3.

Wednesday, 7 February

A week before Valentine's Day and there still hadn't been a monthly perk. Whatever the imps dreamt up, I hoped it wouldn't be too attractive because now that I was playing every second of every game, my XP growth had stalled. Playing only got me 1 XP per minute instead of the 4 I would get from managing in the sixth tier. I was earning a measly 180 XP a week - a far cry from the 10,000 I'd gathered in January.

XP balance: 5,230

It was going to take a while to get the 9,000 I needed to buy WibWob, a premium perk that would give me more control over the formations I used. And talking of formations, I was very, very tempted to buy another one before the must-win Kidderminster match. The formation was called Sweeper. The sweeper position was defunct - unworkable in the modern game. So you can imagine that I salivated every time I thought about making it work. I needed to be realistic, though, and accept that I had a threadbare squad and WibWob would help me survive the season. It would be absolutely bonkers to A) buy Sweeper and B) use it.

When the league was more or less in the bag, I could go back to doing more managing than playing. And, of course, I had a playing ban looming over me. Absolutely no-one from the Football Association had mentioned that they were investigating the Facegate incident, where I'd kicked a ball into the face of a creep during my last appearance for Tranmere. I took the FA's apparent inaction as proof that they'd drop the banhammer at exactly the worst time for me. The solution was easy - win every match until then.

You might be thinking that kicking a football quite hard into the face of a journalist didn't really fit my self-professed beliefs, and you'd be mostly right. The fact was that the journalist had been harassing my girlfriend, and since the incident he'd lost his job and his reputation and Emma had been treated with just a little bit more respect in the world of football. To me, absolutely worth it.

But since meeting Brooke I'd thought a lot more about my beliefs. If we hired her to do any sort of marketing or PR, she would ask me questions like 'What image are you trying to project?' or 'Can you put Chester FC's culture into words?'

It all seemed really simple until I thought about it for more than ten seconds. Then it became complicated and messy, especially if I tried to map my own behaviour onto the high-minded words I was coming up with. How did smashing a football into someone's face line up with 'treat people with respect'? How did me openly discriminating against Brooke because she was rich fit into the category of 'be inclusive'?

The Brig was sitting over to my left, going through some papers from his UEFA C coaching course. He was coming to the end of it, now. My UEFA B course still had months to run, but I was flying through the work. After demonstrating my supernatural competence in the initial weeks, I'd changed my personal engagement with the course to one of planning our future academy structures. How could I design a coaching schedule that would give individual coaches primary responsibility for one group of players, while still letting them work with other groups so they'd have a holistic view of what was happening at the club? How could I set principles but trust coaches to do their own thing and work to their own strengths within that sort of framework? For example, could I specifically name WibRob as a player who should never, ever, do a tackling drill? Was that genius, or crazy bonkers? The course developers were in absolute heaven talking to me about it all.

At the end of the course I was supposed to present a project that would display what I'd learned. I had decided I'd ignore the tactics and drills and do my own thing - what's new? - and I even had a title for it: Chesterness. It would serve as my final piece of coursework, something I could use to explain to Brooke and her successor what I wanted, and yeah, serve as something that might help me clarify my half-baked thoughts and vague impulses and turn them into something that was intellectually coherent.

There was a knock at the door, and Robbie 'Robbo' Robson and Gerald May slunk in like two naughty schoolboys, followed by the scary schoolmistress, Sandra Lane. Angles, our goalie coach, followed.

"Thanks for popping in, guys. You two, listen. You have to play the way I want you to play. It's that simple. That's the end of the bollocking. All right?"

Gerald was defiant. "You're saying we can't kick the ball away under pressure?"

"Didn't say that at all. Course you can. But last night, neither of you were under pressure. You looked around and picked the least Max Best option. And Max Best don't like that." I laughed at how stupid I sounded. "Look, guys, if you do it my way and it goes bad, I'll take the heat. You know that. I'm starting to get contact from other managers who are looking at you for next season. I want to say to them, mate, they're good as gold. They're mint. They train great, play hard, good lads in the dressing room. All stuff that's true. Do you really want me saying, oh but by the way he thinks he knows football better than me and he likes to do low percentage garbage twice a match? Come on. This is win-win. Show me I can trust you and you get loads of game time the rest of the season. You know we fucking need you! Meanwhile, I'll keep bigging you up to every manager I talk to. You think you're going to struggle to get a deal with your league and cup winner's medals in hand, and recommendations from me, Jackie, and Vimsy? No chance."

The Brig spoke up. "What about Miss Lane?"

"Good question. Sandra, has anyone been picking your brain about our players with contracts running down?"

The most successful female manager in the history of the sport - by some metrics - shook her head. "I think a lot of them still think I'm a marketing exercise."

With a disgusted tut, I looked at my two malfunctioning players. "Don't let your standards slip and we'll take care of you." I clicked my fingers. "Yes! That's Chesterness! Right, off you pop." They left, morale still low, and the coaches were about to follow. "Hang on. Couple of changes to today's plan, if you don't mind."

"Oh?" said Sandra.

"Gerald's hoof we can put down as a rush of blood to the head or just one of those things. But Robbo shouldn't be doing that - he wasn't busy or stressed. I get why keepers train on their own most of the time, but we need a few sessions where they all work together. So we'll work on integrating the goalies into the defensive unit. Group A: Goalie, four guys lining up as defenders and a midfielder. Group B: load of randos. Group B press the defence and every time Group A pass it back to the goalie and he gives it to another defender, that's two points. If he's desperate and needs to chip it to the midfielder, he gets one point. If he gets thirty points in five minutes I'll take him to Tiny Tino."

Sandra rolled her eyes at the last part. "I've got some more drills that will help with this. We did a lot of sweeper keeper stuff at City."

"Top."

"So I get the morning off?" said Angles, who wasn't upset about the prospect.

"Soz. You'll be coaching me. Somewhere private."

"Oh?" said Sandra.

"I'm not bad in goal," I said. "At least, I wasn't before the coma. I haven't really dared to try again but I want to check where I'm at."

"Why private?" said Angles.

"Ben and Robbo saw me when I was good. From their point of view, me taking their place isn't an idle threat, even if the rest of the world would laugh. So if I'm shit, and I suspect I will be, they don't need to know."

***

I stopped the session after ten minutes. Angles was perplexed. "But you've recovered so well. You're fast, strong, your passing's back, you're on free kicks again. I don't understand it."

"I haven't practised," I said, shaking my head. My reflexes were shot to pieces, my handling was shit, and when I tried to punch a ball away I hit only air.

"So let's keep going," he said.

"No, I'm miles off. No chance I'll be any use this season. I might restart in the summer but for now, let's drop it."

"Okay, Max."

Something about the way he said my name made me look up. He was remembering how he felt the day I got attacked. I smiled. "I'm all right, Angles. So there's one position I can't play. It's not so bad, is it?"

"I guess not."

"It'll come back." When we finally got to the Premier League and we had good facilities, I'd do some goalie training and get my attributes back up to 20. Or... Hang on. I'd been thinking about optimising WibRob's growth - putting his vast PA only into attributes that he really needed. But what about me? If my CA had been 200 when it included goalie skills, but then everything got dialled back to level one… If I never did any keeper training, could I spend the points I used to have in handling on technical skills? Could I get extra passing, extra speed, extra finishing... Could I be even better than I was at Darlington? Could I get to finishing 21? Free kicks 22? The thought was dizzying, but I was in the middle of a conversation. "Let's go for coffee somewhere and talk about all our goalies and what they need next. All right? Oh, and Angles. You're still our third-choice keeper." His CA had been slipping, which made sense since he was 36 and hadn't played a minute in at least two years. "We might need you one of these days. What do you think about joining in next time Sandra does those integration drills? Just in case?"

His face showed he didn't think very much of the idea. He was a rare player - one who no longer wanted to play. "Okay, Max. I'll talk to her."

I pointed at him, beaming. "Professionalism! That's Chesterness!"

***

That evening, Sandra and I gatecrashed the women's training session. Jackie knew what we were planning and agreed, especially as it allowed him to take the evening off.

The women were on time and lined up, slightly excited and very interested. I told them we were going to play a match with realistic rules, then split them into two groups - the first team, managed by Sandra, and the rest, managed by me. I borrowed slash stole Charlotte from the firsts and went over to my technical area, denoted by the presence of a magnetic tactics board.

Sandra took the ten first teamers over to her side and put them into a 4-4-1 shape. She didn’t give them any extra tips or encouragement - she wasn’t trying to win. Robyn was still the first-team goalie despite having only CA 14. The back four featured Bonnie but were not otherwise formidable. The four midfielders, Dani, Pippa, Maddy, and Kisi, were all kinds of creative, and had been giving all comers a headache since Jackie had taken over. With Bea Pea in a rich vein of goalscoring form, Chester Women had been winning and winning in style with the only blip being an unlucky draw against league leaders Altrincham. Jackie was confident about going up if we won the return game against Alty, and I agreed with him.

But standards had slipped.

My side of the equation was limited, but not as bad as it would have been a year ago; I was able to field a half-decent 3-5-2.

I had Queenie in goal. She was a 16-year-old with PA 94 I'd found in my time on Merseyside. Her CA was 4, but it was only a question of time before she became our number one.

The defence, as with the first team, was the weakest. As well as two CA 1 randos who came to make up the numbers in our training sessions, I had Erin Barnes, CA 12.

For left-midfield I had Gracie, CA 17. Right-mid was a rando. But the centre was not too shabby. Diane was a CA 3 PA 60 DM I'd found using Playdar, Susan Butler had trained like a maniac to hit her maximum of CA 21, and Charlotte was currently the squad’s best player on a beefy CA 40.

Up front we had a youthful partnership of Julie McKay, CA 17 and starting to challenge Bea Pea for first-team minutes, and Angel, a CA 9, PA 155 future star who would be extra motivated by playing against her older sister.

"Ladies," I said. "We've got eleven, they've got ten. Your goal is to compete as normal for a while but let them score the first goal. Is that clear? Angel?"

Angel had a selfish streak and if she got the chance to shoot, she'd take it even if there were better-placed teammates. If anyone was going to disobey me, it was her. "Yes, Max. Where's Jackie?"

"He's gone to get his head polished. Once they are ahead, they will start dicking about. They'll get lazy."

"Yes!" said Charlotte, punching the air.

I tried to keep a straight face, but failed. I said, "What? What are you doing?"

"I know what this is about. It's been doing my head in."

"Let's get on with this before the next group arrives and kicks us off the pitch. It’s the pensioners today, right?” I pointed to the first team. “Let them score, admire them as they do their little skills, then get that ball and knock it around the defence until Bea Pea stops pressing. Got that? When Bea Pea stops pressing, it's triangles from defence to midfield. Pass pass pass. Keep it moving around. They might come at you, but only for a minute. When that storm's passed, give it Charlotte." I pointed at her. "Drive forward. Julie, super energy at that point. I need you to sprint, hard, somewhere. Make a gap for Angel. Angel, that through ball is coming either side of Bonnie. Read it, get there, finish. Then we do it all again. Got that?"

"Yes, Max!"

I clapped and they jogged onto the pitch.

Sandra doubled as the referee and blew to start the match.

As expected, the first team zipped the ball around and their midfielders went on teasing dribbles. They played beautiful combination football, a whirlwind of lines and triangles and squares, with one unbelievable move leading to a goal registering one hundred on the slapometer. Their match ratings shot up to eights and nines.

My team hadn't let that one in - they didn't have the tools to stop it.

"One-nil," shouted Sandra, before blowing to restart the game.

It fell into the same general pattern - the first team cutting through our lines - but now they were having fun, getting silly. Kisi tried a Zidane roulette. Dani tried to nutmeg every defender. Maddy did kick-ups before launching ambitious passes in Bea Pea's direction.

Slowly, the shape of the game changed. Our players took their time on the ball. Queenie passed to Erin, who played the ball left and right, wearing Bea Pea down. When the first team striker stopped chasing, Erin sent the ball to midfield, and those guys tried their best to replicate what Erin had done. They controlled the ball for long enough to bore Kisi. Then Dani stopped chasing. Then Maddy. Pippa never gave up, but one player can't press an entire team. The first team’s match ratings were in slow but steady decline.

"And again!" called Charlotte, as Pippa's latest charge left a large gap in the centre of the pitch. The ball was played to Charlotte and she burst forward. Mo sensed the danger and came to meet her. Julie sprinted right, towards Lucy, who grabbed her shirt.

That left Angel one-on-one with Bonnie, if only Charlotte could find her.

Ha!

Charlotte on the move. Mo moves to slow her down.

Charlotte wiggles her hips - Mo stumbles!

Space opens up for the midfielder. She has time to pick a pass.

She slides the ball inside the defender's run.

Angel gets there first!

She touches the ball into shooting position.

Bonnie dives in.

Angel gets the shot away...

Into the corner!

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

An unerring finish.

As Angel and Charlotte high tenned, Sandra called out the score. "Two-one for the reserves."

Kisi was astonished. "It's one-all!"

"Reserve goals count double," said Sandra.

"That's not fair."

"We could make it triple," I yelled, and Kisi flashed me a sarcastic smile. She was not happy.

Bonnie called the first team in for a huddle and Charlotte did the same. I smiled and got down on the astroturf, legs stretched out, palms flat, like I was on a beach.

"You look pleased with yourself."

I didn't have to look, but I did anyway. It was Jackie, with Livia. They had ice creams in little tubs. "You're supposed to be having the day off."

"I am. But I wanted to check you aren't breaking my team."

"Oh, I'm breaking them," I said, delighted.

"What's up?" said Livia, settling into place next to me. As gestures went, it was wildly more intimate than any massage she'd ever given me.

Jackie went next to her, apparently forgetting he'd been pretending to have dodgy knees. "Max thinks they're getting complacent."

"Are they?"

"Yeah. Not tracking back at three-nil up. Trying to do show-off moves when the matches are safe. But we're still winning and they'll be up for the two big ones. They rise to a challenge. I didn't think it was worth intervening just yet but Max and Sandra disagreed."

"It winds me up," I said. "Kisi, Dani, Maddy. When they're in full flow, it's amazing to watch. But it gets too easy for them and they turn to dicking around." Jackie and Livia shared a glance and smiled into their ice creams. "What?"

"As always when you complain," said Jackie. "You're describing yourself."

"No way," I said. "I might stroll around and I might do tricks that seem pointless, but it's actually completely different."

"Is it?"

"Yes, actually. There's an intellectual heft behind my frippery. Kisi's just bone idle lazy."

Jackie laughed. "Okay, Max."

The two sides were tearing into each other, now, and the firsts regained the upper hand with ease. They scored - two-all - and went ahead - three-two. But that burst of righteous anger took it out of them and the reserves, increasingly confident with Charlotte interpreting my instructions to mean she could drift left and right - I used the tactics screen to give her a free role - passing her oppo to death. When she ventured too close to the defensive line, one of the defenders would move to hold her up, Julie would create space, and Angel and Bonnie would compete for the pass that came.

Bonnie won the next two, but a hyper-motivated Angel won the third and hit a spectacular shot past Robyn. Four-three to the reserves.

"Now, that's interesting," said Jackie, leaning forward, ice-cream forgotten.

"What?" said Livia. "The shot? You've seen her do that before."

"It was a great strike. No, the... Fuck me. Max has done it again." He rubbed his forehead. "That's getting annoying."

"He's right that they're lazy?"

Jackie sighed and pointed. "Using the backup players to show it is really smart, Maxy boy. I've told them but I haven't shown them."

"Charlotte was getting annoyed. Did she say anything to you?"

"She did but..." Jackie nodded to himself. "She's like you and Sam. Very sensitive to drops in standards. I should have been all over it. I put it down to the group's inexperience. Something to work on over time."

The match was continuing, and the firsts were fighting back again. Now with more control. Getting goal-side - between their opponent and Robyn to reduce the danger - starting attacks with more of a rest defence. That was exciting - when the going got tough, they reverted to good habits. Nothing fundamental was broken, here. All they needed was a minor recalibration.

"You're not wrong, Jackie. Obviously. It is inexperience. It's just that I've been thinking about the definition of Chesterness and what they've been doing - going three-nil up and splitting into a load of individuals - isn't right. I can't watch that. Maybe it makes no difference this season, or next. But one day it'll bite us on the arse. Guaranteed."

"Did you say Chesterness?" said Livia.

"Yes. Isn't it awesome?"

"I'm not at work so I don't have to answer that."

"Max," said Jackie, and I thought he was going to complain about the amazing word I'd invented. "Charlotte and Angel are a hell of a combo. When did you see that?"

"I didn't. I just needed someone to create the chances for her to prove my point."

"Besterness strikes again," he said, getting to his feet and striding to the touchline where he yelled out instructions.

"Soz," I said.

"What for?" said Livia.

"Ruined your date night."

She picked up his ice-cream and poured it into her tub - absolutely bonkers move. "He likes to be challenged." She pushed some ice-cream past her lips. "Especially by you."

She hadn't responded to my statement. Or perhaps she had. For the first time, I had my two elite coaches in one place, taking care of my players. I lay back and looked up at the stars - I couldn't see many because of the floodlights, but I could see a few. So rarely did I have time to just sit back and do nothing and know everything would be okay. "His knees seem fine."

I felt the smile before she even spoke, but then I heard it. "His knees are fine. Look, Max, we're worried about you. Magnus says you're suffering and you won't talk to anyone. You can talk to Jackie if you need to."

"I know."

"About... Raffi."

"Pass."

"Okay." She was quiet for a while. "Just so you know, Dean's got some interesting ideas for how you could spend the money."

***

Friday, 9 February

The squad was generally in an okay mood, buoyed by our latest addition - WibRob was training with us for the first time and he would spend the weekend at the digs. Watching him barrelling around, giving everything 110%, snarling one second and laughing the next boosted the morale of some of the senior pros. They'd seen a lot in their time but they'd rarely seen such an irrepressible bundle of energy. Anyone wondering why I'd made his signing such a priority was soon left wondering something quite different - how good was this kid going to get?

Pascal's morale was still rock bottom and it was starting to become an issue. Games were coming thick and fast and he could be a vivid point of difference between us and other teams. Without him, our rotation options were slow, predictable, or overly youthful.

I called him over before we got starting. He looked up at me, his dark hair blowing around, his sallow face telling me what Henri had reported - the kid wasn't eating or sleeping well. "Yes, boss?"

My throat tightened. Turned out, I wasn't ready to talk about the betrayal. A guy I'd plucked from obscurity had left without a word to anyone and had apparently changed his phone number. All I knew of his whereabouts was from going into the dressing room and seeing images on Pascal's phone. Raffi Brown holding his scarf up on the day he signed. Raffi Brown making his full debut. Raffi Brown coming on as a sub. Raffi Brown on the sub's bench.

"Boss?"

Maybe I could talk about it without talking about it. "How are you doing, Pascal?"

"Fine. Good."

"We've got a cup semi-final on Tuesday."

No excitement. "Yes."

I scratched under my chin. "I could use your help, mate."

"I'm available for selection."

"You've been training like shit."

"That is not accurate."

"Okay." No point talking to the little brat. I wandered off, calculating. I'd have to squeeze as much as I could out of Bark and Andrew Harrison. Joe Anka was nearly ready to resume training after his broken leg. His CA had collapsed but a few sessions would be restorative. At least his morale was high - the relief of being part of the action again far outweighing the shock of Raffi's betrayal.

I called Sandra over. "Yes, Max?"

"Let's pick the team."

"Chris B or not Chris B, that is the question."

"Are you on your Hamlet arc? I did that one. So, what are the pros and cons?"

"Last time you did 4-1-4-1, got battered, scored twice, Henri got sent off unfairly, two-all draw."

"They have a decent coaching staff,” I mused. “We should assume they're slightly better now. But we're a lot better. Looking at the schedule, we should play our strongest team tomorrow."

"Not worried about the semi-final?"

"Not in the slightest." We would be playing Congleton Town, a tier 9 side who were tearing up their league. Dangerous, but still. Tier 9. I would smash them up if they got lippy. We'd most likely put out a team full of D-Days and Tony Hetheringtons and maybe give Dan Badford and/or Lucas Friend his debut. "Next fixtures we go strong, weak, weak, rotation, rotation, then it's Kiddies. Pretty ideal run of games, TBH."

Sandra watched as Vimsy got the session underway with some simple warm ups. "Do you think they'll low block us? Scarborough, I mean."

I smiled. "I have absolutely no clue. It's hard to tell." I tried to will the imps to give me a perk that would tell me an opposing manager's plans, but immediately thought better of it. What would be the fun in that? "I'm guessing they'll have a go. They need wins to get in the playoffs."

"They won't want to be humiliated, though."

"I think you're right to say the formation depends on whether we use Chris or not, but we've been riding Youngster hard. I'd like to give him a break." He had been stuck on CA 49 for a while, possibly because we were overusing him.

"Magnus could play DM, though. Or you. We could still do 4-1-4-1."

"Do you think Chris is part of our best eleven?"

"I do."

"Fuck it. 4-4-2, Henri does the work of two men."

Sandra closed her eyes while she calculated. "Ben. Eddie, Glenn, Steve, Carl." Three silvers, two golds. Very solid base. "Aff, Sam, Magnus, You." Gold, gold, silver, unknown. "Henri, Chris." Platinum, bronze.

Average CA 50.7. If Scarborough's was 47, it could be a close game. I shook my head. "We really miss Ryan."

"Bench?"

"Robbo, Gerald, Youngster, Donny, Tony."

"Strong."

"Beating Scarborough is pretty massive. We have to go all-out."

"What about Bark?"

"I talked to Mateo and James. They were surprised I was worried they might recall him. Bark's staying."

Sandra looked down and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "That's good."

Her tone attracted my attention. "What?"

She remained shifty. "Saw you having a chat with Pascal. It'd be good to have him back. It's good you spoke to him."

"He needs more time."

"Ah, right. Okay." She thought about it, took a breath, and let it out. She strode off to be the coach, and I got in line with the nearest set of players.

***

Ding! Ding!

Round Two!

Brooke entered my office, glanced at the new picture on the wall and was genuinely startled. MD came in behind and closed the door. When he noticed the newest addition to my wall art, he beamed.

"Yes! Wonderful choice!"

"Who is it?" said Brooke.

"Someone I trust," I said. I'd deployed the T word already. Her eyebrows twitched. The game was on!

They settled into their chairs and I realised too late that the layout wasn't to my advantage. Brooke and MD were side by side, across the desk from me. They were peers. Teammates. I should have moved a chair to my side to remind MD whose side he was on. I wasn't quite thinking straight, though. During the training session the ball had disobeyed me in a way it hadn't done since I'd been cursed. Short passes, long shots, one in three had gone astray. Sandra and Vimsy got together and agreed I should go and see Dean.

He hadn't found anything wrong with me but it was all very disconcerting.

MD spoke. "I was thinking that since we didn't really have a proper interview the first time round, we could start with some basics."

"No, thanks," I said. "Brooke. Tell us what you've got."

She gave MD an apologetic glance - oh, Mike your idea was so so good but I'll do it his way to humour him haha - and reached into a very corporate laptop-and-documents case. While she got herself ready, I checked out what she was wearing. Cream blouse, black trousers, almost sensible heels. She looked amazing, obvs, but she'd made an effort to look more like a real girl. I wondered how long she'd spent deciding. The right balance between looking good and looking average. Hard. Cheap black hoodies, that was the ticket. One less decision to make every day.

She brought out two neat stacks of papers. "Do you want to start with the fans or the facilities?"

"Fans."

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She pushed some hair behind her ear. "According to research, football fans can be divided into six groups."

"Is this your research, Brooke?"

"No, Max. It’s from the European Club Association. Business professionals try not to waste money. Or would you like me to reinvent the wheel?"

"I think I probably would, yeah."

"That's doable. Give me two ticks." She took a slim laptop out of her folder, opened it, and pretended to type rapidly. "Putting my data into the computer. Yes, got it. Okay, according to my research, there are six types of football fan."

"Funny that," said MD, very much on Brooke's side. The stupid chair arrangement was bugging me, now.

"The first group are called Football Fanatics. They make up just over ten percent of the market." Market? I nearly pulled her up on that, but didn't want to interrupt every five seconds. I'd done enough talking over her the first time round. "They're football fans, first and foremost. They're attached to their club but engage on all vectors." Vectors? I shoved my fist into my mouth. Brooke became human for a moment; she laughed. "Yes, I said vectors. Sue me. They care about more than merely their own team. They think the sport should have a net societal positive."

"Sounds like my kind of dude."

"They like going to matches and feeling a sense of belonging. So, yes. I'd say this is a segment worth exploring."

"We do community stuff. Our groundsmen check for hedgehogs before they cut grass. If we put up solar panels we'll be the second most environmentally-friendly football club in the world. We can use that."

Brooke's lips twitched, just for a micro-second. "I'm sure your future Head of Marketing will be happy to engage with that challenge, Max. The second group is called Club Loyalists. About fifteen percent of the market. They're highly-engaged, long-term fans. It's a big part of their identity."

"We've got loads of those. They kept the club alive. Didn't you, MD?"

"Yes."

"The research says they're more interested in higher levels of football and the quality of the play is important to them."

"Let's put up a big sign on the M53. Number of backheel nutmegs seen at the Deva this year."

"Is that an example of good play?" asked Brooke, with genuine innocence.

"Urgh. You sound like Sandra. What I’m hearing is that as we get promoted, some of our long-term fans will come back. Especially if we're playing Max Best football."

"The report didn't use the phrase Max Best football, I don't think," she said, pretending to check her pages. "But yes. The third group is called Icon Imitators. It's just over ten percent. They're young people who follow players more than clubs. They're most engaged with elite football."

I sighed. Stupid little brats who followed Messi more than Barcelona. "We can forget all about that."

"Oh!" A look of surprise popped out of Brooke's face, then slunk back inside. "I'm sorry, Max, but I don't agree. This could be our main area of opportunity."

"Soz but what?"

Her tongue ran along her bottom lip as she decided how brave to be. With care, she said, "William B. Roberts idolises you. From what I’ve heard, so do many of the young people. I didn't have time to go round the streets but I’ll go out on a limb and say that in this part of the world, you're the most marketable footballer."

Wait till you see Angel, I thought. I rubbed my forehead. "William's a player. He gets it. To some little street urchin I'm a sixth tier nobody. Let's move on."

Brooke glanced at MD, who shook his head. Some prior communication, there. "27% are FOMO Followers. To them, football is social currency. It's something to talk about with their friends, a place to go with their mates. They like football but there's less emotion than with the Club Loyalists. They prefer to follow big clubs. The research didn't say so, but I think it's because it provides more opportunity for socialising."

"How do we get them to come?"

"You've done some of this already by putting Chester in the news so often. The first female manager, the first manager playing for a different team, all those stories make this group more likely to come and see what happens next. We could try leaning into the social aspect. Make a match more of a day out. Fan parks, pubs inside the stadium. Which will also help with the fifth group - Main Eventers. They're almost twenty percent. It's all about the occasion. The big event! The World Cup Final, the Superbowl, the Red River Showdown. They are older and the group includes more women. You won't get them to every match but we can get them to the big ones."

"Yep."

Brooke looked down. "You'll have to teach me which are the big ones." Holy shit! That was absolutely incredible. Just in case we started to think she was being arrogant with her knowledge, she'd poured salt into a pepper pot. I'm just a girl, heee.

MD fell for it big time. He bent and reached out but didn't touch her. "Of course we will!"

I bit my lip and opened my eyes as wide as they'd go to show I knew what she was doing. The tiniest hint of a blush came to her cheeks. "The sixth group is called Tag Alongs. Again, almost twenty percent. They're not very engaged, not very interested, but can be coaxed into coming by friends and family. Again, more likely to be older and more likely to be women."

I steepled my fingers together. "Buy one season ticket, get a second half price. Or would that just cannibalise our sales?"

MD coughed. "Max, you don't need to come up with the ideas. That's Brooke's job."

"That's our Head of Marketing's job."

"Quite."

I went over what I'd heard. Six types of fan. Six types of promotion needed. Some that might raise the floor of our attendances, some that might raise the ceiling. "It's great to know all this but I am curious about what you'd do, Brooke, to get these people in."

"I have some initial ideas but I do need to get to know the market some more." She gave MD a thin smile, but now that I was onto her, she didn't commit to it. "I'd politely suggest the research shows opportunities beyond merely getting butts in seats, but it's a good starting point. I'd be keen to get your go-ahead, Max, on most of our projects."

"Why?" said MD. "He's Director of Football. You wouldn't report to him."

"We need to use his players in our promotions," said Brooke. "I think I could only do a good job if Max liked my ideas." MD frowned, but she continued. "I've been researching famous football marketing campaigns. If I could get your thoughts on them, that'd help me to understand some of the boundaries I'd be operating within. What do you think?"

"Sounds like a good idea."

"Number one. Messi's goals. When he scored his six hundred and forty-fourth goal for his club, Budweiser made 644 personalised bottles of beer and distributed them to all the goalkeepers Messi scored against. Then Messi called them and they talked about the goals."

"Love it," I said. "I can just imagine some of the goalies saying, oh you never meant that shot, that was a cross. See, normally that kind of shit would be just about the goalscorer but adding the goalies makes it fun. It's not like, wow, I'm the great Messi look at my numbers. It's respectful. We were opponents that day, but let's talk about football and have a beer together now. Yeah. Fan."

Brooke scribbled some notes. "Ajax Amsterdam," she said, with a hard J.

"Ajax," I said, with the J pronounced like a Y.

"Are you sure?" she said. MD was nodding rapidly. "Gosh. Ay-ax. During the pandemic, when they didn't have fans in the stadium, they won the Dutch league and melted the trophy down into little stars. They sent one to each missing fan."

"What? Are you serious? That didn't happen."

She showed me her notes, like that proved anything. "No, really! It came up on multiple sources."

I exhaled. "I mean... dislike. It's a good, like, little something for the fans but holy shit. The point of football is to win trophies. You can't go round melting them. No, no, no. MD?"

"I'm with you, Max. Feels like vandalism."

"It won awards," mumbled Brooke. "Arsenal No More Red. Arsenal London - " She stopped to investigate the pained noise I made, but seeing that I wasn't going to say anything further, continued. "Played in white kits to raise awareness of knife crime. The jerseys were not made available for sale."

I sighed. "Yeah, it's good. It's depressing, though, isn't it? Makes me think I'm going to get stabbed every time I walk down the street. I don't know. I think what I like about it is that it's a local issue. Knife crime in North London. Who better to help than Arsenal? One thing, though. Arsenal playing in white should be a big deal and should make it a big news item. But teams play loads of matches in their second or third kits when there's no need. They do that for marketing reasons, so if I'm watching a team that normally plays in red play in white, I wouldn't even blink. They've ruined the impact of their marketing by over-marketing."

"I think you might be overthinking this, Max," said MD.

"I've got more if we have time."

"Yeah, this is interesting," I said.

"Manchester United got behind a project from Cadbury's called Donate Your Words."

"Huh. I don't know this one."

Brooke squirmed. I got the feeling she didn't really want to read out what she'd written. "Researchers found that half a million elderly people go five days without speaking to anyone and quarter of a million go an entire week."

"What the fuck."

It affected her as much as me. She found some point on the page, fixed her eyes on it, and composed herself. "The idea was to encourage people to check on their elderly neighbours and whatnot."

"Yeah, I get it." It was all too easy to call to mind an image of a lonely old person. Of all the people in the country, I would be one of the best able to take minimal human contact. But not talking to a single person for an entire week? On a regular basis? It'd fuck you up, fast. "So if it helped some old people get some chats then, yeah, great. Bit depressing but there's something people can actually do. Like, what can I do about knife crime? Don't know. But I can talk to someone dead old. MD, if you ever need a chat..."

He spoke to a ceiling light. "Thanks, Max. Appreciate it."

Brooke was happy to have got through this part. She didn't realise she was about to detonate a nuke with an off-hand comment. "And, of course, Cadbury's got 1.2 billion earned media impressions with 97% positive sentiment."

I shot out of my chair. "Oh, what the fuck! For a second I thought you had a heart. Who cares what Cadbury's got? Are you joking?"

"They care! If they get good results from their spend, they'll do it again."

"Fucking brilliant. Let's all click on ads so that our corporate overlords will get good metrics and let some money trickle down to people who are desperate."

"Do you want Chester to do good things and not tell anyone?"

"We're not doing this lowest common denominator race-to-the-bottom bullshit. That's about monetising human misery, not solving it. No fucking way. Count me out."

"Max!" complained MD, slightly shocked. This whole battle had come out of nowhere, and while Brooke and I had been expecting it, he hadn't.

"It's so fucking grim, mate. Come on, be honest, you agree with me."

"I don't. And I don't see the need for this belligerent tone."

"Is my tone bothering you, Brooke?"

MD set his jaw. "It's unfair to ask that question, Max."

"All right, I'll tone down my tone and we won't talk about who's being tone deaf." I was at the window, looking out onto the football pitches, imagining I was in the Deva.

"Max, sit down and let's be professional."

"I don't want to be professional. I want to go to my mum's care home and talk to all the old biddies there. Make sure they're all right." I tapped my lips, and after a while, pointed. "We'll have a section. Twenty seats, over there."

"Where?" said MD, stupidly.

"We'll get volunteers to go and find some of these lonely oldsters and we'll get them to the Saturday home matches. They can talk to each other! What was the phrase? Football as social currency. We give them people to talk to and something to talk about - me."

MD wasn't mad any more. I'd taken one of Brooke's ideas and put a real community-first spin on it. "That's interesting, that. Something to discuss with the board. Perhaps we can get to the same result less explosively, Max? This isn't one of your half-time team talks."

Brooke hadn't spoken for a while and she was doing her doll face thing. Now that I thought I understood her a little better, it seemed that she was under a lot of strain and was trying not to show it.

Since I was busy staring at Brooke's face for clues as to what she was thinking, MD spoke again. "Ah, I think Brooke's skills are fairly clear, Max. By now we have enough information to make a hiring decision, don't you think?"

I spoke and then stopped breathing so I'd be able to concentrate completely on her reaction. "Are you sure you want us to decide right now?"

Panic. Pure panic, I was sure of it. A hunted look in the eyes, a twitch of the fingers, a parting of the lips. It was gone in a flash, but Brooke was fumbling for her second folder. "I've got more. The grants. Funding options." She spilled her papers everywhere. As she and MD gathered them, I spotted headings like 'Rooftop Solar Grants' and 'Energy Efficiency Scheme (Wales)' and 'Green Grant Fund'. Then there was a separate pile for sports stuff - Fit for Future, Sport Wales, Be Active Wales.

MD shuffled through the ones in his hand. "Oh," he said, and Brooke reacted like he had torn them in half.

"What?" she whispered.

"Well, Brooke," he said, his tone falling between sadness and confusion. "These are all for Wales."

"Yes. The stadium's in Wales."

I leaned back, biting my bottom lip, looking up. This was amazing.

"The land is in Wales but it's owned by Chester Council. This, er," he made a vague gesture with the sheaf of papers. "This isn't very..."

He couldn't bear to look at her. His superstar corpobuddy had made an error so basic it called into question everything she'd ever done, said, or with a well-timed glance, made him believe.

I left my own personal reverie to check her out, and while it was hard to be sure, I got the impression she had deflated, big time. I leapt to my feet, all jaunty and full of beans. "Mike," I said in a stage whisper, jerking my head towards the door. In other words, get out here.

He placed the papers down, ever so gently, on the seat behind him, did some sort of jerky bowing motion - what? - and joined me in the corridor. "Yes?"

"She's quite upset, I think. Could you get her a coffee? From upstairs, maybe. Tell Agatha's PA we've got a crying woman emergency. Oh, and some biscuits. Women love biscuits."

He blinked. "You want me to do a coffee run?"

"Oh, sorry, mate. There's a crying woman in my office and I thought maybe we should do something about that. Sorry if it isn't strictly in line with your place in the hierarchy."

"Crying? I - But I wasn't saying - Of course I'll get some coffee. Of course." He didn't move for so long I thought he had frozen and I'd finally get proof that we were living in a simulation. But his feet moved away and, eventually, so did his head.

I popped back in and closed the door behind me. I thought about locking it but MD would probably find it unprofessional or something. "Stand up a second," I said, and when she did, I turned her chair perpendicular to the desk. "Pop yourself back down." She did. I then repeated the action with the other chair, put the papers into Brooke's hands, and faced her. We were peers, now. Teammates. "I'm happy with that," I said.

"I saw."

"Two reasons. First, now you know how hard it is. Everywhere you look there's some absolute craziness. This has to be the weirdest football club in the UK. It made me feel stupid when I tried to get somewhere with planning or even just idle speculation. Someone like you running into the same minefield does cheer me up." I gave her a winning smile. "The second thing is, it all just hit me then when you said it. The solution to everything. So that's good."

"Yeah." She had no fight left.

"I'm guessing you're upset because you're in a hurry. Visa shit."

Almost nothing happened on her face - it was fascinating. "The timing has been - " A few microexpressions I couldn't read. "I'll need to leave the country for a while. Tell Scotty it's time to heat up the bricks. Get my papers someplace else." She grunted with frustration. "I had other options but I put all my eggs in this basket. I was sure I'd get it."

"Don't be such a drama baby. You got it. You're in. Congratulations." A flash of something - I was still an amateur in reading her. "We'll rush through your paperwork - you can help MD and get it all ready and the board can meet before the match tomorrow and we'll get it all done and dusted in no time."

"I thought you didn't want a marketing person."

"I don't. I want you for a few months until you get bored and leave. That's a good deal for me. You'll help me get grants and stuff, and you'll increase our revenues by your salary, and you'll get started on one poster campaign that will never see the light of day. Win-win, everyone's happy. Transactional. Perfect."

"Transactional?"

"Yeah. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. The end."

"Why did you get rid of MD?"

"So we can be honest." I wondered how to put my thoughts into words. "Football managers have all the power around here. MD told me he's the boss twice. Once when he hires the manager, once when he fires him. I don't want to be seen as a despot. Kinda hate despots." I scrunched my face up. "Kinda think I might need to be a bit despotic for a while, though. But I'd hate to burn bridges and you could help me with that. Let's say MD turns to you and says, here's fifty grand, sell us sixty grand of season tickets. But that's no good. That's my money. I can't say it to him but I can say it to you. It's my money that I made and I want to decide what happens with it."

"You can't make every decision."

"We are going to a higher league next year. You know about promotion, right?" She nodded. "It's harder opponents. We need the best facilities we can afford so that our players improve faster and can reach new levels. And we need better players. If I spent all the money on players, we'd maybe definitely win the league. Right? But unless we invest in infrastructure we'll never reach our potential, so we have to balance on-pitch and off-pitch spending and the only person with the competence to assess what we need to be competitive on the pitch is me. If MD wakes up one day and decides he wants to impress you by giving you money to spend on radio ads or whatever, that might be the money I need for the last piece of the jigsaw. Do you get me? And if there's money left when the transfer window closes - do you know about those?"

"No. This whole darn sport makes me think I keep my brains in my back pocket."

I tutted. "Relax. It's an advantage you don't have preconceptions. I've got an amazing idea for how you can learn things. But transfer windows are big. You can read up on that today. What it means is any money I've not spent in the summer might be spent in January. If I've kept a hundred grand back because a player might become available in the window, I need that money. I'm the only one who can make those decisions. It's not an ego trip. If I can't do it my way, I might as well just quit and go and do it at my own club where no-one will get in my way. I'm only here because I have freedom. And you don't need to feel sorry for MD. He has a track record of buying mostly shit players and hiring mostly shit managers. I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him."

"What if I stay longer?"

I got up. "It's not worth worrying about." Footsteps approached. I motioned that Brooke should put the chairs facing forward again and rushed to intercept MD in the corridor. He was holding a tray with three coffees and three small dishes piled very high with biscuits. "Mate," I whispered.

"What?"

"I messed up. She wasn't crying. She was frustrated I didn't instantly understand her plan."

"Her plan?"

"Yeah, she's just been explaining it to me. It's brilliant. We have to hire her."

"Oh!"

"Yeah, it's all good. It's great!"

I rushed back into my office with a big smile on my face. I bumped into my desk, which was odd. I'd never done that before. "MD, you're just in time," I said, slightly louder than a real boy. "We've been going through Brooke's genius ideas."

"Have you?" he said, not really keen to play along. Brooke's ears twitched. She hadn't seen this coming. She took the coffee MD offered and sipped it. She smiled at him and put it down. She hated it! Incredible self-control.

"Yeah, let me get my flipchart on." I flipped to a clean page and picked up a ballpoint pen.

"Max," said Brooke. I turned and caught the marker pen she tossed. "A gift."

We smiled at each other, then I started sketching. "This rectangle is the Deva stadium."

"Before you tell MD, er, my idea, I wanted to ask," said Brooke. "In America, a lot of stadiums are sponsored. Is that a no-no here?"

"MD might have a different opinion but I don't give a shit. It's free money. My club, Manchester United, have a famous stadium called Old Trafford. The name's so iconic that if you suddenly had to start calling it the CryptoBet Arena there would be fury. The Deva's had sponsors from time to time. You can investigate that."

"If she gets the job," said MD.

"Mike, she fucking grafts and she's a bit of a genius. Check this out. So these dots here show the approximate border between England and Wales. Most of the stadium's technically in Wales, as we know because the Welsh government had different Covid rules and they wouldn't let anyone into the stadium. But the offices and everything are in England. Brooke's idea - God, it's exciting to meet such a creative force - is that this isn't chaos. This is an opportunity!"

"How so?" MD asked her.

I continued as though he'd spoken to me. "There's farms all round the Welsh side and part of the English side. There's this fucking car showroom, too."

image [https://ted-steel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/book7c3.png]

"Check this out, MD. She's looked into the Welsh subsidies first because we can slap pitches here, in Wales, and get loads of Welsh money. If we put solar up on this side of the stadium, Welsh grants! Then, whoops! We've got a parallel project here, in England! Parallel? Maybe it's the same exact project with two reception areas. We lead the Welsh politicians in through the dragon door and the English through the lion door and show them the same pitches. Ssshhh!” I laughed. “It’s gonna be easy if we start with this farmland, but let's try and get rid of the car showroom, Jesus Christ, I proper hate looking at it. We can put another 3G pitch there and load up on even more English funding. And put solar on the top of the offices in the English part of the stadium and get English grants! Could we send the same invoice to two countries? No, that’s too much. But we can squeeze every single penny out of every single organisation. Right?" I stepped away and paced up and down, nodding to myself. "It's kind of a pain straddling the border, but what other club would have the potential to do this? None! We can skip a year of player sales if we get this right!"

"Ha, let's all slow down," said MD. "The idea's great, of course, well done Brooke, but to qualify for most of these grants we'd need to compete in Wales."

"We'll compete in the Welsh Cup," I said. "Brooke's researched it and found that Chester City used to play in that." MD looked surprised - his brief disappointment with Brooke was long forgotten. She looked surprised, too, but I hadn't been lying when I said I'd tried to research this crap in the past. "And we can put our kids in Welsh tournaments. And the women. They don't have enough matches as it is. You and Brooke will sweet talk some people so if there's a fixture clash, we can work around it. Seriously, we can get involved. Boost Welsh football. Why not? There's loads of talented kids in..." I waved my hands in the direction of Wales.

"Flintshire," said Brooke.

"Right! You can't believe how much I care about football in Flintshire. Do you get the concept, though? There's loads of money going. Isn't there, Brooke?"

"Yes. Millions."

"Hey, now. What?"

"Millions, Max. For example." She rummaged until she'd found one of her pieces of paper and handed it to me. As I read it, she quoted it almost word for word. "Fit For Future facilities. A partnership of Cymru Football Foundation and the UK Government (Department for Media, Culture and Sport). Purpose: Building new facilities to kickstart the Chester campus (changing room, clubhouse, small-sided artificial grass pitches, full-sized artificial grass pitches, new or upgraded grass pitches, floodlights, plus some little extras). Conditions: has to be built on Welsh ground. Finances: Up to 500,000 pounds (plus 30% from Chester FC)."

"Thirty percent. What does that mean?"

"To get 500 thousand, we need to put in 150 of our own."

"So that's a no-brainer."

"One question about my idea, Max," said Brooke. "As you said it could get chaotic and messy. Is it an advantage to you that the person whose idea it was might not be employed for very long?"

She was asking if I was going to throw her under the bus if people spotted that we were double-dipping on grants. That would be one explanation for why I'd told MD it was her idea, when of course the true explanation was to make sure she got the job. "I'll take the credit for this if you want, Brooke. If some people don't like it, that's tough. I'm not here to be popular. I'm here to win football matches. Everything we do will have to be approved by the board so we can't do anything illegal but if we do accidentally cross some ethical, ah, borders, collective responsibility kicks in. But if you'd like me to say it was my idea, again, I'm happy to."

MD smiled at the silly young people who were getting over their skis. "This is very exciting but we don't own that land. We don't own any land! And it’s farm land. We can't just put up football pitches. We need to change the zone, get planning permission. It's a lengthy process!"

"Better get started, then. We'll do Brooke's paperwork first so she can get stuck in. That's our end of the bargain sorted. Next I reckon it's some solar. Get some quotes for all that shit. After that you can look into the land and whatnot." MD looked astonished by the whole thing. Now that I'd decided to hire a business bro, ideas started bubbling up. My head was heating up from the simply vast amount of processing that was going on. "Brooke, do you think you could find me a mobile kitchen?"

"A kitchen trailer?"

"Yeah. Not too small. They need to be able to cook for the first team squad in there. Let's say thirty meals at a time. MD, we'll need permission from Agatha to dump it round here, somewhere. We can sell it when we've got a proper home. Oh, and chefs. Probably two part-time to start with? Is that fun for you? I should probably scout players, not cooks."

"Hang on. What job are we offering Brooke? A marketing person doesn't hire chefs."

"She's Head of Getting Shit Done." I checked the time. "Can you do her paperwork or do we need Joe? I was thinking you could get the board together before the match tomorrow and I would pop in and do a bit of a sales pitch to make sure they hurry it up."

"I'm not sure - " said MD.

"That'd be dandy," said Brooke.

I nodded a few times. Yeah. This could work. This could be good. Or it could bite me on the arse. Or both.

***

Hiring Brooke was only the second most important relationship upgrade of the day. I drove to the train station and got Emma. Putting her travel bag into the boot of The Duchess was thrilling. Fifteen minutes later I was in the barn watching her take one item at a time out of her case before deciding where to put it.

She was amused by my fascination. "Have you never lived with a girl before?"

"The longest relationship I've ever had, apart from you, has been with the pine marten in the attic. Oh, where are you going to put that? What is it?"

She held up the mysterious object. "It's a shoe horn. It goes by the front door near the shoe rack."

"I don't have a shoe rack."

"I know."

"Do I need a shoe rack?"

She kissed me and held onto my neck while she checked me out. "Are you okay? You look clammy."

"We had clams for lunch. Yeah, no. Never felt better."

"I'm so glad we're at the stage in our relationship where you feel so comfortable lying to me. Do we have dinner plans? What about that Portuguese place?"

I shook my head. "The cute waitress is on tonight."

"So?"

"So it'll be full of players. I don't want to think about football."

She went back to her suitcase and pulled out a toothbrush and small bag of girl stuff. She pointed the toothbrush in my direction. "Why do you know her shifts?"

I smiled. "Because I'm a player."

"That's becoming more apparent by the minute."

"Because I'm a Chester player and the other Chester players talk about her all the time. Whoever gets her phone number first will be an all-time legend."

"What's her name?"

"How would I know?"

"What's her name?"

"Luisa."

"Who's favourite?"

"Ooh, good question," I said. "Henri, obvs."

"Obvs."

"Second... Magnus, maybe."

"Oh?"

"She doesn't like football. Maybe she likes crystals. And he’s got a proper footballer body these days. Looks good on him. Third choice, Ryan Jack. He's mature but funny. He hasn't been out much, recently, so he’s got that vulnerable loneliness thing going on."

"Is he all right?"

"Yeah he'll be able to drive in a week. I've been making sure people are popping in. We give him scouting videos to watch and that sort of thing. We’ve got a scam going where Glenn picks Ryan up saying that I need him for something but then - shock - I don't turn up and Ryan's forced to spend time with his mates."

"You're pure evil."

"I know." I watched as Emma unzipped a flap in her suitcase and pulled out some pink pyjamas. A warm tiredness filled me. Emma was going to sleep here in the barn tonight, tomorrow night, and Sunday night. What more could a man ask for? "I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad I'm here." She pottered into the bathroom and I followed. She smiled at me in the mirror before turning round. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure. Maybe we'll eat in, though?"

After eating, I washed the dishes and she dried the plates, like men and women had been doing in that house for hundreds of years. It was the highlight of my week.

***

I later discovered that Ruth's granddad had never done a lick of housework. Still. Good memories.

***

Match 30 of 46: Chester versus Scarborough 'The Sea Dogs' Athletic Yarrr

I woke up stupidly late to a series of not-quite-frantic-but-getting-there messages. I called Sandra asking her to take care of the matchday basics. She asked if I was okay, which was getting a bit annoying. I felt absolutely a billion percent amaze.

When I got to the stadium, I sat on a chair just to catch my breath for a second and someone escorted me into the dressing room. Magnus Evergreen put on some medical gloves - why, mate? - and shone a light into my eyes and shit.

"Will you cut it out?"

"You're not right, boss."

"How's my aura?"

"Torn asunder."

"You're fun. Did you go to Tiny Tino last night?"

"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell."

"Yeah, but really."

"She shot me down."

"Bro."

"I know. She's brutal. I might try again. It's better than scream therapy."

"Lend me a magnetic bracelet or something. We've got to beat Scarborough. Shit. What time is it?"

"Nearly two."

"Fuck. Help me up for a second."

***

At 2 p.m., while Sandra was handing in our team sheets and the Brig was leading the guys through the warm ups, I was knocking on the door of the boardroom and entering. The seven current members of the board sat along the sides of the ancient, elegant table, with MD taking up the eighth spot on my right. Brooke was at the short side, next to MD, which you'd normally call the head of the table but in this case was very much the opposite.

I was pulling a flipchart in behind me, forehead glistening, while a worried-looking Magnus hovered in the doorway, not knowing what to do. Ultimately, he slipped inside and tried to be inconspicuous, which was hard given he had the actual aura - not an imagined one - of a world champion bodybuilder.

"Oh, Max, what - ?" started MD.

"Hi, guys. Am I late for my presentation? Brooke, can you go to the other side? Thanks." Brooke obeyed, switching to the chair opposite her. It might have been my imagination but she seemed to give Magnus the elevator eyes while he smiled crookedly, rabbit in the headlights. I moved Brooke's chair out of the way and dragged my chart into place. I was very much at the head of the table. "What are all these cameras?"

MD spoke. "We thought this one might be controversial so we're recording it in case the fans have questions."

"Controversial?" I said, frowning and wiping away a tiny bit of moisture that had formed on my head somehow. "No. It's perfectly simple. Now, look. You board boys wanted to talk football with me. B-boys. So many B-boys. Business boys. Billionaire boys. Board boys. You ready?" Four men and three women gaped at me. They'd come to lord it over Brooke and now they were about to get lectured by Max actual Best. I flipped the cover sheet away. I had written, 'THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK' and when I pointed to it and laughed, only Magnus joined in. Convinced that I was absolutely nailing this whole thing, I turned to the next page. The title of my first real drawing said '4-4-2' and ten circles were laid out in said formation. "We're playing 4-4-2 today. But what is 4-4-2? You think you know, but there are levels to it. This is level one. It's nice and simple. You've got four defenders. They try to stop the other team scoring. Two strikers. They try to score. Four midfielders help the defence or the attackers depending on where the ball is."

"Er, Max," said MD. I think. I didn't really have the mental capacity to listen at the same time as getting Brooke hired.

I flipped to the next page. It was the same 4-4-2 layout but instead of circles for the strikers, I'd drawn one tall rectangle and one short one. "Level two. We've got a big guy and a little guy. A target man and a fox-in-the-box. There's all kinds of names. We kick the ball high and our big man tries to win the header. He gets what we call a flick-on. If the flick-on goes this way, our fast little terrier rushes onto the ball and tries to score."

I waited for MD to try to interrupt, but he didn't. Even though this was super basic, he was interested. I flipped to the next page where I'd written F over the left mid and D over the right mid.

"Level three. If the other team have big defenders, hoofing to a target man stops working. So you get a fast left midfielder and a right mid who can dribble. Now the game's all about getting these guys forward into positions where they can cross the ball. And you might start to think, is a little goalscorer still my best option?"

On the next page, I'd replaced the small rectangle with a medium-sized one, and written C over one central midfielder, BTB over another, SP over the left back, and OL over the right back.

"Level four. The small striker is out. He's a liability. Now we need a second striker who can compete for headers, but who's technical and smart. That's because teams have figured out we attack down the sides so we've got ourselves a crafty midfielder who can do some of the creative work. But that's imbalanced the midfield so we've added a runner type, someone who can get box to box. We need more options, though, so we've found a left back who takes great set pieces and a right back with the energy and stamina to do overlaps."

The next page got messy. There were pluses and minuses everywhere with words in tiny letters.

"Level five. We've got two left-footed players in the outfield ten, we've got three players who are good at heading, three who are technical. Matches are determined by increasingly tiny details like how quickly a right-footed player can pass out to the left wing, how good the winger's first touch is, how fast and predictable his decision-making is, and how well his teammates understand their roles based on what he's likely to do. The manager throws his hands up in frustration when a midfield pass is played six inches behind where it should have gone because he knows the chance to score has been lost. Football at this level is mind-bendingly complicated. We're a generalist team who does well until we come up against a specialist.

"Level six. Edging towards simplicity. We've bought and sold and got ourselves a team of beefy boys who win headers. We win games on set pieces.

"Level seven. We keep losing to more technical teams so we've binned off the big boys and we've flooded the squad with tiny technicians. We pass teams to death but lack cutting edge.

"Level eight. We add an enormous Scandinavian cyborg from the future to turn our pretty football into goals. The second striker's job is to press, distract opponents, and create gaps.

"Level nine. It's all about the gaps, now. Every training session is about shifting and overloading and compressing the game into small zones, bringing the oppo into safe zones, then smashing into the gaps with pace and purpose.

"Level ten. While we're trying to shift the oppo around to get the gaps we want, they're doing the same to us. How we manage gap-on-gap risk and reward becomes an obsession. Central defenders put their foot on the ball, refusing to move until an opponent comes towards him. If the opponent quickly retreats, the centre back does it again. Both actions are triggers for the rest of the team indicating a chain of complicated but simple actions that will result in a high-quality chance for one team or the other."

I pushed away yet more fluid that had appeared under my fringe and turned to the final page. It was a plain 4-4-2 diagram.

"Level eleven. The reversion to simplicity is complete. The manager tells his players he wants 4-4-2 and they instantly comprehend the entire tactical plan. We have gone from simple to complicated and all the way back to simple."

I turned to a new page and took the lid off my one good marker. In the top third, I wrote, 'Level one - I need Brooke.' In the middle, I wrote, 'Level five - I have 18 questions about this.' Then in the bottom third, I wrote, 'Level eleven - I need Brooke.'

Scarborough's tactics hadn't changed in the slightest since they'd seen our team sheet. Presumably we were lining up exactly how they'd expected. I didn't like that feeling.

I pointed in what I hoped was the direction of the pitch. "I'm going out there, now. At five thirty I'll be coming in, exhausted, to a hundred demands from fifty people. It's only going to get worse as we get promoted. Please do what you need to do to approve this today so that at eight a.m. on Monday morning someone - " I pointed from Brooke to MD and back again - "will be at the visa place with an envelope full of documents and they'll hand them to a human being and we can get that ball rolling. I need help. I've found that help. Brooke is mint. The only reason we have a chance to make this hire is because we have the capacity to act fast. So please act fast. Thanks, bye."

As I rested my hands on the chair in front of me, I saw Magnus rushing towards me.

***

Next thing I knew, I was in the dressing room and the whole squad were watching me. Physio Dean was encouraging me to drink from a bottle, so I did.

"Bit groggy," I said, but no-one paid the slightest attention.

Sandra knelt next to me. "Max. What's the deal?"

I shook my head until it made me feel woozy, which was pretty soon. "Team sheets are in?"

"Yes but we can make a change before kick off."

"But then I won't be able to play."

"No, but... but you're mashed."

"I'm not mashed, you dick," I said. I suppose it came out a bit whiny because everyone laughed. I pushed my knuckles into my head. "Think I've got a flu maybe."

"Oh, you think?" she said, with a laugh.

"Henri. Where's he?"

"Here, my friend."

"Can you go right mid and keep it tight? For a bit?"

"Oui."

"Let me, er... Give me... What I'll do is take a free kick and get us a lead and then I'll fuck off home, right?"

Sandra looked at Henri and they nodded at each other. Sick Max was a better bet than healthy D-Day.

Sandra went to the tactics board and swapped the right-mid and striker magnets around. "All right, lads. It's a big effort, today. Solid as fuck, right? We keep them locked all the way fucking down first half and we see if we can't get some Max Best magic on a set piece. If not, it's a suffer show. Some of you have had lovely old rests, and today's the day you pay us back. Do you fucking hear me?"

"Yes, miss!" yelled Glenn Ryder.

I raised my right fist. "Chesterness!" I yelled, but no-one heard me. Dean noticed me trying to do something, and turned to say something to Sandra. Before he did, I hissed, "Dean."

His head snapped back. "Yes, Max?"

"Stop me playing I'll get you banned from Tiny Tino."

"That's not fair. You're sick. It's my job."

I nodded. "I can hit one good cross, mate. We need this. Then I'll go to bed."

"Do you promise?"

"Pwomise."

He nodded, apparently satisfied, but when I followed the lads out onto the pitch I spotted him talking to the Brig. It didn't make sense until later.

***

I lined up on the right until Henri gently pushed me towards Chris Beaumont, our ginormous striker. Chris, in turn, pushed me away so I wouldn't infect him and I ended up spending the first few minutes of the match alone.

So, so alone.

But then a ball was cleared by Steve - a clearance, not a hopeful punt - and my anticipation kicked in. I found my legs carrying me over to the right. The brain fog left me and I had a moment of absolute clarity. The entirety of the pitch filled my senses - the position of the goalie, where Chris was moving, all the way back to where Ben was pointing over to the left.

I knew the goalie would rush out to grab the outswinging cross, or at least try to punch it away.

So, with all due respect to The Sentinel, I decided to fucking score.

I approached the ball, concentrated, and instead of hitting it on its bottom right to impart curve that would take it away from the goalie and onto Chris's head, I hit the other side of the ball.

Also - I fucking leathered it.

The ball curled, exactly as intended, leaving the goalie with mega O face as the ball gathered pace, burned through the netting - goal! - orbited the entire planet and returned to the Deva stadium, where, because of the curvature of the earth or physics or some such, it hit the other side of the empty goal. Two-nil!

That's what should have happened.

Instead I kicked the ball away with my standing foot and hit fresh air with my other. I fell, shook my head like in a cartoon, and the match went on without me.

At that point, even I thought that maybe I should sub off and go home.

But a stubborn streak kept me going another few minutes. The more I looked at my match rating - five out of ten - the more pissed off I became. I decided that the 'ness' in Chesterness was taken from stubbornness.

Next time the ball came to me, I took a touch and put my body between me and a defender. He barged into me, the idiot, not knowing that I wasn't experiencing human emotions like pain. I touched the ball square to Chris, who hit a diag to Aff.

Aff surged onto it and was fouled. Yellow card and a free kick in a dangerous position.

I stepped up, cleared my head as best as possible, and did nothing with the Masterpiece Theatre options. I did, however, smash the Free Hit option. All I needed was one good kick. One good contact and I'd have played my part. After that, my team would step up. Sandra, Vimsy, and the Brig would step up.

All I had to do was take one good free kick.

Piece of pizz.

I mean, piss.

Best lines up the free kick. He's got options, chief among them Beaumont, Lyons, and Ryder.

Best takes a moment to gather his thoughts.

Best takes a moment to kneel by the Community Stand. He doesn't look well. Bad lasagna?

He's ready now. He approaches the ball...

Stunning delivery!

It speeds onto the head of...

Glenn Ryder!

What a header! What a goal!

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

The physios are running on. Best has run his race.

He's getting generous applause from the home fans.

***

The next few days were a feverish, agitated blur. When I was conscious, I realised that Emma's first weekend as my three-sevenths life partner had been spent bringing me thin soup, teas, and encouraging me to munch on dry biscuits. Astonishingly, she claimed to have loved every second. Maybe because there were twenty horses a stone's throw from my front door.

When I finally gave a shit about football again, I discovered that Sandra had guided the team to a hard-fought one-nil win. My one moment of quality had been enough and Sam, Carl, and Glenn had made life hard for Scarborough, who only really committed bodies forward in the last five minutes.

Then the virus that had knocked me out ravaged the rest of the squad. Sandra worked out how to field a team capable of beating Congleton, and that was that. We were in the final of the Cheshire Cup!

Meanwhile, the flu was hitting other squads, taking good players out of teams that never rotated, or putting two left wingers out of action at the same time. Ours was the only squad flexible enough to have a chance of coping. We were pulling away at the top of the National League North!

We had something. Reservoirs of inner belief. Stubbornness. A never-say-die attitude. When one was weak, others would strengthen. A branch that bent grew stronger. Chesterness. It was a concept I'd need a lot more time to understand, if it even existed at all.

The togetherness, the quality, and the staff I'd surrounded myself with, plus my skill on and off the pitch, were making the National League title look something of a formality. But the season had one big surprise still up its sleeve, and before I could face that adventure, I had to face one of my biggest challenges yet.

***

MD texted me that the board had approved Brooke, 'despite' my help. I'm pretty sure that was a typo.

I was just thinking about her on Wednesday morning. Valentine's Day. And that was the exact moment someone knocked on my front door. Now, that was curious because only about three people knew where I lived.

Brooke might have asked Ruth. I went to the mirror and checked my hoodie. It was as clean as any. How did I feel? Well enough to receive visitors, for sure. Almost good as new, in fact. I’d been thinking of going to training. I shuffled to the front door and opened it.

"Oh!"

Magnus Evergreen was there, and from behind him emerged a very, very reluctant Pascal Bochum. Magnus looked me up and down. "You look like shit, Max. Pascal's the same." Magnus gave me a very intense look - one that might have got him somewhere with Brooke. "You are both medically suspended. Do not come to training today. Talk about what's eating you. Before it eats you."