name came up' kinda thing. If I had the Contracts perk, I might be able to see how much they were paying him. If he was being paid like a top first teamer, they couldn't say they thought he was a reserve! And time was running out to rescout the player Ian Evans had recommended - when that guy signed a new contract, I wouldn't know for sure if his weekly wage was what Ian Evans had told me.

My suspicions that clubs lied to other clubs about how much their players earned had been confirmed when I read a former club owner's autobiography. Arsenal had loaned him a player, charging 10,000 a week, but the owner later learned the player’s salary was only 5. The Contracts perk could allow me to help my new besties at Tranmere Rovers, and would insulate me from shady characters.

But helping Tranmere and confirming my suspicions about Ian Evans were neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. I scanned the perk shop and the only other option that stood out was Finances. That would give me a summary of the club’s incomings and expenditures, which I didn't need. I'd previously dismissed the perk completely. But the rivalry with Darlington had made me reconsider - if I could get financial data for other clubs - and the curse gave me all kinds of secret shit so it was possible - that would be an amazing media weapon. I assumed Darlo's total player salaries would be much higher than ours, so I could keep banging on about that in interviews, presenting ourselves as the plucky underdogs. You know, ignoring the fact that we had the sixth biggest budget, or whatever the true number was.

These were passing fancies.

I bought Morale - one small step for one man, one giant leap for one man, delete as appropriate.

I went to Henri's player profile, and there it was!

Morale: Superb

Hooray!

How about Pascal Bochum?

Morale: Very Good

Great!

I had a look at Trick Williams.

Morale: Ok

Oh, fuck you, you miserable prick!

I checked everyone, and only saw four different levels: Superb, Very Good, Good, or Ok.

It was similar in the women's team, but Julie McKay and Mel Robinson had 'Poor'. Julie's low morale made some sort of sense - her boyfriend was a murderer who'd gone into hiding. On the other hand, she'd joined a proper football team and had played in a big match. So... I assumed there was a level below Poor and she'd been there until the good news had lifted her up. Meanwhile Mel had gone - in her mind - from being our starting right back, expecting to play every minute of every game to finding out I was actively trying to replace her.

Was that how all this worked, then? Things made you happy and your morale went up?

Our levels seemed phenomenally high, all in all. We were somewhere in the region of 4.71 out of 5. Mostly five star reviews for the Max Best experience. So why had I spent more time thinking about the low numbers than the high ones? It was like they were reviews of me as a person.

Silly Max.

Still, without obsessing about how a one-star rating showed that I was a fraud and a hack and all my best work was in the past, I wondered if I could change one of the bad reviews to a positive one.

I sent Mel a text.

Just thinking about the Wythenshawe match. You did great against their left winger!

It took ten minutes to craft that message. Deleted drafts had detailed analysis of her match stats or talked about how she had fit into the overall framework of the team's success. In the end, I decided that simple was best.

She didn't reply, and nothing happened. Well, no reason why my life should get any easier. With a sigh, I went to the barn, got my gear, and chucked it into the passenger seat of a car that cost less than Ruth’s fridge. I was driving; the Brig had another day off. As I was about to turn onto the main road, my phone beeped. Mel sent back a thumbs up emoji. Women with their fucking emojis! Don't they know men need THE WORDS? Pretty sure my morale dropped a level.

I said something along the lines of 'ugh' and drove off. But at a traffic light, I dipped into Mel's profile and her morale had changed. Now, in green, it said, Ok.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

***

Training was good. We skipped the team meeting, so Vimsy and Jude had the guys doing some basic running, agility drills, stuff like that. I didn't need my new toy to tell me that the mood was very positive - we'd won five matches in a row, seven of the last eight, were getting better defensively, and were starting to score goals easily. Our fitness was really kicking in at the ends of matches. Belief in my outline for the season, the NostradaMax as everyone should have been calling it, was through the roof.

There was a break before we started doing more intense ball work, and I called the lads over. "Quick team meeting. Won't take long. No Tuesday night game, as you know. We play Boston on Saturday. Watch out, they’ve got those little robot dogs. Wait, wrong Boston. Boston United have got a midfielder called Bostwick and their assistant manager is called Bastock. I’m obsessed with that. They’re at home so they’ll be confident. We’ll teach them a lesson. That’s the end of my thoughts about the Boston match. Raffi and Aff, quick word? Raffi first."

Raffi came over, vaguely worried. "Max?"

"Henri told me I should ask you about coaches. I've been trying to find a Jackie replacement. You know someone."

His expression cleared up - no change in morale. "Right. I've been having private lessons. One on one. Not sure how interested he'd be in working here." He looked down, regretting his choice of words. "But come down tomorrow. Join my session and meet him. In Chorlton. Near where you grew up!"

"Oh! Bit of home schooling." I smiled. "Top. Sorted. Job's a good 'un." I gave him a friendly little shove towards the main pack, then waved Aff over.

His morale was Very Good. "Boss?"

"Yeah. Not trying to mess with your head," I lied, "but you seem pretty happy here."

"At Chester?"

"Yep."

"Yeah, it's deadly. Love it."

"Top. I'd like to give you a new contract. Bit more long-term. Two plus one sort of thing." Two years with an option - for the club, not him - to extend it by another year.

"Oh!"

"No need to say anything. Have a think, and we'll sit down with MD and talk about it. Awight?"

"Yes, boss."

He walked off, beaming. Morale, in green: Superb.

I turned away so the guys wouldn't see me absurdly delighted to be alive on a crisp September morn. Then I thought - happiness is contagious, right? So I let them peer at me, let them wonder what had put me in such a good mood. I went to the squad screen, sorted it by morale, and got an instant overview of how the group as a whole was feeling.

"Right, listen up. Gather round. One last announcement." I pursed my lips, pretending to think about how to word what I needed to say. "Er... got a new guy training with you from now on. He's not good, but he's enthusiastic." I pulled off my hoodie, revealing I was wearing my Best 77 away kit. I raised my arms and spun slowly. "Behold! Is this the perfect specimen of a man...ager?"

A mighty roar from the lads! A surge! Led by Henri, they came close, and we bounced up and down shouting 'Ches-ter! Ches-ter!'

Vimsy blew his whistle and yelled, "Break's over! Back to fucking work!"

I clapped my hands and jogged to position for the next drill. Just one of the boys. A morning like any other.

But one where almost everyone's morale increased by one, sometimes two levels.

Everyone... with three exceptions. Three players whose morale dropped when they saw I was well enough to train with them. Donny 'D-Day' Dorigo. Trick Williams. And, so shocking it almost ruined my day, my captain and defensive rock, Glenn Ryder.

***

At 3:30 p.m., I was camped out in the car park at Abbey Gate College. Loads of little ruffians were scuffing past, some heading home, most heading to after-school clubs like the Debating Society, the Choir, or the Homework Club. That's right, it was a school for posh brats.

I sighed. If I wanted to dedicate my life to giving opportunities to people who already had more than enough, I would have become a Conservative MP. Still, whatever. They were the first school who had set up a match in the way I'd requested, so here I was. We'd promote the shit out of it on the socials and other schools would be like 'oh that's what he meant' and fucking take five minutes to organise it.

Someone tapped on my window, scaring the shit out of me. Steve Alton, our new signing, and one of my two bodyguards for the event. Joe Anka was behind him.

I got out and pushed my hands down, telling someone in the area, possibly me, to calm it. "Steve, someone snuck up on me and tried to kill me. Not that long ago. Thanks for coming but please try to avoid startling me."

"Sorry, boss. How should I do it?"

"Walk in front of the car, back and forth, until I notice you."

"Got it."

"Right, time to watch some rich kids play association football. See if any realise the rules apply to them." This got a laugh.

Joe watched a group of girls go past in their school uniform - green blazers, crisp shirts, red and black striped ties - and raised his eyebrows. "Boss, you go to a posh school?"

"Did I fuck," I said. "You?"

"Nah."

We looked around us. The place was insane. Surrounded by lush fields, with chunky, Hogwarts castle-type buildings, what looked like an actual hedge maze, and better football facilities than Chester Football Club.

"Anyone going to ask if I went to a posh school?" said Steve Alton.

I laughed and patted him on the back. "No need, mate. We can tell from the way you always lick your plate clean."

"Cheeky bastard," he said.

We set off towards the all-weather pitch. "What's the gig?" said Joe. "Gonna play them some music and see who vibes to it?"

"Nah, it's simple scouting. Remember I said I wanted to scout every schoolkid in Cheshire? This is phase one."

Steve Alton hadn’t heard my appearance on Seals Live. "Every kid in Cheshire? How many's that?"

"An absurd amount," I said. "What I want..." I paused as a kid walked past, oblivious to my existence, not bothered that I could hear him. He seemed to be doing grammar drills, in Latin. "Fucketh me-eth. What I want… Er... yeah ideally I'd turn up to a school and every kid would be playing simultaneously. Not really possible, so I'm focusing on the under sixteens for a few weeks. We've got some good players at that age, but if we can add another ten or fifteen, we can really get impressive. Then I'll do the fourteens, then the twelves."

"What about girls?" said Joe.

"Might have to wait." I stopped walking and cracked my neck. "If I could get a top manager for the women's team, that'd free up a lot of time." I shook my head. There was no-one on the horizon. "So, this match today. The school's divided their best 14 and 15 year olds into two groups. I guess they did Slytherin plus thingy against you know plus wotsit. Sort of a posh sods all stars. I've asked them to use as many subs as possible so that it's not just the tall kids who get on the pitch. I mean, the concept won't show me every boy in the age group, but if there's a secret star player from the leftovers, I'll have to hope he appears on my radar some other time."

"Right," said Joe. "But if he's not in the first forty best players in one age group in one school, he's probably no good."

I shrugged. "Not sure I would have played in this match. Not sure Youngster would. Dani wouldn't."

"I see your point," he said. "But you would have."

I tsked. "Think when you played in school. Anyone decent gets played as a striker. There's defenders in midfield, midfielders up front, wingers in goal." I shook my head. "Anyway, if I got to wear one of those smart green blazers, I'd never have taken it off. Talk about a chick magnet."

"Would you send your kids here?" said Steve.

"Yeah," I said. "It's the irony, isn't it? I don't like this. All schools should look like this, know what I mean? But yeah. I'd send my kid here until he started calling me 'pater'. Then I'd home school him." When we walked through to the outdoor sports area, I saw a good couple of hundred people had turned up. "Shit. They've made it into a thing. I was hoping to leave early. Er... make sure I behave myself."

"What does that mean?" said Joe, laughing.

"Like... the goal is to be invited back to watch the other age groups, then the girls. Right? So if anyone gets in my face, or I get in someone's face, get me out of their face."

"How about you don't get in anyone's face?" suggested Joe.

"You make it sound easy." A thin, desiccated man was making a beeline for me. "Shit, that must be the headmaster. He looks like a vicar. I knew it. This place, seriously. Right, er... be charming. If I say I'm getting a call from Bob Geldof, that means I'm about to leave."

"Max, behave," said Joe. "Don't use Bob Geldof, at least. No-one knows that name any more."

We met the headmaster, who introduced himself and was more charming than he looked from afar. He asked if I wanted a tour and I said maybe next time because I was expecting a call from Josh Hartnett. Joe stepped in with a question about the choir, and I stepped onto the next social level down, which included the deputy headmistress and influential parents. The lowest level were the P.E. teachers, who were waiting for His Royal Headness to proclaim kick-off. This school was like a mini kingdom with its own royal family and courtiers. Very hierarchical. My Chester was pretty flat - I had the final word on football matters, but the coaches and physios had a lot of freedom.

"Max!" said a familiar voice.

I turned and saw Tyson Bulldog, wearing one of the green blazers. Of course he went to the posh school. He was all excited and whatnot. Annoyingly, his player profile wasn't showing, so I couldn't check his morale. "Sup dog?"

His voice was fifteen percent more snobbish than normal. "Oh, it's amazing. This isn't a football school, but this match is all anyone's been talking about. And I'm, like, the big expert so people keep asking me who should play and who's going to win. It's amazing. It's like... this match is a microcosm of what's happening in the whole of Chester!"

"All right, if you're the expert, get the match started without me appearing rude. After this I’ve got an appointment with the Chester Illuminati and if I’m late they won’t tell me where the secret pyramid is buried."

"Oh," he said, surprised. "Start the match. Of course."

He strode straight over to the headmaster and said something, and then the head waved at the P.E. teachers and suddenly it was all go. Action stations. Tyson gave me a little thumbs up. I waved him back. Joe, too.

"Joe, Steve, this is Tyson from our youth system. He's in The Wizard of Us. That article."

"In it? I'm the star of it."

"You'd get an 'introducing' credit, maybe. What did you say to the vicar?"

"The who? Oh!" He laughed. "That's funny. I said we should start."

That simple. "Fuck me. Guys, were either of you that ballsy at school?"

"Nah," said Joe. "It's what they learn here. Treating everyone like they work for them. Act like you know your place in the world, and the world goes along with it."

"So apparently Tyson's the local football expert. Tactics 20. He's going to stand here and analyse the game for us." Tyson pulled a weird face. Looked like he was in pain. "What?" I said.

"It's just... I was with those girls."

We looked over and saw a group of young women whose skirts didn't seem to quite reach regulation length. They saw us looking and smirked. "Christ," I said. "How do you get any work done?"

"I do it at home," said Tyson, apparently in earnest.

"Just checking," I said. "You're going to give up the chance to hear my thoughts about football, about your mates, with two first team stars, so you can go and flirt with the mean girls?"

"Definitely."

"Joe? Steve?"

"Kid's got his head screwed on right."

Tyson grinned, and sensing that he'd won the conversation, got cocky. "Anyway, you're only Tactics 7."

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"Ek-fucking-scuse me?"

His grin fixed in place. He'd gone too far. "I mean, that's what Soccer Supremo thinks."

"What?"

"You're in the game! They finally put you in. You're player-manager."

Holy shit. I'd put myself in Champion Manager, and that had made me a super player. But now I was in the modern version of that game. Wait wait wait - did that mean... would it override? Would I take on the numbers that the game gave me? That would be absolutely bonkers, but... Tactics 7… I mean, I knew seven formations…

"Gosh," I said, snootily. "I'm in the game? I don't remember selling my image rights. And they put me low on tactics? Oh, dear. I thought they made an effort to get those numbers accurate."

"Yours are pretty dire." He had taken screenshots of my profile, because of course he had. He swung his phone up.

"How many times have I told you not to shove a phone in my face?"

"None."

"You know blue light melts my brain. Sake. Tell me with your words. Acceleration?"

"Eight."

"The fuck?" I laughed. I was instantly fairly sure the new numbers weren't controlling me. I was speeding up on a daily basis, and could sometimes blast past my opponents in training. But then again… most of them were twelve years old. "Pace?"

"Six."

"Handsomeness?"

"That's not in it. I could just show you the - "

"I get it. It's all shit."

"Well, you've got high xcccccsssss." The last sound came out all weird and evil. Obviously he'd said one of the attributes I hadn't unlocked yet. No word had ever been censored by the curse in this way, but I supposed it was different if said naturally versus if said in relation to Soccer Supremo or Champion Manager.

“Finishing.”

“Five.”

“Huh,” I said. So that would explain why I couldn’t lash the ball into the goal like I used to. Another explanation was that I’d recently been nearly killed and was learning to use my body again. But but but… there were days I felt like I’d hit a ceiling…

So then who had given me such low numbers? Someone with a grudge like Folke Wester or Bradley Rymarquis could have got to the scouts who sent in player reports and convinced them to give me a bad rating. To annoy me, not realising it could literally determine what level of player I was.

“What’s my Current Ability?”

He swiped through his screenshots. “Sorry, what? What’s that? That’s not on the player profile.”

I pondered. My human adversaries probably didn’t think about Soccer Supremo more than once a year. It was more likely that Old Nick had given me low attributes to keep my level of fame down. To make me less interesting. If another demon saw me doing crazy tekkers, Nick could say ‘well these actual football experts think he’s shit’. Something like that. But was I limited by these numbers, or not?

"So it's got my manager profile as well. If I remember right there's something like 'Judging Player Ability'."

Tyson swiped. "Yeah, you've got four."

Okay, so that probably put paid to the idea that my skills were in any way linked to a new set of numbers. "What a load of bollocks," I said. "Go flirt. Keep it classy."

He was reluctant to leave, suddenly. He had something on his mind. "Er..." I was pleased to see he hesitated more with me than with his headmaster. "There's a rumour you're going to train with us. The sixteens."

"That a question, bro?"

"Are you going to train with us?"

"That would ruin the illusion, wouldn't it? Pace 3, acceleration 2, wizarding 1. Nah. I'm already training with the first team."

He nodded. Slightly disappointed, he walked off towards the hotties. Halfway there, he smiled at one of them, raised a finger, and turned away to take a phone call. There was no question in my mind that it was fake. I imagined him telling her it was 'Bob Geldof'. The absolute shit.

***

The referee's shorts and training top were resplendent with the school's logo - a fox or a pine marten or a particularly ferocious squirrel. This guy was almost certainly the head of P.E., though here he was probably called the Games Master. He checked his watch, and suddenly I was getting the player profiles. I nearly burst out laughing. Tyson, loverboy, the smooth operator, wasn't even the best player in his age group at his own school. Crazy stuff.

With nine subs per team, there was a lot to see. There was the usual smattering of PA 2-10 players who I mentally assigned to the PA 1 category. And there were a few PA 11-20s, who again, I barely looked twice at. All these guys did was clog up my player search database.

There was one great prospect and two lesser lights.

But I was still trying to work out what the morale perk had brought me, and with all these moody teenagers came a rainbow of emotion. After buying the perk, I’d seen eighty player profiles, and I was pretty sure I had now seen the entire morale spectrum. In addition to the five levels I'd seen, the lowest of which was Poor, I discovered Very Poor and Abysmal.

I briefly wondered if I should tell someone about the kid with abysmal morale. Like, a social worker or something. But how to explain it? That kid looks a bit depressed, lol! Yeah, hard pass. The kid was probably sad because someone told him we all live in a simulation and free will doesn't exist. Or because the Liverpool FC club shop was still doing brisk business in the centre of town.

Or, more likely, he was depressed because his idiot P.E. teacher had put him in completely the wrong position for this, his big chance to impress a real football insider.

***

I made small talk with Joe and Steve for a while, but they felt me getting restless.

"Max, what's up?" said Joe.

"It's all wrong. Players out of positions. These P.E. teachers trying to do funky formations to impress me. Sometimes 4-4-2 is best, know what I mean? It's not about you, it's about the kids. Holy fuck."

Joe began singing, "Let it go, let it goooo."

"I know! I'm letting it go. Look at me. Look how chill I am. It's impressive." I made some clicking noises while I had a think. "The best player's a sub, though. I want to get him on. How do I do that without being a bull in a china shop?"

"Which one?" said Steve.

"Tall, gangly one." I needed to get the kid's name in a non-curse way. I waved at Tyson, who came over. "How's it going?"

"Oh, pretty dull. They can't move through the thirds. Their positional discipline is pretty dogshit."

I glared at him. "I know. I'm asking how it's going with you and your harem."

"A gentleman does not kiss and tell," he said, and that got him a low five from Steve and Joe. More potential traitors!

"Tall, lanky kid over there. Warming up over on Team Excelsior."

"Team B. Yes, that's Fungus."

"What?"

"Charles Fungrieve. We all call him Fungus."

"Not any more."

"Oh. Oh, right. Um... do you like him? He's..."

"What?"

"I mean, he's all right. Not good enough for Chester."

For the first time in a long time, I doubted myself. The stupid Soccer Supremo conversation! If I had Judging Player Ability 4, then there was a 16 in 20 chance I’d get a player’s PA badly wrong. Right? I couldn’t think like that - I had to trust the information I had. So I pretended to be as cocky as always. "Tyson Bulldog, preferred foot right, teamwork twenty, Judging Player Ability one."

He frowned and scratched the back of his head. "Okay. That's... I don't see it, but..."

I spoke to the three guys. "I could invite him to training, or Tyson could. What's best?"

"You," said everyone.

"Sure?"

"Yes," said everyone.

I sighed. Seemed like something that could be delegated in a fun way. "I suppose I should wait till after the match. Tyson, can you make sure he gets on the pitch at half time?"

"Yes, I think so." He started to make his way around the pitch. "Oh. What position?"

"Are you joking? Striker."

"Striker? Fun... Charles is a striker?"

I slapped my hips, being driven fake-crazy by all this insubordination. "What the fuck is happening right now?" Tyson smiled and scampered away.

While I waited for my prospect to enter the fray, I chatted with Joe and Steve. Asked them how they were doing, tried to remember some details about them so I could chat like a real boy. I nearly texted Emma to get some tips from her, but once I stopped trying so hard, the conversation flowed better.

Joe said he quite liked the album I'd talked about and accused me of enjoying 'soundscapes'. Steve said he was glad he'd joined the club but thought he'd have played more minutes by now. I nodded. He was still three points of CA behind Gerald May, though, and Gerald was taller which meant other teams double-marked him on corners. Which was dumb so I encouraged it.

"Are you in Soccer Supremo?" I asked him.

"Everyone is," said Steve. "Last time I looked, they'd given me positioning six. That's a piss take. I haven't looked at it since."

I laughed. "If you had positioning six in real life, I never would have signed you."

At half time we circulated, meeting parents and signing Chester tops and being in selfies and stuff. A whistle signalled the second half would restart soon.

"Ah, mint, he’s coming on." I said. "Wonder if Tyson learned to sweet-talk people from the school or from his dad?"

"Nature versus nurture," said Joe. "But Max, you didn't learn it from school, and you didn't get it from, you know, your dad. So why are you good at talking to people?"

Because a demon gave me influence 20. "I think it's because when I talk, I talk from the heart."

He laughed. "You're so full of shit."

I got serious. "I think what it is, is that I really believe if we pull together, towards a common goal, and if we're in a good mood, and there's a good vibe, we can achieve anything."

Steve and Joe took this garbage at face value, and they seemed impressed, but their morale didn't change.

Huh, I thought. If I'm going to try those little speeches, I should save them for guys with bad morale.

***

Charles Fungrieve was a thin, awkward fourteen-year-old, so tall that he had trained himself to slouch and to bend his neck. The curse said he had good heading, poor jumping, decent technique and passing, plus good finishing. He was CA 1, of course, but PA 83. A PA 83 striker? Local lad? Incredible. If he bulked up, he could become an absolute fucking menace all the way up to League Two. "Lads, every time the ball goes anywhere near that kid, whatever he does, we all look at each other and nod and look impressed. You with me?"

"Yes, boss."

We stuck to the plan, but it was hard - Fungrieve had a nightmare. The ball hated him, when he accelerated it took months for his arms and legs to get coordinated, and when he got the chance to do a header - which should have been his speciality - the ball bounced off at a mad angle.

"Max, you sure about this?" said Joe, as he did an over-the-head clap followed by a thumbs up.

"He's got a fifty pee head," said Steve, a reference to one of my top five favourite British coins - the heptagonal fifty pence piece.

In short, it was literally impossible that someone could have watched Charles play and thought 'that guy could be twice as good as Tony Hetherington'. I probably should have left it and signed him another day, when no-one was looking and when I was sure the curse was working properly, but fuck it. Time is money and all that.

After the final whistle, I gestured for Charles to come away from his post-match debrief. "Hey, buddy. I'm Max."

"I know. You're famous."

"I'm both famous and in-famous," I said, saying it wrong. He opened his mouth to correct me, but thought better of it. "Good decision. How do you like this school?"

"It's got good facilities," he said, diplomatically.

"It's got a star footballer who gets all the girls," I said.

He nodded. Apparently without bitterness, he said, "Tyson. I read that article about you two."

"Whoa!" I said, laughing, holding my hands up. "It was about me, solo. Tyson was like a special guest villain."

"Max," said Joe.

"Chas," I said. "Would you like to be a footballer and get all the girls - respectfully and not problematically, of course - and be famous and be on big posters and be one of the people who gets chosen to go on the escape rocket to Alpha Centauri?"

"Um... yes? To some of those. I'd be more excited to go to Proxima Centauri."

"Yeah, that ship's full. Jesus Christ, he's not even a footballer yet and he's making crazy demands. I'm going to get Tyson to bring you to training, all right? Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You'll need to sign a document that says any magazine articles we're both in, you waive the right to call yourself the star."

"Max."

"I mean," said Charles. "Sure. Yes, of course! Yes! Not tonight, sorry. I'm babysitting my little sister. But... Chas? Why?"

"Charles is too long. Takes too long to say. Football's fast, dynamic. You need a short name for when your mates are calling you. Ste! Joe! Max! French dude! Chas!"

"Chas and Charles are both one syllable."

"Charl... sssssss," I said, ending all discussion.

With a future Chester legend in the bag, I set off in the direction of the other team. They were heading towards the changing rooms, but slowly, in case I wanted to sign one of them, too. As luck would have it, I did.

That team actually had two decent players, both fifteen years old. One was a left back slash left mid with PA 29. The other was a PA 25 goalie. Neither would make it as a pro, but they would round out the under sixteens squad quite nicely. I brought them away from the rest of the kids.

"Lads. You two are good at football. I'd like you to train with our under sixteens." Their morales both smashed to superb, instantly. "Yep yep yep. Now, listen. Our sixteens are really good. Really good. Even then, half of them won't make it as pros. Right? I don't think either of you are ever going to play for Manchester United." Although the state that club was in, maybe they would. "What I'm saying is, come train with us. We'll teach you to play, we'll see how fast you pick things up, whatnot. You'll get some game time, you'll go to tournaments, all that fun stuff. It's a laugh. And whatever happens, for the rest of your lives, you'll boss your Sunday Leagues and your five-a-sides. What do you reckon?"

They reckoned: yes, please.

Three new signings! A good day's work. Max Best, morale: superbissimo.

Joe wanted to hang around and do some more networking - he was handing out business cards for his DJ side hustle. Rich kid birthday parties, DJed by a local football star - sounded like a good business model.

Steve hovered around me, doing a good job at being my bodyguard; he was escorting me to my car. "How was that, Steve? Not too bad?"

"Yeah, bit weird. All right, though, yeah. Community service. Knew what I was getting into."

I happened to glance at him as his forehead twitched. "What?"

"Just... what you said to those two. That they wouldn't play for Man U. You've got to have hope though. At that age."

I shrugged. "They've got hope. They won't play for our first team, not while I'm in charge. But they could play for a team like Tadcaster Albion. They could play in the FA Cup." I smiled as I said it, and Steve smiled too. We didn't know each other too well, but we knew we had a romantic inside of us. "For players like that, Chester will be a school. Football school. We'll give them an education, and what they do with it is up to them."

"Like Ajax."

"What?"

"Ajax. They do it. They've got, like, a thousand youth teams all over Amsterdam. They teach everyone."

I stopped still, causing Steve's hands to curl into fists. "What? Where?"

I put my hand on his arm, calming him. "Sorry, man. My fault. It's all good. It's all good." He relaxed, and again he got loads of relationship points with me. "No, it was what you said. I... I had that same thought ages ago. So much has happened since then. But I had that idea. Hundreds of kids. Thousands. Coaches as far as the eye can see. I'm still looking for the stars, but these other kids. Why not? Why not train them up?"

"Money."

I bit my thumb. "Yeah. Soon, though. Soon." I brightened up. "Hey!"

"What?"

"You know how we can fill our stadium every week?"

"With you playing right wing?"

More relationship points! "If we've got a thousand kids in the youth system, that's two thousand parents probably coming to every home game!"

Steve Alton, CA 34, PA 53, who I bought for eight thousand pounds, who never went to a good school, shook his head. "I'm not sure the economics of that scenario stack up in your favour, boss."

I offered him a hug. Surprised, he took it. "Call me Max. Unless, you know, there's some reason to be formal. And Steve... thanks."

"For what?"

"For bodyguarding me! I know it's weird."

He smiled and shook his head. His morale went to superb. "It's one of the only things about you that makes complete sense." His smile faded ever so slightly as he looked around at the few schoolkids who were still around, their green blazers turning to a dull grey as the clouds came overhead. "So you're going to be all right?"

I smiled. "Yeah. I'll park outside the vegan restaurant. Safest place in Cheshire."

***

At six, I saw Tyson again, for I had lied to him about going to the under sixteens training. The new kids weren't there - it was too short notice for that. First, though, I hid at the side, taking in their morale.

I'd started to think numerically, converting the words into numbers.

Superb

7

Very Good

6

Good

5

Ok

4

Poor

3

Very Poor

2

Abysmal

1

If my maths was right, the first team squad had an average morale of 6.14 (out of 7). It was hard to imagine that getting much higher, just because there were so many superbs and very goods. The sixteens though, with the drama caused by Noah Harrison's arrival, had an average morale of 4.1. Interestingly, Noah's was the lowest of them all.

When I turned up to train, though, the morale increase was dramatic. Noah, for example, went from Very Poor to Good - a three-point climb.

We did the drills and played a small-sided match at the end. I was starting to reliably do all the basics, and as my fitness was getting better, so was my decision-making. Annoyingly, I was much better defensively than as a creative, attacking force. Getting in someone's way was easy. Chipping a lofted pass between two defenders with a soupçon of side spin so that it'd land on the striker's preferred foot... is even more complicated than it sounds. It needs a lot of high-level attributes working in tandem.

During the match, I kept an eye out for any signs of friction between Noah and the others, but couldn't see anything. The quality was really coming along, though. The under sixteens had Tyson, leading the way on CA 9, Benny, Lucas Friend (the left back who wanted to be a goalie), Dan Badford (who had that strange -1 PA), and, of course, Noah himself.

And after the match, there was no sign of anything untoward - they all ran off, excited and happy, to the showers. Maybe they didn't rush to include Noah in their chats, but they didn't obviously exclude him, either.

Baffling.

I went over to watch the women train. Our new recruit was there.

***

@Chester_FC: Chester FC are stupendously amazingly ecstatic to announce that Kisi Yalley has joined on a short-term loan from Manchester Actual City. Chief Copywriter Max Best says, "Yeah, it's Youngster’s little sister. What to expect? Imagine the opposite of Youngster. That's how she plays. Also: she's funny and you're allowed to say Tuesday when you meant Wednesday without your head being bitten off. I shouldn't say this but she's my favourite."

***

Kisi's effect on morale was almost as good as mine!

Maybe it was her big smile, her on-the-ball skills (she'd eased to CA 14 in her time at City), or the fact that Youngster and Pascal had come to watch her train - whatever it was, she brought the good vibes.

Kisi's arrival added half a point on average to the squad's morale. Half a point! It was still new to me, but half a point across a squad of fourteen seemed like finding-a-twenty-pound-note in your old jeans levels of happiness.

Knowing what I knew about Kisi, the increase made sense, but now I needed to know exactly what morale did! It would be hard to measure the effect of morale on training, though it made sense to assume players trained better when their morale was high. It also made sense that players with shit morale would play worse in matches. Testing needed.

The vibe was so fun that I decided I'd join in, for my third training session of the day. Burnout? WHAT'S THAT?

But just as I was getting stuck into the first rondos, holding my own against Mel - whose increase in morale had lasted since I texted her in the morning - plus Erin, Kisi, and Bea Pea, my phone rang.

"Max," said Jill. "Your phone."

"Ignore it. It’s Bob Geldof asking me to explain K-Pop."

"It's Emma."

"Huh."

Emma had been weird for a while. Obviously busy at work, but also obviously avoiding football matches. Which meant avoiding me. I was giving her time and space and trying not to catastrophise about it. But the way she'd been cool about postponing our anniversary, in retrospect, seemed suss.

I picked up and wandered to the edge of the sports hub. "Hey, bebs."

"Max, we need to talk."

My heart sank. My heart sank to the bottom of the ocean, waved at The Titanic, then kept going, down the Mariana Trench, and through a little crevice into the molten core of the earth itself. "Okay."

She took a deep breath. "You know we've been swamped on this Greggs case." Greggs was a wildly popular baker famous for its sausage rolls. I found their stuff a bit dry, but almost everyone I knew went weak at the knees for the sausage rolls. Emma's company had been doing some legal stuff for them. Legal stuff as dry as the flakes of pastry that - you know what? No time for half-baked similes. Emma was about to break up with me.

"So last Monday," she started.

"Our anniversary," I said, aghast that the coming betrayal would start on our special day.

"Yes," she said, matter-of-fact. "I take some papers to the coffee shop, like I always do on my break, and as I look for a good spot, there's a cute guy sitting at the counter."

"I am coping with this conversation very well," I said, as I ate the phone and went to live in a monastery, forever, with my stomach slowly dissolving the memory card that contained every detail of our shared life.

She kept going as though I hadn't said anything, probably because I hadn't actually said anything. "Anyway, I sit, get to work, absorbed in the legal drama, you know."

"Yes." I think I said that. Not sure. It was like she'd slapped my brain into a blender and was turning the speed up and down.

"Suddenly, there's a couple of blokes on my little sofa bit. Couple of lads."

Hold up. Both blokes and lads were bad. Suddenly, the cute guy at the counter didn't sound so ominous.

"I'm knee deep in enterprise interruption rulings when I realise they're... you know... overstepping. Like, one guy's way too close and the other takes the doc I was reading out of my hand, starts looking through it, says I have to impress him to get it back. And it reminded me so much of Tranmere and half my head was thinking about how to argue the case and half was thinking, shit, I shouldn't have brought these documents out of the office, if these guys run off with them, dad's going to kill me."

"What."

"So suddenly the cute guy's there, and he gets all John Smith on them, and they say they were just being friendly and he says maybe they want to be friendly to his friends Fuck and Off and they clear out and I check all the papers are still there and I'm freaking out but it's all fine."

She took a deep breath. The story had gone from blender setting 1 to 3 and back to 1, but I'd turned it all the way up to 4 as soon as she said 'we have to talk'. So... it was nothing. Nothing happened. I could... relax?

"I calm down a bit and I'm about to rush back to the office but then it's like fuck no! This is my spot, I won’t be ladded out. And the guy's just there at the counter, not even trying to look at me or use it to get my number or any of the usual. So I say thanks and we start chatting."

WHAT BRAIN HAS BEEN BLENDED ON LEVEL SEVEN CAN NEVER BE MADE WHOLE.

"And okay he's cute but he's funny and interesting and all that. You'd like him."

Not a chance in hell I'd like him. "Yes," I said, because women like it when you're positive.

"And we get talking and I mention you and how you played in Darlington." How the fuck did that come up? And wait, Emma mentioned me? The ex-boyfriend. "And he was like, oh what a ride! I'm going there, soon, what should I look out for? Turns out he's Australian, doing a tour of the UK. So I tell him about the market and those alleys with the fun shops and stuff like that."

"And then you porked, and you've been porking non-stop for a week and he’s your porcupine now and you lied about being busy. I get it. Goodbye forever."

"Max?"

"Still here."

"Oh. So that was that, but when I went back - "

"Wait, what?"

"What what?"

"That was that?"

"Yeah I took my stuff back to the office, forgot all about it. But the next day I thought about going to the coffee shop, stick to my routine, you know? And I went and he wasn't there and neither were the creeps but... He knew who you were."

My head was literally in billions of little bits, and I was still trying to process the revelation that - talk about a shit cliffhanger - there WAS no revelation. She went back to the office, end of story? "Rugby's massive in Australia. They probably have streets named after me."

She giggled - the bizarre, discordant twinkling of an angel. "Silly Max." She went right back to the 'we have to talk' voice, and I realised she was going through a morale blender of her own. "But don't you see? The whole thing was a set up. They were trying to get dirt on you, and I gave it to them."

"Er... three questions. Who they?"

"One of your many enemies. Based on the questions... that new Darlington manager."

What? "Question two. They were trying to get dirt on me?"

"Yeah it was so subtle at first, but when I thought about it later he asked me about things that I hadn't told him about. Like when you took over the team at half time. I only mentioned that match because of the alleys and our first date and you were tired so we went slow and really savoured it. So when he asked what really happened at half time, I didn't think anything of it. But later, it clicked. If all this was new to him, how did he know about things like that? So... yeah. And I know question three. Yeah, I'm afraid I said some indiscreet things. Private things you told me." She took a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry."

Absolutely a billion questions, but only one real one - are we still porcupines? "I'm going to Manchester tomorrow evening. Doing some special training with Raffi, and meeting up with Mateo after. I'm helping him out with a former player on Wednesday morning so he's booked me a nice hotel. Do you want to come?"

"But Max! I've made a big mess. They're coming after you and I've made it easy."

Emma as traitor? By telling some rando she'd never meet again some funny stories about her awesome boyfriend? It was... not ideal, but it was just a cool and chill woman being cool and chill. I was over it almost instantly. "There's a continental breakfast. Just don't eat the scrambled eggs. Heard some shocking things about hotel eggs. On a Tottenham fan podcast, would you believe it."

"Max!"

"Emma. They put me in Soccer Supremo with shit stats. It’s probably that. But imagine there's a big article that comes out about me. Either it's all true, in which case I can only blame myself. Or it's all lies and then you did nothing wrong. I am having a great week. Let them take their best shot. I'll get through it if you're there with me, dipping croissants into your coffee like an absolute savage."

"So you're not mad at me?"

"I can never get mad at you."

"You got mad at me when I let the handle of the mug poke off the edge of the table."

"Well, yeah, but come on. That's justified."

“And when I overtook that bus.”

“We watched a Bond movie and were so amped up you overtook two buses in one move!” I took a pause. Pottered around - my legs still worked. The blender had shaken me up but left me intact. I was shivering from having been working out and then standing still for so long. "Let me know if you're coming. I'll dress nice if you are."

"I'm coming," she said, suddenly. "We can have it as our anniversary."

"Oh."

"What?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking of what special stuff we could do. What I can show you from Manchester."

"Don’t overthink it. Let's see where the wind blows us."

Where the wind blew us was somewhere I’d never set foot before yet was rooted in my past, was filled with important people from my present, and contained a surprising amount of my future.