12.
Science glossary - Schrödinger's cat. A thought experiment in which a cat lures a scientist into a box. Inside the box is a poisoned tartlet. There is a 50% chance the scientist will eat the tartlet and die and a 50% chance he will resist the temptation of the sticky, delicious jammy treat. In this thought experiment, the scientist is both alive and dead until the cat looks in the box. For further explanation, please read Superposition and Duality by Jack Grealish.
***
"Ladies and gentlemen," said John Wolf, Head of Recruitment and acting Director of Football. "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, the club has decided that an urgent change in direction is needed. Although we are technically out of the relegation zone and our underlying metrics are excellent, we cannot sit by and hope other teams continue to fail. We need a steady, experienced hand on the tiller and to that end, I would like to announce my resig - "
"Whoa!" I said, almost jumping out of my skin. "No way. No, no way." I got back behind the table to Wolfie's left, leaving him the entire right-hand-side to escape through. A prospect that seemed imminent - he had got to his feet as soon as I'd moved towards him. "Beth! Come and stand there."
She took a few automatic steps forwards before she realised what she was doing. "Why?"
"I don't want him running off somewhere else to resign in secret. Just stand there and don't let him out. Please."
She frowned. Everyone was looking at her, now. She was the story. "What do I get?"
"Fifty quid," I said. Someone laughed.
"No. What do I get that you don't owe me?"
I tutted. I didn't have time for negotiations. "An interview. All right?"
Her eyebrows hadn't finished shooting up by the time she'd got next to Wolfie and pushed him back onto the middle of the three chairs. "Max says sit. So sit."
"But," said Wolfie, waving his resignation note around. Beth snatched it out of his hand; he froze.
"Okay," I said, easing into the left-most chair. "Er... how do I say this? Wolfie, am I still Grimsby manager?"
"Er... yes."
"Top. As Grimsby manager I don't accept your resignation. On behalf of the people of Grimsby, I don't accept your resignation." I had an itch on my brow that I scratched. "Listen, mate. I know I've come in like a whirlwind and upturned a load of apple carts and left holes in some roofs and I could have done things more diplomatically but it's working. Okay? We're getting good ahead of schedule. Anyone got the latest odds of us going down? When I came it was 88% and this morning it was 65 or something and I bet it's under 50, now. It's working. I came to do a job and I'm doing it. But me saving Grimsby doesn't really make much of a difference if you quit because of me. That's a net loss. If it's you or me, I mean, there's no contest. The club needs you in place in the summer, doesn't it? What's gonna happen? You quit, there's a vacuum, some new guy comes in, wants to change the entire squad but he's only got eight days in the window, loads of rash decisions get made, the club's in this mess again next season. Nah, mate. I tried to come in and be an outside fighter and let a load of stuff slide and I couldn't do it. I had to get stuck in. I basically promised the Chester fans I wouldn't make you stronger because we'll be competing soon, but I never said anything about making Grimsby weaker. That's not in my nature, I don't think. I can't do that. If you quit, that'll be devastating. The club needs you. The next manager needs you. Okay, I've been difficult but let's get together on Monday and have a proper talk, eh? I'll show you it's all going to work out. Okay? Promise me you aren't going to do anything stupid."
His face lost some of its colour. "I think I just did."
I gave him a friendly pat on the arm. "There we go. There's that famous Wolfie humour!" I turned to face forward. "Who resigns after a match like that? No-one say the referee."
That got a big laugh. One of the press people introduced herself and asked if I would like to share my thoughts on the referee's performance.
"Kind of," I said. "I think this might be a good time to announce that I want to do a documentary of my own. Basically a shot-for-shot remake of Welcome to Wrexham. I could do it with Chester players or...?" I looked at Wolfie.
"With the Chester players, I think, yes," he said, and he was gratified to get some laughs, too.
"Okay. So it's scenes from one of the most famous, most-watched sports documentaries, right? We're going to remake them and put them on our YouTube and TikTok. First scene, we watch a Wrexham player - sorry, a Chester player - elbow a guy in the face. Absolutely savage and some might say clearly intentional. We show that and cut to a close-up of the Wrexham player whinging for three minutes about how he should be allowed to elbow someone in the face. Intersperse that with close-ups of the referee and have two of the most famous men in the world complain about how the best player in the league will get a ban and that's like totes unfair. That's scene one."
"Max," said Wolfie.
"Scene two is from an important match and again, lots and lots of focus on the referee who has the temerity to give some decisions against Wrexham. We hammer it home for minute after minute, with two of the most famous men in the world - who happen to own a football club governed by the English FA - going on and on about how shit the referee is. Ten, eleven, twelve people chip in with opinions about how shit the referee is. Now, what I'm wondering is, if I film all that and upload it to my club's YouTube channel, what is the FA going to do about it? Because it's very clearly intended to intimidate our match officials. If you're a referee at a Wrexham match and you dare say hey you're not allowed to punch the ball into the net or break Danny Grant's leg in sixteen places, you're going to be in season three of the documentary and you're going to get savaged and ridiculed. So I'm going to do a shot-for-shot remake and we'll see what happens. I think I know what will happen. I suspect I'll get a ban. A fine. If I keep doing it, which I will, my club will be deducted points. So yeah. Weird that there's different rules for different teams. Weird that you're allowed to undermine the fabric of the sport as long as you've got a straight-to-streaming actor making gooey eyes at the camera."
I'm pretty sure I heard Beth mumble, "Fucking hell, Max."
"On the topic of cosmic justice," I said, looking very intently down the nearest lens, "I hereby make an offer to League Two teams playing against Wrexham for the remainder of this season. You've just seen a Grimsby side that have struggled to score blast four past the most expensive defence in the division. What you don't know is that it was unbelievably simple. If you want to know the secret, I will travel to your training facility, watch thirty minutes of your sessions, and will tell you exactly - exactly, I mean - how to beat them, and which of your players to use. This isn't a joke, and if we can knock them down into the playoffs, my offer stands double. I'll postpone my holidays with extreme relish if it helps you beat them. All I ask is a sandwich, multiple cups of tea, and an apple. Maybe a tartlet."
There was a chaotic response to my statement, but I didn't have time to sort through it. Just at that moment, Donnie Wormwood came in, saw me, and walked to the front of the table. I went out to meet him. "There he is!" he yelled, before hugging me and draping his arm around my neck. "You said skip Gillingham, come to this one. How right you were! Wow!" He turned to the press pack. "What did you make of that? Some game, wannit? Shame about the cheating."
"We were just talking about that," I said. "These media professionals are going to kick up a fuss. Ask some very serious questions about the insidious way certain clubs operate."
Donnie growled. "They should! That was criminal, that. Criminal." Many eyes lit up. I'd given them some pretty strange sauce, but Donnie had given them red meat - a snappy quote. "Now, Max. I've come to invite you to dinner."
"What, tonight?"
"Are you busy? Don't wanna hang out with a couple of old men?"
"Couple?"
"I'm with Granddad Don."
"Oh. I'd love to meet him. God, I'd love it, though. Dinner? Argh, not sure. I haven't seen my girlfriend much recently. She's waiting for me upstairs somewhere. Not sure she wants to hang out with a pair of washed-up old brawlers."
"Washed-up!" said Donnie, delighted.
"Let me just ask her," I said, and Wolfie, Beth, Donnie, and about thirteen members of the press waited while my phone connected. "Babes. Are you here? Dinner with legendary sportsmen tonight yes or no?" Emma said she had brought her parents and could they come, too. Donnie said of course. "There we go. Job done. I should get back to the dressing room and talk to the lads. Donnie, see you in a bit. Wolfie, see you Monday morning. Beth, do you want to interview Donnie Wormwood?"
"You know I do. Who wouldn't?"
"Great. There's the interview I promised you. I didn't say who." I tried to skip away, cackling, but Beth followed me. After a couple of corridors, I spun to face her. "I was only joking. Calm down. Why do you keep following me around? It's getting creepy."
"We need to talk," she said, in an urgent whisper, making significant eyes towards the old boy in his suit whose job it was to guard the inner sanctum on match days.
"Talk? Nah."
She grabbed my arm. "Max. Fucking listen for once."
I stopped and glared at her hand until she released it. But Beth wasn't usually so intense, especially in her work persona. She had this 'I'll get you one way or another' vibe going on that was actually pretty intimidating. Her breaking character made me curious. "What?"
She looked up and down the corridor. "Haven't you got an office?"
I tutted, sighed, and decided to play along. I led her to the manager's room and sat on the edge of my desk, facing her. "Okay?"
She closed the door and pinched her nose, apparently trying to think of how to say what she needed to say. "Erm..." She took a further ten seconds. "Do you realise you just got yourself fired?"
I checked the Job Information screen. I was still employed, it said, with a Very Insecure status. I tried to think what I'd done in the press room that would get me fired. Saving Wolfie? Raising myself up as the voice of Grimsby Town? "I'm lost..."
Beth took a couple of steps closer. She still moved with purpose and with her ever-more-classy eyebrows, her nicer clothes, her better hairstyles, I can't say I didn't feel some of the old stirrings. "That guy, Wolfie. He had his resignation letter that he was reading out, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"Okay but you made me go next to him and I saw it. I even had it in my hands, briefly. It wasn't a resignation letter."
"It... What?"
"It had the Grimsby letterhead and today's date and a heading: Termination of Max Best's Contract." She paused, but apart from a slight furrowing of the brow, I didn't react. She explained it to me. "He was sent to announce your sacking!"
My head had decided to rotate left and right, slowly. "Without even mentioning it to me first? Even I wouldn't do that."
She threw her hands up and paced around. "Okay he was supposed to tell you then read it out. Max! Wake up. He was sent to sack you. But he took a bullet for you, see? He made the story about him so you could keep doing what you're doing. He quits, you keep Grimsby up."
"Nah. What was all that about experienced hands on the tiller? It makes me sound shit."
"Maybe," Beth conceded. "But he was thinking on the fly, wasn't he? You might forgive him if he got some blood on your shoes while he was taking that bullet for you!" She'd got a bit heated. Bit of the old Beth, the inspirational captain, from the time before she sold her soul.
"Okay. I'll forgive him. Now, Beth, this is going to annoy you but I have to check. Did you really see that title?"
Oddly, she didn't mind me asking. "Yes and read half of it, too. Two points out of twelve, poor squad management, unsuitable formations, bad behaviour, our friends at Wrexham. Not sure why but I got the impression that was the last straw." She stared at a point on the wall while she thought. "I've got no reason to lie to you, Max. I'm making myself the world's foremost expert in your career. When you make it to the top, I'll be there. I'll ghostwrite your book."
"I can write."
She shook her head. "You're too weird. Someone needs to tone it down for the normos. And none of this war on gammon, either. If I'm getting a cut of the royalties, I'm not alienating half my customers. Tell me one thing. That press conference. You knew you were at risk and you could get the chop at any second. Of all the things to say, why did you start with all that crap about Wrexham's documentary? Just for points with your base?"
I got up and walked to her. Loomed over her. "It's not crap, Beth. They've got a loophole where they can put pressure on refs from America. That's such bullshit. I don't care if you're a Hollywood star with an eight-pack or a fucking middle-eastern country with a track record of murdering journalists - if you want to own a football club in my country you're gonna play by the rules. And anyway - no refs, no sport. I'm not done with this sport, Beth. I've got shit to do. Do you feel me?"
She bit her bottom lip, just like in the old days. "Max Best," she mumbled, "secretly gives a shit." Anything could have happened in that moment, but her eyes suddenly lit up. "You've taken a bullet for him!"
"No, it was the other way round."
She traipsed off in a circle. "But then you sat there and said no you can't quit. You basically said if he quit, you'd quit. Right? So he's on the edge of quitting to save you and you're on the edge of quitting to save him. But then... What does it mean? It means... It means you've both taken bullets for each other and either both of you will get sacked on Monday, or neither. It's Schrödinger's cat - we don't know your status until we open the box, meaning, until we see who's in the dugout against Barrow. Max! You keep breaking new ground. This is football as quantum mechanics. You've been sacked but you've not been sacked."
It's hard to explain but I had the craziest idea that she was right. Chris had given the instruction to sack me but the sacker had quit on the way but I'd stopped him from quitting so either everything had changed or nothing had. "It's like a sitcom."
"Yeah. And you wonder why I follow you around." She made her way towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I've told you what I saw. Conversation's over. And I want to see Paul Parker's presser. You really wound him up. I want to be the one who asks the question that makes him explode."
"Bethany Alban. Secretly gives a shit."
She nodded. "Just so."
I spread my arms. "Right but what am I supposed to do? Act like I didn't just find out I was fired?"
She considered it. "I think so. Just keep being you. Or even more so. You've got nothing to lose." She scoffed. "Literally."
She was right. I could kiss my fifty thousand goodbye. I had the oddest certainty that Chris would give me an ultimatum to beat Barrow, which I couldn't. Not without Danny Grant. "And you? You're going to use this."
"How? It's my word against John Wolf's and it's not a big enough story to take him to the mat. It'll have to wait."
"For what?"
"For our book."
She opened the door. I called out, "What'll it be called?"
"How should I know?"
"You're methodical. You've got an idea. I know you have. Give me a clue."
"It's two words. Bye, Max. Enjoy your dinner."
...
Donnie and his clan loaded up into one car. The Weavers got into another. Emma and I followed behind in the Duchess. We ended up driving a lot farther than I expected.
"Ems, listen. This Grimsby thing has been a bit of a disaster, in a way. I'm probably not going to make it to the end. No bonus, no holiday."
"Everyone says you're doing well. Isn't this another good result?"
"Yeah but I've come in like a wrecking ball. I'll tell you all about it but it's made me realise I need to be nicer to a couple of people at Chester. Brooke and Angel."
"You need to be nicer to the poor, helpless, beautiful women who work for you."
"Yes."
There was a natural break in the conversation as I had to concentrate and lean forward to merge onto a busy road. When I'd done that, Emma said, "Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Okay be nicer to them."
I tapped the steering wheel. "They signed contracts. They're in. I shouldn't treat them like they're half in, half out. They're in until they're out."
"Shake it all about," she mumbled.
"It means spending more time with them. Especially Brooke."
"Do you think she'll enjoy that?"
I laughed; the question had come out of nowhere. "What?"
"From what I gather every time you see her you unload all your thoughts and ideas and then she has to go off and turn that mess into something concrete."
"She doesn't have to do anything except get me some grants. It's not my fault she's a workaholic and is always trying to please people." Our little convoy slowed and turned into a golf resort car park. "All right," I said. "If this is shit and boring, we say we need to leave early because we're going on a murder walk in Hull in the morning."
Emma tilted her head. "Don't they normally do those in the evenings?"
"Every walk in Hull's a murder walk. But if we're having fun, how about we stay here overnight? Then I can have some wine. What are you doing?"
"I'm texting me mum so she knows the plan."
"No! I need to be free to leave or I'll get itchy."
"Max, she's not stupid. And you're not subtle. I can see it now. Someone starts talking about immigration and you stand up, do a fake yawny stretch and say gosh I'm so terribly, terribly weary going now bye."
"I'm actually very subtle. I've got a plan for Barrow that is going to go absolutely undetected by human eyes." I put the handbrake on and leaned forward to try to see what the people inside were wearing. "Am I underdressed for this place?"
"You're underdressed for a riot." She looked around as she unclipped her seatbelt. "It's probably quite casual in there. Wonder why they chose this place? I was imagining a small Italian restaurant."
"I kinda was, too. We have a nice meal and at the end some guy comes out of the kitchen and hands Donnie a thick white envelope stuffed with... what, exactly? Coke, banknotes, pork chops. Could be anything until you open it up."
We went through into the reception area - it was a classy place but not stuffy in the slightest. The kind of place I'd go if I were a retired boxer and didn't mind mingling with my fans, so long as they could afford membership of a golf club.
We pottered around until we saw Emma's mum, Rachel, waving at us. We were on a table for eight and the others had lined up in a really poor formation. "Whoa whoa whoa," I said. "I want to sit next to Don Flash."
"Don't be difficult, Max," said Rachel.
"Hang on, let me optimise this." I put my index fingers to my temples. "Sebastian wants to sit next to Donnie. Danny wants to get an eyeful of my girlfriend, the bastard."
"Max," complained Emma, while Danny's cheeks flushed.
Don Flash was in a wheelchair - another good reason to come here was its excellent access - so he was on the corner. "Don stays where he is, I'll sit on the end here - I'm the alpha male anyway - Emma opposite Don. Donnie next, Sebastian next to him, Rachel opposite him, Danny next to his granddad. That's absolutely perfect in every way. Beautiful Weavers anywhere you look, boxers and footballers spread out, and Sebastian is here, too. Check complete, good process. Round of applause begins in three, two, one..."
No-one clapped, but they did reorganise according to my plan, and I sat, excited, next to a British sporting legend. Don was in a shirt and tie under a jumper - standard old person uniform. He was in a worse state than he should have been, I reckoned, and he looked quite sickly and infirm. Thirty years of being punched in the face will do that to you. He had that shaky hands thing, but so did most of the people in mum's care home and they hadn't been smacked in the gob for a living. (As far as I knew.) I soon found that while Don had moments where he needed to tune out and give his brain a rest, he was sharp.
Me getting to know him had to wait, though, because everyone insisted that I explain what happened in the Wrexham match. With extreme reluctance, I allowed myself to be the centre of attention. Just long enough to satisfy their curiosity, you understand. The highlight of my tale was when I compared my strategy to the old rope-a-dope boxing trick.
"So I let them batter us first half, same in the second, then bam! Switched to 4-3-3 and hit 'em down the middle. I've been reading a little bit about boxing recently and there's the phrase on the ropes that everyone knows. Wrexham thought they had us on the ropes, right? But with rope-a-dope you're using the ropes to absorb some of your opponent's energy. So being on the ropes can work both ways - help you or hurt you. It's Schrödinger's rope. Wrexham don't know which one it is until I tell them." I smugged pretty hard at that.
Emma pulled a face. "Why do you keep going on about Schrödinger? No-one understands what you're saying."
"It's quantum mechanics," said Rachel, the absolute babe. "Quantum particles can be in two places and two states at the same time. Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment to help people understand it, though I very much fear it has had the opposite effect."
Don Flash was enchanted by Rachel. I think he preferred her to Emma, which was more common than I would have guessed. "Schrödinger takes his cat to the vet. Vet says, Herr Schrödinger, I have good news and bad news."
Rachel rewarded him with a thousand-ship smile, and the conversation was briefly interrupted while our starters came. We tucked in and when he'd chucked enough salami in his gob, Sebastian returned us to the topic of me rope-a-doping Wrexham. "Those coaching sessions must have been difficult. I can't imagine how you set up such fluid changes in formation."
"Not really," I said. "Players like Danny have keen tactical brains and they soak up this information like sponges."
We all turned to look at the recipient of my praise. If he'd kept his mouth shut, the Weavers would have been impressed. But he couldn't help it. "We practised long throws and that. When did we do 4-3-3?"
"With the para players. You were coaching the 4-3-3 side and the other lot were in 5-3-2."
"Wait, what?" His mouth dropped open and I thought I saw some of his keen tactical sponge. "Wrexham play 5-3-2!"
"Danny!" complained his uncle, triggering a huge round of laughs.
His slow realisation that I'd been subtly getting him ready for the big match was funny, but also a little bit irritating. "Did you think we were just doing a bunch of random stuff?"
"Well, yeah."
"Danny!" complained Emma and Rachel in unison, while Donnie belly laughed and Sebastian tried to hide his reaction.
Danny spluttered and tried to launch into a defence, but realised he didn't have a leg to stand on. All he could do was grin.
"Why didn't you simply tell them the plan?" said Sebastian. "Why do it so subtly they didn't even know it was happening?"
I bumped Emma's knee when her dad said I was subtle. "There's a mole," I said. "Someone leaking the formations and lineups to the opposition. I can't tell anyone what we're going to do; I have to work around it." That darkened the mood, I can tell you.
"You don't tell anyone?" said Donnie.
"Nope."
"How can you work like that?"
"With great difficulty. Too much difficulty, maybe. He cost us a win against MK Dons. If we'd won that, I think we'd have beaten Gills and Wrexham, too. But that's sport, isn't it? It's butterfly effects all the way down. My time's almost up, but I nearly made it despite the mole."
Danny had gone a bit morose. "Mole doesn't help but it's my fault we didn't win today, boss. You rope-a-doped 'em. I couldn't land the knockout punch."
I held my hand up. "We're in a casual setting, Danny. No need for all this boss stuff. I think it's all right if you call me Mr. Best."
"But boss," he started.
"Okay shut the fuck up," I snapped, startling a waitress. "You did the right thing and I don't want to hear different. There's eight thousand people who will never forget that moment for as long as they live, all right? In the grand, sweeping library of memories that is English football, what's better really? Five-three win, or four-all draw?"
"Five-three win," said everyone, including the waitress.
"You don't get it," I said. "That moment where Danny shoots and the ball's past the keeper and... And anything can happen. Win, lose, draw. It's all happening simultaneously in your heads, isn't it? And then they go down the other end and the guy throws himself to the ground. We look at the ref and we get that moment again. We win, lose, or draw depending on what he decides. They take the pen and it's that moment again. It's a hundred percent hope and a hundred percent fear. All scenarios are true at the same time. It's mind-expanding stuff. It's like a hallucinogen. Three big hits in thirty seconds. If there were a few little Grimsby schoolkids in there for the first time today, Danny, after seeing that second half, do you think they might wanna go back?"
"Hell, yeah."
"I think so, too. I think you turned fifty Tag Alongs into Club Loyalists. I'd be pissed if you missed on purpose but you didn't, you tried to score. That was authentic and every emotion we all felt in there today was authentic and that's addictive and that's what I want from my teams. Against weaker teams we're outside fighters. We pick them off, all very controlled and professional."
"Mayweather," said Sebastian, presumably trying to impress Donnie Wormwood.
"When it's a team of our level or a bit more, we get in close and go toe to toe. Inside fighter, no stepping back, give it everything you've got, use every trick you know."
Donnie was buttering a piece of bread, and he pointed his knife at me. "There you go again. You can't be both. You need to choose one."
I shook my head, fake amazed that he was saying this. "I did choose. I have chosen. But we don't know which one I chose until we open the box." I sat back, magnificent. "So until I open the box, I can be both and do both."
A short, impressed silence followed, until Emma said, "What the fuck are you talking about?" and the table devolved into childish laughter. I suspect everyone was laughing at a different thing, except Danny, who was laughing because everyone else was. Emma leaned into me and whispered, "Will I book us a room?" I nodded and she gestured to her mum. Rooms for everyone!
Sebastian, who appeared to have been informed about staying overnight, suggested it was time to bring out the wine list. "We'll pour you a glass, Max. You can drink it, or not, or let quantum decide," he said, eyeing me.
"If you're treating us to the good stuff, Sebastian, then quantum doesn't get a vote."
He laughed and fell to discussing the options with Donnie. Danny was on his phone, no doubt texting one of his harem. With a start, I realised Granddad Don was watching me intently.
"You wanted to sit next to me."
"Yes."
"To pick my brains."
"Oh," I said, wondering if that was the real reason. "Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I'll learn from what you don't say."
He scoffed. "This ain't jazz. Go on, hit me. What's your number one question? Think carefully. Number one."
"How do you deal with the loneliness?"
He didn't blink. "By winning."
"Right."
"You win it's all worth it. That's a boxer, though. You want to compare what you do to what I did? Tell you what. I can't quite get my head around you being the Chester boss but you play for Tranmere and you manage Grimsby. Tell me what you're really up to."
I went through my thought process, focusing on the way I could improve my skills, make money, and leave space for my assistant manager to learn her trade. Somehow the bald statement of facts led to me ranting about Grimsby, focusing on how shit everyone was and how they'd misjudged me and made my life so much harder even though they were only making it harder for me to fucking save them!
Granddad Don listened, apparently interested. "You've got your good people there at Chester." They had dug into my story after I'd thrown Danny off the pitch so they knew some of the major characters. "Your assistants - both of 'em - and your French mate and all that. People you can talk to. People who get you. That's your home, there. You trust them now? You'll trust 'em more a year from now. Know what I mean? You'll be right. But this thing where you go save a club from relegation. This fireman act."
"Bad idea. You think I shouldn't do it again."
"Heh. Bad idea? It's terrible. One of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Of course you should do it again. Where else are you gonna learn so much? And the money's good, right? Heh. Maybe next time don't go all-in on the win bonus." He chuckled some more. "See, though, it's bothering you, isn't it? You think you don't want to be liked, but you do, same as everyone. So you've put up your walls. Don't build a castle when all you need is a shield."
"That's good. Let me write that down."
"You don't trust anyone. You're not patient. Oh, you've got the talent to get the job done, all right, any washed-up old crock can see that." He paused. Some pang of pain somewhere in his body? I waited with more patience than I would have shown most other people. "It's harsh though, innit? Doesn't take much skill to go in, cut the club in half and move forward with the good bit. You'd make a bad doctor, wouldn't ya?" He cackled some more. "You're a doctor with a patient in a bad way. Frostbite in his toes, bad lungs, arthritis. What's your solution?"
"Chop his head off and put him in a jar with some wires so he can speak."
More cackles. Old people loved extreme medical humour. "That's it. That's it. Now, young man. There's a thing they invented in my lifetime called keyhole surgery. Ever heard of it?"
I smiled. I got where he was going. "Yes, I've heard of it."
"So that's your next test, isn't it? Can you do what you did to Grimsby without all the amputations?"
"How should I have dealt differently with Danny?"
"Fannying off the pitch when the team was losing?" He closed his eyes and I'm not a hundred percent sure he didn't have a microsleep or two. "I liked what you did. Showed passion that Danny didn't have in that moment. Showed you were in charge. Showed the fans you cared as much as them." He took another tiny time out. "You should have sent your assistant on to do what you did."
Stolen story; please report.
"I didn't have an assistant."
"That's the problem, innit? But send your assistant on, you get the same result but you don't look like a brat and you don't get a yellow card."
"My first day at Grimsby the staff made it clear they didn't want to work with me."
"That's weak. Great leaders don't lack followers." He nodded a few times. "Sort that out, you'll be a lot less lonely. Won't ya?"
"Or," I suggested, "people could stop having bad attitudes. That's even better. Isn't it?"
He pulled a face that combined elements of exasperation and amusement. "You'll be a long way down the multiverse before you find a world where that's the case, let me tell yer." He chuckled. "Yeah, you're welcome to manage the U's. I'll put in a good word for you. You're my kind of brawler. Heh heh."
***
Sunday, March 24
After a noisy and laughter-filled evening - God, I didn't realise how much I needed that - we had a sedate breakfast notable for two things.
First, the way Danny Flash took care of his granddad, right down to cutting up his sausages and feeding them to him with neither man looking the slightest bit embarrassed.
Second, Sebastian Weaver buttonholed me and made me confirm that the bulk of my Grimsby remuneration was to be paid in the form of a bonus that I probably wouldn't get. He told me off for not letting him help with the contract but then said he'd been thinking that while I was showing off my talent I was also pissing off vast swathes of the football industry and soon the only places that would welcome me would be Chester and West Didsbury, and one of those wasn't such a surefire thing.
He asked what my plans for West were.
"In the summer I'll take some time to scout around Manchester and find them some players who are better than what they've got. That'll raise the floor and then I'll see if we can afford a ceiling-buster. A bit of a superstar player for the level. I found this guy Ziggy who would rip up that league and he'd have played for cheap. If I can find a couple of Ziggys, we'll demolish it. Specially if I let them train with Chester for a couple of weeks in pre-season... If I did end up with the Grimsby money, I was thinking of using half to sign a good player for West. Something like 350 a week will do. I could afford to get one good dude in, I reckon, or maybe a couple of promising youngsters or some old pros who don't want to quit playing completely."
Sebastian bent his knees and swayed forward and back. "What level do they play?"
"It's the ninth tier."
"Ninth," he said, aghast. He shook it off fairly quickly. "And Chester are the sixth. That's a level where you could make some money and support my daughter. Can you get West promoted to the sixth? Have them at a half-decent level in case you blow yourself up everywhere else?"
I shrugged. "It's always hard to predict. We could have the best squad with the best player and he could get injured."
"Agreed. So get four star players. How much would that cost?"
I got my phone out and did some maths. "350 a week times four times fifty-two weeks. That's seventy-three thousand a year that I'd have to inject into the club. No chance."
He looked at me like I was teasing him. "You don't pay them for a year, do you? The season's from August to May. Run the numbers again."
It was pretty brutal to think like that, but he was right. "How many weeks are in ten months?"
"Use 44."
"350 times 44 is just over fifteen grand. So one good player's fifteen, four are..."
He didn't need the calculator. "Sixty. If you had an extra sixty thousand pounds in your budget, would your club get promoted next season?"
"Probably. Like, almost certainly."
He did his swaying thing again. I wondered if it was the thought of playing a round of golf before going home but then I realised he was dodging punches. He suddenly grinned, the happiest grin I'd ever seen on him. It made him look about nine years old. "Donnie Wormwood, Max! I had dinner with Donnie. Got pissed with Scrubber. Don's a legend, too, course, but he's not my legend, know what I mean? Scrubber. I stayed up till 2 a.m. to watch him on pay-per-view from Vegas. Twenty-five quid! We didn't have that kind of money in those days, Max. Those were special fights, special nights. Up with some tins of cheap cider watching Scrubber. It never started on time. I used to hate that, but it just added to the tension, the sense of theatre." He ducked and weaved again. That could be his boxing nickname: Sebastian Weaver. "My firm will sponsor you for thirty grand if you put fifteen of your own in and find another fifteen from some other mug. You get those players, mind; I don't want my money going to some Manchester based avocado-growing collective. Get your four players and get promoted. Then we'll talk again next summer and in the meantime if you can get me dinner with Denise Richards, that'll go in your favour."
"Denise Richards?"
He looked around before lowering his voice. "She was in a Bond movie."
I scoffed. "I think I'm more likely to meet a golfer or tennis player or something."
He thought about it. "Anna Kournikova."
"Sebastian, put your libido away. How am I going to meet her? Does her niece play for Altrincham Women? It's blind luck I met Donnie. I can't choose who I bump into in a scary car park. You're more likely to meet a famous person than me."
He sighed. "That's not true though, is it? Look, forget all that. Just make sure your West Didsbury guys are on the march. And... yeah. Thanks."
***
Monday, March 25
The day started as expected - badly.
I drove to Cheapside ready to talk to Wolfie and build some bridges before launching into a tricky week of training. The following weekend was the Easter holiday and we'd be away to Barrow on Good Friday and home to Bradford City on Easter Monday. All the preparations for both games needed to be carried out pretty much simultaneously. Very, very difficult, unless you are me, in which case it's a piece of piss.
Once in the meeting with Wolfie, though, he pulled out a laptop and placed it in front of me. Soon I was on a Zoom call with Chris Hale. He didn't say hello, didn't smile, didn't congratulate me on securing an unlikely point against the title challengers.
Instead, in the manner of a lawyer summarising the evidence he'd gathered, he summarised the mistakes I'd made. The worst thing was he wasn't looking at any notes - the list simply spilled out of him.
"Item one. Falling out with Simon Green. Item two. Kicking Simon Green off the team bus and leaving him to fend for himself in London. Three, being unaccountably rude to the receptionist at Cheapside. Four, humiliating Caine and leaving us with a worthless asset. Five, ditto Mike Dobson. Six, wild tactics. Seven, kicking the long-serving kit man out of the dressing room. Eight, blaming our fans for a defensive lapse. Nine, Refusing to do anything but the most minimal media work. Ten, no wins from four games. Eleven, belittling and ostracising our coaches. Twelve, overpromoting Ollie. Thirteen, installing Ollie's girlfriend as our new receptionist. Fourteen, not animated on the touchline. Fifteen, embarrassing the club by running onto the pitch to manhandle Danny Flash. Sixteen, cutting our data analyst out of the planning process. Seventeen, humiliating our guests from Wrexham by calling them a pub team. Eighteen, ditto, but on the public address system in the stadium. Nineteen, throwing poor Tom Hickman and Luke Walsh in at the deep end. Twenty, banning Wolfie from attending training. Twenty-one, using all five subs in the forty-seventh minute meaning that twenty-two, we had to play the end of the match with ten men, which ultimately cost us the win. And, of course, twenty-three, instructing your players to attack instead of going for the corner, in defiance of all conventional wisdom."
He seemed to have finished. "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln. How was the play?"
"What?"
"It's a shame we couldn't get it to twenty-four. That would be more thematic."
"What?" he said again, even angrier.
"Look, what's the point of reading out that list? I know all that."
"It's so that everyone on the call is crystal clear that when we sack you, it will be justified."
"Great. When's that going to be?"
"If you don't beat Barrow. It's like you told me once, as a manager you would like an ultimatum. A chance to prove yourself."
"Nope," I said. "We can't beat Barrow. No manager in the world could guarantee that. Not with Danny Grant injured. He's our best weapon against a team like them."
"I don't care about your excuses. I'm giving you an ultimatum. That's the nature of ultimatums. They're one-sided."
"Not this time. I don't accept it. If you sack me it's not for any of the reasons you listed, it's because you know I've smashed this job and you don't want to pay me. It's that simple."
"You've smashed it? Are you pulling my leg?"
"Nope. Check the bookmakers' odds. They know. As fun as this call is, the manager needs to go and do training. Am I the manager today yes or no?"
Chris reached out and the call ended. He'd slammed his laptop closed.
Wolfie placed his elbows on the table and let his head fall into his palms. "There's a concept called managing up, Max. Mikel Arteta is great at it. Always says the right things to and about the owners, then pumps them for money. He's fantastic at it. It helped him through some very tough times when a lot of fans wanted him gone."
I tapped my fingers against the table. "I'm pretty torn, mate. I want to stay and finish the job and get paid. Right? But I also kind of don't give a shit what happens. If he can't see what I'm doing..."
"What you're doing is quite hard to see. But there's another thing."
"What?"
Wolfie gestured that I should follow him. We walked into the middle of pitch one. All very mysterious. "Obviously you've been pissing everyone off since day one but most of the football guys are looking at the performances and the training and they're impressed and you can get away with a lot of crap if you're good. If Marcus had scored that penalty against Gillingham and Danny had gone for the corner and we had six points, I don't think anyone would give two hoots if you made Si walk home from London. Might even be considered funny, right? But even if you'd got twelve points from twelve you'd be in the shit anyway." He checked over his shoulder, which made sense when Seb did it in the busy golf club but didn't make sense on an empty football pitch. "Because you pissed Wrexham off."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
Wolfie looked down. He couldn't look me in the eye when he said, "Candy wants to meet Ryan Reynolds."
"Okay. So?"
"So that's not going to happen now, is it? If he comes to Grimsby there's some Manc who's hijacked the tannoy and he's, I don't know, playing the audio of all the awards ceremonies where Ryan Reynolds was nominated but didn't win. Now here's the kicker - Candy's why you got the job. You met her in the winter, right? And you ran your mouth and were proven mostly right. Who can fix Grimsby? How about the one guy who diagnosed the problem months ago? Chris was all, no way, he's too young and she said no he's talented you've got to go for it. Now, me personally, I'm thinking she wanted a - " He paused while he got his masculinity in order. "A handsome young manager, good on camera, great back story. Yes, she thought you'd do a good job with the team, but she also thought you'd be catnip for the documentary crew. And if the documentary guys are interested in you, Candy's one step closer to her goal."
I laughed. "This is absurd. She's not doing a Machiavellian plot just to meet Ryan Reynolds."
Wolfie looked around again. "I think she is! Town doesn't mean anything to her, does it? It's just a way to meet Elton John or Sting or whichever famous fan is in the VIP section that day. But listen, you've pissed Chris off and you've lost your top ally. If she's turned on you then you don't have much time. I mean, you've got until Friday. I can try to convince Chris to let you do Bradford on Monday because it's nuts to change managers in between matches on the Easter weekend but you've got to stop doing things that rile people up. I know you don't like being supervised and I'm not even trying to do that. I want you here to finish the job and save the season and," he inhaled, "and that's not going to happen if you do more from his list. And by the way," he said, before I could interject, "there was a twenty-fourth item. Bringing guys from the Chester team to come and train here. That's the sort of thing even the fans who like you would get hot under the collar about."
"So your instruction is that I can't bring men from Chester here even if those men have a playing style exactly like the dangerous players from Barrow and Bradford and that's the best possible training session I could do."
He closed his eyes and turned his head around in a circle. His neck must have been tight from stress. "If you do that again and it leaks, which it will, it's game over."
"Sounds like it's game over, anyway. If I brought an outsider in, maybe that would help me find the mole. I kinda want to find the mole before I go. That'd be... I'd prefer the money but that'd be satisfying."
"I don't think the mole gives a shit who comes to train, Max. They might leak the story to get you fired so they can start again with a new manager who'll tell the formations and line-ups, but they don't care about what drills you do. If it's a player they're probably enjoying training a lot more these days."
"They'd still get me fired, though, you reckon?"
"Yeah. It's for the money, isn't it?"
"Money?"
"They're selling the info to betting syndicates. I thought that was obvious. If you know Danny Grant's not fit for Friday, you bet against us. If you're one of those syndicates, here's an easy way to make some money. You find out we're using a reserve right back against MK Dons, tell the other manager, he targets the weak spot, bish bash bosh, Grimsby lose, money money money."
"Betting syndicates. Sounds sinister. How much is the mole making from this?"
"Absolutely no clue. No clue at all."
I checked my phone. In a normal week in a normal club, I'd have been telling the squad and staff my plans for the coming fixtures. My time as Grimsby manager would end on Friday shortly after the Barrow match. That gave me four days to extract as much out of this adventure as possible. Starting with a mole hunt. "I'm gonna do my thing, Wolfie. I can't let my impending annihilation change how I manage, but I do want to be a bit more conciliatory. Can you get everyone together for the weekly planning meeting? I'm just going to the car park for a second. Oh, and Wolfie?"
"Yes?"
"Better not mention the thingy. The ultimatum. I want my players to play with freedom."
***
After checking who had come in which car, I took Danny Grant and Physio Byram to the side and asked for an injury update. The curse reckoned Danny would miss a week and Byram agreed. Could have been worse. I asked Danny if he'd be willing to give us fifteen minutes on Friday and he was keen. Byram clearly had thoughts about my sudden switch from refusing to use a hurt player to pushing one back into the side, but he wisely kept them to himself.
"Get as much rest as you can this week," I said to Grant.
"Do I get a spa voucher?" he asked, as a joke.
"Yeah, if I'm still here for the Crawley match we'll go together in his and his bathrobes."
That got me a weird look.
I hadn't done one of these sessions with Grimsby. The space was a classroom mostly used by the younger players for their lessons. I hadn't seen the youth teams - I needed to scout every man, woman, and child before I left. Oh, and get busy around Grimsby, too. Quite a few pros had grown up on a council estate called East March. If that was a hotbed of talent I needed to smash Playdar there at least once.
"Right," I said, and everyone shut up instantly. Shame to leave just as I'd got them potty trained. "Barrow are a bunch of twats and their manager is a twat. Good news - he doesn't like me, much. I live rent-free in his head. They play 3-5-2 unless they're up against a generational talent." I coughed significantly. "But I'm banned and I don't actually work here. So let's assume they do 3-5-2. We've got two choices - defend or attack. Right? Until kick-off, they don't know which one we're doing. The plan is, solid for the first half. 4-1-4-1. Alex Evans running the show from DM. Nil-nil at half time and Barrow will be just fine with that because they think we tire near the ends of matches. Second half, we'll match them with 3-5-2 for a while, but it's all building to the last fifteen minutes where we throw Danny Grant on. All-out attack, 4-2-4, let 'em have it."
Wolfie's eyes popped out of his head. "All out attack? Against Barrow? Danny Grant? Are you sure?"
"Course I'm sure. We have to rotate to keep guys fresh for Monday anyway so it's win-win. Barrow will be expecting us to turtle up and keep that point, but actually we'll go bonkers. To do that we need that solid base so training this week's all about the defence. Coach O is my dude, as you know, but we've got two experienced defensive coaches, Gareth and Wes. Guys, we need your best stuff this week. Don't worry about it being boring. I want spacing, I want shuffles, I want to practise being hit on the counter, I want Neo looking at Barrow's set pieces and I want plans drawn up against them. If you need someone to replicate the exact delivery we're going to face, I can do that. I can replicate any style from any player in world football. That's useful, isn't it? Oh, wait. I'm not allowed. Wolfie said men from Chester aren't allowed to take part in Grimsby training, didn't you, mate? And I'm a Chester player. So great idea but bin that."
Wolfie went to the nearest wall and banged his head against it. "You said you'd be conciliatory."
"I'm just making a point! If you're going to enforce one particular rule, don't make it a stupid one. Know what I mean?" I explained what was going on to the team and squad. "There's, like, a list of grievances doing the rounds. Reasons to sack me. Twenty-four items so far."
"Twenty-five," said Wolfie.
I grinned and got on with my talk. "What about attacking, Max? Yeah, don't worry about that. I'll be taking the strikers off to a secret location one day soon. I've got a couple of tricks up my sleeve. All you dudes need to think about is keeping a clean sheet. Massive, massive effort this week. Everyone pulling together. Any questions? No? Then let's get at it!"
***
In the evening, I went to the East Marsh area and hit Playdar. It led me to a PA 60 thirteen-year-old midfielder. Not high enough to try to uproot him, but I asked him to take me to his parents and I said he should take footy more seriously and if they moved to Manchester in the next five years they should let me know. The interaction made them happy and proud, but the idea of moving away from their home town seemed to puzzle them.
***
Tuesday, March 26
Apart from finding the mole, whatever talented players were in the area, and getting one final injection of XP, there was one last bit of juice I could squeeze out of this lemon.
Satisfied that the defensive coaches were doing what I wanted, I loaded my three strikers, Ed Williams, Marcus Wainwright, and Danny Flash, into the Duchess and drove off. I told them that I would get sacked instantly if anyone discovered what we were about to do, that I'd hired an elite coach and it was coming out of my own pocket and if they did grass me up I'd do a lot worse than dump them in London, the ungrateful bastards. They swore they'd keep schtum.
I pulled in at Blundell Park, led them through the deserted corridors, and they went to the dugout to put their boots on.
On the pitch was Coach O and next to him was the Brig, who was wearing a Grimsby Town manager's coat. Cody Chambers, my private skills coach, was putting out cones, and three women from the Chester squad - also in Grimsby clobber - were doing some stretches. After all, Wolfie explicitly said not to bring any more Chester guys.
Loophole!
Regardless of the wording of Rule 24, I'd wanted to bring players from the women's team anyway. With the big Altrincham match mere days away, they needed the boost a lot more than the men did.
With Coach O technically leading a session in Grimsby's actual stadium, this was a fourth tier training session in a fourth tier facility and it was almost guaranteed to be the single most productive training session these women would ever get.
I'd chosen Bea Pea, Julie McKay, and Angel.
Bea Pea started the day on CA 30 (out of 36), Julie was 21/53, and Angel 18/155. The team's best possible average CA, still in the midfield-heavy 4-5-1 formation we knew so well, was 27. That was just about identical to Altrincham's, so winning at their place was not guaranteed. I reckoned it'd be a close game and had a sneaking suspicion that Angel could be the difference maker. Put it this way - it wouldn't be long before I'd prefer to have her running through against a goalkeeper than Danny Flash.
As for me, my breathing trainer numbers had gone up in the early days of coming back to Grimsby, but had plateaued again. I'd hit my CA limit again, but that wouldn't stop me going flat out in the session. If it helped me get a goal in the cup final or against my former club, the expense would have been worth it. And expense was the right word - I had to pay Cody for three hours even though we'd only get an hour of actual training, and even that was pretty generous of him. Going to Grimsby in the morning wasn't a trip he could combine with seeing other clients.
So since we had three strikers from Grimsby, three from Chester women, and me, I'd asked Cody to put on a striker's masterclass. He'd do the drills in one area and Coach O would watch and copy them in another, and the coaches would rotate between the sets of players. That would make sure we all got a lot of contact time, a lot of repetition, and that the curse would be as liberal as possible with the increases it dished out. And if we got goals in our coming games, so much the better.
The men from Grimsby came over and shook hands with the women, the Brig, and Cody. There was some electricity between Angel and Danny Flash.
"Angel," I said, nodding away from the others. She followed me, but looked back at the group. She hated being taken out of groups. Some trauma or something. When I got a club psychologist Angel would be the second appointment. First would be me, but I wouldn't show up because that'd be too much like Ted Lasso, the TV show. On the other hand, it would also be like The Sopranos.
"Yes, Max?"
I'd gone internal; I snapped out of it. "Right. Quick chat. You know I came over to do this Grimsby shit and holy Christ, what a bunch of clowns. They were all suspicious of me and thought I had bad motives and that I was trouble."
"Which you are."
"Yeah but they didn't know that! And not when it comes to the football. We're playing good stuff now. Anyway, my point was this whole shit show made me question how we do things at Chester and you know I've tried really hard to improve the culture. The As It Was video and including Dani and kicking out bad apples and so on and so forth. I'm pleased with myself. But there are two new employees where I maybe treated them the way these Grimsby fucks treated me."
"Brooke."
"Yeah. But I'm working on that. The other one's you."
"Me? You've been all right. Haven't you?"
Her eyes filled with hurt. Had I been slagging her off behind her back? I very much suspected the whole performance was fake, but that was part of my problem. "Thing is, I keep expecting you to do stuff that you never do. I need to put my preconceptions aside and try to treat you like anyone else."
"What preconceptions?"
I smiled. This was dangerous ground. "I can't shake the feeling you want to be famous."
"I do want to be famous. Don't you?"
"Not really, I don't think. But I'll get famous by playing football. And if you want to get famous by playing football, I'll support you a million percent. The problem comes when you get all David Beckham and decide being famous is enough and you stop working on your game. But," I said, forestalling her intervention, "we're nowhere near there and maybe it won't happen. So why worry about it? Well, the reason we worry, as you know, is that we don't want you to be murdered by a crazy stalker guy."
She rolled her eyes. "Bonnie exaggerates all that."
"You're talking to a man who was nearly killed outside the stadium."
More seriously, she said, "Right. Yeah. Sorry."
"This guy said to me the other day, don't build a castle when you only need a shield. While you're with the team you've got a shield. You've been training great, improving great, Jackie's been giving you minutes. We're going to start letting you loose, starting with Sunday. We've got to be careful off the pitch still, but Sunday's your time to shine. Make a bit of a name for yourself, get us promoted, then you'll start smashing teams up next season. Even your sister won't be able to stop us getting your name out there. What do you reckon?"
She was smiling and it felt authentic. "What's the catch?"
"No catch. But this session today can propel you. You can commit and use it to get where you want to go... or you can flirt with Danny Flash."
She rolled her eyes again. "The one who wouldn't sub off? Er, no thanks."
I laughed out loud. "Chesterness. I love it. Look, if you want to see him again, tell him to get to Alty on Sunday. He can't have met you here because we're not here right now. Do you get me? Okay, that guy's Cody. My personal coach. Elite level. Take this seriously, win us the match on Sunday, and I'll invite you to more of my sessions. We've both got mad skills but need to learn tips and tricks."
That seemed a very attractive proposition. "Why are you telling me and not the others?"
"Cody's expensive. Security's expensive. Right now I can give you one or the other." I waited for a reaction and got a kind of eye flicker of acknowledgement. "The main thing is, I'm going to the top. You can, too. We need elite coaching in addition to what we get at Chester. I spend my money on coaching, we get good, we earn more money, we hire you a personal Brig. When you've got a Brig you can pile into Instagram and marry a rock star for three days and all that shit. Sound good?"
She gave me a look I couldn't interpret. "What if I want to marry Bea Pea?"
I scoffed. "Another striker? From the same club? How are you going to get a media frenzy about that?" I tutted. "You're not thinking big enough. You want to date the German goalkeeper you take a penalty against in the World Cup final. All right, if we want to get there, we need to learn how to kick a ball good. Let's go. Show Cody what you got."
***
The drills were typical Cody. Starting simple, getting slightly less simple, returning to simple, finishing with, yeah, still pretty simple. The same moves again and again. Repetition. Intensity. Sets of five.
Knowing we would have a group of three and a group of four, he'd decided to use a two-man drill.
He would stand about five yards outside the penalty area and play a pass to a striker in the D. Let’s call that striker the ‘target man’. Since we had a spare player, we had a defender who would jostle the target man. Not with any great intensity, just enough to be a nuisance.
The target man had to control the ball and pass to the second striker, who was standing square with a mannequin in front of him. The second striker had to take a quality touch away from the mannequin and play a pass into the path of the target man, who had made a forward run.
All in all, quite simple, but the drill tested a variety of elements of forward play - holding the ball up, laying it off, being strong, having a good first touch, putting the right weight on a pass, and connecting with another forward player. Angel was relatively bad at all of it.
We did it again and again. I wanted to mix the men and the women up at least once, but Cody resisted. My need to have variety was counter-productive, he said, and Coach O agreed. So the groups stayed the same, with me getting a couple of turns in each.
The results of the session were substantial. Danny Flash hit his PA of 62 and Ed Williams gained a point in CA. Marcus didn't pop, but he seemed a little sharper and his morale went up.
Bea Pea added two points and her morale hit maximum. She absolutely loved being chosen for this treat and put her heart and soul into it.
Julie added one point, which was slightly disappointing but I knew that sometimes the boosts from sessions like these or big matches would take time to show up on a player's profile. They needed time to absorb the lessons.
Angel also added two points, but everything in me said there would be much more to come. She had thrown herself into the drills, and was frustrated with herself that she couldn't reliably do the hold-up play and layoff to anywhere near the standard of Bea Pea.
"What are you smiling at?" she demanded, partly because the Grimsby men had come over to watch the last leg of the session.
"I love seeing you motivated to make yourself a better team player."
That got her even more riled up. "I am a team player. I told you that."
"Yes," I said, "unquestionably." I did a smirk so annoying that her neck flushed crimson. "Cody, have you got time for one more quick drill? I want to put my own spin on this one. Give these ladies a taste of Schrödinger's Max."
"Not that guy again," said Danny, as he pretended to walk away.
Cody checked his watch. "Yeah, I've got time. And you know me. Always interested to see new ideas."
I took the support striker position. "Angel, you stay as the target man and I'll do the wall pass. No, we don't need the jostling, now. Thanks Bea Pea. You know what? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. When the pass comes, I’m going to collect the ball on the inside of my right, turn in a smooth semi-circle, and shoot with my left. Okay? And then I’m going to do it again and it’ll look exactly the same but instead of a left-footed shot it’ll be a right-footed pass into Angel’s path."
“No way,” said Bea Pea. “No way it’ll look the same.”
I shrugged. “Let’s see.”
Cody passed to Angel, who took a careful touch with her right and struck a left-footed pass at me. Slightly off target, but that didn’t matter for this drill.
I adjusted my weight, and kissed the ball with the inside of my right foot. At that point I was facing Angel with the goal and the mannequin to my left. I did a quarter turn away from the mannequin with the ball still nestled into my foot, and as I started another quarter turn I let it slightly roll away from me until it was just right for me to spank into the bottom left.
It was very smooth, I have to say.
“Right, that was mint,” I said. “Superior technique, no backlift, keeper no chance. Four out of five stars, perfection. Round two. Watch closely.”
This time, I did everything the same, but instead of allowing the ball to roll away from me at the end of my spin, I pushed it hard behind me, around the mannequin, into Angel’s path. It wasn’t quite a backheel, more of a flick, and I absolutely nailed it.
I raised my arms and let the sun worship me. When I looked down to earth, Danny Flash was trying not to show how impressed he was. "What do you think, Danny?"
"I think she'd be given offside, boss."
I laughed. "Don't be a dick. That's fucking mint, that. Why don't you lot have a go? See if some of my stardust has landed on you."
They tried, and while Marcus found it pretty easy, mostly they couldn't quite get the swoop of their foot right, or they could do it but it was more of a backheel than a flick, which didn't look as cool and wouldn't fool defenders to the same extent.
Angel was the worst of the six. “Don’t worry,” I said, in a gentle tone guaranteed to annoy her, “not everyone has my kind of subtlety and grace. Maybe you can learn to do long throws.”
She jabbed her finger at me. "I'm going to do that in a match before you, Max Best."
"Tsch. As if."
She stormed off pretending to be angry, but then Bea Pea said something and the three women fell into each other. They'd had a ball.
The Grimsby players and the coaches watched them walk away. "Er, boss," said Danny, eyes very much on Angel.
"No," I said.
"Right. Fair enough."
***
Thursday, March 28
It was almost certainly my last full day as interim Grimsby manager, so I watched training like a hawk, demanding more more more from the players, and in the afternoon went into Grimsby itself for the first real time. I walked around, went to the piers, ate fish and chips, and got incredibly pissed off by some fucking seagulls who wouldn't let me sit on a bench and gaze wistfully at the ocean.
Bunch of pricks.
In the evening I went to some five-a-side places, picked up a hundred XP, then hit Playdar for the last time. I found a PA 114 goalie. Great. Nine years old. Come on, bro!
Just in case, I got his dad's phone number and made a little entry in the 'notes' area of the kid's player profile and on an online doc. But what was I supposed to do? Grimsby were sacking me and I'd promised not to make a rival club stronger. These players I found weren't going to relocate to pursue their football careers. Not for five years at least!
No, they were dead ends, like the whole month had been.
***
Friday, March 29
Match 5 of 10: Barrow versus Grimsby Town
Bob Crick, The Westmorland Gazette. Max, strong rumours that you've been given an ultimatum. Win today or you're out. What do you have to say about that?
Not a whole lot. It's obviously not true because it would be absurd to demand a bottom of the table team beat the team in fifth. I mean, rich people get funny ideas sometimes but they can look at a league table. I fancy us today but even if we outplay them, who's to say the ref won't allow a handball goal or fall for one of the most pathetic dives ever seen in English football? If I'm to be blamed for the mad shit that happens on a football pitch, so be it, but I won't let it give me undue stress. Me and the team are focusing on what we can control and that's our own performance. Training has been great this week. The players are happier, overall fitness levels are better, and after today there's some very winnable games. I see today and Monday as part of the same piece and I’m trying to maximise what we get from the weekend.
Becky Stead, BBC Radio Humberside. Is it true you've fallen out with Chris Hale?
Is it true - ? What? Chris Hale is a Grimsby fan and has been his whole life. He asked me to come and make sure the club didn't get relegated. I took over and after Sutton there was a pretty nasty run of fixtures but we are a missed penalty and a handball goal away from being above Colchester right now. That's bad maths, isn't it? But you know what I mean. The bookies are experts in these relegation battles and they have us getting safer with every game. The players know we're going in the right direction, and I think the fans are starting to get it, too.
There are rumours you're so desperate to win that you're rushing Danny Grant back into the team.
You guys and your rumours today. Do you like Fleetwood Mac, Becky? Lindsey Buckingham can play one guitar and make it sound like two. Danny Grant is fit and raring to go. He's one of those guys you have to fight to get off the pitch when he's got a concussion and he's got a very important role to play today. We might have a little surprise for Barrow... heh heh heh. Can you please write heh heh heh in your report Becky? It'd mean a lot to me if you did.
I think it will be edited out, Max.
What about, he laughed mysteriously? He steepled his fingers and spoke in an arch tone worthy of a supervillain?
Good luck today, Max.
Thanks.
***
The first half was what we call 'a cagey affair'. Our 4-1-4-1 had an average CA of 81.2 and instead of worrying about our attacking output, I leaned into our defensive solidity. We worked hard, kept things tight, didn't make silly mistakes.
Barrow, meanwhile, were a 3-5-2 with a defensive mentality. Their average CA was only 80 but they had home advantage and very high morale. When they sniffed blood, they could get very attacking, but generally the manager was cautious, and I was more than happy with that. My entire plan was to keep him on the back foot. I believed that he would stay in a defensive mindset until Danny Grant came on, at which point he would try to swarm us. His bench options lent credence to my theory.
So the first half came and went. We had slightly the better of it, thanks to Alex Evans bossing midfield. We'd lose him for the second half, but no probs.
Replacing Alex with Tommy Blair took us down to CA 79, but by moving Ed Williams to striker I could switch between 4-1-4-1 and 3-5-2 without using a sub. I really loved having a centre back who could play striker! It opened a lot of tactical options and having another guy with a centre back's physicality on the pitch (instead of Danny Flash, for example) beefed us up at set pieces. Barrow's best chances came from free kicks and corners but they didn't look like scoring.
The match meandered along with the two teams matching up, competing for midfield dominance.
After 70 minutes, I made the key change - but it was not the one Barrow had been waiting for.
"Substitution for Grimsby. Replacing number 15, Otis King, number 9, Danny Flash."
This took us down to CA 77.6, but with Ed Williams back in defence and Conor Quinn playing right midfield we looked even more solid, while Danny flashed around trying to combine with Marcus.
A few minutes passed and Barrow's manager started to get itchy. When was my big flourish going to come? I wanted him to stay defensive for as long as poss, so I got Danny Grant to do a warmup.
You might have guessed that I had no intention of actually using him. The truth was, while there was a fifty-fifty chance that not winning would get me sacked, a point away to Barrow was amazing for Grimsby and their prospects. No defeats against Gillingham, Wrexham, and Barrow was fantastic for us and disheartening for our relegation rivals. Win against Bradford and you could almost start planning for next season.
The idea that I'd throw an injured Danny Grant on to save my skin was all too believable - for anyone who didn't know me. After a couple of minutes of warming up, I got Danny next to me and he stood with his hand on his zip - the pose of a player about to come on the pitch - while I gestured at every corner flag in turn, seemingly giving him tactical instructions.
Then I saw something that distracted me and while I was shouting instructions, Danny wandered off.
We went through the farce two more times before Barrow's manager realised he'd been scammed. He had a decision to make - take a risk and throw more attackers on, or accept the draw. With his situation in the league he should one hundred percent have gone for the win. But we had just scored four against Wrexham in no time at all. The risk, he decided, was too great.
Eighty-nine minutes. Ninety. Plus one, plus two. The final whistle. Nil-nil.
I shook hands with the Barrow guy. It had been a feisty but good-natured contest and I had to respect how much juice he was getting out of his team.
I went over to the away terrace and fist bumped a couple of Grimsby fans. The overall reception was positive and one even threw a black and white scarf at me. I picked it up and stared at the logo. Fish and ships. Made me hungry.
***
As I walked into the dressing room, my phone vibrated. Chris Hale had opened Schrödinger's box.
You're fired. Do not speak to the media.
The curse gave me the same news. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and looked around. Spirits were high and it looked more like a normal dressing room. This could have been Chester after a solid two-nil away win. I'd done a really good job.
"Guys," I said, and the lads settled down. "Great work, top result. As you've gathered, I lied on Monday when I said we'd go bonkers at the end. A point here's mint and there's some easier games coming up. You'll notice that, as always, I used all five subs and kept you as fresh as poss. That'll help on Monday because there's no way Bradford will rotate. You've got every chance of doing them over. Unfortunately, someone else will be in the dugout. I've been sacked."
All eyes were on me, but on hearing the key word, one player briefly glanced towards his jacket. He wanted to get the news out to his handler as soon as poss, but he was a good actor. He joined in with the general uproar.
"Er... what do I wanna say?" I wondered, when they'd calmed enough to hear me. "I don't know. Obviously we got off to a difficult start and all that but you're miles better than the players at my level and honestly it was really interesting and rewarding to work with you. I don't really know how this goes. My car's at Cheapside. Do you dump me here like I did to Simon Green? Is that karma?"
John Windmill, my captain, stood. "No chance. Dumping Si in London was mean. Dumping someone in Barrow is cruel and unusual punishment. But boss, there must be some mistake..."
"Nah, it's done. I think... I think I might go and see if the Barrow manager wants a chat. Otherwise I'll go wait on the team bus, I reckon. We'll have four hours to say our goodbyes."
I left the room and there was instant pandemonium. In the chaos, I slipped back in and stood behind Otis King. He was on his phone, texting. BEST SACKED GET ON IT QUICK, he wrote. He realised someone was looking, turned, and we locked eyes. Caught red handed.
I’d suspected it was King based on him having too much car for his salary, but he could have saved up during his career so that on its own meant very little. He’d also been in certain rooms at certain times, had missed the first match through illness (where none of my tactics had leaked), and had made a couple of small mistakes at the ends of matches that could have been fatigue or could have been a guy who’d bet on his club being relegated.
“Max,” he whispered, throat dry, but it wasn’t in my interest to give a shit.
I turned and went into the Barrow dressing room and stood in the corner next to a physio as my opposite number finished a thunderous rant about how his men had lost too many challenges, been slow to the second balls, and not imposed themselves on the game enough. Pretty typical Sunday League stuff. I thought about slipping back out but he spotted me. "What the fuck do you want?"
"I want you to buy me a drink."
"What!" His rage intensified, then vanished. "You cheeky git. You cost us two points when you were at Tranmere and two more today. We'd be in the automatic promotion places if it wasn't for you."
"Nah, today I let you have a point. One pint for one point. Come on, I don't know where the bar is and I'm poor. I just got the sack."
He stared at me while his whole squad stared at him. I got the feeling I'd been painted as the devil. "They sacked you? That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Are you for real?"
"Yeah."
He couldn't quite process the news, but he strode past, scooping me along as he went. "This way, lad. This way."
***
Half an hour later, I clambered onto the team bus, fell into my seat, and we pulled away onto the endlessly tedious A-roads between Barrow and civilisation. Four hours to Grimsby, three hours to Chester. Or I could stay in Brigg until Sunday and pick Emma up in Manchester to watch the women’s match that would define our entire season, then...
Then what? I could do absolutely anything. My playing ban was over. I could play, I could manage, I could help Brooke do paperwork... or I could binge season two of The Traitors. Yeah. I was finally ready for it.
"Max," said Wolfie, who'd slipped into the seat next to me. "I just resigned."
"No, mate," I said. I'd had a couple of beers and made a good start on a third when it was made clear to me that I would get on the bus immediately or be Simon Greened.
"Chris isn't acting in the best interests of the club. There's no footballing reason to get rid of you."
"No wins in five."
"Come on. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know."
"Aight." I looked away but as he made to leave, I grabbed his wrist. "John."
"What?"
"You gonna stay in the area?"
"In Meggies? Yeah, course. It's home, innit?"
I didn't bother asking where Meggies was. It had never shown up on any map I'd seen. "Get some paper." He came back with a notebook and handed me a pen. I opened it to a blank page and wrote a brief description of the two young prospects I'd found in my brief time scouting in Grimsby. Names, ages, contact details, even a little bit about their strengths and weaknesses and how they should be trained over the next five years. I pushed the notebook back towards him. "Take care of those little fuckers."
"I thought you said you wouldn't make us stronger."
"It's up to you what you do with them. Bring them to Lincoln for all I care. Or Scunny." The driver bristled - I lost some of my relationship points saying that! "Anyway," I said, looking behind me. I didn't have access to the Grimsby squad screen any more, but if their faces were any guide, the squad's morale was even lower than the day I'd taken over. "Anyway, I could bring you hundreds of players and it wouldn't make any difference. This team should be going for the playoffs, but they're not. And Chris Hale just put them in a box with a 50% chance of exploding." I shook my head. I really didn't want opponents like Danny Grant and Marcus Wainwright in the National League. "Who's going to take Monday's match, do you think?"
"Unless he has lined someone up without telling me, it'll be Coach G. He's the most senior guy left."
"And he'll go back to 4-2-3-1 with Mike Dobson, Si Green, Caine. No Mal, no Ed, Conor in midfield and all that. He'll undo everything I fixed."
"Probably."
I tapped the bus driver. "Are you the kind of person who'd bet on his own team to get relegated?"
"Course not, no." We drove in silence for about 600 metres. He lowered his voice. "That'd be a good bet, would it?"
"I'm pretty sure one guy on this bus has already stuck his house on it. Might as well make the best of a bad situation mate.” I leaned back. “All right, Wolfie. Sorry I was such a dick. Maybe we'll meet again in better circumstances."
"I'd like that."
We shook hands and that was that.
I stared out of the window for a couple of minutes. I felt pretty weird. Not low exactly, but like my balloon had deflated and I had to hold onto it for the next four hours. I reckoned I’d perk up when I finally got in the Duchess.
Perk up. The monthly perk was 4,004 XP and without the 750 plus I’d get from managing the match against Bradford City, I’d struggle to raise the funds. With what I’d get from watching the women smash Alty, I’d be about 500 short and the only good options for the Saturday matches were in the Premier League.
I texted my new best friend.
Sebastian, any chance you can get me in to Newcastle vs West Ham tomorrow? I know it’s short notice don’t worry if it’s not poss.
Okay. One job done. What else?
I opened the Chester women's squad and pored through it, then dialled my employee. He picked up right away. "Jackie. I’m backie. Let's talk about Sunday. I think we need to think outside the box…"