11.

UK glossary. To go down. Phrasal verb. To go to prison.

***

Donnie Wormwood was nicknamed Scrubber in some sort of cockney pun homage to Wormwood Scrubs, the notorious prison. The idea, I suppose, was to intimidate on two fronts. One, the idea that you were about to get 'scrubbed'. Two, that Donnie wasn't afraid of going down for scrubbing you. It was pathetic, to be honest, to think that there were enough weak-minded people in Essex to fall for it, and doubly pathetic that it was absolutely working on me. I was literally trembling in my trainers, having hospital flashbacks, and despite my boxing training I felt helpless.

Wormwood took a few paces closer, as did Danny, but with a gesture from his uncle, the striker stopped.

The champion came closer and closer, and walked to a 45 degree angle. He looked me up and down. Stupidly, I didn't pivot to face him. I couldn't. I realised in that moment I had tons of unresolved trauma and if I wanted to be any use in such a situation I needed to talk to someone. A thought that contained rather a lot of assumptions about how chatty I'd be with my teeth scattered all over Lincolnshire.

Wormwood nodded a couple of times, got in front of me, and pushed me in the chest. I wobbled an amount that seemed to satisfy him.

He took a couple of steps back and examined me from slightly behind.

"How's your right calf?" His voice was as expected. Pure Essex gangster. He could have played a thug in a Guy Ritchie movie.

It was hard to think but finally I realised he wasn't going to hit me - probably - and the old cogs started whirring. "Tight."

He nodded and went back to the front. "This doesn't add up," he said, touching my right forearm. "What's this?" He had his hand on my hip, pushing me. "Relax here. Can you relax?"

"No. I'm scared of you."

He laughed - his face briefly became angelic, then settled back into cock-of-the-pub. He offered a handshake but I showed him my fist. He bumped it with no rancour. "Donnie Wormwood. I'm Danny's uncle. Heard a lot about you. Didn't know you boxed."

I tried to stand like a normal person going to work. In my mind I was shaking like jelly. "I don't. I just do the training. It's hard. Not much is hard for me these days. What did you mean it doesn't add up?"

He pointed but took his hand away like he wasn't sure. "Your stance says you're an inside fighter. Close quarters. The way you threw Danny off the pitch? Inside fighter. But we've been looking at you play. Free kicks. Pitch-length dribbles. How you manage. From afar. Outside fighter all day long."

"Can't you be both?"

"Not if you want to win a title."

"I'd want to be both."

"You're not both. You can't be. I don't get it. I can size up a boxer in seconds." He looked around the car park and nodded at Danny who was staying five yards back. "Heard about the prick what attacked you. Bad business. Didn't mean to scare you, Mr. Best. It's just your woman wouldn't let me in."

My receptionist had stood up to the champion boxer better than me. "Mel? She's amazing. I've given her dude a bit of a leg up and she's like my personal Grimsby Rottweiler now. I love her."

"Yeah? She scares me." He chuckled and again, his face got thirty years younger. "Love a big girl, me. To business. I'm Danny's agent, s'well as his uncle. Can we have five minutes of your time?"

My heart rate was going down. The sheer panic of the scenario had brought me out in a light sweat, but the rational part of my brain had been screaming that a champion boxer wasn't going to lay into a civilian. They didn't do that. Still, it was like finding yourself in a cage with a tiger that had recently eaten. He would leave you alone... probably. But if you had any common sense you'd still stare at his claws and teeth and wonder who could make it to the exit first.

"Hang on. I know a bit about you and what you did in your career. Blasting the national anthem all over Vegas and Madison Square Garden. If anyone's earned the right to drop the Mr. Best shit, it's you. You don't have to be that polite."

He grinned, which brought a fresh film of sweat to my neck. "It's not polite. It's the veneer of civilisation, innit, and who knows what lurks beneath? Much more intimidating to talk polite when you look like me. Lead the way... Max."

***

We got coffees from the canteen and I took Wormwood to the manager's cabin with Danny scuttling along behind like a puppy behind two big dogs. "It's my office, not that I use it much. We won't be disturbed."

Wormwood and I sat facing each other, but after the drama we felt a bit closer. Wormwood was terrifying in one regard, but I also had a lot of respect for him. He'd struggled and sacrificed to get his career going, maximised his talent, and quit before he lost. 46 wins, no defeats. 46 and oh, as they say. That 'oh' would be in the history books forever.

Top top top. Or was it more glorious to push yourself one level higher and not quite make it? Did the 'oh' maybe mean you didn't quite test yourself to the limit? I didn't know enough about boxing to say, but what about football? Taking the Grimsby job might have been a bridge too far. Did that make me brave or foolhardy?

We started with all kinds of small talk. I had time before training and if the meeting overran, Ollie could step up. I was talking to one of the country's greatest ever sportsmen and I threw myself into the opportunity. After about eight minutes, Wormwood realised I'd been making him do all the talking. I was asking him about the elite mindset. How did he keep going in difficult fights? How did he prepare? How did he stick to crazy diets for months at a time? What was the best regimen for quick recoveries?

He laughed and made me stop. "You ask the right questions, Max. You're the boss at your age? Yeah. Makes more sense, now. But I'm not here to tell you how to be a champion boxer."

"You're very free with your secrets."

"He who teaches, learns."

"What? Hang on." I scribbled it down and stared at the phrase. I couldn't quite get my head round it.

"My trainer taught it me. It means if you want to learn something you have to teach it. First, I thought it was a scam to get me coaching for free, but nah, he's right. The more you teach it, the more you learn it. It's like a shortcut if you're not all that talented. Like me."

I gestured while I stared at my note. "Don't give me the self-deprecating humour shit. It's obvious how good you were. You can get lucky in football. Get yourself a juicy contract after a good World Cup or a few good games at the end of a season." Tiny dig at Danny, there. "You can't fake it in the boxing ring. He who teaches, learns. That's fascinating."

I stayed lost in thought for ages. So long, in fact, that my guests stared at each other.

"Max," said Wormwood, finally. "What it is, right... Danny's dad passed away and I've been trying to keep an eye on the lad. I'm here as his agent and his uncle, whichever you'll listen to."

"I'll listen to you all day long. You got to the level I want to get to."

He tried not to show his pleasure. "I'm here for Danny. He thinks you don't rate him."

"I rate him exactly as much as he deserves to be rated."

Danny's head sank, and didn't come back up for some time. Wormwood pushed his thumb against his nose, the most boxerly gesture imaginable. "And how high is that?"

The car park incident clicked into 'the past'. We were in the here and now and on my turf. Football. "When I took the Grimsby job I said I wouldn't be giving out career advice or anything like that. How they build the squad is none of my business. To some extent, I'm happy for them to overpay on transfer fees and salaries. It's Chris Hale's money in the end, and he has enough of it. Why shouldn't some of it end up in Danny's pocket? My issue is when that money distorts the culture. Toxic players using their income as a stick to beat new signings with."

In the silence that followed, Wormwood's breathing became more pronounced. He was trying to contain his emotions. "Dan. What does he mean?"

It took ages, but Danny finally mumbled, "Some of the lads was cashing him off."

I closed my eyes while I tried to process what he'd said. His uncle seemed to understand but I wasn't a hundred percent. "Cashing me off? The twenty pound note or what? What does that mean?"

"Laughing at how much you earn," said Wormwood.

"It wasn't me," whispered Danny.

"It's all the same culture, isn't it?" I mused. "Tom Brady took a lower salary so he could play with better players because he wanted to win. I'm on no money at Chester so we can blast through the leagues. But it doesn't matter, does it, what I'm paid? It matters if I can do the job and that's one thing you and the other two pricks don't care about." That was aimed at Danny and a reference to his bling-men wing-men Simon Green and Caine. "You don't care about anything except what you see in the mirror. You're not team players and you don't have proper pride in yourselves. You ask me, I'd rather be in my shitty car and go hard at every single day than be one of you lot wearing your big gold chains in clubs 'cashing people off' and burning hundred pound notes and all that crap. I can heat my house, buy food, and I can play football, mate. You and your kind can fuck right off. The fewer twats I have, the better the team plays. You might have noticed we fucking slapped as soon as you deigned to get off the pitch. Bad apples all over the place. Full of worms; that's why I've cut the squad to the core. I'm looking for the footballers and I reckon I've found 'em. It ain't you."

Danny hid under his hood and his uncle fumed, not that quietly. The latter was the next to speak; it was his turn to unleash a flurry of punches.

"I've been digging into this whole Max Best thing. Asking around. You know what I found? You push people. You push people. You've been pushing around here. Pushed the players, the staff, the fans. Pushed young Danny, didn't you, looking for a reaction? You're doing it again. Doing it now. But you overreached on Tuesday night. Danny's the golden boy of Grimsby Town. He could get you sacked. You're gonna apologise to him."

Danny looked across, astonished, and then dipped his head. He had given the game away, though. Wormwood was improvising. Checking if I was congruent. Pushing me on the chest to see if I'd go down. I shook my head. "Nope."

"You've only got two strikers."

"I've got four. But you're bad at research. Everyone in Chester knows on my first day I took out the trash and played with eight including one little tiny mascot kid. I'd rather play with ten than have Danny Look At Me Look At Me Look At Me Cashing You Off. Ten guys with character, nine guys with character. Give me eight guys who give a shit and I'll get us enough wins to stay up."

"You're a cocky bastard, ain't you? Even you have to be worried about losing your job."

"It wouldn't look good on my CV, yeah. But there's exactly one person in Lincolnshire today who's likely to be player-manager in a Champion's League final. Sacking me's like rejecting the Beatles or passing on Harry Potter. Danny Flash the pampered prince getting Max Best the sack is a bad look for exactly one of us. About five years from now there will be a spate of think pieces called 'Remember the Incredible Sulk? He got Max Best fired. Where is he now?"

"Hang on - " started Wormwood, but I was off on one.

"Player-manager and acknowledged transcendent genius Max Best needs no introduction. His sublime Chester men and women's teams continue to rampage through all who oppose them. But did you know that a fucking worm with a few Instagram followers once contrived to get him sacked just as he was trying to save that same player from a massive contractually-stipulated pay cut? That's right! Max briefly popped over to Grimsby to get them out of a jam but a few jumped up little shits felt threatened and guess what? After back-to-back relegations their personalities, for want of a better word, were deemed too toxic even for English football and now they're all working in a hotel in Izmir that is rated the absolute worst tourist destination in Turkey while Max brings Margot Robbie to help him collect his many awards, insisting they are just good friends."

Wormwood breathed through his nose for a while, then he shifted in his seat. He made some sort of grunting noise. "Is he always like this?"

"Don't know," mumbled Danny. "He never talks to us."

The uncle appraised me. "A boxer's only as good as his trainer. Mine was Ricky Priest. You heard of him?"

"Not really."

"He's a legend. He took me from nothing and brought out the best in me. Knew when to give me a clip around the ear, when to tell me summat I needed to hear, knew when I needed to blow off steam, when I had another round in me when I thought I was done. We fell out all the time. Someone was on Wikipedia a while back and they worked out it was every two and a half years. Big blowouts, couldn't stand the sight of each other. But I always went back because no-one knew me like him and no-one could get the best out of me like him. People think boxing's a solo sport but it ain't. It's a team sport same as football. You don't have a coach that pushes you, you're nothing. Nothing." He stared at his nephew, who could only manage a quick flicker in return. "He's a good lad but he's been going off the rails since he got this Grimsby move. Bad crowd, like you said. He's the owner's blue-eyed boy so no-one'll touch him. When we saw you throw him off the pitch on Tuesday night we were up in arms, but then Granddad Don said, bout bloody time. Said he'd have you at the U's any day. You'd sort that mob out, he said. You've made one fan this week, at least."

"The Ewes?"

"U's. Colchester United. We got Danny on the Zoom, made him tell us all about it. He said how he don't want no non-league nobody subbing him off." He eyed me. "Nothing to say to that?"

I scoffed. "If I were Danny I'd fucking hate it, too." Danny glanced up. "But I'd run off the pitch and complain from the bench or put something cryptic on social media. I'd still want the team to win. I wouldn't sabotage the team." The head dropped again.

"The three of us had a big talk," said Wormwood. "Me and his granddad know a thing or two about sport. The two of us think you're running riot. Cutting the squad in half, not trusting anyone, doing things your way, no compromise. Too many mistakes. Too much change too soon. You'll be sacked before you get time for it to work. If it would even work, which we're dubious about."

"Okay," I said, wondering why he had said 'the two of us'.

"But you're right about Tuesday night. Hundred percent right." He counted to five and said, "Danny."

Danny squirmed, breathed weird, and took his phone out. He unlocked it and tapped a couple of times. The cabin was dead silent. At this critical moment, Coaches G and W flung the door open and walked in, laughing. Wormwood and I stood at the same time in similar stances. He looked at me and nodded. Giving me the lead. I said something along the lines of, "Would you mind awfully knocking next time?" and watched as the coaches fell out of the cabin. They threw the door closed in their haste to leave, leaving it swinging open. One of them crept back and pushed it half an inch per second until it softly clicked shut. I put my head back and massaged my head. "This place, holy shit. Those guys should set an example. Receptionist has more breaks than a ski slope. Captain's supposed to keep discipline with the squad but he's one of the biggest twats. I'll say one thing about Danny. He's one of the only ones who's respectful to Chris Hale. From what I've seen, this club should lose every match. You know what that means? Means all these fucking clubs are the same. Lunatics running the asylum."

Wormwood took even longer to settle back than me, but then we were ready and Danny went back to his notes app.

"Dear Mr. Best," he read. "I am very sorry about my behaviour. I was not a team player in that moment when the team needed me." He gulped - big effort to hold back the tears. "I was selfish and you got a yellow card because of my actions. What I done was so bad I don't deserve a second chance but I would like the chance to prove myself to you and to the fans who have supported me so much since I became a Mariner." He gulped again. There was obviously loads to go.

"Danny, let me just read it," I said, because otherwise I would have been there all morning. He handed the phone over and I read it in about four seconds. I handed it back. "Great. Got it. Did that take you a while?" He nodded. He wasn't an Henri who might dash off a quick essay about the fucking Mayans or whatever, or Pascal, who documented every aspect of his life. "You missed a couple of things."

"What?" It was a confused what, not one asking for examples.

"You forgot to apologise for training like shit."

Wormwood slapped the table. "Fuck me!" He stared, wide-eyed, then laughed, hard. "I don't know if I want to batter you or play for you." He laughed some more while shaking his head. "Danny, you been training right?"

Danny livened up. "He put me in the shit group! And he's been doing mad drills with the firsts while we do the same old shit!"

"Mad drills? I thought I was a non-league hack."

Danny exhaled, frustrated with me, frustrated with himself. He shoved his hands inside his hood and fussed with his hair so loudly I barely heard what he said. "They're buzzing. They love it. I didn't think you was watching us."

"Max Best knows all and sees all. If you want to move to the top group you need to be the top dog in your group. If you train like shit in the shit group you need to stay in the shit group."

Wormwood put his hands up. "I don't need to be here for this. You're the boss. You decide where he trains. Isn't that right, Danny?"

"Yeah," he said.

"But Danny wants to post that message on his socials and take some of the heat off you."

"Why?"

He stared at his nephew. Danny squirmed and said, "Training here's all defensive. It's boring. It's good but it doesn't get you out of bed. Know what I mean? And now there's..." He sighed and it took ages to speak again. "There's you and Coach O and I want it. It's what I want."

I pointed at his phone. "Got it. So if I let you into the good group you'll post on social media and I'll keep this job. Right. So if I do what you want, you'll save me. I work for you, now, do I?"

Wormwood's sinister snarl was back, and Danny let out a frustrated "No!" He covered his face with his hands and pulled them down, slowly, distorting his face one section at a time. "No, boss. If I have to train with the shits to get back in, I will. I shouldn't of sulked the last days but I thought... I didn't think. But I don't want you getting binned off. Some of it's well harsh like dumping Si in London but the tactics are dead on. I want to tell everyone how mint you are and it's our fault we're not winning. And that I was bang out of order."

I stood and walked away while I had a think. The truth was that I had a wild idea for how to play against Wrexham and having Danny Flash available would help. And as much as I didn't want to have to get political to keep my job, there were a couple of political things I had up my sleeve based around the fact that both Grimsby and Chester fans hated Wrexham. I would always be football first, but if we lost against Gillingham, I wouldn't even get the chance to do battle against the Welsh dragon. Danny could help me stick around for another week. Still, though, my status was only on 'insecure'. I'd kind of got used to it and even thought I'd be able to ride out a few weeks of 'very insecure'. I wasn't like normal managers. When sacked, they might never get another job. I had Chester, and I had West Didsbury. Pressure? What pressure?

As for Danny, the worm had turned. I was too stubborn to apologise and respected people who did.

"All right, you're in, one on condition."

He looked down at his hands. "What is it?"

"Don't post that."

Surprise. "What?"

I tried to be diplomatic. "I know you worked really hard on it so please don't take this the wrong way. I think you'd admit you're not a natural writer." He sort of grinned. "And I know it took you ages to get it sounding good. But it doesn't sound like Danny Flash, does it? It sounds like I've got a gun to your head and made you write something." I imagined a rando on a bus in Grimsby reading Danny's script and I couldn't help but laugh. "Look, that'd do more harm than good, wouldn't it? Here's the deal. You smash training today and we forget it ever happened. That's it. No need to make a public statement or anything. I don't want to lose this job but I don't want to be doing fake political bullshit to keep it. That's not me. We do our talking on the pitch. We beat Gillingham, everything's peachy. Good?"

Wormwood was nodding. He liked what I was saying. "Will he play against Gillingham? It's not far for me and his granddad."

"No," I said, but it didn't sound right. "Not the first half. Might come on as a sub. Not worth the hassle. Wrexham, though. That might be worth a drive." There was a knock at the door. "Come in," I said. Coach O opened it and looked in. I pointed at him while staring at Danny. "Standards." Turning to Ollie, I said, "Yes, mate?"

"Should we start? I don't know what the plan is."

In a dreamy voice, I said, "He who teaches, learns, Coach O. I'm going to teach Danny Flash how to stay onside, and in so doing, become a better player myself." I flashed Wormwood a Maxy Two-Thumbs. He didn't know how to respond because there was a very good chance I was being a sarcastic little SOB. He would forgive me, though. His nephew was all smiles.

***

Saturday, March 16

Match 3 of 10: Gillingham versus Grimsby Town

Gillingham is in Kent, a four hour and ten-minute drive from Grimsby.

The bus ride wasn't so bad - the atmosphere was not hostile for once and there was some excitement. The lads wanted to get on the pitch and try to do some slapping. There was also some apprehension - another loss would probably spell the end for me. I'd always said if I lost five in a row I'd get binned, but with all my antics and the way I'd fallen out with an entire county, three would surely be enough.

It was going to be a tough match. The Gills had one of the best defences in the league, though they struggled to score. If we got ahead, I felt sure we'd win. If we fell behind, it could be game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect fifty thousand pounds.

Morale was slightly up, and I felt the general level of fitness was improved. Players like Mal Mehew and Ed Williams had gotten good minutes and you could see it in how they trained and even in their CAs.

I decided to start with 4-1-4-1, the best formation for the team.

I would use Devonte Payne as the right mid with Danny Grant in the centre. Overall, we would have a CA of 81.4, but we would weaken at half time.

While on the bus, I took the opportunity to have quick chats with some of the players I'd bombed into group B. Players like Alfie Grimwood, the left back, and Tom Hickman, the talented centre back. I told them my reasons for splitting the group and said (in their cases at least) it was nothing personal and I expected them to be ready to play and if they trained well on Monday they could get moved into the core group on Tuesday and they'd have a chance of playing against Wrexham because I thought we'd have to go quite defensive in that one. The prospect seemed to excite them, but there was no immediate change in their morale. Maybe they thought I wouldn't be in charge by then so it didn't matter.

We got to the Priestfield Stadium and I pottered around checking it out. There were three nice stands - I could imagine the redeveloped Deva looking something like it, except there was no way I'd let the three stands be three different heights. Two maybe, but three? That was a no from me, dog. But then there was pretty much the worst stand I'd ever seen. The only competition was the abomination at Barrow. This one was just... a shape. With no roof. The internet said it was a temporary stand that had been erected in 2003. How about we talk about the meaning of the word temporary?

The dressing room before kick-off was quiet. There were no physios, the kit man had done his work and left, and the only coach was Ollie. I had told individual players if they were playing or not, but had instructed them not to discuss it with anyone else. Anyone trying to find out the whole team, I had said, was the mole. All very ominous and potentially bad for morale, but I was pretty sure no-one had blabbed.

With five minutes to go, I took them out to the pitch and told them the plan. Alex Evans would boss the game from DM, we would play with control, we would be sensible, but when the chance to slap came, we would slap hard. Nothing new, nothing surprising, but we had been starting matches with 4-2-4 and Gillingham went with 5-3-2 to defend against that. Their average CA was 81 but most of that came from their goalie and centre backs. They basically had two Christian Fierce types, which seemed unfair. Up front, their strikers worked hard and could win headers but didn't have much technical quality or finishing skill.

We kicked off and I used Cupid's Arrow to combine Grant and Wainwright. Immediately everything fell into place. We raced into sixty percent possession and got shots away. Low quality ones, but they were coming.

In the ninth minute, Devonte Payne went on an overlapping run and, seeing two defenders around Wainwright, decided against the cross. He cut back onto his left foot. His opponent hung out a leg, Payne went down, penalty! I smashed Free Hit in record time.

Wainwright took a couple of paces, hit it to his left... and the goalie saved it. Six out of ten penalty, ten out of ten save.

The home fans had been pretty quiet, but that got them mocking us.

"Going down, going down, going down!"

And when I popped out of the dugout to shout encouragement to Wainwright...

"Sacked in the morning! You're getting sacked in the morning!"

Seeing that his plan wasn't working, Gillingham's manager switched to 4-4-2 and tried to make the game bitty and sluggish. Maybe he knew I would only use Alex for the first half and he would ride out this storm and come at us in the second half.

Gills (pronounced like the woman's name) had a couple of efforts, one of which scared the shit out of me, but we finished the half with five shots on target. A decent haul against such a well-drilled team.

I went to the dressing room deep in thought. Two things were happening that I didn't have the experience to deal with. One, Wainwright's penalty miss had fucked him up. His head had dropped and it didn't help that the two centre backs were so good. They were bullying him, which didn't happen to him very often. But what could I do? It was him or Danny Flash and there was no contest.

The second thing was that I could see Gillingham were doing something strange defensively that I couldn't put my finger on. On the tactics screen, their defender icons were surrounded by thick lines. That meant they were doing something different to the default, but I couldn't see what. I'd need to study the tapes but that wouldn't help us in the second half.

Now I had to choose which subs to make. Alex was coming off - I couldn't risk overplaying him. I wanted to take Conor Quinn off, too. I could easily switch to 3-5-2, but that would mean putting Danny Flash on. The guy's pros and cons as a person had sort of balanced out in my head but what didn't shift was the fact that he wasn't good enough for the level and this particular pair of centre backs would make mincemeat out of him.

I waited until the break was nearly over - the home team were planning to stick to 4-4-2, so I said fuck it and told Danny he was going on. It slapped us down to an average CA of 77.6 and I hadn't seen how Jayden would play as a left-sided centre back, but five in midfield would give us more control, the fresh legs would let us keep running hard, and Gillingham would have to mark Danny Flash and that would ease the burden on Marcus Wainwright.

The change to three at the back caught our opponents by surprise and we had another good six or seven minute spell. They switched back to 5-3-2 and there was a long period of stalemate. I couldn't risk throwing bodies forward and the Gills manager seemed happy to take a point. That didn't make sense to me. They had a chance of making the playoffs and we were the worst team in the form table. Why not have a go?

I stood with my hood up as rain started to fall. Our fans in the uncovered terrace got soaked. We were playing well until the final third. At first I thought it was just the nature of the players. Devonte was faster than the left back, so I changed his individual instructions to allow him to dribble. We got him into positions to do just that, but every time he would spin backwards and play a safe pass to the midfield. I moved Payne inside and put Danny Grant out there and he did the same.

We were putting in a rugged defensive shift. There was patent togetherness and team spirit. It was fearless football in the sense that defenders would throw themselves into blocks and midfielders would leap into fifty-fifty tackles. But on the ball... It was like they didn't want to win. Not in a traitorous sense. Just the opposite, in fact.

The ultimate example was with two minutes to go. The score was still nil-nil and I'd used my three remaining subs to keep things fresh. We got a bit of luck on the left when a defender slipped. Greg Fasanmade burst forward, Wainwright moved to the far post - a sign of his low confidence, by the way - and Danny Flash sprinted into Wainwright's slot. Fasanmade passed to Flash, and he was in a dangerous position on the left of the box. He had Fasanmade sprinting to be an option, Wainwright, and Danny Grant rushing to make the far post a target-rich environment.

All Flash had to do was spin and chip to the far post and we'd have our best opportunity of the second half.

Instead, he dribbled to the corner flag and held the ball there. A defender kicked it out for a throw in, Fasanmade held the ball for so long he got a yellow card, and once again, Flash tried to hold the ball in the corner to let the clock run down.

Gills got the ball, Flash rushed into a foul to stop them breaking. He got a yellow card and that was the last action of the match.

Peep peep peep!

Nil-nil. Not many of those in my professional football career. I didn't quite know how to feel.

In the dressing room, I gave everyone a fist bump. "Danny. Amazing energy. Love it. But what was that at the end?"

"What?"

"You went to the corner. You were all wasting time at the end. Why?"

Flash couldn't believe his ears. "So we wouldn't lose again and you wouldn't get sacked." He looked around to check he wasn't the crazy one, and his mates were nodding.

I looked up at the ceiling, equal parts frustrated and pleased. "Guys, you let me worry about the sack. Okay? My teams don't go to the corner. Next time, sling that to the far post where we're queuing up and if it goes wrong, I'll eat it."

"But we could lose. I promised myself I wouldn't get another manager binned off."

"Yeah," I said. It didn't seem like much at the time but Danny's misguided display of loyalty was the moment the Grimsby adventure paid off. It had been a hell of a slog, but I'd achieved something. Most likely the rest of the world would consider me a failure. An abject failure, in fact. But I knew what I'd done. I'd got the snowball rolling, big time. If Wolfie stomped it flat, that wasn't on me.

Heart-warming as Danny's actions were, they also showed that my message wasn't getting through. The lads were pumped full of adrenaline and whatnot; they couldn't take new information on right now. It made sense why managers often communicated their thoughts to the media. Players would read it on the drive home, or the next morning, when it might sink in a little easier.

Danny thought I was mad at him. "Gills are good. That's a good point."

I inhaled. "That is a good point. It's a tough trip for any team, this, and we've outplayed them. How did the others get on?"

Alex Evans had been on the bench keeping track. "Everyone else lost, boss." He showed me the league table.

P GD Pts 20 Salford City 39 -16 38 21 Colchester 39 -13 36 22 Forest Green Rovers 39 -28 31 23 Grimsby Town 39 -23 30 24 Sutton United 39 -24 29

"That looks a tiny bit better. Progress. FGR are a shambles but the others have good managers. Okay, let in the physios and the rest, Coach O. I have to go chat to the media."

I had a decision to make. I'd definitely mention my thoughts on taking the ball into the corner, but was I going to get political? There were things I could say that would get me reputation points when it came to Grimsby and Chester, but would damage me when it came to Wrexham. One of the three teams could make me rich and famous a lot faster than the other two.

I tried not to be smirking when I went into the press room, but the truth was I knew I was going to do this the moment Chris Hale offered me the job and I looked at the fixture list.

***

Extract from Max Best's press conference.

Phil Harrison, BBC Radio Kent. Max, your first point in League Two. How do you feel?

I feel like we gave a good account of ourselves for the whole ninety minutes and there were a lot of characteristics on display that I value. Team work, work rate, togetherness. There was loads of that.

You lacked some quality in the final third.

No, I don't agree. If this was the first game of the season we'd have played the same way but with more exuberance and verve. As it is now the weight of the league table is crushing and it is affecting some of the decision-making.

Danny Flash going into the corner. You didn't like that.

Holding onto a point like that is not my style but I'm not a complete nutjob, whatever that website says. I do understand that the form and the league position and the pressure makes players want to hold onto that draw and we looked at the table just now and we're all very happy with that point. But it's three points for a win so going for the winner is worth the risk. All I'm saying is that if you attack with purpose you'll mess teams up. But there's other things that are important, too, and Danny Flash went to the corner for the team and worked extra hard to show that he's a team player. He's working his socks off to show who the real Danny Flash is and I think the fans responded to that today, so it wasn't perfect but you see a lot of good things happening with people starting to want to pull in the same direction.

You're still not happy with him.

I am. I'm not communicating it very well but I'm, like, made up that he's done that. He's thought to himself, what's the absolute best thing I can do for the team now? And he's done that. The only response to that is admiration. But if he's done it partly so I don't get sacked, I don't totally like that aspect of it. I'm just saying if you want to play Max Best football you have to play Max Best football, even if it gets me sacked.

Things would have been different if you'd scored that penalty.

The only time I want my teams to go for the corner is when they're shooting. Marcus is normally deadly from the spot. He hits it hard at the corner but today he's thought, whatever you do, get it on target. So he's taken a bit of pace off and he's aimed a little bit further inside the post and the keeper's pulled off a top save. If I could have spoken to him before he took it I'd have said do what you normally do and whatever happens, happens. But again, these things are happening because players are so desperate to do well and to lift the team. I wish I could make them believe me when I say I want them to go for it and I'll take the heat if it goes wrong.

If they played your way, what would be different?

There's the pen, there's going to the corner, there's a load of other things like one-on-one dribbles where the risk of messing it up is actually pretty low and the benefit of really committing to it is very high. We've got two weeks to talk about it as a team and really discuss it because they're happier than me right now and maybe their way is a better way to go. Grind out a few results and get to safety that way. I'm not against it. We'll make a team decision but I'll offer them two ways and we'll commit hard to the one we choose.

Why did you say two weeks? You've got Wrexham in a week.

We all know Wrexham are a giant lumbering juggernaut and they need wins to make sure they get automatic promotion. They are going to bombard us for ninety minutes and all we can realistically do is turtle up. We're going to defend for our lives and hope for a miracle. It'll give us a chance to rest some of our key players, too.

Okay but if you lose against Wrexham you could be out of a job. Resting your best players is a huge risk.

It's the right thing for the club. Some of these guys are running on fumes and they need a proper break. That's all there is to say, really. If I'm sacked because of it, the next manager will have a fantastic chance to get a few wins. My job's to do my job, not keep my job. Nah, I've already told some of the young defenders they'll be involved against Wrexham and we'll be doing a lot of defensive drills this week.

There's a lot of attention when Wrexham come to town thanks to their Hollywood owners and the documentary and they're Chester's big rivals and Grimsby have quite a bitter rivalry with them, too. Blundell Park will be bouncing. You must be excited.

I like the documentary and I think it's great how they've lifted that town, and no-one in Grimsby or Chester will thank me for saying that. I'm excited when a new season of the documentary drops but am I excited to play against the football club? Well, they've got the biggest budget in the league by far and if you ask a hundred people what they associate with Wrexham the team, ninety-nine will say long throws. Long throw-ins from their centre back, big diags to their big man up top, a lot of rough tackles if anyone dares break against them. It's like a pub team, isn't it? What will I say to my players on Monday? Lads, we're going to spend the week preparing like we're playing a pub team. If I spent twenty million pounds and found myself with the best pub team in the world, I think I'd be a little bit disappointed. Maybe I'm just jealous because I can't throw a ball really far and I don't have the nerve to ask my players to hit long diags to a big man while asking fans to pay twenty quid to watch it. But yeah, good luck to them.

***

Sunday, March 17

I bumped into my landlady on Sunday morning. I hadn't seen Angela much because she was always out and about doing things and now that the weather had improved, she spent long hours in the back garden. But she was out the front doing things in pots so I asked about extending my stay and did some admin.

"Where are you off to?" she asked.

"Going down the Wolds," I said.

"Lovely day for it."

"I haven't seen a hedgehog yet."

"You won't in the day. They're nocturnal."

I grunted. "How does everyone know everything about everything except me?"

Angela smiled. "I'm sure you know a thing or two. You never told me what your job was."

"I'm a teacher. He who teaches, learns. Do you like that phrase? I made it up myself."

"Did you? What are you going to be teaching this week?"

"Yeah," I said, to myself. "I'm not the one who needs to learn. I'm bloody amazing."

"Max, be honest. Do you do sports?"

"Yes," I said. "Football. What gave it away?"

"The kit bag."

"Right. Do you like footy?"

Angela clicked her garden scissors together like a happy lobster. "Of course I do! Up the Imps!"

My mouth dropped open so much you could have wedged half a dozen tartlets in there. "Ugh?" I said.

"The Imps," she said, confused. "Lincoln City. That's my team."

"Wow. Right. Of course. Er... see you later."

I frowned and wandered off. That imps comment had been almost as shocking as seeing a champion boxer in the Cheapside car park. Walking helped me shake the feeling off and soon I was turning onto a path I liked.

If I was being honest, how was I doing? Like, really?

I knew I wasn't quite a League Two manager, yet. Sure, I was doing well with the garbage I'd been given. But the Gillingham match had been uncomfortable. While we dominated it, I had felt like there was a fog of war hiding some of their methods from me. No doubt as I earned more experience points, I would be able to unlock perks that would give me clarity in those situations. Perks that would explain why some icons on the tactics screens had thick lines around them. Maybe when I was back in the real world I could sit with Sandra and Jackie and try to understand what I'd seen.

But that wasn't what I needed to think about. Having cut out the biggest shitheads and reduced the mole's power to zero, I had a functional team. We would compete in most of our matches - yes, even against Wrexham. Calling them a pub team was a calculated risk - it would annoy the shit out of them and make them come at us hard, but the Grimsby fans would love it and it went without saying that I'd get a warm reception back home.

The world of the Wolds was so quiet. Sometimes I heard the low hum of a distant plane. Sometimes a breeze rustled through branches. The training ground could get like this when the players were really focused on their tasks. And on the training ground they loved playing Max Best football. They were fast, energetic, dynamic. Of course it was different in a stadium with thousands of people watching and jeering. I had to accept that there would be a difference between what the players wanted to do and what their shitty brains would let them do.

The indecisiveness in attack, though. The willingness to scrape a nil-nil instead of being bold. I wanted fearless football, but how could I explain it in the short time I had? What metaphor could I use?

I looked around. Trees were a good image. You could always use a tree. Nature. The circle of life. The Life of Brian. Brian Blessed. Blessed be thy name. The Name of the Wind. Wind chimes. The chimes they are a'changing.

With a shake of the head, I rested a foot on a gate. The ideas just weren't coming. Not the good ones, anyway.

And it looked like the imps had finally run out of ideas, too. There still hadn't been a monthly perk. I took my phone out and battled the shit reception to bring up a list of special days for March. One stood out that I hadn't paid attention to before: World Down Syndrome Day, March 21st. This Thursday. There had been some news item on the Grimsby Town website, hadn't there? The page loaded slowly... and yes! There it was.

I jogged back to the AirBnB and no sooner had I closed the door behind me than I started hammering the phones. The first call was obvious. "Brig? You got a minute? I need your help."

***

Coach Ollie to A Squad: Message from Max Best. A Squad are training this week as normal except Thursday (21st). Extra training on Thursday will take place in the evening. Make arrangements. This is not a joke.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

***

Unrelated to my calls, I got a text from Brooke.

Max, hope you are well. Sorry to disturb your Sunday but I had an idea for a campaign for season ticket sales and general promotion. I pitched it to MD and he loves it. When will you be back? If we can talk about it soon we can do the prep and have it ready for the last games.

I looked around my AirBnB room where I'd spent so much time moodily leaning against the window or staring up at the ceiling. Feeling that I'd made Brooke feel as shit as the twats in Grimsby had made me feel was, ah, emotional. All she'd done since she got the job was graft and do more than she had to. Okay so she was doing it to prove me wrong, but so what? Tons of people wanted to prove me wrong and never did the first fucking thing about it.

I got my phone out, hesitated, and hammered my fingers against the screen.

Me: Whatever it is, go for it.

Then I spent three minutes wondering if I wanted to add a lasso emoji to the end. I decided that I did.

***

On Monday we practised defending long throws and set pieces. I asked the Dannys if they would post on social media along the lines of, 'Just done training. Great preparation for the Wrexham match. The boss brought in a Sunday League team and we played against them.' They thought it was hilarious and soon the whole team was plotting. Why not actually bring a Sunday League team in? We only needed to line them up and stage a few photos.

On Tuesday we practised defending set pieces, long throws, and shuffles and slides.

On Wednesday, more of the same, but watched by a load of randos in an old blue-and-red away top the kit man found. If you weren't a Town megafan you'd have sworn it was a Sunday League kit. We staged the photos and had lunch with the actors - all Town fans. As fun as the 'Wrexham are a pub team' bit was, the week's training had been genuinely tough and not all that much fun. I popped over to where Danny Flash was charming a couple of the randos. "Bet you wish you were back in B Group."

"No, boss," he said, with a big chunk of chicken on his fork. "It's all lush."

I twisted my neck, expecting to hear a click. I'd been doing lots of shouting, lots of berating. It didn't come naturally and Ollie wasn't much help with it, but the worst was over. "All right, that's good. Tomorrow's going to be different. We're going to get proper weird. Make sure you get a good night's sleep."

***

On Thursday I broke my self-imposed rule about not getting outside help. The A squad warmed up, then lined up halfway between the corner flag and the centre line.

"All right, lads," I said, wearing a zipped hoodie for a change. "This is Pascal and Youngster from the all-conquering Chester team, and that's my Head of Shouting. We call him the Brig. They're going to help me with a new drill I've invented. It's called, If You Can Stop Me You Can Stop Anyone." I left a couple of beats while the name sank in, then unzipped myself, revealing a Best 77 Chester kit. "Behold!" I said, laughing at my own arrogance. "Here's the game. I start at the halfway line. I score, I get two points. You stop me and clear to the halfway line, you get one point. The first three victims are up." Danny Flash, Otis, and one of the Gregs were between me and the goal. I pointed to the right and everyone looked. "Now, over there we've got - "

I moved the ball out from under my feet and chipped it into the empty goal.

"Two-nil!" I yelled. "Subs!"

Those three guys trudged off to much mockery from the rest. The next three got a bit more organised with one player starting as close to me as I'd allow so I couldn't get a quick shot off.

I put the whistle in my mouth, blew it, and exploded. Feint left, push right, smash the ball.

"Four-nil!" called Pascal.

"Next!" I yelled.

This time two players came close with the third behind, sweeping. I ran parallel to the first two, cut back at an insane angle, flicked the ball between them at shin height, then did a huge shimmy to leave the third one on his arse.

The next set finally managed to score a point. Time to change it up. "You get a mate, I get a mate."

The defenders numbered four, now, but I had Pascal.

With a fast, clever player on my side, I switched to quarterback mode, gliding left and right before playing through balls or chips. The momentum swung massively back in my favour, and once again it took Grimsby time to get things together.

When I added Youngster to my team, I let Grimsby line up in a full 4-4-2 with a goalie. The three of us took the piss for a few minutes because my boys knew exactly what I could do and what I wanted them to do. One dizzying little piece of interplay ended with me through on goal, dumping the keeper on his arse, then playing it square for Pascal to tap into the empty net. It drew applause from the Grimsby guys and Pascal's CA improved. And why not? He was training with a League Two side on League Two facilities! How had I not thought of this before?

Oh, yeah. Because I was too busy wheelbarrowing away all the toxic sludge.

"John Windmill, Coach O," I called. They came over. "Three non-league hacks are taking the piss. Can you fucking try and get it together, please?"

Ollie nodded, but put his hands out. "Boss. Not to come across all... mole-y... but if this is prep for Wrexham can you tell us the formation?"

I looked down and thought about it. Wrexham never changed formation so there was no reason to be coy. Plus it was in my interest to let everyone know how defensively we'd be playing. "4-5-1 low block. Make sure you tell everyone, but don't say who's starting."

"I don't know who's starting."

"Exactly."

With the guys lined up in the right shape and after a blast from John Windmill and some encouragement from Otis King, the defence got noticeably harder. My favourite word was back: obdurate.

With Youngster and Pascal scampering around making runs and decoy runs, I dribbled and feinted, but mostly I blew my whistle. "Conor! You're miles out! Alex! You've left your zone. You've got to pass him on to the next man! Jayden, we talked about that! That's what they want you to do!"

I kept pressing and pushing and when I was satisfied that the lads would give Wrexham a tough time, decided to finish with one last piece of showing off. I bought some space and smashed the ball at the top left-hand corner. I was already crowing about it when Sam Crichlow launched himself like a salmon and touched it onto the top of the bar.

That got the biggest round of applause yet - the ideal time to end the session.

Youngster had gained a point in CA, too, making it pretty much the perfect morning. Whether the squad would be as impressed by what I had for them in the evening, I didn't know.

I brought my guys out to the Brig's car and thanked him profusely.

He said it was nothing and he enjoyed it.

"Can we do it again? With some of the women?" I was thinking of boosting a few of them before their big match against Altrincham.

"If you wish, sir." Without moving his head, he checked the area and lowered his voice. "I'm ready to assist with the other thing, sir."

I turned my head. There were no players, only their cars. "I think I'll crack the case if I'm here long enough."

"Good luck."

***

Emma: You were on that podcast again. I hope you're all right.

Me: I am, I promise. I admit I lied all the other times I said I was doing well, but now I really am. Super super double promise, for reals and reals.

I went to Pocket Casts and downloaded the latest episode of Pyramid Schemers, the podcast dedicated to the 72 teams in the EFL - in other words, not the top twenty.

***

Rocky: And that's why I'm backing Leicester to win by at least two goals at ten to one. What have you got for BTTS, mate?

Mike: I'm looking at a top versus bottom clash in League Two. We know that Wrexham sometimes underperform away from home, but they always score. And they are playing Grimsby Town.

Rocky: Fresh off a goalless draw against Gills.

Mike: But if you look at the underlying numbers...

Rocky: What are you doing?

Mike: Waiting for you to interrupt.

Rocky: Never interrupt your friend when he's making a mistake.

Mike: The underlying numbers since Max Best took over are really quite good. They outperformed Sutton, MK Dons, and Gills in almost every metric. There was a graphic doing the rounds of the expected threat charts from the three games before Best took charge and the three after, and it's almost unbelievable that you're looking at the same team. You can tell how much things have changed from the bookies' odds for who will go down. When Best took over, Grimsby were rated 88% likely on the BetItAll exchange. That's gone down to 65%. The bookmakers are looking at the trends and the coming matches and thinking, hey, this team's moving in the right direction. And if there's one thing we know about Max Best, it's that he'll attack.

Rocky: He's been saying they'll defend for their lives and he'll rest his key players.

Mike: He's also been filming himself trying to find someone on the staff who can do long throws. The groundsman and a delivery driver. He's a wind-up merchant.

Rocky: By the way. Calling Wrexham a pub team. Bit immature?

Mike: Very much so.

Rocky: Quite funny?

Mike: Objectively funny. [They giggle.] This is a Grimsby team that played mostly defensive formations for three or four years and in his first two matches, Best had them doing 4-2-4. And we know there's bad blood between these Grimsby players and Wrexham. I think they'll be up for it, I think they'll go for goals, and I think they'll score. So Grimsby versus Wrexham is my Both Teams To Score pick at fifteen to two.

***

The players came back to Cheapside at six and I made them get on the team bus. The driver had warmed to me since our slight altercation after the Sutton match, and he was more than happy to get extra work. He drove us to our home stadium, Blundell Park, and I led the team through the inner sanctums and out onto the pitch. A bunch of randos were warming up.

I formed the lads into a semi-circle.

"Today's World Down Syndrome Day and there's more than a few Down's players in GTACFC. Any of you fucks know what that is?"

Danny Flash put his hand up. "Grimsby Town Ability Counts FC, boss."

"Wow. One point to Danny."

"What can I do with the points?"

"Spend three points to buy exemption from banishment."

"How do I get more points?"

"By shutting up when I'm trying to explain why we're here. Jesus Christ." I made a big show of massaging my forehead. "There's two teams here. One's Grimsby Town, one's a local community centre thing. They were doing a match in some park to raise awareness but I've hijacked it and moved it here and told the organisers they get to meet loads of famous Dannys and Gregs if they let me mess about with their players. We're going to do a bit of an experiment tonight. It will only work if you actually make an effort so I'm going to use what I call the carrot and dick approach. The carrot is, the best performer wins a set of steak knives. The dick is, if you don't take this seriously you get dicked to the B team. Any questions so far?"

"No, boss," said John Windmill. He was throwing himself into the leadership role and seemed like exactly the right fit for what I needed from this group. That would be very, very helpful when it came time to use Triple Captain.

"Here's what's going to happen later. You are going to manage a team and I am going to manage the other team. The losers," I said, pointing to them, "will take the winner," I pointed to myself, "to Nando's or some restaurant with a hot waitress."

"Boss, that's not fair," said Conor Quinn. "We don't know how to manage!"

"4-4-2 keep it tight first ten," I said, with fake heat. "What the fuck? It's a piece of piss. Now, I thought you might whine like a load of little bitches so I've designed it to make it easy for you. I'm going to give you every advantage. All right? First you're going to get to know the players, then you can choose any eleven you want. I'll take the rest. Like, it couldn't be more outrageously in your favour."

"But you know the players," said Tommy Blair.

I howled. "How the hell would I know them? I just got here, same as you. I've never laid eyes on the fucking Grimsby Town para team, for fuck's sake! You can ask their coaches. Exceptional students need exceptional teachers and these idiots seem to think you lot are God's gift to football so don't you fucking let them down. Right," I said, slapping my palms. "Break into four teams. Lead one of these four squads through their basic drills. Pay special attention to the strengths and weaknesses of the players. You may not ask them what position they play. You may not talk to their coaches about them. The coaches are there simply to make sure you don't fuck them up with dumb instructions. You have fifteen minutes to learn as much as you can about these players. Get going."

While the guys did as they were told, I took a minute to scan the player profiles. The curse was still rating everyone either 1, 10, or 20 in every attribute, but I was getting morale and condition scores from the disabled players, now. Progress, though I couldn't really expect more. I hadn't spent much time with the Chester Knights or watching para football.

There were quite a few people in the main stand - a couple of hundred maybe. Friends and family of the players. They were going to have a good night, and so were the para players. They were being coached by Danny Flash and Danny Grant on the hallowed turf!

Fifteen minutes later, I whistled to summon the lads.

"Okay, that was top. Lots of happy, smiling faces. That's good. The volunteers are setting out cones in three drills. Defenders go there on the left. That's Jab Jab Hook. Remember? Short pass, short pass, long pass. You're going to teach them that drill. Yeah? Next one, in the middle there. That's midfielders. Remember the Floatin' Totem drill I taught you? You're going to do that. Strikers over there. That's Run and Gun. We'll do like five minutes on each drill and rotate the groups. You stay where you are. Oh, and Sam, there are two goalies over there. Do goalie things. Everyone happy? Yes?" I clapped my hand and John Windmill copied me.

This was bedlam for a while - five minutes wasn't enough to explain the drills and get the amateurs to practise, but it wasn't really about the para players. This was he who teaches, learns on a large, experimental scale. In striving to explain the drills, the first team would understand them better. Right?

After fifteen minutes that honestly looked like a lot of fun, I whistled and brought the guys back.

"Merge into two groups. I don't want young versus old or bad haircuts versus good. Mix up. Then pick seven para players each. Those seven will be your team. Top manager hint - you might want to grab a goalie, and you might want to pick the guys you think are best. We're going to have a seven-a-side game so you can see the players in action. Choose wisely!"

It was fascinating to watch the discussions and I wish I had fifteen cameras tracking all the conversations like in a reality TV show. It felt better that I stayed on the fringes, though. My job was to make sure the process went smoothly and no-one ended up in tears.

When they'd picked seven each, we played a ten-minute short-sided game which turned into John Windmill versus Danny Flash. Windmill's team won and he celebrated with high fives for his players and co-managers.

Very happy with how things were going, I called the first team in again.

"This is going great. Who knew Danny Flash was a natural coach? All right. It's Grimsby versus Max Best - what's new? I reckon John and Danny will make good co-managers. Knock your heads together and pick the eleven players you want. Then take them over there and set them up in a formation."

"Boss," said Windmill. "We don't know what positions they play."

"Why not? You've been watching them for half an hour. I met a former boxer and he sussed me out from top to bottom in three seconds. Didn't he, Danny?"

"Yeah, but, it's different."

"It's not. Stop bleating and get on with it."

While they were deliberating, I gathered the rest of the para players around a tactics board, set them up in a 4-3-3 - no curse assistance for the tactics, here - and gave them some individual instructions.

A few minutes later the match started in earnest and the para players crashed into each other as usual, dashing around the pristine grass. Part of me regretted moving the event to Blundell Park - the pitch was far too big for players of the standard, but at least they'd get a good memory out of it and the ones who scored would treasure the memory.

It didn't take long for my team to take control of the game and it was pretty funny watching John and Danny struggle to understand why their first-choice eleven was getting dicked.

When the score hit four-nil I took pity on the co-managers, and - more importantly - the losing team. I blew to get everyone close to me.

"Well played, everyone. Now, the Grimsby Town first team are thinking this is some sort of scam and I've somehow made them choose the wrong players. So I want to switch management teams. John and Danny will manage you guys, and I'll go over there and manage you guys. All right? Good. Actually, why don't you change ends so I can stay here and I don't have to move my tactics board?"

My new eleven came over. I wanted to put them in an absolutely crazy formation I felt sure would beat my former team, but winning wasn't actually the point, here. I put them in a 5-3-2 and encouraged the three midfielders to run forward to join attacks, and told the defenders to hit long balls for the strikers to chase. To play like a pub team, in fact.

My former team were still set up well - John and Danny had cleverly not changed anything - and they scored the first goal of this new match. But then my guys came into the match more and the tide turned. We got two goals ahead and I blew to pause the action.

I jogged over to the Grimsby Town first team. "Right. You lot are going to go on the pitch and help out. Don't kick the ball, don't get in the way. But in breaks and whatnot I want you there giving advice and encouragement. Okay? Sam, goalie. Jayden and Conor, with your guys it's all about when to tuck in, when to hold, when to bomb down the wing. Yeah? John and Otis - your guys are up against a big strong guy and a fast little pest."

"You want me with the centre backs?" said Otis.

"Yeah because Ed, you were a striker, right? You, Marcus, and Danny F, you take a striker each. The main things are movement and supporting each other with runs, but most of all, keeping their head up. So they miss a chance. Who gives a shit? Get the next one, right? Midfielders. It's all about balance. My team's midfield like to get forward so are you dropping back to help? But then you're pinned back. So do you stick to space to dick them on breaks? Think about it. All right, let's get on with it."

I blew the whistle and it was pretty crazy. The team on the left looked like it had eighteen players, and there were too many bodies everywhere. If I'd had more time to think it through I might have got some spy earphones for the players to wear so their mentors could coach them by audio and leave the pitch clear.

"John," I said, and he came closer. "This is great but let's have it so you can only have, like, four mentors on the pitch at once. You rotate them on and off."

"Rolling coaches?" he said, laughing.

"Rolling coaches."

I let the game flow. No more interruptions. I was checking my phone to see how long we had left - not long - when the bus driver came closer to my dugout. "Reckon I know the formation you're going to use on Saturday."

I smiled. I wondered if I'd been too obvious. "I wouldn't bet on it."

"Oh," he said, and he seemed genuinely disappointed.

"Are you the mole?"

"No," he sighed. "It's easy money, though, innit? If you line up like that against Wrexham they'll batter you. Even a bus driver knows that." For a minute, the only noise was the sound of the players shouting for the ball and crashing into each other. A weak shot was met by a cry of dismay from the striker. Marcus Wainwright knelt to gee him up. I could almost read his lips. 'Let it slide off you. Blank slate.' The bus driver saw it, too. "This is right smart, this."

I smiled. "Thanks, man. It means a lot coming from you."

He shook his head and moved away, paused, checked to see if I was still smiling at him, and finally shook his head again. He was laughing, though.

***

Friday, March 22

The imps finally thought up a good monthly perk and it was available when I woke up. I read it and went to the web page I had been looking at a lot recently. Apparently, the 22nd of March was International Day of the Seal. They could have given me a bonus for managing a team with a seal nickname, but what they came up with was pretty attractive.

Unmissable Special Offer

New perk available for the month of March: Seal It Up

Cost: 4,004 XP

Effects: Once per match, your defenders gain plus one positioning for a fifteen-minute period. Defensive midfielders do not count as defenders, but wing backs and sweepers do.

Sighing, I did some maths. After the Wrexham match, I would be about 1,560 XP short of affording this. If I was still in charge against Barrow, I would be about 800 short.

I mean, I absolutely could find 800 extra XP by the end of the month. But that was the whole thing with Nick and the imps. Dangle the juiciest carrots to keep me on the treadmill. If I bought this one, the next one would be equally tempting and I would never get closer to saving up for WibWob. But then again, WibWob would always be in the shop and this one would vanish if I didn't get it in the next nine days.

I clicked my tongue a few times, but then closed all my screens. I wasn't sure what to do with this offer. I had to concentrate on the Wrexham match - it would define how my time at Grimsby would be perceived.

Plus one positioning for my defenders, though. That'd be really helpful in a first half like the one that was coming... Maybe I'd have a little explore of Grimsby's Sunday League and five-a-side scene. Just in case I decided to go for the perk, like.

***

Saturday, March 23

Match 4 of 10: Grimsby Town versus Moneybags Wrexham

Extract from the pre-match pressers

Max, you've named a strange team. Some players you haven't even had in the matchday squads so far. What are you thinking?

Look, I know this is a big game because of the rivalry between Grimsby and Wrexham but I have to take a holistic view and admit that a draw is the best we can do. Yeah, gammons, I said holistic. Ooh! Lock him up! So I've been saying the whole week that we would go defensive and we'd turtle up. And that's what I'm doing. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Why does no-one ever listen? If I had more defenders in the squad they'd be in the team.

The noises coming out of the Wrexham camp have been pretty strong. They're not happy with some of the things you've been saying.

What, they're mad I said holistic? Look, some people think it's a bit poncy or whatever but it's a really good word. I don't know a better way to say that I'm taking a holistic view. Complete view? It doesn't mean what I want it to mean. If Wrexham don't like how I use English they can go and make their own language. All right? Talk to you later.

***

Paul, how do you feel about today?

A lot's been said about us and our team and we're here to shut a few people up. Some people who haven't achieved anything in this game, got overpromoted, got a bit ahead of themselves. People need to learn to watch what they say.

You're angry. Did Max Best get under your skin?

We're battling for the title and automatic promotion. It's just another game to us. A game against a team at the bottom of the league. That's all.

***

In the dressing room, I ambled around, talking to people. Then came the five-minute warning. "All right, lads. Motivation time. My favourite movie is called Falling Down. It's about a man who gets fired and goes apeshit. I think it's set in Grimsby, can't remember. The guy needs to make a phone call and the shop guy won't give him change and the guy gets angry so the shop guy whips out a baseball bat. The guy takes the baseball bat and smashes up the shop. Later two gang members threaten him with a knife. He takes the knife. They come back with a gun. He takes the gun and shoots them. Do you get it? It's all about enemies and taking their weapons from them. We all know Wrexham are a long-throw team, so I thought, let's have a long throw specialist of our own and that's why I've picked Hurlin' Merlin Luke Walsh to be the striker."

The seventeen-year-old CA 38 forward turned red. "I can't do a long throw!"

"Oh?" I said, casually. "Huh. Never mind. You can press, though, right?"

"Yes."

"Top. Forget the movie thing. Defend for your lives. Press the long ball merchants. First half's going to be brutal, guys. You're going to suffer. Enjoy it."

***

Paul Parker, the Wrexham manager, who by the way gave me permission to use his real name, was in a grump. Something had upset him and he'd picked his strongest team in their usual 5-3-2. Not exactly ideal but Wrexham's next match, on the coming Friday, was against Mansfield, one of their two big rivals for the season. My hope was that if they were winning at half time, he would sub off his star strikers Phil Muggles and Oliver Hardy, who also gave me permission to use their real names. Thanks, lads.

Not that who they picked mattered all that much. Wrexham's average CA was 90, but they had a hugely strong bench and whatever changes they made wouldn't weaken them a great deal. Muggles was something of a wizard and a difference maker so if we could get rid of him, that would be amazing. But the fact that they had top players in almost every position seemed an almost insurmountable problem. Still, I'd give it a jolly old try.

Or maybe I wouldn't.

The Grimsby team that took to the pitch had an average CA of 68.5. They were set up in a 4-5-1 formation with men behind ball and ultra-defensive individual instructions.

There was Sam in goal and a solid centre back pairing of Ed Williams and the captain, John Windmill. On the left, Jayden. So far, so good. The right back, though, because Caine the traitor had blown a hole in the squad, could only be filled by Richard Terry-Thomas, a CA and PA 56 right midfielder. I wasn't too worried about him doing his defensive duties, though of course he was a dead end if we intended to progress the ball. (Spoiler alert - picking the weakest team seen in the league that year should tell you everything you need to know about my intentions.)

The midfield had the left back Grimwood at left mid and the defensively-minded Devonte Payne at right mid. I set them to mark the Wrexham full backs. I hoped that would mess up their plans somewhat, since those guys were the only true width they had.

My central midfield of Mehew, Otis King, and the centre back prodigy Tom Hickman had a decent balance of experience and energy. Wrexham's three were miles better, obviously, but we could make life hard for them. Hickman knew he would only play the first half so he could go all out.

Up front, as you've heard, was poor Luke Walsh. His job was to run around a lot and be a nuisance. He'd also been told he would only play the first half.

I sat in my dugout next to a line of really quite good players: Conor Quinn, Alex Evans, Danny Grant, Marcus Wainwright, and Danny Flash. Okay, four good players and one idiot.

They didn't know what was coming, but I'm sure you've worked it out.

I smashed Triple Captain and Bench Boost and prepared to suffer for forty-five long minutes.

***

The thing about plans is how quickly they can fall apart. I wanted an absolutely tedious first half, completely flat, everyone miserable. That was the best possible case for what I had planned, for the story I was trying to tell.

But the atmosphere was electric. Grimsby and Wrexham had developed a rivalry when they were both scrapping hard to get out of the National League and there was a real feel that this was a grudge match. Every tackle or header was cheered and every foul was celebrated.

There were 2,200 Wrexham fans in, which is enormous really, and they were making a hell of a din. The home lot were riled up enough to match them song for song.

So when the referee came over to me after five minutes, the vibe got to me and I went from nought to sixty in two seconds.

"I haven't done anything! I'm just sat here!"

He motioned for me to calm down. "We've got a problem over here, Best."

"What?" I said, looking in the direction he was pointing.

"There's, like, a load of Chester in."

"What?" I couldn't understand what he was saying.

He pulled me onto the pitch so I could see better. He'd probably give me a yellow card for leaving my technical area, I grumbled internally. He pointed to pockets of the home support where there were blue and white shirts. "There. There. And half the Pontoon. They've organised in secret, I reckon, and snuck in. Now their coats are off and they're making a racket."

"Fuck me," I said. There were hundreds of Chester fans in! "We've got a home game today. Against South Shields. What the fuck are they playing at?"

"Can you talk to them? If there's a hint of trouble I'll have to abandon the game. We can't have three sets of fans having a ruck."

"They don't listen to me," I said, starting to catastrophise. If this match had to be replayed, I wouldn't get my perks back. My entire strategy was based on Bench Boost.

"Yeah? Why they singing your name non-stop, then?"

"Huh? All right, I'll go see what's up."

"We'll wait for you."

"Nah, you're okay. Just let my physio on after any of Wrexham's trademark flying elbows. I won't be long anyway."

He shrugged and ran off. Scratching my head, I passed the Wrexham dugout as I headed to the Pontoon, the terrace with the black and white seats. I slowed as I passed Wrexham's bench. They had a tall, brown-haired American centre back with good technical qualities just wasting away. He hadn't played much and his contract was running out. Could I...? I shook it off. This wasn't Director of Football time. This was keeping the mob acquiescent time.

Fat chance.

As I approached the Pontoon, the volume rose to rock concert levels. "Max Best's blue and white army! Max Best's blue and white army!"

There was a patch of noise from my right and when I looked, about twenty Chester fans jumped up and down as though I'd scored. I couldn't help but beam, even if that was maybe not what the Grimsby fans needed to see. I pushed my palms down. 'Behave, you lot'. They sat and there were more laughs than frowns from the nearby Grimbarians, especially when I made eye contact with one and made a gesture meaning, 'who invited them?'.

In the Pontoon, hundreds of Chester fans had congealed into a mass behind the goal. I tried to pick out a few familiar faces and finally saw J, the podcaster. I clambered over the barriers and even though I got close to him, I had to shout to be heard.

"What the fuck is going on?"

"We've come to watch you beat Wrexham!"

"That's mental."

"Yeah!" he said, laughing and nodding.

"Is there going to be trouble?"

"With the Grims? Don't think so. Common enemy and all that."

"We can't have any trouble, J. I mean it. Anyone starting shit here gets banned from the Deva. If you want to see me mess Wrexham up, you all need to behave. Pass the word, yeah?"

"You're going for it then, yeah? We knew you was up to something when you said you weren't gonna try."

I jabbed my thumb behind me. "That's the worst team I could have picked. All out defence, this. It's gonna be a shit first half. I wasn't joking about turtling up."

"Oh."

"Just keep a lid on it. Play nice." I clambered away, but turned back to say one last thing. "While you're spreading the word, though. Make sure no-one leaves."

He gave me a blank look that morphed, ever so slowly, into a smile. He jumped around. "I knew it! I knew it!" The crowd in the area had quietened, straining to hear our conversation, wondering what was going on. As I walked away, J burst into song. Naturally, he chose "We hate Wrexham." The Chester fans picked it up, followed by the Grimsby hardcore, followed by most of the normos, too.

As I passed a hard-faced Paul Parker, three-quarters of the stadium finished on a unified shout of, "we are the Wrexham HATERS!" I gave the referee a Maxy Two-Thumbs.

I had everything under control.

***

The first half was brutal in many ways. Wrexham were a collection of massive human beings, but there were no Pascal Bochums in the Grimsby squad. Every header was contested, every tackle was thunderous, and it became clear to me how this Grimsby squad had ended Wrexham's first Hollywood season - with blood, sweat, and tears in a time before a bunch of bad apples were poured into the sack. Most of both starting elevens had played in the National League, and at times it looked like a non-league affair, even if one team had four players on five grand a week or more.

The midfield was chaotic at the best of times, and putting the three young players into the firing line fired them up way more than I'd intended. Maybe it was the occasion, maybe it was the effect of Triple Captain, but they ran and pressed and tackled like their careers depended on it. And the more they battled, the more the home fans and one set of away fans cheered.

But we didn't get in Wrexham's half and their constant pressure finally told. They scored in the thirty-seventh minute. The critical moment. Would our heads drop? At Chester we'd have shrugged it off. This Grimsby lot had been through disappointment after disappointment. I couldn't have blamed them if they'd shipped another couple of goals.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I broke a vow I'd made long ago and did the most inane and pointless thing a manager can do - I clapped my hands and tried to gee my team up with vapid gestures.

There was no need; these guys wouldn't quit so easily. They fought tooth and nail and their reward was the half time whistle.

The home fans didn't cheer, but they didn't boo either, and there was some applause directed at the young battlers.

I was fucking stoked. That couldn't have gone any better. Now, as the Wrexham fans lustily sang 'Going down!', I had to keep a dour face all the way to the dressing room and hope that Wrexham decided to rest Phil Muggles before their top-of-the-table clash six days from now.

I held the door open for a few players, as sombre as a funeral usher. Finally, I closed it.

"Lads," I said, suddenly grinning from ear to ear. "Fucking top. I'm over the moon. That was amazing. Luke? You're a fucking pain in the arse! Tom? Alfie? They'll be sick of the sight of you. Haaa! Okay, I'm hyper. We all need to get calm. Don't spend your energy in here, yeah? Get your liquids in you and have a break. Who needs a leg rub?"

Five minutes passed, then five more, but Muggles remained on Wrexham's tactics screen. I wasn't sure who to be more mad at - Paul Parker for never changing his formation and never subbing Muggles off, or me, for hoping this would be the first time. Well, hope for the best, plan for the worst. I'd done that, at least.

With a couple of minutes before the second half, I kicked the physios out and gathered the players into one section of the dressing room where I could properly make eye contact as I was talking.

"Right. Real talk, now. My favourite movie is called Falling Down. It's about a guy whose life is falling apart. He chooses to take back control in the most self-destructive way possible." I blinked as my entry on the job information screen briefly changed to 'very insecure' before settling back to 'insecure'. "Is Chris Hale here today?"

"Yes, boss."

I laughed. "Right. Of course. So look. The hero of the movie is really the villain. People don't understand it's a black comedy. It's really a funny movie but what it's about is that yeah, maybe if you stand up for yourself things will go to shit. And if the world wants to make things hard for you, you really don't have a fucking say in the matter. All right? But you can choose if you stick up for yourself or not. I'm not gonna lie and say that I don't identify with the guy. I kinda maybe sometimes think the world is maybe against me just a little bit." Some smiles from the lads. "But the guy in the movie gets to choose how he goes out. That's the most heroic part about it. And I want to choose how I go out. Is that all right with you? Danny Flash?"

"Yes, Max."

I made chopping gestures as I spoke. "I want you to attack these fuckers with everything you've got. I want you to smash with speed and energy. I want you to rip them a new one. Yes, you've still got to defend their shitty long throws and big diags. You've got to do all that and so you do that. But when we break I want to see purpose and direction. We don't go for the corner. We don't waste time. When we get the ball, the question is, how do we score?"

Someone knocked on the door and said, "Time, lads."

"How do we score? Pick an option and then fucking go for it with all your heart. Remember our drills. The Art of Slapping. Jab Jab Hook. Run and Gun. Totem. Or Danny G? Fucking welly it from thirty yards if it sits up nice. Feel it or think it, just do it. John, bring them out."

"You mean Alex, right? He's coming on second half."

"Not quite yet... but anyway you're full time now. My last act as Grimsby manager is to anoint you. You have been... Max blessed. Now get on with it."

***

A weird thing happened as the teams started to emerge from the tunnel. The half time music had faded to nothing about a minute before, which many took as my work since I had been seen talking to the entertainment guy. I have been advised to deny that conversation ever happened and I shall continue to deny it until the statute of limitations runs out.

Quick note about English football's attitude to in-game hype music - it's not allowed and it's not wanted. Every fan from the pinkest gammon to the handsomest vegan hotdog munching megabrain doesn't want it to happen. But there aren't such strict rules for what's played at half time.

I mean, I assume there aren't. It doesn't affect me since I've never given it a moment's thought, ever, not even once.

So as the teams emerged from the tunnel, the public address system played a recording. Not music, but clips taken from Welcome to Wrexham series one. If you haven't seen it, there's an episode where the manager Paul Parker is under threat and there's plenty of chat about sacking him, much of it in the voice of the famous Hollywood stars who own Wrexham.

Inexplicably, clips from that episode blasted out all around the stadium. It finished with the more famous of the two actors saying, "I want to get a t-shirt made that says 'Parker out'."

Now, some people took this little prank the wrong way, notably the Wrexham players and staff and the restart of the match was delayed while they sort of pointed at me and called me names a bit. Which was surprising because, as you know, I had nothing to do with it. My job status touched 'very insecure'. I imagined Chris Hale up in his VIP box talking to some bigshots from Wrexham. No doubt Chris was apologising and promising to punish me and whatnot while the Wrexhammers pretended it wasn't bothering them.

As much as the manager and players were steaming and the away fans were seething, the home fans and the Chester mob were loving it. All the energy that had been lost because of our abject first half display - no shots in a half from a Max Best team! - came back in spades. Still Paul Parker didn't show any sign of taking Phil Muggles off, but I decided I would give it a minute just in case he was waiting to see if I made the first move.

The ref got control and the match kicked off with both teams shooting towards their own fans. The first tackle set the tone - it was hard bordering on illegal. Play went on and Wrexham got a throw halfway inside our half which their centre back went over to take, producing howls of derision from six thousand people. Two thousand away fans rose as the famous 'Wrexham Pinball' mini-game commenced, and the remaining six thousand cheered as the ball was cleared.

Just as the frantic energy dipped, I handed the fourth official a note saying which changes I wanted. When there was a break in play, the ref blew his whistle and all eyes turned to the space by the halfway line where I had five guys ready to come on.

The Chester fans saw that I was making all my subs in one go and went mad. Like, properly mad. They jumped around and cheered, and banged the sides of the Pontoon. I knew what they were reacting to. They were going, 'Max is doing a thing!' But to the Grimsby and Wrexham fans it was inexplicable stuff and, alongside all the annoying things I'd been doing, it unnerved the away team.

I switched to 4-1-4-1 but kept the low block. Our new CA was 81, but five of our guys had been bench boosted. I did the usual Grant to Wainwright Cupid's Arrow and waited for the right moment to unleash hell.

Wrexham with a throw in the Grimsby half.

Their captain goes to take it.

He launches it in the direction of Hardy.

Williams heads clear.

Grimsby have changed formation and adopted an attacking mentality.

Williams and Flash are racing forward to support Wainwright.

Evans rolls back the years with a burst of pace.

He finds Grant.

Delicious first time ball forward from Grant!

He fizzes it to Wainwright. Wainwright with a neat layoff to Flash.

Williams has made up the ground. He goes on the overlap.

Wrexham are struggling to get men back. They didn't expect this!

Flash chips the ball left to Wainwright. He cocks his leg...

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

An equaliser out of nowhere! Grimsby score with their first shot of the game!

Switching to 4-3-3 mid-move had worked like a charm. I switched right back to 4-1-4-1. There was zero chance anyone from Wrexham would spot we had been playing a different formation for those last ten seconds. Zero.

The stadium was absolutely rocking, now. Rocking. Bouncing. Can stadiums bounce? Er... yes, mate. Very much yes on that one.

I was the calmest man in the postcode. I'd done my shithousery and my mind games and got Wrexham and my players riled up, and now I was back to being what I always wanted from this Grimsby trip - a humble technocrat pulling levers one at a time in order to maximise reward while minimising risk. Just a process, mate. No drama.

The celebrations ended and the team came back. Muggles kicked off, the ball was played back to their right back, and he launched it skywards. There followed a phase of play so ugly it would qualify for cosmetic surgery on the National Health Service. The upshot was that we got possession and I unchained us from the men behind ball setting. We strung a few passes around, finding space all over the pitch.

We had a lovely little phase of Max Best football, now, with Alex Evans doing a good impression of me as DM, Otis Evans the Raffi Brown, and Danny Grant the Ryan Jack. Ryan Jack if he was young, fast, and good-looking!

I was starting to enjoy myself, and so were the home fans. Paul Parker and his tactics guy had realised that we weren't doing 4-5-1 and bellowed out some new instructions and some tweaks. As the messages were passed around, I waited for the perfect moment to switch us back to 4-3-3.

How about... now?

Ed Williams jogged forward from centre back to striker, Otis dropped to centre back, Mehew became the left-sided of the central midfielders, and Evans pushed to be a straight up CM.

It was fucking crazy how elegant it was. But did it work, Max? That's all we care about. Show us the money!

Ward races forward on the left.

Nice one-two with Mehew.

Ward continues. The full back comes to challenge.

Ward bursts past. He's run the length of the pitch!

He looks for a cross but thinks better of it.

Williams shows for the ball. He holds it up well.

Mehew goes on the outside!

Wonderful movement from the Grimsby players. Wrexham don't know who to mark.

Mehew is into the box...

He looks up and smashes the ball across goal...

It's in! It's in the back of the net!

Two-one Grimsby!

Who got the finish?

Danny Flash! He's in dreamland. He can't believe it!

Where's he going? He's running to the main stand.

He embraces a fan in a wheelchair. An emotional moment.

Grimsby are taking a more defensive approach.

It wasn't defensive, you idiot fake commentator in my head! But yes, back to 4-1-4-1, back to the noise, the chaos, the swirling mania. I felt like I was summoning a wispy cloud of dreams and it was drifting all around me.

And I wasn't finished.

I put the guys back into 4-5-1 for long enough that Paul Parker reacted, then showed him a 3-5-2 - mostly to wind him up - and then smashed the 4-3-3 hotkey again. We were absolutely blitzing them down the centre, and teams just didn't do that to this Wrexham side. That meant that their defence didn't have practice against it, and they knew Max Best teams attacked down the sides. I had no doubt that they had spent the week defending against slaps, so the fact that most of our play was central was quite the surprise.

Cupid's Arrow ran out, but Grant to Wainwright was something of a dream ticket anyway. Both teams were still smashing into each other anytime there was half a chance, and the ref was doing his inadequate best to keep up. He gave us a free kick over on the left and Danny Grant went to take it. I used Free Hit and adjusted our positions with Masterpiece Theatre. For all their height and attacking threat, Wrexham were weirdly bad at defending corners and free kicks.

Grant to take the free kick. He lifts one arm.

He steps forward.

Wainwright...

Oh, it's gone wide!

It looked harder to miss than to score.

That will play on his mind...

Another phase of 4-1-4-1 brought us some control, and another phase of 4-3-3 saw us bully our way into Wrexham's box. Flash was a livewire. Williams was winning headers. But could Marcus Wainwright put the disappointment of that awful miss behind him?

Quinn with the forward run. He looks for help but doesn't find it.

He decides to go alone.

Quinn with the dribble! Where did this come from?

The home fans can't believe Quinn is still going.

He cuts the ball back.

Evans with the first time cross to the back post...

Williams rises...

But it's cleared.

But wait!

The referee has given a penalty! A defender punched the ball away.

A penalty! Wainwright was still the taker and I did briefly consider giving it to Danny Grant who I was 99% sure would score. But that wasn't the story. This chapter was the whole he who teaches learns thing. Marcus had been encouraging the para players to never give up. Did Donnie Wormwood's trick work? Really work? Here was a highly unscientific way to find out.

I held my palms in front of my nose like I was praying. Wainwright's body language was all wrong. All wrong! He was overthinking it, I could tell.

Oh, shit.

Oh actual shit.

For the first time in the match, the nerves got to me. A lot was riding on this for me personally, but also for the club. When Aston Villa were last relegated, 500 employees lost their jobs. I didn't know how many it would be at Grimsby, 30 maybe, but any number was too many to have on my conscience. I had a tiny moment of panic and then decided that my storytelling shit could go jump off a cliff - I tried to change the penalty taker.

But it was too late.

Wainwright looked the most nervous human being of all time, looked like he had jelly for cartilage, looked like he needed to be swaddled and rocked to sleep by his mother.

His chest rose as he took his last breath... and fucking thundered the ball into the top right corner.

The Pontoon went ballistic. I fell to my knees, continuing the prayer thing, but found myself being crushed by sacrilegious Grimsby youngsters and yeah, both physios, I think. "Don't you know I'm a god?" I yelled. "You can't pile on me."

They paid no attention.

***

With twenty minutes to go, our performance hit new levels of energy, swagger, and quality, while my rapid formation changes both rode waves of movement while creating the next wave. It was conductor and orchestra in perfect harmony.

I'd like to say the fourth goal owed everything to my teachings, to our emotional session with the para players, or to my mind games finally breaking the Welsh team.

But no. Danny Grant leathered a ball from thirty yards and the keeper got nowhere near it.

Four-one.

It was deafening, but I picked one voice out of the crowd.

Behind me, the purple man was yelling. I turned and made eye contact. "Go on, lad! Go on!"

But then I changed the formation and it didn't work, and I realised the moment had passed. We'd peaked. Peaked too soon? Our possession stats were going down. I tried 4-4-2 for something different - nada. I went 4-1-4-1 and it did nothing.

What was happening? Wrexham's tactics screen gave me the first clue - the three midfielders and two full backs had thick lines around their icons. Paul Parker had tweaked something about their positioning - and it was working.

The next couple of minutes gave me further evidence. Wrexham had stopped their bombardment. Slowed the game down. Got the ball on the grass and passed it around. If the maxim was true that the faster you sent the ball forwards, the faster it came back, then in slowing his own players down, he'd slowed my counter attacks, too.

I'd forced the pub team to play proper football, and it was about to bite me on the arse.

The stadium was bouncing and I'd gone from being the only one who believed to the only one who was stressed off his tits. I got the young players who had played the first half to put their training kits on and pretend to be warming up - something so commonplace that it was possible no-one would notice and think 'but they've used all their subs'. I instructed them to hype up the defence and shout encouragement. They were more than willing.

Wrexham got a throw in. I went men behind ball and got my prayer pose out since it had worked so well before.

The ball was flicked on, flicked on again, and then Phil Muggles punched the ball into the goal at the far post. Punched. With his hand.

My players surrounded the referee, trying to tell him what had happened. They begged him to talk to the linesman, but both twats said Muggles headed it. The Wrexham fans were bouncing. Four-two. They were right back in this and they knew it.

Now, it's a strange quirk of the laws of football that they don't actually specifically say you can't touch the ball with your hand, and - oh, hang on. I just checked and yes, it's right there. 'The Handball Law, they call it.

The setback, strangely, calmed my nerves. Now that I knew how it was going to go, all I could do was try to hold back the tide. I shuffled the team, switched the instructions, but we had longer and longer periods of men behind ball. It was our best chance of holding out, but as I'd learned at Chester, it was also just asking for trouble. We had done the 'defend against Max Best if you dare' drills and the players had got pretty good at swarming me and crowding me out. The problem was that Wrexham had two midfielders of my level.

A booming diagonal pass is hit towards the moon. Gosh that was high.

It comes down with snow on it.

Hardy wins the header.

It bounces around and some of that bullshit.

Cheatboy kicks it in with his political boots.

Stick to football, mate.

I'm not sure the curse commentary went exactly like that because I didn't read it, but I reckon that's a good approximation of Wrexham's third goal.

Four-three. There were ten minutes of normal time left. That's when a famous footballer and documentary star with a heart-warming backstory slid in late on Danny Grant and left him in a heap. Amazingly, the ref noticed.

Grant writhed in agony for ages and the stretcher went on. I said some things to Paul Parker that would make a sailor blush before we were forcibly separated, and Grant hobbled off to the side of the pitch where he got treatment. He had a 'suspected leg injury' and his condition had fallen to 38%.

The match resumed and my doubts were all gone. Fuck these twats. I put my guys into the 4-3-3 with Grant's spot left empty. I switched us to direct passing - forget pretty football and just get the ball to the front three as fast as possible.

We got a chance and the crowd were back with us.

But as I paced up and down the side of the pitch it was like suddenly I went through a carwash and came out seeing through my windshield clearly. Blasting the ball forward would only make it come back faster. I switched to 4-1-4-1 and made Danny Flash drop to midfield, leaving the right mid slot open. I yelled at Conor Quinn that he was the right back and the right mid and he owed me. He did a weirdly intense shrug thing like I'd activated his secret cage fighter mode.

"Max," said someone. Who the fuck was talking to me in the middle of a match?

"What?" I yelled, then realised it was Physio Byram.

"Danny wants to go back on."

My state of cold calculation was blasted away. "Do you want to meet him in Tesco when he's fifty and he can't walk?"

"No, but - "

"Get him to the fucking medical room and start treatment! For fuck's sake," I added, before prising my hands off his coat.

Time was ticking down. We were winning four-three but were down to ten men. Wrexham had scored a handball and fouled my best attacking player out of the game. But we were still in it. Danny Flash was putting in a heroic effort trying to keep up with Wrexham's talented midfield schemers. Ed Williams was looking a bit leggy. He had one of the lowest condition scores on the pitch; I'd been making him go up and down when I changed to and from 4-3-3. Otis was gasping, too. If Wrexham had used all their subs, they would have overrun us. But they didn't. They changed the full backs. That all? Weird, but I wasn't going to complain.

Every pass was one second taken off the clock. Every time we dribbled through a line, Wrexham had to retreat and regain their shape since they only attacked from set positions and couldn't - or weren't allowed to - improvise. But everything we did cost us, and we got pushed back, and back, and the booming high balls kept coming, and the long throws, and the chaotic corners.

But then Sam stormed off his line, jumped, and caught a cross. The crowd begged him to fall to his belly and take twenty seconds off the clock. We were so close.

But I was dancing around like a maniac signalling for the throw to come. Wrexham had sent too many men forward and Danny Flash, still full of energy, had sprinted into space. He had the freedom of Grimsby!

Sam saw me ranting and raving and obediently threw the ball. A long throw I could get behind! Flash took control, got his head down, and stormed forward. I jumped like a jockey, mentally riding the Flash train, me going tonto over the lone ranger, the lone striker. Wrexham had one back and another closing on the ball carrier. The closest guy slid in an attempt to take Danny out - at worst he'd get a yellow card, but with this ref, probably not even that. But Flash's boxing training kicked in and he got up off the canvas like a champion. He kicked the ball on and scuttled after it. I'd never seen a crowd like it. The Chester section was urging him towards the goal. The Grimsby lot were directing him to the corner. Still he sprinted on, and on, and the last defender tried to hold him up so that support could come. And Flash, looking tired after the long sprint, sighed and headed for the corner flag. The defender saw his chance to steal the ball, but Flash chopped the ball onto his left, felt the defender's hands latch onto him - the grim realisation struck him that he was the last man and any more contact would be a certain red card, even with a clown making the calls - and so Danny was released, and Danny Flash Gordoned his way to the goal - cocked his weaker left - and blasted it with all his might... onto the post.

The crack of ball against aluminium echoed around the stadium like a gunshot. The home fans cried out, as did the away fans as the fresh right back picked up the loose ball and pumped it long. Hardy won a header and Muggles raced after it. Ward tracked him, moving like it was the first minute. Muggles cut inside and threw himself up into the air. Jayden threw his hands up. What's that all about? I didn’t touch him! The referee gave the penalty.

I went to sit down, staring blankly at the centre circle to make sure I got full experience points.

Four-all. Muggles completed his hat trick and ran around like he was very pleased with himself. He aimed some gestures at me. What had I ever done to him?

We battled hard for the last sixty seconds, and the ref blew the final whistle.

The final whistle. How apt.

Donnie Wormwood had said I had the stance of an inside fighter and there was more fighting to do - inside. I clicked my head left and right and thought about heading straight to the media centre so I could give Wrexham a bit of a blast before I got fired. Before I became an outside fighter. Quite a good plan, I thought, but first I felt the urge to do something I hadn't done since taking over at Grimsby. I ran onto the pitch and gave a hug and some words of praise to every single one of the players. I finished with Danny Flash, who was in tears.

"Mate," I whispered close to his ear. "That was fucking mint. That's one of the best things I've ever seen. I can't tell you how fucking in love with you I am right now." He didn’t want to hear it. I continued. "But listen. If I get fired - by the way, talk about going out on my own terms! Eh? I'm buzzing about that. Buzzing. But if I do go, will you do me a favour?"

"What?" he grunted.

"Go back to cashing people off and being a toxic worm. All right?" I laughed as I separated from him. "Because I don't want to have to play against this Grimsby team." I shook my head. "This team's a fucking menace."

"Yeah it is," he said, trying in vain to wipe the tears away. I gave him once last affectionate look, pumped my fist at the fucking demented Chester fans in the Pontoon - I'd be seeing them again very soon - and jogged to the media centre.

***

The place was abuzz. Half the reporters were frantically typing their match reports, half were on their phones, and half were in conversation with someone nearby. It all stopped when they saw me - they dashed to their chairs and got their recorders out.

I didn't wait to be introduced by the media guy in case they wanted Paul Parker to go first. Fuck that. I didn't have time to wait.

Topics I wanted to cover. Let's see - the cheating, obvs. Maybe one more pub team dig. Or would that stop being funny and be seen as classless? I'd let my flappy Manc gob decide on the fly, I reckoned. What else? Probably how proud I was of the team, really, that I was happy to give the fans an exciting game, and how the squad had it in them to go on a tear up the league. Most importantly, to take whatever heat came from the way we played. As I’d promised.

I settled into the middle of the table with all the microphones on it and, like in movies, all the reporters yelled things out at once. Beth was back, I noticed. Her cheeks were flushed, almost as though she'd been put through an emotional wringer. She'd just watched the Beth Heads versus Man City all over again, but with added stakes.

"One at a time," I joked. "Better get organised fast, because I might not be here for long."

Almost as though I'd summoned him, Wolfie appeared. He asked me to move. I got up and took a few steps away so I wouldn't be in the same camera shot as the guy sacking me. He pulled out an A4 piece of paper with the Grimsby logo on it, and started reading.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have a short statement I would like to read out on behalf of Grimsby Town Football Club. Following a disappointing run of two points from a possible twelve..."