9.

“Tranmere Rovers may never be able to compete with Liverpool or Everton. They are big liners like the Queen Mary. However, I see Tranmere as a deadly submarine, attacking them silently from beneath with a torpedo.” Johnny King, legendary Tranmere manager.

Sunday 27 August

Mr. Yalley saved my life. I wanted to parade him in front of the fans at a home game, maybe even give a very short speech in his own language (read slowly, phonetically, after much practice). That idea was torpedoed - he didn't want to be the centre of attention like that. But he couldn't stop me doing something even more socially thunderous - sitting next to him in his church, giving him a billion social proof points.

When I told Emma my plan, I had intended it to trigger a rational assessment of the logistics of her weekend. Did she really want to go from Scarborough to Chester and back to Newcastle in the course of about fourteen hours? Or did she want to take a break from my weird old world and have a girl's weekend? It seemed obvious what she should do. The last thing I expected was that she'd insist on coming to church with me. To church. That hadn't even occurred to me.

So there we were - sitting through the entire service while loads of Ghanaians clapped and sang and listened to Pastor Yaw. My little section went me, Emma, then Kisi.

Kisi was an old hand at navigating the boredom - the trick, she'd told me once when I'd asked how she could stand it, was having a tube of chewy sweets and unwrapping one every five minutes. The best brand, she had insisted, was Fruit Pastilles. First you could spend half a minute sucking the sugary coating off, then you chewed as slowly as you could manage. Then you'd get a while of exploring the backs of your teeth looking for remnants. If you did it right, you'd only have to wait another minute before the five minutes was up and you allowed yourself the next one.

Kisi handed Emma a Fruit Pastille, and my girlfriend chucked it in her gob, chewed once, and swallowed.

Kisi's face crumpled, but when Emma held her hand out to ask for another, she got one. Such a good kid.

I wasn't bored, though. That's because I wasn't listening to The God Stuff.

I was taking the chance to review. To strategise in a situation where I couldn't get distracted or check my email or Cliff Daps's Twitter.

It was strange, being the manager of a football club. While I tried to keep a long-term view, there was always a match looming that tried to suck in most of my attention. And my situation was stranger than most - I also had the women's team to manage, plus all the age groups. An endless stream of blips on the sonar. Friendly ships, enemy submarines, you never knew what was coming, but there was always something. I'd been so busy, my days had been so relentless, that I hadn't really taken a minute to reflect on my voyage. So I waited until Kisi quietly unwrapped one of her candies and popped it in her mouth. I knew I'd have about five minutes.

Yeah. Quite a time. Mad.

All right, that seemed like enough looking back.

The next blip on the sonar. That was tomorrow's match against Farsley. They had been the opponents in the first game after my attack, and Henri had gone psycho and scored a hat trick in a five-nil thrashing. This time I wouldn't have Henri. He'd conf called me and MD that morning saying he didn't want to appeal his automatic three-match ban. He'd looked at the footage of the incident and there wasn't a good angle that proved he made no contact with the goalie. The risk was too great, he concluded, that the decision would not be overturned. Failed appeals were normally punished with longer bans (to discourage frivolous complaints). He said he would take the time to redouble his efforts in training. Take a ten-month view of the season.

I'd be relying on Tony Hetherington for the next three games, then. He was a great guy and a good player. He wasn't outstanding in any particular thing, but he had a good balance of skills that matched our style. I hoped he'd do well for many reasons, including the fact that this would almost certainly be his last season at the club. He was CA 40, PA 44. Perfectly good backup for this league, but when we got promoted, he wouldn't be able to hack it. I imagined him playing a third of the striker's minutes this season, with Henri playing the rest. In that time, Tony should easily score fifteen goals, what with being the focal point of an attacking team like ours. Fifteen goals was good; he'd definitely get a new club next season.

My thoughts turned to what Henri had told me about Darlington and what I'd found in my research. I'd spent some time reading Bingo's match reports and watching clips of the new-look Darlo. New Darlo was very similar to the old one, but with less stardust. Less Max Best razzle-dazzle. The new signings were grizzled veterans, and while they had improved in the centre and right of midfield (compared to Webby, the mediocre right-mid I had usurped in my time there), they were using Chumpy and TIM (The Invisible Man) on the left-hand side of their stolen formation. The player-manager, Folke Wester, looked a very good DM, I had to say, but nothing like my class. There was no doubt he was a good manager. Darlo scored more than under David Cutter, and looked very, very tight at the back. They would definitely be near the top of the table by the end of the season.

But champions? Contenders? Nah.

I'd dug up their line-ups for every match, including their pre-season ones, and found that Bark, their talented half-Jamaican winger hadn't featured. At all. He was PA 130, had turned 17 in July, and was surely ready to make the step up into the first team squad. I'd have loved him at Chester, but I didn't have any money and I suspected this Folke Wester clown wouldn't do business with me. But if Bark was to be our agency's first client, it looked like the best thing we could do for him was move him out of Darlington. I'd texted Ruth asking if she was still in touch. She'd replied yes, with more chats being initiated from his side, hinting that things weren't going well for him and he'd be open to letting us guide his career.

Darlington, then. Decent team. Still not good at identifying talent.

And I definitely planned to play in the November 11 fixture. I was even more motivated than when I'd talked to Henri about it.

I'd found some scuttlebutt going around the internet. Someone had leaked some of what happened in the Darlington dressing room during the Kettering game when we'd had two players and our manager sent off. I'd taken over, reorganised the team, given us a tactical plan to work from. I'd left absolutely everything I had on the pitch that evening, and we'd managed to draw four-all. It was an amazing night. But the leaks were saying I'd refused to play the second half.

Sad to say, I understood it completely. Dirty pool. Skullduggery. Tarnishing the old 'mystery winger' legacy. Folke Wester was digging up dirt about me and was getting it out there to turn the Darlington fans against me.

Now, that might have been helpful when it came to securing his own position, especially if Darlo fans were calling for the club to make an effort to get me back as player-manager, as they'd done after a couple of bad results in pre-season friendlies. But don't rile me up if you've got Chumpy and TIM on same side of the pitch as I normally played!

Emma put her hand on my elbow. I looked at her and she gave me a little eyebrow raise. Had I been cackling? Breathing heavily? Swearing?

I moved on to a less provocative topic than me dribbling at Chumpy, one of the group of cavemen who had tried to bully me out of Darlington. The league table. We'd lost two, drawn one, won two, giving us seven points from five games. That put us twelfth, slap bang in the middle of the table. At the top, Darlo had 15 points after five wins from five. York and Kidderminster had 13 - they'd played each other and drawn.

We were eight points behind the league leaders. There was still plenty of time, but we couldn't afford loads of slip ups. We had to win the majority of our games for the rest of the season. Two of the next three were very, very winnable, even without Henri.

My thoughts drifted to our formation. 4-1-4-1. Solid defensively. A good platform to build attacks. The flaw was that our striker would be outnumbered - we couldn't hit long balls to him and hope for the best. If we followed my plan, we'd create lots of high-quality chances, and any half-decent striker would put enough of them away for us to win most matches. Easy.

Yep, we were in good shape, all things considered. Which was a welcome thought, because the transfer window was closing in a few days and we wouldn't be able to get players from other teams until January.

I glanced at James Yalley. He was happy I'd come to church, but I think disappointed he hadn't been the one to convince me. I was still planning to use God Save the King on him. With that perk, I could increase his finishing, strength, heading, passing, or some other attributes by one point. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a waste. His finishing, for example, was 6. His normal training would take it to 7 fairly fast - he was probably due a pop. So why bother? Henri's finishing was 16. It could take years to get it to 17. It was possible 16 was the maximum he could naturally get to. From that point of view, it made sense to use the perk to increase a number that was already very high. But financially, it only made sense to use the perk on James. Ugh. I was really stuck on that decision. I had the rest of the season to worry about it. Sometimes the right decision was a quick decision. But when in doubt, I liked to wait. Making mostly good decisions would make me, and Chester, stand out from the crowd. Making mostly good decisions would let everyone achieve our goals, even our backup players like Tony Hetherington.

I reached into a pocket and pulled out a tube of Fruit Pastilles. Kisi tracked it - only her eyeballs moving - as though it was a million-pound coin. I ate one, gave one to Emma, and handed Kisi the rest of the pack.

Cost: Sixty-five pence.

Reward: Plus eight thousand reputation points.

My week was off to a great start.

***

Match 6 of 46: Chester FC versus Farsley Celtic

It was my first time, since the attack, writing the manager's notes for the match day programme. Since I had absolute power, I changed the name of my section from In the Dugout, which I thought was a bit agricultural and didn't speak to my station or abilities, to something a little more regal. I took a programme from the stallholder - the Brig took one too - and I quickly scanned it to make sure the printers had left all the jokes in.

From the Desk of Max Best: A Proclamation

Greetings and salutations, people of Cheshire! (Also greetings to any away fans who bought this programme. You're from a beautiful part of the world. I'm guessing Birmingham way? Somewhere south. Got to be. Farsley. Far. Because it's far. Nailed it.)

Because of the tight schedule around this bank holiday weekend, I've had to write this before knowing the result of the Scarborough game.

But I think I can safely assume that everyone is happy/sad/distressed with what happened/didn't happen and that the team fought hard/fought medium/fought just right and our win/draw/loss was deserved/undeserved. Also, a special shout-out to our player of the match: Ben/Ken/Ren/Sven. We hope to do better/worse/the same in today's match. (Delete as appropriate.)

This is the first time I've been able to sit at a computer and write a Proclamation. It took me a while to reply to all the kind emails and texts I got while I was in hospital, but I've caught up now. For everyone else, for all the people who did small things that went unnoticed, or contributed without making a fuss, or clapped harder or wore a Chester scarf with a bit more pride, I'd like to offer a blanket THANK YOU.

And I'd like to say that your financial contributions to the club at that time were unreal. Believe me when I say the money is being put to good use. THE GOLD WALLPAPER WAS ALREADY THERE.

Apart from nearly dying and having to do months of rehab to walk again and the fact the police, to put it diplomatically, botched the case and my assailant is still at large, the MAIN thing I regret about what happened is that the under eighteens left the club without hearing it from me. Releasing players is awful, but it's my job, and I hope it's not too arrogant to think that our young players will respect the football decisions that I make, even if they don't like them. Those young men didn't get the chance to play for Chester's first team, but they represented the club and the club's values in every match and every training session. I wish them all the best.

(On the subject of my murder, I note with interest that Detective Inspector Barton is still employed by Cheshire Constabulary. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: THAT'S WEIRD. The guy who tried to frame the man who saved my life and has shown no interest in pursuing the case... is still employed? By the police?)

Today's match, then. We know all about Farsley Celtic. I mean, my players do. I don't, because when we played them I was in intensive care and DI Barton was typing out a confession for an innocent man to sign. They're a hard-working team - Farsley, not the detectives assigned to my case - but with the home fans cheering us on, we hope to get the three points.

Three points. That's how many points Jackie Reaper took from Farsley in that match. He's obviously off work at the moment, recuperating, and we all wish him well. But when he's up and about, why don't you go to him, say, "We know what you did for our club. There's always a job for you at Chester FC, mate." And then buy him a pint, and whisper in his ear, "Come on home, Jackie, lad. Come on home."

***

I rotated the team as much as I could. We had Robbo in goal instead of Ben, Magnus at left back, Steve Alton making his full debut in the centre of defence, Youngster, Joe Anka on the right, and Tony as the lone striker. Average CA: 41.1. More than enough to deal with Farsley's 37.

Sure enough, we roared into a two-goal lead within the first fifteen minutes. Aff burst through, and slotted a low shot past the goalie. Then Joe tried to hit a cross, but caught it wrong and it he sliced it onto the crossbar. It bounced onto the goalkeeper and went in. Comical piece of luck going our way, for once. Two-nil up and the players relaxed, playing their version of fantasy football. Outrageous long shots, cheeky chips, ambitious long passes from the defence - it was all going on, followed every time by appreciative applause from the crowd, and slaps on the back from teammates. Around me on the bench, our subs gasped and laughed. They thought all the weird things we were doing were wonderful.

Vimsy was shaking his head. "This is the best we've ever played," he said, amazed.

"Who needs Henri Lyons?" said Henri Lyons.

Only the Brig caught my mood.

I was seething.

He gestured that I should talk to him. He brought Vimsy, too.

"What's up?" said the oblivious coach.

"Mr. Best is not happy."

I unclenched my jaw. "I want to scream at these idiots but I did that a couple of games ago. How much shouting is too much?"

"There's no such thing as too much," said Vimsy. He didn't know what I was upset about, but he'd swung all the way into angry right-hand-man. Good sidekick. It was right I was picking his brains instead of flying off the handle. I was inexperienced; checking my decisions was solid technique.

"I don't want to keep shouting at people, though."

"Then you're in the wrong business, Max." Vimsy gripped my shoulder and gave it a little shake. "You are a state," he said, trying to be helpful.

"I am the state."

"That's what I said."

***

In the dressing room at halftime, I tried to keep it off my face, and listened for a minute as the players talked amongst themselves. I kept an eye on Farsley's tactics, but they stuck to 4-4-2 and didn't make any substitutions.

Aff in particular was ecstatic. He was chatting a mile a minute in his Irish accent, saying everything was deadly, which meant good. "That pass was deadly, Magnus! It was deadly, that move after their corner."

Finally, there was one too many laughs and I knew I'd explode if I didn't get started.

"Tony," I said, and the players ended their conversations, leaving the dressing room quiet except for the sound of studs on concrete, the fizz of sports drinks, the snip of scissors as guys re-bound their socks. "Tony, there's a little lad out there in the stand. I promised you'd sign his whatever. Or a selfie. I don't know. Go and do that so I can stop worrying."

"Right," he said, uncertain. "Am I...? Am I playing all right?"

"You're perfect," I said. "Just indulge me. Don't like leaving threads loose. Weird little mania of mine."

He picked up some paste and a drink and went through the door. I assumed he would wander up and down the main stand looking for kids who were holding pens.

The Brig waited five seconds, checked Tony had left the tunnel and wasn't eavesdropping, and jammed the door shut with his big boots.

I slapped my hips. "Right. What the fuck was that?"

The team had been pretty jubilant. From their point of view, they'd controlled the game for forty-five minutes and were slapping. Some guys stopped dead, mid-action, like we were playing musical chairs.

I held my clenched fists out in front of me. "Why do you hate Tony?"

Lots of confused looks, especially from Tony's best mate, Sam. "I don't. We don't."

"Is this because I shot instead of passing?" said Aff. "I scored, Max."

I shook my head. "The shot was a thirty percent chance. Passing would have been fifty. But it's your decision, there. I would have passed, but that's not what I'm in-can-DESCENT about." I tried to count to ten, but got to three. Thanks to the bank holiday, it was a Monday that felt like a Saturday. The fans were having a great time, we were winning, and this should have been a joyous occasion. "Right. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a model professional called Tony Hetherington. He played football and was good at it. Once day, a wizard took over his team and summoned a combo target man slash fox-in-the-box with the heading ability of Goliath, the movement of a ballerina, and the bone-headedness of a skeleton. And the wizard decided to play with one up top, so Tony became, to his surprise, a backup player. And Tony fucking crushed it in training, came back from summer fit and ready, and never once complained."

I paused for breath. I was getting worked up to the point there was a danger I would start smashing stuff.

"One day, events transpired so that Tony would get to play three games in a row. And his wizard didn't worry because he trusted Tony to do the job and had massive respect for him. But what the wizard didn't know was the rest of the team were a bunch of fuckwits who didn't value Tony as a person or a player. So they cut him out of the match completely, and at the end of the season when Tony's contract wasn't renewed, no other clubs were interested. And so Tony couldn't feed his children."

"He doesn't have kids," said Sam. I think he was trying to be helpful.

"Tony told his wife he wasn't a footballer any more and couldn't afford to have kids."

"He's not -" said Sam, deciding this was a good time to update me on Tony's marital status. His decision-making matrix kicked in, and he shut his gob. Maybe one of the factors in his decision was the way all the veins in my body were straining on their leash, waiting for the signal that I should attack.

Henri was by my side, calming me with a hand on my back, and on my arm. It helped. "What did you see, Max?"

"Is that a joke?"

"No. I swear. It looked like our normal football."

"Oh. Right. Okay." I walked around, glaring at my shitty players as I went. "So here's what I hoped. I hoped Tony would bag a bunch of goals in these three games. Six, maybe. Imagine being a striker and getting six goals to your name in the first week of September. Takes the pressure off. Makes you look good to other teams. That's good for his future. His future family, too. Right? And it's good for us. When Henri has a knock, we put Tony in, no drama. But what do we get instead?"

I looked backwards and followed my glance to loom over Raffi. I gave him the stink eye.

"We get Raffi Brown who decides to start chipping Hollywood passes into the penalty box. Oh, the crowd love it. I bet it looks amazing on camera. But it's nothing we've ever practiced, is it? It's nothing Tony can do anything with. I've never seen you try that shit, ever, and you choose to do it today. Why? To make Tony look bad? I want to get the ball wide so we can slap our way into the box, but instead you're slapping Tony in the face."

I took a few strides and bellowed at Youngster.

"And the fucking James Yalley long shot is back! Tony's in the penalty box, moving around, being a handful, working openings, doing his job as a professional football player. But you think it's funny to blast the ball out of the stadium. Out of the stadium! And what do we get? An apology to Tony for ending his career? No. We get a fucking cheeky grin. Oops! Silly me! Well, your career won't be ended if you never score, but his will. So good job showing your true colours, mate. All that shit you gave me back in your house, remember? Well, that shot is one of the most selfish things I've ever seen. It makes me sick to think you'd laugh after doing that to your teammate."

His head dropped. I was far from done.

"Aff. You sent all your crosses to the far post. That's where Henri lives, mate. You're got a brain, you've got eyes, so you must've noticed that Tony likes to stay in the centre. So what are you thinking? Carl, Magnus. How many times have you punted long balls down the centre? Look at the fucking tactics board. He's on his own against four defenders until we work the ball up the pitch! What the fuck are you doing?

"Why is everyone doing whatever the fuck they want? We have a plan. We have a system. We train in a specific way. You don't get to choose to do whatever you want. It's like the fucking last day of school out there."

I went over to the tactics board and plucked the striker magnet off. Stared at it. I wanted to threaten to buy a whole new team to replace them, but they knew I had no transfer budget.

My energy had all drained off, now. I was barely audible when I spoke next. "I'm done begging you to play the way we train. I'm done begging players to respect their teammates. Football shows character. I didn't see any in that half. I don't want to be in the same room as any of you. Get out."

The Brig opened the door. Almost everyone fucked off.

Henri waited near me, solemn, until the Brig closed the door behind him. Henri's eyebrows shot up. "You really hate being two-nil up at half-time, Max! Is this your secret? Two-nil is the most dangerous lead. Make sure the players aren't complacent. Something like that?"

"Don't you think I have a point?"

He shrugged. "Of course you do. You have a point like a torpedo has a point. To be clear, I agree with everything you said. I'm not sure it's healthy to get worked up about it. Torpedos don't usually survive the explosion they create."

"I've changed my fantasy."

"Oh? You're off the flight attendant thing?"

Despite my mood, I laughed. We had NOT talked about that. "When we play Darlington, I'm not going to go on a rampage. I'm going to give an insanely perfect, disciplined interpretation of the role I assign myself. No frills. The correct decision, every time. I'll show these fucks what teamwork looks like, and what happens when a cog in the machine starts to function exactly as intended." He was smiling at me. "What?"

"You're such a fundamentalist."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Oh it's good," he said. "And bad. But Max, players make terrible decisions all the time. Defenders like to shoot. It makes them happy. Why do you take it so personally?"

"If Tony scores a lot of goals, we can sell him in January. We raise a bit of cash while he gets a juicy, long-term contract. Or he leaves at the end of the year with twenty goals to his name and has eight offers from clubs." That face again. "What?"

"So it's really about Tony? I thought you were using him as one of your MacGuffins."

"Don't you get it? We are all Tony."

"Ah, yes. That's clear, now."

***

At the start of the second half, Farsley came at us like a steam train. My speech had knocked the stuffing out of a few players, especially Raffi and Youngster. Farsley won duels. Forced us back, got shots.

Robbo made a couple of saves. Glenn threw himself into a block. Sam put in a thumping challenge.

When we snapped out of the funk, we snapped hard. We worked the ball through our diagonal patterns. We were patient. Youngster brought the ball backwards to lure Farsley into our half, then with a quick pass-pass-pass, we'd have the ball with Aff on the left or Joe on the right and we'd probe for overloads or overlaps.

Again and again, we got the ball to the side of the penalty box, and someone would either try to get into the box, or cross.

Magnus got to the byline, but had to cut inside on his right foot. Too slow. His cross-cum-pass was intercepted.

Carl got past his man, but didn't feel good about his crossing angles. So he played it back. Joe leaned and whipped in a lovely cross. Tony got a good head on it, but it went wide.

Raffi exchanged a few passes with Magnus, but couldn't move Aff's marker out of position. So he burst into Aff's zone himself, faked a cross, and dribbled into the box. Raffi hit a low cross, there was a scramble, and the ball was in the net.

Three-nil. Tony wheeled away in celebration. The other players didn't celebrate very hard, still stung by my surprise attack.

A minute later, Youngster moved forward, moved forward, found no-one was coming to press him. Farsley had sunk and split to protect the wings, from where we'd been doing all our attacking. For a second, I was sure he would shoot and I would be forced to either murder him or substitute him. But he waited, and waited, and when a defender finally came at him, he played a one-two with Tony, ran faster than I'd ever seen him, surging with the ball into the penalty area. Youngster drew the keeper towards him, then cut it square. Tony had an open goal. Four-nil. Much bigger celebration, this time.

I got up from the sulk zone and went to the edge of the technical area.

"You're satisfied with the response," said Brig.

"That goal isn't what we practice, but it fits the principles of the team."

"I have to say, I don't really see the difference between the first half and this."

"Really?" I said, frowning. I tried to see things from an outsider's point of view. "I suppose it's hard to explain some of it. Just so you know, those players know full well what they did. Right, let's take two things. First, Youngster's shot versus this dribble. The shot is selfish, annoying, zero percent probability. He might as well hand the ball to the other team."

"Why don't you ban him from shooting?"

"I did! I've told him a hundred times. Fuck. Right, compare that to this dribble thing he did. So, he shouldn't really do that because he's a permanent part of our rest defence. But we had plenty of players back. And the other team weren't expecting it, and as you saw, he didn't do anything hard. The percentages were all good, and he did it because he really, really wanted to make it up to his mate. So it's fine. It's good. It's Max Best approved. Vimsy?"

"Yes, boss?"

"Let's add that to our repertoire. Work on who stays back when Youngster goes on a run like that."

"Got it."

I let them play another five minutes, then made a double change. D-Day and Pascal replaced Aff and Joe. Pascal's first act was to skin the left back and rocket towards the goal. The fans got up on their feet - fans love fast players - and Pascal very nearly found Tony. That was Farsley's cue to drop back into a low block. Men behind ball. Not trying to get back into the game, just trying to stop us running up the score.

So I threw Andrew Harrison on for the last ten minutes. Giving him match time was a bit premature, but we were winning four-nil, and maybe it'd accelerate his development. He kept things simple - simple passes, no tricks. Perfect. Ten more players like that, please.

Near the end, we got a free kick in a good position. D-Day stood over it. He wasn't allowed to take penalties - that was a permanent ban, but based on the testing I'd done in training, he was our best bet for a goal from free kicks. I used Free Hit, D-Day struck it well, and that was that.

Five-nil.

***

I didn't want to go back to the dressing room. While they'd played well in the second half, the shit they'd done in the first half was lingering like a radiation leak on a nuclear submarine. Also, I was very slightly embarrassed by my outburst. I needed to do something, but surely there was a way that didn't involve a five-minute collapse in morale? I gave myself a break. I was twenty-three. I had skills but no experience. I'd work on it.

I went in and turned off the victory music. Everyone stopped what they were doing.

I rubbed my forehead and looked at a spot on the far wall. "Forget the goals. Is there anyone who prefers how we played in the first half to how we played in the second half?"

No-one spoke.

"Is there anyone who thinks we'll beat Spennymoor away playing like a load of clowns?"

No-one spoke.

"Double training on Wednesday. Double training on Thursday."

I pressed play on the speakers. Thumping victory music came out. It felt somewhat sarcastic.

***

I went to find Gary, the newspaper prick, to get the interview over with. I praised Tony Hetherington to high heaven. I think I called him Two-Goal Tony at one point, called him a 'sharpshooter', praised his teamwork, decision-making, and professionalism. I probably went a bit overboard, but my relentless positivity infected Gary, and we ended up having a decent chat. He even forgot to ask me about the referee.

I went up to the Executive Lounge where MD was entertaining a handful of sponsors. They wanted to meet me, and even more than that, MD wanted them to meet me. He said it was both urgent and important.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Important I got, but urgent?

The sponsors were three men in suits, and they'd invited a handful of friends each. MD helped me understand who I needed to impress by only telling me three names. It wasn't very diplomatic of him, but I later learned he'd warned them I got worked up during matches and wouldn't be firing from all missile tubes.

I was not very charming, at first. I was still stewing from the first half 'performance'. The three rich dudes and their most outgoing friends soon turned into my therapists. "Max!" they'd say. "We won five-nil! It's one of the most one-sided, most dominant performances in this stadium for years."

"Do you accept mediocrity in your companies?" I said.

"But it was great!" they said. "You're fantastic."

I hadn't been drinking much because I was taking my recovery very seriously, but I treated myself to a big German wheat beer - Pascal taught me about that stuff - and after a few mouthfuls I conceded that maybe Raffi had played well and Aff had been a constant nuisance and Youngster had played like a much more experienced player with one blip.

The whole thing then took a surprising turn. MD clinked on his glass of white wine.

"Max. You've met the sponsors. I'm sure it was quite educational for them! Only Max would be fuming after a five-nil. Welcome to the new Chester, ladies and gentlemen!" Some cheers. Some laughs. "I've been telling them about your plans for the season. That you want to win everything."

"Why wouldn't I?"

More cheers.

"Did you find any free transfer players to bring in?"

"No." There were options on the player search pages. Guys with CA 30, PA 40. Plenty of that kind of thing. It was all just a bit... Ian Evans. If I couldn't find anyone who got my pulse racing, even just a little bit, I'd use the money to hire another coach (on top of the other coach I wanted), or a scout, or start buying new equipment. "What we need is someone to add something to the squad. Something we don't have."

"What?"

"Oh, I didn't mean I had something in mind. I meant generally. Give me a new toy to play with. Like a really fast winger. You saw what Pascal did when he went on near the end - scared them to death. Imagine that with a more powerful player. Or a forward who can play loads of positions. Or someone who can take a good corner as well as do his job to a high standard."

MD got me to stand up and rehomed me at the front, facing the three VIPs like a teacher. "Max. I lied to you about Steve Alton."

"What?"

"You're substantially under the wage budget I set you, and if you times that by the number of weeks since the start of the season, it basically pays for Steve Alton." He didn't want to say the numbers in front of the outsiders, but I had a quick think and yeah, I was probably under budget, cumulatively, by about eight thousand. In other words, when he'd made a big song and dance about finding the transfer fee for me, he'd actually been using the existing budget. The cheeky fuck.

"Right," I said, confused about where this conversation could possibly go. The sponsors had the air of men about to witness the launch of a new type of battleship.

"We're excited. Me, the board, everyone in this room. The fans backed you over the summer by putting their hands in their pockets to give you more budget. I put the sponsorship rates up, and there was no shortage of interest. But we want to do even more. It might be a dream, it might all turn sour, we've all had our fingers burned in the past. But we'd like to push the boat out. Tell us about a player you'd like to buy and we'll try to find the money. Something like thirty thousand should be achievable."

"Wait..." This was a head-scratcher. This wasn't like MD. His ambition score hadn't increased. "Hang on. Okay. You're saying... I pitch you on a player I want to buy... and you'll buy him? So I should, what, pick someone dynamic? Someone who scores goals? Does dribbles?"

The oldest sponsor, a thin, wiry guy with silver hair, spoke. "MD says you've got unique ideas. You're right to say that if we were choosing, it'd be someone flashy. That's right. But you choose freely, young man. If you need a boring player, you choose that and stick to your guns. Max knows best." He cackled. I wondered if he had a grandson in the youth system. "I like you. I think you've got it. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

"Hear, hear," murmured some of the hangers-on.

"Wow. Okay. This is wild. This is blowing my mind. I thought my squad was settled, more or less."

MD blinked. "Didn't you want to bring in a couple more bodies?"

"Yeah but free transfers I can sign any time. Don't have to stress about the transfer window closing. Okay, so it's Monday. Last day for deals is Friday. Erm... you're not giving me a lot of time to choose."

"Darlington drew, so we're two points closer to the top of the league. And five goals loosens a lot of purse strings, Max."

"Yeah? Next two home games are against Hereford and Bradford. What do I get for ten goals?"

They loved it. Loved me being cocky, being positive, talking the club up.

MD opened his mouth but I raised my finger, sat down, and tipped some beer into me. I stared into space while I went to the player search area and filtered by guys who were transfer listed. There wasn't actually a transfer list. No website where clubs could say which players they wanted to get rid of. When I'd asked MD to see 'the transfer list', he'd laughed, but quickly apologised for mocking me. He said some guy had tried to make an app with all that kind of data, but it had failed. So clubs told agents and agents told rival clubs. The more contacts you had, the more opportunities would come your way.

The curse, then, was being very helpful in showing me a pool of players that clubs wanted shot of. As I scouted more and more teams, I'd have the most complete list. I would have the only transfer list!

Because we didn't have any transfer budget, I hadn't spent much time looking to see who was available. Window shopping was something I could do when on the toilet, or bored in church, so I had taken a look at a few guys, but only half-heartedly.

I raced through fifty player profiles in around ten seconds and picked out a couple of possible candidates.

I decided it would be motivational to the sponsors to be in on the decision, to some extent. It was their money, after all.

"All right," I said. "Two guys spring to mind."

MD looked stunned. "I thought you'd need a day or two to think about it and then we'd scramble to get a deal done on deadline day."

"Yeah, you love the deadline day drama. Making calls, rushing around, feeling like a real boy. I'd rather get it done and get him into training ASAP. Right. Player one. Dan Jones. Fast winger at Altrincham. He's 28, had a few injuries, lost his place in the team to a younger model. Can play either wing, so he'd give us cover for Aff, which we're a bit short on." He was CA 50, PA 70. "He'd come here, I think. He'd rip up this league and he's got room to improve, too. Like I said, a fast winger could do a lot of damage in our system."

MD made a note. "Dan Jones. Got it."

"Option two is Josh Brown. Wrexham centre back." CA 55, PA 63. "Decent technical qualities. Very, very good in the air. He'll massively help out at set pieces. At both ends of the pitch."

"We've got Gerald May," said MD, who still thought May was a top defender.

"May's fine. Brown would be an upgrade."

The silver-haired sponsor nodded. "So it's attack versus defence. You already strengthened in defence. Ah, but the winger is injury-prone. How many games would he actually play?"

I rubbed my lips. "I hope we'll take better care of him than his other clubs. Players get injured; I'm not stressed about a guy with a few minor setbacks on his CV. I rotate the team anyway. And the system is the star. Know what I mean?" I brought the beer to my lips and hesitated. "Unless I'm playing. Then I'm the star."

MD was loving my performance. "Max, I didn't expect you'd pluck two names out of the air like that."

"Then why did you do... this?"

"Because I want to pitch a name to you."

"Oh." That was absurd, but I think I kept my face neutral enough. I didn't want to discourage MD from having ideas. Or giving me money. "Let's hear it."

He got excited. So excited the name burst out of him. "Ryan Jack!"

Not sure if he was waiting for applause or what, but there was an agonising silence. "Please do continue," I said, helpfully.

MD paced around making unusually large gestures. "I had him in mind even before today. He played with Jackie Reaper at Everton and he's been, you know, ageing his way down the divisions. Jackie always talked about signing him. He's at Rochdale, and I've got mates there. Ryan Jack is available."

"But what is he?"

"He's a central midfielder. He's not the fastest, but he's got a brain. You've been complaining about the players, today. Well, maybe it's because they're too young."

"There's no such thing as too young."

"Of course there is. York beat us with an average age of 28. Every man on the pitch knew his job inside out. Kiddie have an old team with a couple of stars. Very good balance. We started with an average age of 26, today, and by the end it was 25. We're getting younger and younger. Which is the Max Best way, I get it, but you're going to have days like these, and too many could cost us."

"You've put a lot of thought into this."

"Not really! It just seems right! Maybe we need an old head. A bit of experience to balance the young tearaways. You shouldn't rely on Youngster to set the tempo. Let him learn from someone more seasoned."

I scratched my chin. Some good points here. "How old is Jack Ryan?"

"Ryan Jack. He's 35 or something. I know you'd never buy a player like that. No resale value. No long-term upside. Which is where we come in. We're fans! We want instant success!"

He was getting really hyper. It was charming. Made him look young. "You know I need to see players in the flesh. Can you get him down to training?"

"I think so. Tomorrow?"

"I won't be there tomorrow. Wednesday or Thursday. The afternoon, though. The morning will be fitness work."

MD frowned. "Double sessions? Two days in a row? Are you punishing the team?"

"Yes."

The main sponsor said, "Du duh!" and I twisted my head in astonishment. What? But everyone else knew what was happening. They joined in. "Duh duh, du du duh." They were singing the Great Escape chant, which ended with the two syllable shout: Ches-ter!

I downed my beer, joined in for a chorus, then went to find my bodyguard.

***

Tuesday 29th.

The Brig was catching up on his coaching course - he was taking it a lot more seriously than I expected. To minimise my danger, we swapped cars. Anyone tracking a brown Subaru would end up face-to-face with a fearsome killing machine... being driven by the Brig.

I was cruising in his extremely comfortable Volvo S90, on my way to Birkenhead. The Volvo was so, so quiet. Like driving a Typhoon-class submarine with the caterpillar drive engaged.

I docked at the Tranmere Rovers training ground, known as The Campus. There was a full-sized pitch, three slightly smaller ones including an all-weather 3G, and two baby ones. One side of the space backed onto some houses, giving it an air of being for use by anyone. Slightly amateur, but also friendly. I wasn't sure if I'd want this for Chester's new facility. Something more isolated might be more impressive, but there was a danger of disconnecting from the local community. Leicester City had invested a hundred million in a new training ground and everyone hated it. It was more serious than what they'd had before, but players stopped bumping into the friendly club staff who always gave them a smile and a few kind words, and I'd read more than one insider blame the new facilities for their relegation.

I was there to hang out with James O'Rourke, Colin the coach, and my holiday friends. To keep in touch. To be a good person. Also: to spy on them and steal their drills.

The training was fascinating. First because I finally got to see the player profiles for these guys. I did some quick maths and worked out that the first team had an average CA of about 77. That seemed on the low end for a League Two team, but it made sense. Tranmere had only recently moved up from the National League. The lowest guy had CA 55 - Henri should have been in this squad, competing for a spot in the team, pushing himself, instead of wasting away in the National League North. The dick.

Next, I got to see the coaching and physio profiles. As I suspected, Colin was really good. Coaching Outfield Players 15, Coaching Goalkeepers 10. There were five first team coaches taking the players through some drills. Their numbers varied, but the overall effect felt good. I'd need to come back in a month to fine tune what 'good' meant.

And, of course, I got to see James O'Rourke's profile. There he stood, in his long Tranmere coat, looking like a ginger Marlon Brando. I was dismayed to see that his numbers were pretty weak. His Motivating and Man Management were fine, but his Tactical Knowledge was 7, and Judging Player Ability was 4. His preferred formation, as I knew, was 4-3-3.

I kept wandering around, pretending to be taking in the sights and sounds, but really, I was finding it hard to compose myself. James had been so good to me, but it was like he was heading straight into a torpedo that only I could see. Unless everyone in League Two had similarly weak profiles, he wouldn't last the season. How could I look him in the eye? I wished I had a way to help him out. Throw him a life jacket. Teach him to swim. Drive my submarine in front of the torpedo that was threatening his.

By the time I finished my circuit, I had calmed enough to be able to treat him more or less as normal. Our handshake turned into a three-slap hug.

James asked how I was getting on; we chatted about our teams' mixed starts to the season; we shared our dismay at seeing the fires that had devastated Tenerife. Once we got going, the old bonhomie came back. The ease, the lack of friction.

Still, I was relieved - ecstatic - to see Mateo, Tranmere's owner. He'd been just as generous as James, letting me use his special swimming pool and making his club's physios and coaches take care of me. He'd really gone overboard on a guy who was basically a complete stranger.

He was in his usual outfit - jacket, shirt, no tie. His tan looked slightly less vivid than in Tenerife, but that might have because of the clouds above.

I jogged over to give him a hug. He was taken aback - I'd improved rapidly during my time on the island but had never shown such energy. I did a little dance in front of him to show how much I'd recovered.

"Fuck me, Max. Look at that. Amazing. I'm delighted! Yeah, I'm absolutely made up." We eyed each other, enjoying the moment. Then he turned to a couple of guys I hadn't noticed. "This is Tristan. Football agent. And one of his clients, Jo Brimstage. Guys, this Max Best. Chester manager. Bit of star player, himself."

We shook hands, but neither my name nor Chester's provoked any interest. I was some rando, forgotten already. Mateo led us toward the training session. The drills had abruptly ended and now a small-sided match was taking place. Making training look fun! It was obvious that Tranmere were keen to sign this Jo guy. Jo stood watching, eyes darting around. I wondered what position he played - until I saw him kick a ball I wouldn't know. But his current club wouldn't allow him to join in Tranmere's training session - what if he got injured? I thought of a way I could repay Mateo and James for their incredible generosity.

I pulled Mateo aside. "Can you do something weird for me?"

"Depends what it is."

"Get this guy to take some shots or do some kick ups."

"Why?"

"Humour me."

Mateo gave me a long, cold look. We wandered away and I thought Mateo had dismissed my ravings. But during a lull in play, Mateo went onto the pitch, bringing Jo and the agent with him in his wake. The Tranmere players looked on, politely interested, like seagulls. Mateo was suddenly gregarious, laughing, suggesting Jo might want to take a couple of penalties against the first-team's goalie. "We've got a cup match tonight," he said. "Could go to pennos. Let's see how our keeper does against someone he's never played before."

The agent didn't sense anything wrong, and Jo was competitive. He wanted to test himself.

Jo lined up a shot, and I hit Playdar at the exact moment his foot made contact with the ball.

It worked! He was the best player in the area who was currently playing football. I got his profile. It said he played for Partick Thistle. CA 59, PA 61. Almost maxed out.

He was a perfectly decent forward. I'd have bought him. But I was two divisions below. He wasn't good enough for Tranmere.

Jo took another penalty. He scored again, and he enjoyed the shouts of approval from what he thought were his future teammates.

Mateo led him back to the side of the pitch, where Jo stood flushed with pleasure. He'd enjoyed the shit out of that.

Five minutes later, Mateo looked at his watch. He had places to be. The agent took the hint, grabbed Jo, and left.

When they were out of sight, Mateo came over to me. "Well?"

"Have you done the deal?"

"It's not finalised."

"How much is it?"

"That's private," he snapped. Then almost immediately, "Hundred and ten."

"No," I said. "No way. That's crazy."

"We're upgrading our arsenal. More firepower. He's going to push us to the next level."

"Who says?"

"James."

"No. He's supposed to go right into the first team? He doesn't improve you, doesn't even have a ceiling. No, you have to get out of it."

"You're basing this on two penalties?"

"I had a look at him last year," I lied, reading from the history tab of Jo's profile. It only showed me data from the previous season. This was a rare demo of why unlocking more of the History tab could pay off. "Partick Thistle. 33 appearances, 15 goals, 2 assists. He's totally functional. He'd do for us, but trust me, he's not good enough for you." He didn't seem to be getting it. "Matty, you're Tranmere. You're the deadly torpedo. You can do better."

Mateo's face went blank. He stared at something, or nothing. "Understood."

"What? You're going to back out of the deal?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"That's what you said, isn't it?"

"I thought you'd ignore me, then a year from now you'd see I was right, and I could save you from a disaster then."

"In my family, we trust our gut. My gut's saying you'd know a striker better than anyone here." He scanned the players and staff, focusing on one guy for a moment. James? Colin? I couldn't tell. "James will be pissed. We need a striker. Know anyone?"

I scratched my scalp. "Junior Howland at Darlington. He's fast, got good movement. He'll do well in this league. Not at first. You'd have to train him up. But you've got good coaches, here. It won't be an issue. I played with him and I rate him. Darlington won't sell to me, otherwise I'd be all over it. We could maybe afford him, too, since he's third choice striker, now. He doesn't fit the way they're playing. I'd make him work, and he'd work in your 4-3-3. Yeah, this would be a good move for him. Six months from now, he'll be better than Jo. Absolutely."

Mateo adjusted his cuffs. "Is he one of your clients?"

"Junior? No. There's a kid in the academy there who might join my friend's new agency. You should sign him, too. Right-winger. Doesn't really fit the 4-3-3 you're doing, but the next manager will be glad he's here."

Mateo gave me the longest, hardest look yet. Finally, he said, "What's his name?"

"Calabash Barkley. We call him Bark. He's a big talent. If you sign either one of those two, I'll pat myself on the back and say I've repaid your kindness."

"Two players who can't go straight into the team. The opposite of what we need."

I shrugged. "Jam tomorrow."

"And if I could only sign one, which would I choose?"

"Bark."

"Your friend's client."

"The bigger talent."

He stared at something. "Are you coming to the match tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it. Emma's leaving work early. She loves you guys," I said, smiling. "It's not like going to football, she said. It's like going to a mate's house."

Mateo cracked a smile at that. "See you later, Max."

He strode off, whipping his phone out as he did. I went over to James to complain about my rabble disobeying me. He was more than happy to join in the whingeing. We concluded that football would be amazing if it wasn't for the players.

***

EFL Cup Second Round (North) - Tranmere Rovers vs Leicester City

Prenton Park, Tranmere's lumpy stadium, was one-third full. Over to my right was The Kop, Tranmere's biggest stand. It doesn't look proper when the biggest stand is on the width instead of the length, but overall, it was a great stadium. Great place to watch football of an evening.

I was in the executive boxes along with the owners, Emma, and the Brig.

The match kicked off and I found I was getting 6 XP per minute. Nice! Leicester, having been relegated, had sold a couple of their star players, including the dream-weaver himself, Tielemans. But they still had Jamie Vardy (Chat Shit Get Banged) and a fifteen million pound defender whose name, ominously, sounded like farce.

The first half was lively - lots of good play let down by a poor last pass or a player running left when they should have gone right. The Brig asked me about a piece of news.

"Roberto Mancini has taken a position as the manager of Saudi Arabia. His salary will be twenty-five million euros per year. I saw his name in another story recently. A few days ago, he quit his job as the manager of the Italian national team. Am I right in suspecting the two stories are linked?"

"What, are you saying he quit his dream job, the job he'd wanted since he was a little boy, the job every Italian wants, simply to multiply his salary by a factor of seven? No. I'm sure he quit the national team for unrelated reasons. He is famously unmotivated by money, that guy."

Saudi Arabia throwing its money around again. They'd been picking off top talents from all over Europe for their league, and now they were hosing cash onto the national team, too. It was unreal. Like they had a bottomless pit of money.

Bottomless pit. Why did that make me think of Old Nick?

At half-time, while the Brig made good use of the buffet, Mateo and Rachel gave Emma and I a tour. Down to the medical rooms, mercifully devoid of freshly injured players, and into the home dressing room. Normally I wouldn't have interrupted a half-time team talk, but I suspected the players would be happy to see Emma. A little motivation boost, perhaps?

Sure enough, they cheered when she went in. There was a one-tenth echo when I followed, and a louder one for the owner.

"Wow, it's so big," said Emma, checking out the space.

"Oi!" I said, to a cheeky left-back who was opening his mouth. He'd been outrageously flirting with Emma in Tenerife, and he was pretty good at it. Good-looking, bubbly, funny. His problem when it came to a woman like Emma was that he was as thick as two short planks. He smiled at me now, pivoted his joke.

"I was just gonna say, this is Tranmere. We're not the biggest, but we're a deadly submarine." He licked his lips in anticipation of delivering the punchline.

I knew where he was going. Ninety percent of nautical jokes have the same ending. I bent down and got eye to eye with him. "What's inside the submarine, mate? What's inside the submarine?"

He hesitated. "Sailors," he mumbled, and his team mocked him for losing his nerve.

"Good choice of words," I assured him. I reached out for a fist bump, and got one. Guys flirted with Emma all the time. This dude was way better than most.

Emma said hi to her holiday superfriends, and was astonished to find that Tranmere had hot and cold water piped right into the dressing room. Two sinks! They didn't have to go into a nearby bathroom to give their gear a quick wipe. Such luxury!

"Any tactical advice, Max?" said Coach Colin, bringing the focus back to the matter at hand.

"Yeah. When they break, Vardy drifts to the far post. You've got to cover him."

"That'll open a big gap. The ball carrier will dick us."

I shrugged. "It's Vardy. You've got to." I sensed James wasn't a billion percent happy with the interruption, so I pulled Emma away and waved everyone goodbye.

On the way back up, we went through some of the back office rooms, and into the media suite. Emma was fascinated. This was where the commentators prepared, where the press could write their match reports. I stepped through a door and realised the media dudes could sit out here like normal fans, albeit in amazing seats, then pop inside and work in relative quiet. I crabbed along the walkway, unseen, with an aquarium view of what was happening inside the room.

There were a couple of guys my age there. One was in a tech bro beanie, a super-premium hoodie with extra zips that did nothing, and had a wispy, untidy beard that took hours per day to look so untidy. He looked like the sort of person who has to read the last chapter of a book before he reads the rest. The other guy was less obviously slappable. He had glasses, a beard, a stained t-shirt, and the hooded eyes of a guy who only read the last chapter of a book. Tech Bro and Stalker.

Tech Bro noticed Emma and slapped his mate on the shoulder. Check this out. Dislike times infinity. Stalker looked, raised his eyebrows, and leaned forward to whisper something to his mate. Of course, they both pissed themselves laughing. I went back to the door and slunk behind the guys. I wanted to get through and out without more conflict; I'd lost my temper enough for one month.

Finally, Mateo led us into the boardroom. It had the usual heavy wooden table and luxurious furnishings. They'd seen better days, but the overall vibe was still very classy. Very elegant.

"Emma," said Mateo. "You'll love this." He sat his arse on the edge of the table, looking completely at ease. It was as if he owned the place, which of course, he did. "Your boy comes to training this morning. We've got a new signing having a look at his new teammates."

I opened my transfers screen - the number of transfers was increasing exponentially as we neared the end of the window. There was nothing about Jo, or Partick Thistle, or Tranmere.

"Max says, let me have a look at him. I get him to take two penalties. He scores both. Max says nah. Bin him off."

"Max!" complained Emma.

"What?"

"I don't know!" she said, in the same strident tone.

I laughed. "I was trying to be nice. Save them from a bad decision."

"Oh." She thought about it. "That's fine, then." She looked in the direction she thought the pitch would be. "Which one is he?"

Mateo knew what she meant. "He's not here. I cancelled the deal. Made up some excuse."

A slight chill crept up my back. Another agent with motive to hate Max Best. "Is there any danger the agent is going to blame me?"

"Danger? No." Mateo frowned. "No, your name didn't come up. He's such a narcissist!"

"I know," said Emma.

"He recommended two other players. Junior Howland and Calabash Barkley."

"Oh, I know them! From Darlo. Max raves about them as players. He'd know. All I know is they're lovely people. Dead nice. I shouldn't say more; I'm doing the paperwork for the agency that signed Bark."

Mateo nodded. "Stand by your recommendation, Max?"

"Course."

Rachel spoke. "This is you repaying our generosity, Matty said."

I gave Emma a squeeze. "We had the best time in Tenerife."

Rachel looked dubious. "It's a risk signing non-league players. No guarantee they'll be able to play at this level."

"No guarantee," I said. "Lots can go wrong. But in these cases... the talent is right, the personality is right. It's a 98% chance. Jo was a hundred percent chance of a dud, so at least I helped you out there." I laughed. "Watch him go on a goal spree now!"

Rachel's eyebrows flicked up. She turned to her husband and they communicated non-verbally. He smiled, reached into his pocket, and clicked the top of a pen. He walked to the head of the desk, bent, and signed a piece of paper. He stood, satisfied. "Our new striker. Junior Howland."

My spirits lifted. I'd launched my friend out of non-league like he was a surface-to-air missile. I'd gone ballistic, for once in the right way. "How much?"

"Sixty." He looked at a pile of papers next to the one he'd just signed. "Plus fifty for Barkley. His agent is holding things up."

Emma and I turned to look at each other. She laughed. I went out, closed the door behind me, and called Ruth.

"R.E.M. Enterprises," she said. "We never sleep."

"Howdy, pardner. I hear you're holding up my carefully constructed deal."

"I have some concerns. I'm worried about my client, Max."

"Are you worried he's rotting in the reserves of a club that doesn't value him?"

"I'm worried Tranmere play 4-3-3 and don't need a right-winger."

I felt a surge of frustration that turned into a laugh. "I talked to a top football expert and he says based on the training facilities, the coaching, and the exposure to players of a higher standard, Bark will thrive here and by the time he's ready for the first team, the first team will no longer be using 4-3-3."

"You don't know who the next manager might be. It could be some... buckaroo." (She didn't say that. She said they might hire someone who also plays 4-3-3. I prefer my version.)

"Statistically unlikely. But two years from now, if that happens, Chester will have money. I'll buy him."

She was quiet for a moment. "You've got your motivations. You're friends with the owners. You're trying to do them a favour. I get it. It's good of you. But my only interest is my client."

I looked around, checked no-one was within earshot, and murmured, "Our client." Louder, I said, "How's he taking it?"

"He's bouncing off the walls. He can't believe his luck."

"That's right. Because this is an unbelievably good move for him. He'll be in a more elite environment. Trust me, his talent will shine to the point even James O'Rourke will be tempted to change formation. Bark is that good. How's the money?"

"Acceptable. He won't be buying any horses any time soon."

"Right. Call Tranmere. This is a rare win-win-win-win-win."

"Is one of those wins Darlington?"

I smiled. "Depends how they spend the money. It's a win if they use the money to get better players. Spoiler alert - they won't."

I hung up, and went back into the boardroom.

Mateo's phone rang soon after.

He said a few things, then: "Great."

He put his phone down, signed the contract. He picked both documents up. His club secretary would fax them off, and that would be that. I'd brokered two deals on a day off! And got my agency up and running.

Most of all... "Emma. I've repaid my debt to society. Are you proud of me?"

"Very." She leaned up to kiss me.

Rachel smiled. Now that the decisions were all made, her demeanour switched from suspicious to wildly optimistic. "I have a very good feeling about this, Matty. Max, have you got any more tips for us?"

"Whoa!" I said. "You get two top talents in the name of friendship. Everything from now on, costs."

"How much?" said Mateo.

"What?"

"How much to find us more of these prospects?"

I laughed. "Mateo! We're competitors! We'll be in the same division soon."

He got a steely look in his eye. "You think we're going down?"

"God, I hope not. No, we're coming up."

His phone pinged. "Second half's starting. Let's get back to your, ah, assistant manager."

***

Emma asked if she could visit the media room while the match was going on. She was super interested to see what went on in there. Rachel handed over her badge so she could access all areas. "Mi casa es su casa."

The match continued to be entertaining. Tranmere were outclassed, of course, but competed as well as they could.

Mateo asked what I thought of the match on a tactical level. The Brig leaned in to hear my answer.

"It's interesting. James is sticking to his 4-3-3. I have mixed feelings about it. From one point of view, you could say it plays into Leicester's hands. Or James could say that's the formation we know, we're good at it, it's the formation I understand best as a manager, so let's stick to it. He's got a point. They've had chances. Score them and he looks like a genius."

"What would you do?"

"I'd be tempted to do 3-5-2. Try to swamp the midfield. That'd give Leicester a lot to think about. They'd probably reshuffle, put more bodies in there. Then I'd try 4-2-4, go direct, bypass midfield on our attacks, see if we could exploit all that space they leave on the wings."

"You'd do that that in one game?"

I laughed. "I'd do that in one minute. Why not? You only need one or two flexible players. Where's Emma got to?" I frowned. She'd been gone far too long. I looked at the Brig. We both stood at the same time. "Back in a second, Matty."

"Take my badge," he said.

Before leaving the executive area, some instinct made me put on my shades and baseball cap. The Brig put some sunglasses on, too.

I beeped my way through, scanning every corridor but moving fairly quickly. I paused at the door to the media suite and peered inside. There was a little sofa thing and I knew from the composition of the occupants what had happened. Emma had started chatting to the reporters, or whatever they were, and they'd invited her to sit, and now they were sort of trapping her on the L-shaped couch. She was wedged into the corner, while Tech Bro was next to her, his legs stretched out like a fence. Stalker was on the edge of his seat, to Emma's right, a closed gate. He'd taken his glasses off.

It took me all of zero seconds to take all that in, and when the red mist cleared, I was ready for anything. Mostly ready to beat the living shit out of some creeps. But also ready to accept that this was less gross and shitty than it looked.

I forced myself to stand there and take another look at the scene.

Emma was hunched into herself. She seemed really small. Tech Bro had draped his arm across the back of the sofa, and his hand was dangling just under her hair.

As I watched, he brushed it. Emma leaned away and made a vague slapping motion that the twat found delightful. In a total, brain-consuming rage, I pounced, but didn't get anywhere. The Brig had grabbed my arm. An iron vice. He didn't want me to go in there and batter the twat.

I gave him a look that may or may not have been hidden by my sunglasses. "What would you do?"

"If I were you, sir, I would ask me to take care of it."

"That isn't your job."

"One is always happy to straddle the bridge between duty and recreation."

I fumed for a few seconds, then thought, fine. Making good decisions under pressure. That's what I wanted, wasn't it? I was the fucking manager of Chester. I couldn't go smashing faces in the media room of a rival club. I handed over the badge.

He was about to enter, but paused. "What's the name of the stadium?"

"Prenton Park."

He mumbled it under his breath, then went in. I slipped in behind him, but walked over to a tea-making area and pretended to be brewing up while checking my phone.

"Excuse me, sir," said the Brig, to Tech Bro. "May I see your credentials?"

"What?" said the twat, humming with twatty defiance.

The Brig didn't repeat himself. Tech Bro, now that he'd got out of the trapping-a-hot-blonde mindset and had stared into the inhuman, reflective lenses of the scary army man, lifted a lanyard over his head. The Brig took it, touched his ear and said the name aloud. The guy sat up. Things had got very serious, very quickly.

"Yes, I thought so," said the Brig, to absolutely no-one. He took his finger away from his ear. "Sir, we would ask you to leave Prenton Park immediately, by mutual consent."

"By mutual consent?" spluttered the media prick.

"You can ask your solicitor what consent is," said the Brig, and I was suddenly glad I'd let him do this. My way would have been catastrophic. His way would leave a much longer-lasting scar, was much less stressful for Emma, and in its own way, was funny. "It would be more agreeable if you consented to leave, sir. The alternative is murder on my shoes. Escorting you all the way down, I mean." The Brig took a couple of steps over to a desk with a view of the match. "You missed a goal." Stalker shot to his feet and went to one of two laptops. Emma took the chance to escape the sofa. She noticed me, and relaxed. I put my finger to my lips. Emma nodded, and waited behind the sofa.

The Brig had been lying about the goal, but now he knew which laptop was Tech Bro's. He unplugged it and folded it up. "We'll need this for the investigation."

"Investigation?"

"Into the allegations," sighed the Brig, now bored. He pulled his sleeve up, revealing that he was wearing two watches. Tech Bro's eyes nearly popped out. "That will be all." He settled into a very military pose.

"But... but my laptop," whined the wannabe Lothario, as he got awkwardly to his feet.

"I'll post it when I'm done," said the Brig.

"But you don't know where I live."

My assistant manager tried to contain his amusement. "Oh, dear."

"But - "

"Time's up," said the Brig.

The twat looked for moral support from his 'mate' - who was bright red and hunched over his laptop, pretending to be writing. Tech Bro looked at me, but I was slouched over the counter, looking at my phone. With a bit of luck, he wouldn't remember my face. He'd remember Emma's though. And one day, he'd see the Brig on TV, standing next to me in the dugout. Would our disguises be enough? Would this bite me on the arse? Did I care?

Tech Bro was slinking towards the nearest exit. A button would allow him to leave, but without his badge he wouldn't be able to get back in. He was about to make one last effort when the Brig touched his ear and said, "He's on his way. No, not this time. But turn camera 4 off, just in case he gets lippy."

The twat left. I moved into the centre of the room. "What about that one?" I said, pointing to the accomplice.

The Brig held out his hand. The guy gulped and handed over his lanyard. The Brig stared at it, then handed it back. He nodded at me, and that seemed to be that. It seemed inadequate. Yes, the Brig would probably torment this guy in some way, but I needed something more immediate. I had so much frustration building up in me, and this guy was a worthy vessel for some old-school venting.

"Actually, you know what? Let's divide and conquer," I said. "You do twatface. I'll do this one."

I approached Stalker, turned him to face me. I saw my sunglasses in the blacks of his eyes. Cool effect. I thought about punching him in the gut, but Emma coughed. I turned. She did the sign language for in this world, it's just us. I didn't totally get why, but it was obvious she didn't want me to do anything violent. So I used my words. "I don't like your decision-making. You need re-education. I'm a guest, today; I don't want to embarrass anyone by getting stuck in." I glanced at Emma; she approved. "But next time I see you, I am going to hit you in the face." I gave him a couple of friendly slaps on the cheek. Four o'clock shadowing, I think it's called.

We left. In the corridor, I stopped my little team.

"Do we tell Mateo? I vote no."

"Why?" said the Brig.

"I like the idea that I know where this guy's going to be."

"I agree if Emma does."

"I'm okay," she said, which worried me. That hadn't been the question. Maybe it's what we should have been asking, though. I calmed all the way down. Retribution could wait. I took my sunglasses off and gave her my full attention. She continued. "I was asking them about their work. They were friendly at first. Then it was weird and I wanted to leave, but I just froze. I felt at home here. My guard was down. I'm sorry."

"What do you want? Go home?"

"No way! I'm not going because of them. No chance. I want to stay. With my mates." She stuck her jaw out. "I've been looking forward to this. I want to enjoy it."

I smiled. "Then let's do that."

***

I tried to keep my spirits up, to be fun, to give Emma what she wanted. But it was hard.

So many terrible, inexplicable decisions. Torpedos in the water, destroying what they touched, setting off chain reactions. I'd saved Mateo from one - the Scottish striker. Saved him a hundred and ten grand that he'd used to invest in two great prospects. But I was powerless to stop my players doing crazy things they'd never done before. And powerless to stop two doughy nobodies feeling absolutely free to harass Emma.

And as I watched, yet another piece of utter mindlessness.

Leicester had a corner. A Tranmere defender got his head to it - it flew high in the air, just outside the penalty box. A very, very difficult volley. Peak Max Best would have lobbed it back into the danger area. Messi could have shot but would have been too smart - it was too low percentage. No, Messi would have controlled the ball and passed it back to the corner taker. Messi was the best decision maker in the history of the sport. So be like Messi. Yes?

No.

The last person in the world who could have scored from that position was the Leicester defender. Taking shots was not in the defender's wheel house. So, naturally, he took an ugly swing, made some sort of contact, and the ball flew high into the stand where it nearly hit a Leicester fan in the face. Fifteen million pounds, this player cost.

Henri got a three-match ban for nearly touching a goalkeeper. I would have banned this defender for a month. People had paid to watch him perform, his team's fans were pinning their hopes and dreams on him achieving his mission, but instead of piloting his submarine through tricky rock formations, he was shooting bullets at his own missiles, trying to blow them up.

I shook my head. This wasn't fun, but I was racking up XP. Soon I'd have enough to buy 3-5-2. Then I could start to look at Injuries, or Contracts, or whatever. Or maybe I'd wait to see if a monthly perk dropped at the start of September.

Tranmere had a rare attack - pushed numbers forward to try to make something happen. They lost the ball, and Leicester broke quickly down the right. Tranmere's rest defence moved across to where the ball was. The ball carrier sent a long, curving cross to the far post, where the deadliest counter-attacker in recent years was totally unmarked. Jamie Vardy leapt and powered a header downwards. The goalie had no chance, and Vardy took three short strides towards his fans. He celebrated.

Eventually, Mateo finished swearing. "Max. Didn't you warn us about that very move?"

"Yeah."

"Christ!" He ranted to Rachel for a while. He seemed able to shake off unpleasant incidents much faster than me, though. "I appreciate the warning, anyway." He laughed. "What happened to us being competitors?"

"No harm giving you advice you're not gonna take."

"We took some of your advice, today. We'll see how it turns out."

I gave him the brightest smile I could manage. I wasn't worried about the Scottish guy turning into a deadly goal machine, or Junior or Bark not living up to my hype. I was, though, slightly worried about Emma. "Babes?" I said.

"I'm okay," she said, which was even more worrying than last time.

I put my arm around her and she sank into me. She'd had a shock, but the Brig had dealt with the sitch like a boss. Seasoned. An old hand. Conflict barely touched him; he made good decisions. Yeah, he'd battered Tech Bro without using his fists.

I could learn a lot from him. Maybe I could learn to stop my team doing stupid shit without demotivating them. But maybe in the meantime I could get some on-pitch help.

I got my phone out and left a voice note. "MD. Do your best to get Jack Ryan down tomorrow. I think you're right. We need some more salty sea dogs on board."

Emma pulled her head straight. "Jack Ryan? Isn't he from that movie you always watch?"

"Ryan Jack, I said. Hey! That's a good idea. After this, let's go home and watch the greatest movie of all time. I've got some ice cream in the freezer."

"Okay!" she said. Cosy movie night sounded perfect. "One thing, though."

"What?"

"Absolutely no clue why, but I'm mad craving Fruit Pastilles."

"All right. Fruit Pastilles, Sean Connery Russian accent, submarines. What else?"

"Tekkers video. And a mini prosecco to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?"

"We launched our agency today."

"That's right! We'll need two. One to smash against the side of the fridge."

She laughed. A beautiful laugh. Uninhibited. Natural. "You're so strange. You're lucky I like you." She slipped her arms around mine and squeezed.

As I looked into her eyes, I checked my mental sonar. There were no blips, no beeps, no pings. No decisions to make, no torpedos to evade. Just a quiet night in. Netflix and chill. That sounded... that sounded... what was the best word? Aff's favourite came to mind.

That sounded deadly.