4.
Thursday, 3 August, 2023
Aaaallll right.
I got murdered and so on and so forth. A lot of people chipped in while I was out, kept the place ticking over. But we had a match on August 5th, so at the start of the month I decided I had to try to get back to the daily grind, even if I was far from ready. Even if my battery was flat.
People would understand if I got a bit tired or moody. People understood that all too well - most treated me like I was made of glass. The way people slowed down when they spoke to me was funny, until it wasn't. I liked when Emma fussed over me, made me cups of tea and opened or closed curtains based on her assessment of my needs. I didn't like it so much when a rando in Tesco offered to help me shop. The Brig was amazing in those situations - if I closed my eyes for ten seconds, the problem was gone and I could return to staring at cereal boxes.
I had a to-do list a mile long. I couldn't concentrate on anything for long. I couldn't sprint. I couldn't do a Beckham or a cannonball.
My physical improvement had plateaued. My bank balance was stagnant. As far as I knew, the agency I'd helped found was stuck on zero clients. And I hadn't earned any XP in four months. Four months!
All my forward momentum had gone. The wind had spilled out of my sails and the seas were flat. How had I got things going before? By stirring the pot with mad energy. What if I didn't have energy to spare? What then?
But even in my reduced state, I still had awesome firepower. The ability to analyse a football player in an instant. The power to shift formation at the speed of thought. And the power to improve - I had over two thousand experience points and as soon as the perk shop opened I'd be spending freely.
Our first match was against a semi-pro team promoted from the division below. Not easy, but if ever there was a match I could sleepwalk through, it had to be that one. The week after was against relegated York City, and they were expected to go straight back up.
So one win, one defeat, and a whole lot of mental stamina training for me. I'd take that. By the time we played York again in January, Chester would be a much stronger team, and if my physical progress kept going the way I wanted, I'd be in the lineup. That assumed I could kick start some progress. Make some numbers go up.
To that end, I was in the back of MD's car, temporarily alone with my thoughts, saving my strength until we got to Newcastle. MD was in the passenger seat, texting on one phone and reading on another. The Brig was driving.
The curse had been coming back to me bit by bit. First to return was Playdar. I'd used it to discover the Harrisons, AKA the Triplets. They were three orphans from Manchester, all midfielders who could play in the centre or on the right. One had PA over a hundred, the other two were decent. They came as a package and I was happy to slightly overpay for two to ensure I got the one I really wanted. More on them soon.
After Playdar, the player profiles returned, apparently unchanged.
Then the Chester Men and Chester Women squad screens came back. My name was in the first, but Henri's wasn't. Proof that he'd moved on. Good for him! Except when I got back from Tenerife he was still training with us and intended to sign a match to match deal. Help us out until the transfer window closed. And then what? He said the discussion could wait. Like everyone else, he was treating me like a balsa wood toy. His player profile showed a two point drop in CA over the summer. Better than most. Most players had lost three, four, five points. A couple had improved a lot. None were flat.
My player profile... was a ghost town. It showed my contract (500 pounds a week, month-to-month, no bonuses), this year's playing stats, and my data from Darlington the year before. But not a single attribute came with a number. Not my pace, my heading, and certainly not my CA and PA.
Fortunately, I knew exactly what my CA was. One. But soon it would be two. And I'd keep improving until I got back to my previous level, which may have been 140, or may have been 200. I planned to be terrorising defences by New Year's Eve. Even CA 60 would have me as one of the best players in the league.
Realistically, the only players who might be better than me at that point were Henri, Raffi, or Youngster. Possibly Aff. That, though, depended on me getting a top coach to replace Jackie Reaper. Which meant that unlocking Staff Search was my top priority. The perk shop hadn't re-opened, though. There was only one upgrade I could currently buy. On August 1st, I'd been offered the monthly perk, and it was the worst yet.
New perk available: Player Search patch (version 1.63)
Cost: 100 XP
Effects: This patch patches a thing that needs to be patched.
I planned to buy it during the match, provided watching Hibernian versus a team from Andorra in the UEFA Conference League Qualifying Second Round gave me as much XP as I expected. If it didn't, I'd reassess. I got the feeling I had to buy this patch in order to get the shop back, and that annoyed me; I liked to think I was in control of this journey. Another part of the reason I didn't instantly buy the patch was that I was in no hurry. Even if I fully unlocked Staff Search and whatever else was in that upgrade tree, I wouldn't be doing anything with it just yet. On Saturday we had our first match of the season and that was where almost all of my attention was going. If I got through unscathed, I'd go back to long-term planning. For now I was literally taking things one game at a time.
"How long to Newcastle?"
"Another two hours, sir."
"Going to have a nap."
***
The Brig woke me five minutes before getting to Emma's house so that I could wipe away the drool and so on. The exact right level of looking out for me.
It had been a long drive, and I took the chance to get out and stretch my legs. Emma's mum, Rachel, invited us all in for a cuppa, and we were happy to accept. While it was brewing, she gave me a tour of the garden, which I'd only ever seen in winter. I pottered around the flat bits, asking the names of the little flowers and shrubs and why each one was placed where it was. Gardening was like picking a football team. You put the big, thick things at the back, and the flash, showy ones at the front.
It was the first time I'd seen Sebastian Weaver since the attack. He and Emma had been in the ground that day - they'd snuck into the Executive Box, planning to surprise me. So he was on hand to charge to the defence of Mr. Yalley. Sebastian had defended me against the Football Association because his daughter asked him to. He'd defended Mr. Yalley because he was enraged by the injustice. He reached out for a handshake. I ignored it and gave him the best hug I could manage. I wanted to say something but words were inadequate. The best way to repay him was letting him go to his daughter's wedding.
We gathered around an island in the kitchen. Emma introduced the Brig (calling him 'John', which irked me). Sebastian and Rachel treated me - surprise - like I had a huge hole in my skull.
"So, why Edinburgh?" said Sebastian, softly, with an encouraging smile.
I swallowed some mild annoyance. He'd earned a fuckton of goodwill. "Bit of concentration training," I said. "We've got our first match of the season on Saturday. Tonight I'm going to pretend I'm the manager of Hibs and see how long it is until I get dizzy."
"Hibs?" said Rachel.
"Hibernian," said her husband. "Why them? It's very far. Surely there's a closer match?"
"It's actually the highest level game going. Third most important European tournament." I was hoping I'd get five XP per minute. If the Champions League gave seven, same as the Premier League, and the Europa League gave six, then maybe the UEFA Conference would give five. Hibs vs this team from Andorra would be one of the lowest quality matches in that whole tournament, probably, but it was still IN that tournament. There was a good chance I'd make out like a bandit. "I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Plus the fact the drive's so long means I get to spend more time with my favourite person." I hugged Emma. "MD."
My employer smiled. "I knew it! When I heard you wooed Emma by ignoring her for weeks, I thought, oh! That's what he did to me. Well, I'm flattered, but I can't say I don't deserve it."
"You do, mate. You've done what you set out to do: eased me into the start of the season. We need a few more players but it's not urgent."
"How's your mum?" said Rachel.
"She's great. Happy. Your daughter got her into The Traitors; she loves it."
"That wasn't me," lied Emma.
The Brig checked one of his watches. "Sir."
"Got to go," I said. "Thanks for the tea."
Outside, Emma pulled my elbow. "Can we do a tekkers clip?"
"No point," I said. "I'm stuck on ten."
"Oh. Are you all right?"
"Yeah."
She gave me a dubious look. "Health is other people, babes. Don't spend so much time alone."
***
"Why is John driving MD's car?" wondered Emma, as she settled into the back seat.
"I wondered the same thing," said MD.
"MD can't drive a car off one skyscraper onto another one. The Brig can. End of discussion."
"I'm happy to get some work done. It's quite luxurious, actually. Not that I'd want it all the time. I like driving."
I wiggled my arse until I was properly upright. It was time to catch up on all the goss. "Right. Let's talk about things. Rapid fire. The sale of Man United. What's up with that?"
Emma knew. She'd been keeping an eye on the story to see if Old Nick would appear in the background of more photos. She hadn't spotted him, but his fingerprints were all over it. "Three final bids were made. Qatar, a hedge fund, and the guy from Manchester. That was two months ago. Nothing's happened since."
MD added, "The club's in limbo. Purgatory. They looked at buying Harry Kane, but the price was too high. Too high for Man United! Imagine that. If the sale had gone through, the new owners would definitely have found the money."
Purgatory. Not heaven, not hell. If Nick wanted to spread misery, then leaving the players, staff, and millions of fans in an endless state of uncertainty would do it.
The idea of the league's best striker moving to the Red Devils stirred my loins. "Harry Kane at Man United. That feels right."
"He's going to Germany," said Emma.
"Come on," I said.
"Really! To Bayern."
"The England captain is going to Germany?"
"She's right," said MD.
"Okay so I went back in time. Roger Moore is James Bond. Footballers earn twenty pounds a week and spend most of it on cigs and warm beer. Got it."
"Is it so strange?" wondered the Brig. I was encouraging him to learn more about football. Primarily so he could help beyond fitness and man management, but also because once he learned enough jargon I could make him do post-match interviews.
"The last time anything like that happened was Kevin Keegan going to Hamburg. What year was that, MD?"
"Oh! Before my time. Late 70s."
"Yeah. The olden days. Now, the Premier League is the only place to be, really. Apart from Real Madrid or Barcelona. Anywhere else is a big step down, to be honest."
"Except Saudi Arabia," said Emma.
I groaned. Her home town club had been bought by Saudi Arabia, and now everyone in Newcastle was a propagandist for that petrostate. "Babes. Please."
MD turned round. "Max, the Saudis are investing huge money in the SPL." He saw I hadn't heard of it. "The Saudi Pro League. Looks like they're trying to create a Premier League rival. As you know, they got Ronaldo last season. This summer they've added Firmino, Henderson, and Benzema."
"Old guys near the end of their careers," I said. China had tried to do this a few years ago - a huge boom followed by a huge bust, and absolutely nothing to show for it.
"And Allan Saint-Maximin. Mahrez. Ruben Neves. Mendy, Jota, Malcom. They're on a spending spree. Crazy money on all sorts of talents, old and young. It's very serious."
Well, with those names it did seem serious. "Okay. I need a minute." This news was scrambling my brain. The Premier League had been slowly gaining in power, prestige, and popularity for thirty years, such that the centre of gravity of the entire sport was England, and that process had shown no sign of abating. Now... now there was a new challenger. And they weren't even in Europe. Wow. The contours of the entire sport were being upended.
What did that mean for Chester? For me?
It meant more money sloshing around. More chance I'd be able to grab some of it. But by the time I got to the top of the pyramid in England, would people ask if I could do it in a really big league? It was crazy-making to even countenance the idea.
"Is it bad news, MD?" said the Brig.
"Not for us. We're a long way from all that."
"Not as far as you think," I said. That was enough catching up for now.
***
Edinburgh, to watch Hibs, in their awesome green and white kit, against a team from Andorra in a nice red number. There were twelve thousand fans watching, leaving eight thousand empty seats. The locals clearly thought this was a low-level match, but as I'd guessed, the curse was giving me five XP per minute.
Nice.
Even better was the injury time the referee added in the first half - six minutes!
MD noted my surprise. "There's a new directive. Remember in the World Cup the referees added loads of time because of all the cheating and delays? They're doing it this season. There should be less timewasting. And there will be more bookings for bad behaviour. Yelling at referees and so on."
Right, so I'd get loads more XP for every match I watched, and the matches would have less shithousery and dicks would be punished? "That sounds fucking amazing."
He smiled. "I thought you'd like that."
The match itself was very one-sided. Inter, the visitors, couldn't defend. Their goalie had low bravery, and that's no good when teams are sending in gorgeous crosses and competing for headers. You do need a strong presence. The whole match (six-one to Hibs) was a warning in what would happen if I focused all my attention on the front of the pitch.
"Let's talk goalies," I said. "I've told Ben Cavanagh he'll be our number one this season."
MD's eyes widened. The Brig asked why.
"Ben and Robbo are similar in terms of quality, but Ben is younger and has room to grow. We call it a higher ceiling." The Brig nodded. "Robbo's ahead of him right now, but Ben should catch up and then overtake him." Ben's CA was thirty-five, one behind Robbo. But Robbo's PA was only forty-five, while Ben's was sixty-seven. "Next season we'll be happy we made the change."
Emma didn't like my tone. "That implies this season we won't be happy we made the change."
I shrugged. "It might cost us a few points."
"You don't seem worried about it."
"If we're doing things my way, we'll do things my way."
"Wonderfully meaningless." Emma always thought to ask about the people behind the numbers. "How did Robbo take it?"
"He wasn't super happy. But I told him I planned to rotate the goalies more than most managers would. He'll still get loads of game time. Right. The defence. If we play four at the back it's Trick, Glenn, Gerald, Carl. It's all right. Not much room for growth. The only rotation option at the moment is Magnus. He can play anywhere in defence, and he's kicked on over the summer." His CA had risen to thirty-six, taking him ahead of Trick and Gerald. "We need another centre-back, ideally one who could cover left or right-back, too. Let me take a tiny break."
Asking for a tiny break was a great way to get out of a difficult conversation, for example, and this is just hypothetical, if I was playing Monopoly with Emma and she asked why I suddenly had loads of cash. This time, it was because I'd decided to buy the stupid patch and get it out of the way.
After stumping up the cash and getting a pang of headache, I still had over two thousand XP.
XP Balance: 2,187
Debt repaid: 1,607/3000
I went to the Player Search screen and it was, indeed, quite different. Instead of thinking a player name and being brought to his profile, there was a list of every player I'd ever scouted, the club they played for, and their estimated transfer value. The last field was all question marks, but holy shit, I couldn't wait to unlock that.
I went through page after page of players, ranging from Conrad Etutu and Stephen McGough, to Ronaldo and Marcus Rashford.
A box called Filters let me refine my search. I could ask to see English players only - not as gammony an option as you'd think; the Premier League needed you to have a certain number of English players in your squad. I could filter by position, preferred foot, and more. The most intriguing was 'contract status'. That one was not currently available, but would be when I unlocked the contracts perks. Would it show me players whose contracts were running down? I could accidentally bump into them in Tesco and suggest they hold off renewing until I was legally allowed to talk to them.
This was all amazing, but I dipped out quickly to see if the perk shop was open now. It was! Amazing. I'd been forced to use my XP to correct Nick's sloppiness.
But back to the player search. There was a weird filter that simply said: Interested.
I set it to Yes and went back to the list of players. It was much shorter, now. Conrad Etutu and Stephen McGough were still there, but Ronaldo wasn't. I looked through the list. Most Darlington players had been filtered out, but Junior, the talented striker, was there.
So Junior was interested. Interested in what? Joining Chester?
Great, but we couldn't afford him. On the top-right of the player search area was my transfer budget. It currently read, £0.
Mate. No need to rub it in.
I had a think, and filtered by defender.
The list got much shorter, but was still pretty massive. Loads of defenders who would come to Chester! It made sense - this list was mostly Sunday league guys. Five-a-side guys. I looked for a way to filter by PA, but it wasn't available. I could filter by attributes, though. I set a minimum positioning skill of ten, and now the list was much, much shorter. Eight names. Ah. I'd scouted most of the defenders before I'd unlocked the positioning attribute. As you'll see, the fact that I'd have to keep rescouting players and staff became something of a theme.
One of the eight defenders had a little 'TRN' box next to his name. This guy was transfer listed?
"MD," I said, interrupting whatever conversation they were having. "You've got C-suite superfriends at Hereford, right?"
"I know people who work there, yes."
MD knew everyone in non-league. "Are you willing to humiliate yourself a bit?"
"Yes." That got him a big smile from Emma and a little nod from the Brig.
"Top. Will you call your dude and say you're in Scotland looking at a centre-back and it's a disaster and you need to get Max some defensive cover and you're desperate and you've heard that Steve Alton is available."
"Steve Alton? I've never heard of him."
Alton must have been an unused sub in a match I'd been to or played at, because I also had no memory of him. He was CA 30, not super impressive, but he had PA 53. He was a centre-back who could play right-back, too. And his positioning was eleven.
"He'd fill the squad out very nicely."
MD dipped his head. "If I can say... Thing is, we sort of thought you'd be finding more players for free. Like Raffi and Youngster."
"But then you made me the first team manager on my actual death bed, mate. And we don't have time to wait a year for the next Raffi to get up to speed. We need a couple of lads who can play this month. So let's see about Alton Towers."
"Steve Alton."
"That's what I said." Emma showed me her phone. A picture she'd dug up of a footballer called Steve Alton. He looked like a Steve, and he was wearing a Hereford shirt. Almost certainly the guy. She showed MD. "Ems, will you check if he's a social media weirdo?"
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"On it."
"Brig, can you have a dig around to see why he's transfer listed? That means his club doesn't want him. Is it coz he's a dick or coz they don't need him?"
"Understood."
I nodded at MD to signal it was time for him to do his part. He stared at his phone, bit his lip, then dialled. I gave him an excited shake. He liked it. The Two Amigos riding in tandem!
He went through his spiel, and ended up with a quote for twenty thousand pounds. I mimed slicing my throat. MD made some small talk and ended the call.
"Worth a shot," I said.
"They might get back to us with something more realistic. But Max... we don't have anything in the budget."
"MD, if we can get him for 5K I'm going to be a total dick until you give me the money. Let's not bicker about it, now. I'll try to find guys for free."
I went back to my player search tool and tried all sorts of other filters. I realised that for my current needs, my best bet was having some minimum attributes - positioning for a defender, finishing for a striker - and sorting the list by Club Name. This listed everyone who was currently under contract at Darlington or Hereford or FC United or wherever. But underneath all those were guys who didn't have a club. Out of contract players with good attributes. There weren't many, but there were some.
I clicked through into some profiles to see if any had high PA. My quick search didn't come up with anything. But it was a list of players who could come in and do a job, at the cost of taking up my wage budget. Basically, someone like Steve Alton but without the growth potential.
If I had mental capacity, I'd check it out on the drive home. For now I really needed to get all the XP this match had to offer. But if Staff Search was as easy to use as the new Player Search, I'd easily find the new Jackie and the season would be a huge success.
"What are you smiling at?" said Emma.
"Just being in Scotland with my honey."
"Liar," she said, with a smile.
"It is refreshing, here," I admitted. "No-one knows who I am. They're treating me like a normal, average, excessively handsome football phenom."
"Oh," she said. "So they do know who you are."
XP Balance: 2,420
Debt repaid: 1,633/3000
***
Saturday, 5 August
Match 1 of 46: Bishop's Stortford versus Chester FC
Bishop's Stortford is a nice-looking place in the south of the country. When I say south, I mean south. It's right next to London Stansted airport. It's basically London! Their team had been placed in the National League North after all the promotions and relegations of the previous season, but as the most northern of the southern clubs, they were sent, from their point of view, to the grim, frozen hinterlands. They appealed against the decision. They were a part-time club who didn't have the resources to travel all over the country like a full-time outfit.
For once I had sympathy with the FA. There weren't an even number of northern and southern teams. What were they supposed to do? Bend space and time? Think how many seven-course lunches they'd miss.
I traveled in the Brig's passenger seat. (I was temporarily carless. Before the Southport match, I'd parked my Subaru on a random side street and couldn't remember where. It was either still there, right as rain, or had been towed and crushed into a little cube.) Not going on the team bus was better in terms of saving energy, but a long trip like that was a good time to have little chats with the players. Touch base with them all. Soon. Very soon.
In the stadium, I watched Vimsy warm my players up. Every time they sprinted towards the away team dugout, they cast a worried glance in my direction. I sighed a long, unhappy sigh.
"Sir?" said the Brig.
"They all think I'm broken."
"They went through a trauma, same as you. They need to heal, too, sir. Now that you're here, they can start."
"Can you shout at them to heal faster?"
"If you wish it, sir. If I may be so bold... The rain is affecting how the ball travels. The rondo drills are not going well."
"Good spot. We're better than Stortford, but the pitch is a bog. It negates our technique and passing. It'll be a scrap. These guys are semi-pro. We should be much, much fitter. We'll battle and win in the last ten minutes."
"Very good, sir."
Stortford had an average CA of 39. Decent, then. They would set up in 4-4-2, with a gigantic, powerful striker who would be a nuisance. Unlike most gigantic, powerful strikers at this level, he wasn't a slow brute. He was surprisingly agile.
They also had a hulking centre-back, but he, mercifully, was slow and cumbersome. Normally I would have considered some mad scheme like using Pascal to buzz around him like a mosquito. But the conditions put paid to any clever tactics. Today would be about duels.
We had Ben in goal, Magnus at left-back instead of Trick, Youngster as DM, and a midfield of Aff, Sam, Raffi, and Joe Anka. The last of the eleven was Henri up front, meaning our average CA was 41.8. So despite the regression from the summer break, we were starting the season 0.5 CA ahead of the last match I'd managed. Okay! It wasn't much, but it was something. It cheered me up a bit.
[https://ted-steel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/b4c4.png]
That summer regression was understandable, but annoying. Still, surely the players would add the points they lost very quickly? In the first couple of weeks of the season. Right? Or was the state of our coaching so bad that even that low-hanging fruit would be out of reach?
I planned to unlock Staff Search the following day, and really get stuck into that. If we could find a decent skills coach, could we get close to an average of CA 50 from training alone? We had quite a few high PA players, now. If just one of them put on a growth spurt, we could start to seriously boss this division. If we could get to CA 45, we could tilt at the title based on my superior tactics and optimisations.
As it stood, though, we looked very, very average.
I let Vimsy do most of the pre-match stuff, and took my spot in the dugout quite early. I was in baseball cap, shades, and I was wearing my AirPods. I didn't want to get distracted by the noise. My job was to analyse the match and look for tweaks that would help us perform better. If I took it easy, I might make it through the ninety minutes.
I had some pre-match decisions to make. Bench boost? No. Triple captain? No. I'd upgraded the Fantasy Football perk so I could use those boosts once in the league, and once in every cup competition. But I'd probably save them for a must-win top-of-the-table clash later in the season.
I also had God Save the King. That gave me a once-per-season stat boost. Last time, I'd used it to boost Ziggy's finishing from sixteen to seventeen. Ziggy, God love him, had decided to stay at FC United. I didn't regret using the boost on him, but I would almost certainly use it on Youngster from now on. He was my walking lottery ticket and by improving his attributes I could improve the payout. It was a decision that could wait a few weeks, though.
I'd left Glenn as captain, and no-one thought twice about it. Sam had shown a lot of leadership in the boot camp, as had Raffi, but Glenn was admired by all. Raffi's first pay rise had kicked in, making him one of the highest earners at the club. He was busting a gut trying to prove himself worthy. Youngster was still on a basic, minimum wage deal. I'd sort that out in August, for sure.
The match kicked off. The tactics screens looked pretty identical to what I'd had last season, but now I had more detailed match stats for every player. Whether that was because of the yearly update, the patch I'd bought, or just the fact that I was the manager now, I didn't know. I suspected it was the update, because I couldn't remember having that data when the women played.
We took control. I'd deliberately kept things simple. The players knew this formation, knew what I wanted. Despite the boggy conditions, we were able to pass the ball around the defence and midfield. But we couldn't progress into the final third. Whatever we tried, something went wrong. We huffed and puffed our way to a lot of sixes and not many sevens.
Henri was putting in a 5 out of 10 performance. If I didn't know him better, I'd have said he was confused about which team he was playing for. Stortford had a chant - Allez les bleues - which in case you're not a top linguist like me is actually French. Why did this London club have a French motto? What the actual?
At half-time, I waited for a change from Stortford. They stuck to 4-4-2, so I left things as they were and again snuck into the dugout and hid there for the rest of the match.
After fifty minutes, Stortford got a corner and their enormous, lumbering centre-back got his head on the end. One-nil.
Our players walked back to their positions. No-one shouted any blame, no-one looked especially angry. Huh.
Fifteen minutes later, Stortford got a free kick out wide. They loaded the area in front of Ben and aimed the cross there. Ben came rushing out, leapt, but was boxed out by the two huge players. It was a different guy who got his head on the ball, but he had an open net to aim at.
For a second, I thought Sam was going to rage at Ben for his decision-making, but he took a breath and walked back to his spot.
Two-nil, and we'd conceded from set pieces. After the boot camp, Vimsy had taken most of our sessions. We'd shuffled, slid, and practised these scenarios. We couldn't have prepared more for these situations. And it hadn't worked because how do you prepare to play in a bog against two actual giants?
I shook my head.
Non-league football. Holy shit.
The pitch dried off towards the end, but for the last twenty minutes I was pretty spent. I'd barely done anything but it was still exhausting. I almost couldn't help but check the match ratings, read the commentary, think about tactical tweaks.
I asked Vimsy to suggest the subs we should make, and then did those. Trick on for Youngster with Magnus going to DM. D-Day for Joe. I also took Henri off and put Tony on. It hadn't been Henri's day. I hoped he wouldn't get all Henri about it; I couldn't face one of his outbursts.
We finished brightly. My guys fought, competed, ran, did everything you could ask of them, but we went back to the dressing rooms with a two-nil defeat to our names. A sullen three-and-a-half-hour drive home awaited.
The Brig didn't ask me what had gone wrong. I wondered if he thought I was a fraud. He'd been hired to protect this genius, this boy wonder, and there had been zero sign I was anything other than broken. I could only imagine the mood on the team bus.
***
Sunday, 6 August
I woke up, had a tea, made sure I was feeling okay, and bought Staff Search for 500 XP.
It added a section to the search area. It was a list of all the coaches, scouts, and physios I'd ever met, plus their employer, where they were based, the job they were doing, and their current reputation. For example:
Phil Forster - Man City - Premier Division - Scout - Superb
I couldn't remember meeting Phil Forster. Maybe he'd been one of the hundred guys I'd shook hands with when Sandra and Kisi showed me around the Death Star.
The screen also showed managers and assistant managers I'd met who were now out of work. Poor David Cutter was there. I suppose the idea was that he might consider being my assistant manager, so why not show him on this list? He wouldn't come - when managers started getting sacked, he'd start getting calls.
Unlike with the player search, there wasn't a handy 'Interested' option in the filters, so there were a lot of names that would never, ever, consider working in my staff. Ian Evans, for example. Clicking his name showed me that he was 'retired'. Guys like him didn't stay retired, though. He'd be back.
I searched for Jackie Reaper. His profile was there. I swiped it away.
Back to Phil Forster, then. I could click on him to see his scout profile. Like with Evans and Jackie, it was all question marks.
Which led me back to the perk shop to see what new options had opened up. Still no Wibwob, but the one I really wanted was there. 'Staff Profiles' was retailing for 2,000 XP. I'd be able to afford it very soon.
That would tell me how good my current staff were, plus, I assumed, all these guys on my list. An amazing advance. One of the biggest remaining jigsaw pieces. The end of my plateau.
Being greedy, what I also wanted was a list of every unemployed guy in the country who could come in and work for me. There didn't seem to be a way to get that. I'd have to introduce myself to every coach and physio I ever met to get them into the database. Then when their contracts ran out, or they got fired, I'd see them as available.
What else did I need in the coming months? The morale, injuries, and contracts perks. Plus 3-5-2. The latter was fairly urgent, in fact, because if I lost two of Trick, Carl, and Magnus, I'd struggle to field a coherent side. 3-5-2 was my solution to having a small squad. And I had a bunch of talented midfielders. Yeah, 3-5-2 was probably going to be next on my shopping list.
I also needed to improve my own CA and mental stamina. So I closed the curse, replied to a handful of texts and emails - I was slogging through my backlog in small but increasing doses - and texted the Brig that I was ready to leave the flat. I checked my equipment bag. Swimming, today, I reckoned. No. The pool was too flat. Maybe I'd go to the woods. Walk up, jog down.
***
Tuesday, 8 August
I used my new friendship with Eve at Wrexham FC to score two tickets to see their sold-out EFL cup match against Wigan. (The Brig had started his investigation into my murder and ruled out the youth coach from Wrexham. He’d been with Eve the whole time and they’d heard about it in the car together.)
I had virtually no interest in the tie. It was just to get the XP I needed to unlock the Staff Profiles perk.
I got five XP per minute, and it went to penalties. Great for XP growth!
The Brig suggested we leave well before the decisive penalty. It's always frustrating to leave a match early, but he was right. We'd beat the traffic and there would be far fewer idiots in the car park. So we double-timed it to the car, and as I clicked my seatbelt closed, I bought Staff Profiles, leaving me with 700 XP. I had less than 1,300 to go on my debt, too.
All right! Things were very very incrementally going my way. I had to keep moving. Keep pushing, even if there were days nothing seemed to happen.
While the Brig drove me back to Chester, I checked out what I'd bought. On the staff search page, I brought up whatsisname. Phil Forster.
Now, there were far fewer question marks; the staff attributes were visible. Finally! Jesus Christ, what a slog that had been. The attributes were things like 'determination' and 'working with youngsters'. They changed from person to person, but it didn't take me long to work out why. Physios had an extra line: Physiotherapy. Meanwhile, Managing Directors and owners had completely different ones.
But while I knew what the missing attributes were, every number was still a question mark. I knew just as little about Phil Forster as ever.
No please no give me a fucking break mate seriously come on.
Ah! But in the Chester Squad page there was a list of our current staff. When I unlocked a new attribute for my players, I got to see them instantly in the squad screens. So surely I'd be able to see the profiles for my employees?
Yes!
BEHOLD THERE WERE NUMBERS.
It had only taken seconds, at most, but I think I'd stopped breathing and then gulped in some air because the Brig took his eyes off the road to check on me. But I calmed down very quickly. The relief was incredible. I could see the numbers. No more working in the dark, holy shit.
Spectrum Adaptability 4 Coaching Goalkeepers 3 Coaching Outfield Players 11 Determination 5 Judging Player Ability 5 Judging Player Potential 2 Level of Discipline 3 Man Management 4 Motivating 6 Tactical Knowledge 15 Working with Youngsters 14 Coaching Style
Technique-based
Preferred Formation 3-5-2 Preferred Style
Prefers a patient style of play
Other n/a
I didn't know what everything meant. Some of it seemed obvious, but sometimes the curse was obvious and sometimes it was tricky. Most of the numbers seemed to be out of 20. Spectrum's numbers felt low. If we averaged them, then yeah, probably low.
But what did I truly care about when it came to him? Adaptability? I wasn't sure what it meant but apart from asking him to go along with my mad schemes, his job was pretty unchanging. Coaching goalkeepers? He didn't do much of that. Judging players? I already knew he was shit at that. But choosing who to bring to the club was my job. I didn't care what Spectrum thought of players like Vivek.
Yeah, some of these low numbers really didn't matter.
But he was good with kids, knew tactics, and could coach outfield players. 11 out of 20 seemed like something I could improve on, but I suspected there weren't many coaches in the National League North who were much better.
I turned to the Brig. Coaching style: Fitness-based. You don't say? He had 20 for adaptability, which was a big surprise. He also scored huge in discipline, man management, and motivating, and straight 1s in anything to do with football.
Vimsy was weak across the board. His preferred formation was 4-4-2 and his style was 'Prefers a cautious but direct style of play'. His tactical knowledge was abysmal. Still, I was Tommy Tactics. I was starting to realise I didn't care about most of these numbers, and was honing in on one in particular. With a Coaching Outfield Players (COP) score of 7, Vimsy wasn't very good at the main thing I needed him for.
Jude was better. His COP was 12. Seemed like our best coach. Talk about a lucky punch.
Angles had Coaching Goalkeepers 12. Seemed decent.
Jill was disappointing. Low numbers across the board and a defensive mindset. Not what I wanted for the women's manager. Upgrade needed ASAP - their season started in September.
Dean and Livia scored badly on most things, but had 20 in physiotherapy. I didn't want to rush to judgement, but it seemed they could easily be upgraded. Not that I'd ever upgrade on Livia. There was more to life than optimising numbers.
Finally, Magnus was a decent coach and also had 20 in physiotherapy.
So the staff was... underwhelming. Probably what you'd expect from a struggling National League North side.
I went back into the staff search to see if I could see Jackie Reaper's numbers. Nope. I'd have to meet him again. Livia had hinted he was in hiding. Batted away my questions about what he was up to.
Ah, forget Jackie. He didn't want the job.
I bit my nail as I looked out of the car window. I couldn't fire everyone on my staff. It was a community club and they'd all been doing extra work. Getting the maximum CA growth out of the players, though. That was paramount. That trumped almost everything.
How could I get rid of these guys in the nicest possible way?
Spectrum was fine where he was, for now, and one day I'd have the option of moving him sideways to some sort of data analysis role.
Vimsy. He wasn't all that close to retirement. Best case scenario - Ian Evans would get a job and try to get his old mate to join him. Yeah, that'd be amazing.
Jill. She'd have to go back to being a normal coach. The curse showed six coaching slots for the men's team, and six for the women's. Did that mean I could only employ six? I doubted it. But as I added more coaches to the women's team, Jill would get pushed down. When she was about to fall off the bottom, I'd have to move her into a new role. Some sort of general manager. She'd probably like that, and be good at it, too.
Yeah, the only one that worried me was Vimsy.
The last interesting thing about all the new data was seeing MD's profile. His attributes were: Business Acumen; Discipline; Interference; Man Handling; Patience; Resources; and Ambition. He scored highly in the first one. For once, luxury of luxuries, the curse explained what the number meant. 'Astute businessman; will increase club income.'
Top!
A low number in Interference was good for me. It suggested he'd let me get on with my job. Like, if I woke up one day and decided to buy three new goalkeepers, he wouldn't try to stop me.
His scores in Resources and Ambition meant he wasn't personally wealthy, which didn't matter since he didn't actually own the club, but that he wasn't aiming all that high. That could prove to be an obstacle one day. Say I needed to sign a player for three million pounds to make sure we got into the Premier League, and MD hummed and hawed about the expense and the wage bill. Yeah. Could be an issue. I wondered if I could plant ideas in his head and raise his ambition score?
It'd be interesting to do some tests on some of these guys. See if these numbers were fixed.
***
The club had got me a city centre flat. Someone was paying for it off the books, or the owner was a massive Chester fan who was happy to lose out on some income. As far as I could tell, it would normally rent for a thousand pounds a month. I loved it, but the Brig said the location was way too risky.
An alternative was being prepared, one that met the Brig's sense of security. I doubted it would be in the city. I'd always wanted to live in Manchester city centre: Twenty-four hour shops, transport links to everywhere, go watch a movie, get wasted, walk home. Chester city centre wasn't quite as buzzing, but it was still lively.
But there was a guy who wanted to kill me. I couldn't live like a normo.
While I was doing my late-night yoga, I had a great idea. The Brig was doing a coaching course. I'd see if his attributes increased over the weeks. And if I visited him in his classroom, I'd see the other participants and if there was one with good skills, I could snap him or her up!
My enthusiasm dampened. I needed to do everything in person. I could no more scout every coach in the country than I could scout every player.
Ah! But if I scouted some scouts, that would make my life a lot easier! Someone with Judging Player Potential 20 was basically someone with Super Scout, right? If they had the ability to spot talent, they could tell me where to spend my time.
Yessss... that would be a big step forward.
I felt a little bit of the old excitement. Some of the old forward momentum. Yeah, I faced massive challenges. But my abilities were rising to meet those challenges.
Tiny, subdued roar!
***
Saturday, 12 August
Match 2 of 46: Chester FC versus York City
It was my first home match since the attack, and there was a big crowd. Loads of people who wanted to see me, talk to me. I hadn't written the manager notes. I hadn't communicated with the fans. They wanted to know I was really, really all right but I needed to focus on the match at hand.
When I walked past, they stopped talking. Turned their section of the stadium into a library. The hush spread quickly. Is he okay? Is he still broken?
I waved at them, but then sank into the dugout. It was the only way.
I'd decided to rest Youngster - he couldn't play every game of the season. So I'd gone for a 4-4-2, and if we took control of the match we'd switch to 4-2-4 and really attack.
With Trick and D-Day getting a run out, our CA was a meagre 40.7. The season was going to be long, though, and the sooner those lazy pricks got on the pitch, the sooner their CA would return to the levels from the end of the season. Surprise, surprise, they'd been the two players with the biggest CA drops over the summer.
As soon as I saw the York players, I knew we'd be in for a tough match. York City were a decent-sized club. They'd only been relegated because of a points penalty awarded for fielding an ineligible player, but they'd managed to hold on to their best players and were looking good for a quick return to the National League. Their average CA was 51, which by my guess put them in the top three teams.
So 40 plays 50. We had home advantage, but we hadn't had a pre-season, and I didn't feel I could impact the game much.
It went badly.
For the first time since I'd been in the dugout, we didn't dominate possession. We struggled to pass, to connect with each other. Any sloppy play was pounced on, and York would soon be camped in our half. Our counter-attacking threat was nil.
I looked at my options on the bench... and pulled my baseball cap further over my head.
One-nil down at half time.
I switched to 4-5-1 to try to beef up the midfield.
It didn't work.
At the final whistle we could consider ourselves lucky to only have lost two-nil. No-one was to blame. We'd lost to a better, better-prepared, better-coached, better-managed team. We had lost this game the second some prick had decided to hit me with a metal bar.
At least I remained mentally sharp till the 85th minute, this time, which was progress.
As I trudged along the touchline, something weird happened. I got a round of applause. I took my baseball cap and shades off, plucked out my AirPods. I looked into the stand. I retraced my steps a little. Six stewards copied me. I turned to the Brig to see if he had spotted it, but he was scanning around like a Secret Service agent. Of course he knew about the stewards - he'd set it up like that.
He wanted to keep a line of bodies between me and the fans. To shield me from their emotion the way I'd shielded myself from the noise. I looked behind me. The players were trudging off the pitch. The shield had worked too well. We'd played okay. The players had done their jobs as well as they could. But we'd started the season without emotion, without passion, and we'd been outplayed, twice.
Now here were the fans telling me it was all right. They were still onside. We had some credit in the bank. How many defeats would it take for them to get restless? Not many. Four or five. But it wouldn't come to that. Something inside me was stirring.
A thought struck me. I went back to the York dugout and shook hands with all their staff, making sure all their profiles were added to my database. Their physios seemed much friendlier than Dean, but had similar profiles to his and Livia's. Shit at everything but with 20 in physiotherapy. Weird.
Their coaches were slightly better than ours, but only slightly. They didn't have an advantage there, and anyway, they didn't have any players with PA over eighty.
Okay, good. We had a lot of ground to make up, but it didn't look like York would be massively improving in the meantime.
I went into the dressing room and stopped Henri from going in the shower. It was time for a talk.
Before I could get my thoughts in order, though, thumping music came from the away team's dressing room. It was about two percent too aggravating for me to ignore.
"Brig."
"Yes, sir."
"I'd like to address the troops. Would you ask York to kindly shut the fuck up for five minutes?"
"Very good, sir."
Henri and the rest of the players waited, not sure how to feel apart from beaten. The mood was flat.
Next door, the music stopped, restarted, and stopped again. There was a loud murmur of conversation, then a crash. Shortly after, the Brig returned. "They were more than happy to accede to your request, sir."
"Top," I said. I looked around at my guys. Some very talented ones who needed proper coaching to progress. Some journeymen who would do us a job across the season. And one talentless armpit stain whose sole contribution to civilisation was having a decent left foot. "All right. Honesty time. We've lost the first two matches and that's quite a comedown from last season." Some heads popped up. I hadn't talked much to them since the attack. "We're flat. But last season was the end of a story. Today was the epilogue. You expect me to scream and shout like anyone else would do. Yeah, well. I'm still a few weeks away from giving you the hairdryer. And you don't deserve it. You worked hard. You put a shift in. You did."
I went on a lap of the room, checking everyone's mood.
"I realised something in that second half. I realised that it was always going to be like this. I'm not ready. You're undercooked. The fans were quiet. We've all been through a hell of a drama. We put it all on the line at the end of the season, and now we're all a bit spent. A bit empty. You're fit, some of you have spent the summer working on your skills. But collectively, emotionally, we're paying the price for how we finished the season. We flew too close to the sun and now we're back to earth." I smiled. "I'm all right with it. Better this than the alternative."
I rolled a ball under my foot.
"I say we draw a line under it. Those two matches? That was our pre-season. Our season now is forty-four league games. Tuesday we've got Chorley at home. After that, I've got some work to do. You need a great skills coach. The squad needs a few more bodies. Let me just say I'm optimistic about finding them."
I pushed the ball away. It hit the far wall and rolled back towards me.
"You're all treating me like I'm broken. You're worried about me. I get it. But you've got to stop. We've got to look forward, now. You're worried I don't know what's going on? That I've lost my edge?" I stopped next to Glenn. "Ryder. Four headers won from six. One interception. Decent performance. Quiet, though. Let's get back to organising. I want noise complaints about you." Next to him was my client. "Raffi Brown. Sixty percent pass accuracy. Miles off your usual. You were trying too hard to make things happen. Aff. Six dribbles attempted, one completed. Their right-back's good, but he's not that good."
I wandered back to the front.
"See what I'm saying? I'm watching. It's all going in. If you're spending more time worried about what I'm doing than what you're doing, you're playing with fire. You're going to find I've signed your replacement. I can afford to lose a couple of matches. You can't afford to play like that again. Not if you want to be in my team." I left a pause. "Does anyone know what the last match of the season is?"
Two hands went up. Youngster's and Pascal's. They smiled at each other; Youngster put his down. Pascal said, "Darlington."
"That's right. Listen, guys, I've been flat, you've been flat, it's been tough, but it's a new season. A new storyline."
I thought about my new powers. Imagine being so overpowered that adding a huge new area of expertise still felt like being 'flat'. Like I was stuck on a plateau. The thought raised my pulse. I felt my smile get cheeky.
"I'm going to mix things up. Fresh faces, fresh coaches, fresh ideas, weird and wonderful new tactics."
I looked at my high-potential players. I was going to hop on their backs and ride them to glory. They were young. Conventional wisdom suggested young players made more mistakes.
"I'm sure there will be bumps along the way. Who gives a shit?"
I thought about my own playing career. Playing bog-standard league matches (sometimes on actual bogs) didn't much appeal. Ten matches to get my medal, sure. But the cups?
"We're going to go full tilt at the cups and see what sort of fun we can have there. I, er, might treat myself to a few cup matches. I want to get to Wembley before Dani does."
I thought back to all the stuff I'd told them about storytelling. About looking beyond the next pass to consider a match as a complete, ninety-minute event with a beginning, middle, and end.
"The story of this season isn't written, yet, but I know how it ends. It ends here, in this stadium, at home to my former club. And Pascal's. And Henri's. I'm not saying I'm going to be a dick and rub it in their faces. Just the opposite. I really like most of those lads. I'm saying we will lift the league trophy here, in this stadium, in April. And it'll be the exact opposite of last season - I'll be surrounded on all sides by my mates." Little wobble on the last word. Stupidly, I looked at Henri. He'd gone all damp. I steeled myself. "That will happen. The women will win their league, and the under sixteens are looking amazing. This is going to be the best year in the history of this football club." I nodded a few times. "That's the story. Chapter one is on Tuesday night against Chorley. Get some sleep. Relax tomorrow. Next week, the fun begins."