Player Manager 8
Recap:
Max Best has led Chester FC to the National League North title; his team will now be promoted to the absurdly tough National League. The women’s team won their league and will also move to the fifth tier. Max has vowed to win the FA Youth Cup, has an opportunity to shine on German television, and must help the small team he owns progress up the pyramid.
"Quote." not sure who from yet obvs
***
1.
May 7, 2024
- Hello and welcome to episode one of Goalscorers, a new podcast dedicated to understanding the mastery mindset of world-class figures in sport, business, science, and other high-performance cultures. I'm Bethany Alban and I'm fascinated by the mastery mindset. My aim is to meet the world's best goalscorers and find out what makes them tick, what makes them keep going when other people would quit, and what happens when they achieve their goals. Today's guest is Max Best. If you've never heard of him, don't worry - you will.
[Audio clip - Boggy over intense crowd noise - "Best... Best... Best! Best! Beeesssssssttttt! [pause] Max Best!"]
I met Max when I was studying Journalism and he was trying to find his way into the world of football. An article I wrote about his unorthodox but brilliant management of young players won awards and landed me a job at Britain's biggest newspaper, so it seemed fitting that I should start this series with him as my first guest. His football career so far has been brief. After dazzling as a right-winger for Darlington in the sixth tier of English football, he had the chance to make a lucrative move to a very big, very famous club. Max turned that down to become Director of Football at Chester, also in the sixth tier. He has taken a team that flirted with relegation to dizzying heights - demolishing a competitive league, scoring a record number of goals and causing controversy every step of the way.
[Audio clip - someone with a Scouse accent - "And now here's... this is Max Best. Er... Chester's manager is coming on to play for Tranmere Rovers. I... ah... I'm not sure I can believe my eyes, to be honest. That must be a different Max Best. It must be."]
This season - yes, this very season where his team scored 106 points - Max has recovered from a coma, been appointed Chester's player-manager, masterminded sensational and deserved cup wins over Crewe and Salford City, loaned himself to Tranmere Rovers, was appointed the interim manager at Grimsby Town (where he lasted five games before being dismissed), and capped the season by naming himself as the goalkeeper in a grudge match against his former club.
[Audio clip - someone from Darlington - "Max Best, in his blood-stained goalkeeper top, adjusts his gloves, steps up to take the free kick... Ohhhhhh! Over the wall, into the net, swish, three-nil Chester, thank you and goodnight. That? That sums it all up."]
He doesn't quite seem to be finished with this season, however. A week after Chester's last fixture he was spotted watching Crawley condemn Grimsby Town to relegation and seemed to be very pally with the winning team's manager, TJ Timo Jentzsch. That after Max spent the match in the stands with boxing legends Don Flash and Donnie Wormwood. Yes, Max is moving up in the world, all right. And rumour has it that he stayed in Sussex for a week helping Crawley prepare for their playoff contest against Wrexham. Why would anyone help a rival club? Because after feeling cheated by Wrexham, Max offered his tactical advice to any team playing against them - it seems someone took him up on his offer, and it seems they were right to. Crawley won the first leg three-one.
[Audio clip - from the live TV broadcast - "And another lightning fast counter-attack from Crawley! Sensational. Knee slides to celebrate. And that's TJ high-fiving Max Best in the stands behind him. Best has denied helping Crawley prepare for this but those pictures suggest otherwise. The bromance continues!"]
As you can probably tell, the Max Best story is one that would take more than twenty minutes to tell. In this interview I merely hope to get him to open up about his thought processes, mindset, and decision-making. What are his goal-setting habits? What could make him give up on a goal? How does he feel when he achieves them? And I'd like to get some insight, if I can, into his squad-building strategies. Why has he invested a substantial portion of his budget into green energy? What drives him to turn left when everyone else turns right? He can be belligerent, defensive, and secretive, but he can also be charming and generous.
Which Max Best will turn up today?
***
- Max, welcome to Goalscorers.
- Yep.
- Thanks for coming.
- Let's talk about my appearance fee.
- [Laughing]. Oh? How much do you want?
- Fifty quid.
- I thought you'd say that. For the listeners, Max owes me fifty pounds.
- Not any more.
- Not any more. How are you, Max? You got a nasty blow to the rib in your last match. What was it, two weeks ago?
- Two and a half. I wouldn't play or go climbing but it's probably nearly healed. I'm pain free. For the listeners who don't know the context, I didn't get 'a blow to the ribs'. I was punched by one of Folke Wester's henchmen as I jumped to clear a corner. Folke Wester thought his best chance of winning was to injure me because that's his level but in a stunning twist, one of the Darlington fans was filming and got an angle that showed the whole thing, including the planning session that preceded the assault, and that fan sent it to me. The miscreant - that's a fun word to say on a podcast - got a five-match ban and Folke Wester spent the next four days answering questions about whether he ordered the assault. They lost their playoff eliminator and that's their season over. Folke Wester, a failed manager as well as a failed human being, teeters on the edge of the sack.
- Do I detect some bitterness?
- It's not nice to cough up blood and struggle to pull on a t-shirt, Beth. But his sacking will be a relief because when he goes I'll be able to begin to repair my relationship with Darlington. I got my start there and it's horrible that I've had to avoid them for so long. Bitterness? Maybe, yeah, because he ruined something that was pure and fun. He's toxic and he spread his disease to far too many people. I'm almost sad they didn't get promoted, though. I don't want any of their players and it's an easy six points playing a Folke Wester team.
- The final was Kidderminster against York, but you weren't there.
- I promised TJ I'd pop down south to watch Crawley against Grimsby and I know all about Kiddies and York. There was no real reason to watch it.
- Who did you want to win?
- Didn't really bother me.
- I don't believe that but I meant in the National League North playoff final.
- Oh. Tricky. All in all, maybe York but only because Kiddies have three players I'd love to buy. [laughs]. Kiddies deserved it, though. They're fantastic. York beat us twice, so I hope to play them one day in the future to sort of set that record straight.
- Is that kind of thing a big factor for you? Grudges? Settling scores?
- [pause] Grudge isn't the right word with York because they beat us playing football. It's a game and if you're better than us, good luck to you. No, my thing is... You know when you watch a semi-final and the commentator says 'this manager has lost his last six semi-finals'? And they go on and on about it during the match? I find it so inane. It stresses me to hear that garbage. It's utterly meaningless. I don't want to be lifting the Champions League in ten years and someone points a microphone in my face and says 'Max, you've beaten Barcelona, PSG, and Bayern, but you've still never beaten York City how do you feel?' [Laughs] No maybe we'll get them in a cup and then I'll have to decide if I rest some players or if beating them really matters. I reckon I'll rest the players. We've got to move on, right, not keep looking back.
- This might be a good time for me to introduce my structure.
- What? It's a podcast. We're supposed to ramble and interrupt each other just as we're getting interesting.
- I've got some quickfire questions, then I want to go a little bit deeper on three topics. The past, the present, and the future.
- Sounds very stressful. Can't we just tell each other jokes?
- Close your eyes and think of England. You ready?
- I was born slippy. I mean, ready.
[Beth plays an audio clip. It's some football fans chanting 'Who are ya? Who are ya?']
- Max Best. Who are you?
- [Deep, body-shaking laughter. Mostly all we can hear are wheezes.] Argh, my rib. Don't, Beth. Argh.
- [Mirror laughter.] Why are you laughing? It's not a joke.
- Argh. My eyes are stinging. Do you want to drink some liberal tears, Beth? Oh, God. What the hell just happened? You've got a sequence called Ooh Are Ya?
- Who Are You? is the name of the segment. I'd like you to tell us who you are in your own words.
- [Laughter slows and ends with one long exhalation.] You want me to describe myself?
- Yes, please.
- It's a weird question, tbh. [One last chuckle.] How would you describe the curve of a beautiful woman’s eyelash? How would you describe the last patch of snow? How would you describe the moment of revelation as a master shows a technique you thought had been lost to time?
- Describe yourself in five words.
- Compassionate.
- That's one.
- That's all you get. Look, I'm not into this. It's too reductive and can't possibly be helpful to the listeners. You can ask me about football and I'll say things and you can decide for yourself who I am.
- Fine. Next segment.
[Beth's phone plays another chant. It's sung by fans angry at their own manager, usually after he's made a substitution they can't understand. 'You don't know what you're doing!']
- Is this part called You Don't Know What You're Doing? That's wild. Beth, are you okay? Did you slip and hit your head? I know a head guy.
- [Laughs.] I'm okay. Max, you're a 23-year-old football manager. Do you know what you're doing?
- Yes.
- Have you ever heard of imposter syndrome?
- That thing where you feel like you don't deserve to have the things you've earned? No, never heard of it.
- People a lot more experienced and successful than you have doubts.
- My doubts are pretty marginal, to be honest. In the next month I'll need to make a lot of decisions about which players to bring to the club and those decisions could be the difference between winning the league and finishing seventh. Like, those are important decisions and I will have relatively little information to go on but if some of them don't pay off I won't beat myself up about it. I have to do what I think's right under very tight constraints. Where I have doubts it's in specific areas. One. When I'm choosing which players to invest in, I'm like an options trader, and in that field I would be in the lowest percentile of natural ability, but every other football manager would be even lower than me! Two. When I've lost a few games and the fans are unhappy, I'm not very good. I get my back up and start daring them to sack me and that kind of thing. Not smart. Some managers have a better PR skill set than me. But in pure football manager terms, I'm miles ahead of most of my rivals. They use the same players in the same formation every week, it's the same training every week, and if you call them out on it they'll say that's by design. It's not. It's a lack of imagination and shows their focus is on the wrong things. They rely on the same cliches and half-time team talks that they learned from their managers who learned it from theirs. Even the seemingly modern, progressive ones are actually doing ninety-five percent the same shit as everyone else. The overall standard is pretty low and I think yeah, I do know what I'm doing.
[Beth plays another chant. It's what some fans sing when an opposing goalie is taking a goal kick. They cry, 'you're shit ahhhhhh!']
[Max laughs. Beth joins in.]
- This section is called You're Shit Ahh. Max Best, how do you deal with criticism?
- Very well and maturely.
- But really.
- Um... there's two types. Fair criticism, which I try to take on board and improve. And there's unfair stuff that comes out of the mouths of idiots. I can't say it never bothers me but they're just not worth thinking about. Those people are basically hollow and need to be noticed and if you don't react to them it freaks them out. I think it helps that I'm too busy to dwell on negativity and also I'm barely ever on social media, which is just one giant cesspit. And I know you're hoping I'll say things that your listeners can sort of take and apply to their own lives but when I'm on a complete break from football, which is the time I'm most likely to let that stuff bother me, I'm usually with my girlfriend and when I'm with her I almost can't even think about bad stuff. It just doesn't touch me. Why would it? I'm busy being happy.
- I think the listeners will understand exactly what you're saying, Max. It's about having positive people around you.
- Specifically Emma, though.
- [Laughs.] The listeners will have to find their own Emmas. Or it could be friends or family or if they're listening to this in the future, the AI that lives in their phone.
- I know that movie! Is that the end of You're Shit Ahh?
- Only because I have so much other stuff I'd like to talk about. The next section's called The Past. I don't have a football-related chant or commentary snippet yet.
[Audio clip - it's from the movie Assassin's Creed. Voice one: 'What do you want from me?' Voice two: 'Your past.']
- Can we talk about how we met? I never quite understood what you were doing and in retrospect it's even stranger. For context, while I was studying Journalism at Manchester Met, I played for their football team. One day, Max was hanging around the sports hall being, frankly, shifty. It looked like he was trying to pluck up the courage to ask one of the team for their phone number. It's a long way from there to the Master of the Universe we see now. Can you tell us about that phase in your life?
- God, wow, it feels like a different century. Ah... What can I say? I was working in a call centre and it was starting to get me down and I'd developed this, this sort of compulsion that made me want to get involved in football. I hadn't played for a long time but I thought I could do something. I think my ambitions were to be an agent. You know, watching Man United for years I always had a sense of who was going to make it and who wasn't. Sancho? I didn't see it. Antony? Please. But Garnacho and Hojlund, the first time I saw them it was electric. So I thought, if I could find the next Garnacho, the next Scholes, Beckham, I could be his agent and that'd be enough money to live on. Right? [Laughs.] Pretty unambitious, really, but even that felt, like, transgressive. People like me don't just decide to get into the football industry. So when we met I was spending a lot of time at Platt Lane - that's a sports complex in Manchester where Man City used to train - watching all the matches. Not just looking for hidden gems but trying to work out what it was that made a pro player. I'm not sure it was a great use of my time. I mean, if you want to be a sculptor, does it really help to look at a bunch of boulders and say 'this is not a sculpture' about each one? Anyway, I was putting the time in and not getting anywhere. Then when I met you I thought, women's football. Maybe that'll be a good starting place.
- Max, you didn't know the first thing about women's football.
- Didn't I? Honestly, Beth, this will wind you up because you'll think I'm fudging but I've got the Chester men's team to manage, I've got to find new players for the women, I’ve got to keep finding young players while checking the staff are happy and negotiating with the board and meeting sponsors. If I get some of the timings wrong you'll have to forgive me but I just don't live in the past. My brain only works forward.
- I forgive you.
- So I don't completely remember the sequence or when I thought what I thought but I remember vividly the moment it all changed and that was when you played Man City under 16s. Listeners probably think it's a joke because it's a university team against some teenagers but those kids are unreal and they'd beat teams up to a decent level, I think. Anyway, you kept falling into their traps and I just couldn't watch it any more.
- You got involved.
- It was obvious to me that you were a defender, but you played anywhere but defence. It was really winding me up. So I reorganised the team and City found it harder to score. They were still way better, but that was a kind of electric moment for me. Like, I was competing against a real team and I was doing okay. It was just enough, er, positive feedback for me to think I wasn't being delusional and that, yeah, I had something to offer. I decided I wanted to beat City in the return game. They'd won every game they'd ever played in that league but I thought, let's get them. And we did. And there was no looking back.
- Maybe now's a good time to dive into what I want this podcast to be about. The listeners will be people interested in getting to the next level in their careers, as athletes, entrepreneurs, influencers and so on. I want to know what's in your head at these key moments in your life so that maybe we can learn from you. I agree it probably seems a bit like a joke when we talk about university students playing the under 16s but like you said, they'd never been beaten, ever. What made you think you could do it with us lot? We weren't that good, Max.
- You weren't bad, though. For example, there was no-one trying stupid backheels and tricks that they couldn't do. You played a very sensible game. Meanwhile, we all know how City play. Very midfield heavy, quite sterile. There are ways to defeat that. And the mentality helps - they've never lost. Losing's a disaster for them. You go two-nil up and what are they going to do? We don't know, do we, because they've never been there before. They might respond like champions or they might panic. I told you the first goal was so important. We scored it and that unlocked everything else. If City had scored it, I probably wouldn't be here, now.
- That must be hard to comprehend. Your entire future coming down to one shot from a woman you barely know.
- We only hear the stories from people where the gamble paid off. Nine other guys in my position took that swing and missed. I respect them for trying; most people never try anything. You definitely need some luck to get started but it's not like if we'd lost that match I'd have given up forever. I might have stayed in the call centre for another year and built up some connections and got a job in a back office at some club and wormed my way closer to the football side. I'm not saying I'm some sort of superstar go-getter and I don't think you need to be that to succeed but I think you need to try things because - actually, you know what? It wasn't even winning the match that kickstarted my career. It was deciding I needed to try to win it. That was the real catalyst for everything because that's why I got in touch with Jackie Reaper. He was a Scouser coaching at FC United and he was pretty much the only person in the whole football industry I'd ever talked to. So I called him and asked if he'd do some extra coaching with you lot and he said yes. We had, what, two or three sessions before the City game? He saw me working. He saw me being creative, motivating, adapting, whatever. I think something would have come from the experience even if we'd lost, but if I hadn't been so determined to win the match I wouldn't have called him. I kinda didn't like him at first. [Laughs.]
- From my point of view, we met and you told me to play in defence. The next week, you brought a professional coach to our session and you were paying him. Listeners, we weren't paying Max! Next there was your client, Ziggy, who's just had a good season for FC United in the seventh tier. Then came Youngster and Kisi Yalley, and they're playing for Chester men and women's first teams. It's like every week you'd bring more people you'd sort of collected in the previous seven days but you also had a full-time job. How were you doing it all?
- Some of it was blind luck but like I said, you make more luck on your feet than on your arse. I was at five-a-sides all over Manchester looking for talented players. I went watching footy after work three or four nights a week, then again on weekends. I was putting the time in. Having a goal was pushing me forward. But yeah, it was all happening quite fast. I started to think about getting out of the call centre.
- It's so fascinating to me and I've got so many questions but it might be a bit self-indulgent so let's move on to a team other people have heard of. You turned up at Darlington, next, describing yourself as a mystery winger. What's a mystery winger?
- That was the local paper who said that. It stuck. They meant, who's this guy? Quickly it meant, this guy can do magic. You know in cricket they have a mystery spinner? He can spin it left or right or do flippers or whatever. I could dribble left, right, shoot left, right, you can't foul me because I'll score the free kick. I was actually working on a shot that would spin up massively like a flipper but never perfected it. I felt like I was getting close.
- Your time at Darlington was brief but eventful. You shocked everyone by moving to Chester to become their Director of Football. Why did you do that?
- I wanted to manage. Squad building, transfers, developing young players. Darlington laughed when I asked about doing it. Note to all the baby goalscorers out there. If your employee wants to learn a different skill, encourage them. I try to get all my players going on coaching courses. Football's a short, precarious career so they need something to fall back on, and by the way, if they have great skills I want to use them.
- At Chester, you were prevented from playing because the FA said you signed for Sheffield Wednesday.
- They're saying that was a computer glitch that they've fixed.
- But with so many setbacks you must have thought that the football world didn't want you. What made you keep going?
- What else would I do? But look, here's one thing I'm good at your listeners can learn from. I'm developing my skills as a player, manager, scout, agent, and so on. At some point you need to specialise but if one avenue is blocked off, briefly, pile back in to one of the other ones. Every hour I spend scouting makes everything else easier, in the long term, because football's so much about finding talent. If I can't manage, can't play, no-one can stop me scouting. I find some talented twelve-year-old and he'll be in the team in five years. Do things today that'll pay off tomorrow while sharpening your skills. If you're running a small business based on a YouTube channel and something happens and you can't film for a while because you got a shit haircut or something, do something else in that time. Go through your analytics or see if you can save on shipping. Getting a ban from playing can be frustrating depending on the timing but you'll see me in local parks looking for the next Dani or Youngster and if I find one, that ban's brought me a lot closer to my goals. You can't beat me like that, no chance. Every problem is an opportunity.
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- You were named caretaker manager near the end of the season and won every match you managed. You were attacked outside the stadium and nearly died. What did you learn from that time in your life?
- 'Don't get attacked outside the stadium.'
- You recovered and this season you took over as full-time manager. Straight out of a coma and you were managing the men's and women's team. How was that?
- Exhausting. Unsustainable. But we needed to find the right person to take over. And we did. I'm glad I waited.
- And now your men's team have just won the league, setting multiple records along the way. How do you wake up from a coma and take a team that was nearly relegated and turn them into champions? Because you started with virtually the same squad that finished the previous season.
- You'll be pleased to know that almost the first thing I did was set a goal. I told the players how we'd achieve that goal. They bought into it and we did it. That's the long and short of it.
- I know from experience that when you set a goal, people around you align themselves with it. Why do you think that is?
- You want a pithy answer that your listeners can apply in their own lives? I'm not sure what it is. One thing I think's important is that I know what my players can and can't do. If you ask people to do things they can do, they're more likely to follow you, right? A lot of football managers get themselves in trouble by taking over defensive squads and asking them to play attacking football, that kind of thing. There's the story of Gareth Southgate, a centre back, being asked to play defensive midfield in a big match. Was it against Germany? He'd never played there before and you're asking him to do it in the biggest game of his career. That's moronic. Don't do that. I almost never ask my players to play out of position and if I do it's for five minutes and there's a reason they can understand. There was a manager who had a dream - a literal dream - that resulted in him using a centre back as striker and the defender scored and played well. Fun little story but you can't do that too often.
- One thing that's interesting with you is that you take people on your journey. That time when you were my manager and we beat Man City. Who do you hire to be your assistant manager at Chester? That team's coach, Sandra Lane. The Scouser you convinced to coach us is now the manager of your women's team. You had a run-in with the mother of a young player and later hired her to be a scout. There's endless talk that you want to sign Christian Fierce, the only player who can truly be said to have got the better of you on a football pitch. What is it about those people that makes you want to work with them?
- Talent, mostly. They're brilliant at what they do. They're good people. I don't mind a bit of friction because it's just that they don't realise we've got the same goals. And they are people I could bring to the club. Not Christian Fierce, sadly! But let's take the scout. When we were arguing I realised she was seeing things on the pitch that not many people see. That's talent and she's not been spotted yet. When I needed a scout I thought, who do I know who has skills and isn't working for a bigger club? I'm on a shoestring budget, listeners. I need people who are cheap and willing to join our little team. I can look at top clubs and say 'wow that guy's good' but he isn't going to come to Chester, is he? Not yet.
- Now, that's interesting because you did manage to sign Sandra Lane from City. That came out of the blue, literally. How did you do it?
- I offered her something she can't get anywhere else, the chance to manage men's football. It might be easier for me to hire an assistant manager now, because I won the league and I trust my staff to run matches when I'm away. They can get experience and I can get way better staff than equivalent teams, right? The listeners might look at their own projects and realise they have some cachet or rep they aren't fully exploiting. And if there isn't anything, it's something you could look to develop. The other day I was thinking about the training centre we want to develop and asking if we really need a classroom. Other teams have one, right, but why? And I was thinking we're going to end up signing Brazilians and Mexicans and we're going to need an English teacher. Who would I hire? I'd want, like, Jurgen Klopp's teacher, wouldn't I? If I met someone who said they were Klopp's teacher I'd be like whoa you're hired. If that person later said they did Klopp's lessons for free to build their brand, I'd be impressed. I'd fire them for lying to me and hire them back at double the salary for sheer awesomeness. Right, I'm bored with the past, Beth. Let's get on with it. Future's next, isn't it?
- Present.
[Audio clip - from a televised game - 'The keeper lost track of the ball and it rolled under his foot. What a present!']
- That's desperate.
- It's the first episode. I'm allowed to get better as I go, aren't I?
- Yep. You're right.
- It's hard being a player-manager and it's been a long season. But you won. How does it all feel?
- Ah. I have a good quote about this. My friend Henri's got a book about being a writer and he read this out to me and I asked him to explain it and I said yes that's what I thought. Hang on, it's on my phone.
- No hurry, Max. I can edit long pauses.
- Here we go. [Clears throat. Slips into ad read voice.] This podcast is brought to you in part by The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the charity that saves lives at sea. If you're drowning in the English Channel, a volunteer crew from the RNLI will try to save you, no matter what colour your skin is.
- Jesus, Max.
- [Still in ad voice.] For 200 years, the RNLI has bravely carried out its mission to rescue people from the seas around this island nation of ours. They are the pride of this country and are rightly held up as an example of all that is good and proper about being British. So it's pretty fucking weird, then, for a national newspaper to launch into a two-footed tackle on a volunteer-led charity because they were saving the wrong colour people. [Normal voice.] Beth, you work for a newspaper, don't you?
- Yes, Max, I work for a newspaper. That was a quote in a book about writing, was it?
- It was.
- I'll probably cut all this, but just in case it stays in, I have to point out that the RNLI isn't sponsoring this podcast.
- You don't want to be associated with the best of British, Beth?
- More that they might not want to be associated with me. Or you. Okay, let's move on.
- No, wait. I really do have a quote.
- Max.
- No, really. Here, listen.
- God.
- Er... Should I do a French accent? Nah. 'From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.' That's Hilaire Belloc. The wear of winning, I like that. It's better than the wear of losing but there's still a toll, isn't there? A tax on the body and mind. All the energy and sacrifice to get to that point and when you get there - wow. What now?
- That's one thing I'm fascinated by, Max. Can we dive into it?
- We can dive into it like a volunteer lifeguard plunging into icy waters to rescue a baby before seeing his own photo - remember that throughout the entirety of human history rescuers were considered heroes - plastered on a hateful rag under the headline 'Enemy of the People'.
- Right.
- So the first thing for me is that my industry is sport. You finish your season, go to the beach, and suddenly there's another season. For us at Chester we've gone from tier six to tier five so it's all new and exciting. It's progression and progression comes with its own motivation. What's hard, I think, is if you're the top club and you win and then it's time to go again. I mean, what's the point? You've done it. Some people can reset and go again and that's why they're at the top but I think most people start to think about what else they might do with their lives. I don't think I'm the sort of person who's going to win the Premier League five times in a row. Even just saying it is boring to me. Once is enough. What else you got? Bundesliga? MLS? Come on, excite me. What I'll be listening to on this podcast in the brief time before you slip into right-wing grifting, is if you have, like, an author or musician or - oh, yes - the people who developed the Covid vaccine. Because that's not like sports, is it? You smash the project and then... then what? Go on the beach until the next pandemic? How do you motivate yourself to go back to developing moisturisers or whatever?
- I don't think they do moisturisers between pandemics, Max.
- You know what I mean. Covid was the Champions League of projects. So intense, so urgent, and then you've got to lift yourself for something smaller. How? I don't think I could. I need this upward pressure. Number goes up. What happens when number no go up? It's game over.
- What about restructuring? How do you keep a winning team at the top? Isn't that a compelling challenge?
- Not really. For some guys, sure. Ferguson, Pep. They want more. I'm not quite like that. Repetition is boring.
- You've won the league with your men's and women's teams. There's also the club you bought, which we somehow haven't mentioned yet. They didn't get promoted but it's your first full season as owner. When you look at the work you need to do this summer, what are the main challenges? What worries you?
- My team's called West Didsbury and Chorlton. They're pretty small. Based in Manchester. It's really nice, isn't it, Beth?
- Didsbury? Yes. Expensive.
- In one article, the Daily Mail called it a posh and leafy property hotspot. That's nice, isn't it? Aspirational. Actually, hang on, I wrote something down. [Ad voice.] This podcast is sponsored in part by the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which in 2021 upheld a complaint against the Daily Mail for an article comparing life in leafy, prosperous Didsbury to life under the Taliban claiming it was a no-go area for white people. IPSO ruled that the Daily Mail had made the whole thing up and was inciting fear and distrust. [Normal voice.] Beth, you work for a newspaper, don't you?
- You were talking about the challenges.
- Well, for West - that's what we call West Didsbury and Chorlton - it's pretty easy because there's loads of players who can improve the team. The trick there is to bring in guys who won't mess up the culture. I won't go into what the culture is because your listeners will get ulcers.
- I don't have any listeners, Max, but it'll be people who are interested in bettering themselves. This podcast isn't in association with the Daily Mail or whoever my next employer is. It's a personal project that I'm doing because I'm really interested in it.
- It's not from the Daily Mail?
- No.
- Oh. I've got more fake ads to read.
- Why don't you save them? This podcast is just me.
- Why's it called Goalscorers if you're going to have scientists on?
- Probably half the guests will be footballers. But scientists have goals, too and they'll be flattered to be on the same series as... whoever I get. If I get anyone else after this.
- And what's your endgame?
- What?
- You're gonna start doing anti-woke bits and spout conspiracy theories? Your new catchphrase - I'm just asking questions!
- No. I don't know what I want. Mostly I want a platform of my own so I have something to fall back on if everything else goes wrong. You have West Didsbury, I have this.
- Good but it's a podcast about setting goals. You have a goal. Tell us what it is.
- Okay, that's fair, surprisingly. [Sigh.] I suppose I'd like to travel and do corporate events. You know, seminars and workshops. Take what I learn from this project and turn it into a book. Help people achieve their goals. And become better myself! I have a long way to go.
- I don't know, Beth. You're pretty impressive already.
- So are you but you don't stop there, do you? You want more. I want more, too.
- All right. [Makes contemplative lip-smacking noises.] All right. My main challenges for West are to bring in a few players who are way above the level so we smash the league. That's easy but the culture is quite specific. Kinda left-wing ironic hipster with massive unironic dedication to the fans and community. The new signings don't need to be Che Guevara but they need to accept what's going on and not undermine it. The new players could be Daily Mail readers but they'd need to have a sense of humour and for the duration of their contract they'd need to stop talking about who the government should murder. Oh, I have a, what would you call it? Networking challenge. I have three-quarters of the finance in place to bring those new players in, so I need to find a local businessman to plug that gap.
- How much is it?
- Something like fifteen thousand pounds.
- It's not a lot.
- Yeah but they don't get anything. [Laughs.] There's already a shirt sponsor and all that sort of thing. Your fifteen G investment gets you nothing in return. Absolutely nothing. I need to find someone who'll put fifteen grand in because they believe in what we're doing or they'll benefit indirectly because there will be more fans or something like that. Maybe I’ll start with a hummus importer.
- Why not crowdfund it?
- I'd ask the fans for money if they were in danger of being relegated or going out of business. Promotion? That's a nice thing to have but that's my goal so I should finance it.
- That's a strange way of thinking.
- There's people with spare cash. I'll work it out. I'm doing a big scouting summer covering all my teams. I'm doing some bits around Cheshire at the moment, then there's these things called Exit Trials. Talented kids from big academies who are getting cut. They do these special days where scouts can go look at them. I'm hoping to get some talents from them. There are four and I'm going to all four. Around that, I'll be scouting Manchester. Basically, the whole of May is a kind of holiday slash scouting trip.
- What sort of players are you looking for?
- Talented ones. The more talented, the better. I've got one guy lined up already.
- Anyone we know?
- Nope. He's playing in the seventh tier and his team was relegated. His career has been on a downward path and we're his last chance. The good news is, he's mint and I can get him for cheap.
- If he's mint how can he be cheap?
- Because other teams don't know how good he is and don't have the patience to train him up. He's going to need time to get up to speed - actually that's a strange phrase because he's very fast. No, we'll train him and take our time with him and by January he'll start to show flashes of what he can do. But that's the kind of guy we'll be going for, probably. Guys with high potential that other clubs don't see. Ones who need some coaching and patience. We'll struggle at the start of the season, I think, but these guys will slowly come to the boil and by the end of the season we'll be rocking.
- So it's all long-term planning. That's why you spent half your budget on solar panels.
- Those panels, at current electricity prices, will generate three million pounds over the next thirty years. There's long-term for you. Did you ever see a TV show called Supermarket Sweep? You ran around a supermarket throwing things into your trolley and you had to fill it with the most expensive stuff you could get. I think two people did it and the one who chucked the most expensive stuff in won that amount in cash. Something like that. It's my job to go round the supermarket chucking all these players in. We can't afford transfer fees so it's just, like, what can we get? For five hundred pounds a week I know I can get a rapid wide player but he won't be much help until January, probably. What else do I get? Don't know - it depends what comes up. Then, when that's done and the dust has settled, I've got until August to patch any holes. Maybe we need a couple of short-term fixes.
- You don't like loans.
- The loan market is pretty weird but I could imagine using it at the start of this season to get a bit of quality to help us through to January. I think I'll max out my budget then tell my boss we've got a big problem and I need a few grand a week for loans. He'll puff up like an adder but a short-term loan doesn't hurt him emotionally like a two-year contract does.
- This is your version of managing up, is it?
- Oh, that's another challenge. Chester is fan owned, and every year they choose seven people to be on the fan representative board. If they choose difficult people, it could get...
- Difficult?
- Right.
- But back to squad building. There are ten players on the market. Who do you try to sign first and why?
- The most talented one.
- But which position?
- Doesn't matter. We'll work around it. The hardest thing to do is get top talents. We go for them, then we get guys who can be first team regulars. Then we look at filling gaps in the squad. There will be loads of players who can come in and do a job. Think of talent as being pyramid-shaped. At the tip there’s like six elite players then there’s eighteen world-class and fifty-something Premier League match winners and so on. We're going to play in tier five so there's still plenty of guys who can help us and many are out of contract soon. If we were in the Prem or Championship we might need to get more precise or find a very specific kind of footballer but I doubt it. I think this is the way we'll always do it, because we've got the flexibility to adapt and we're willing to try new formations and partnerships and find different ways to win from game to game. I mean, my first signing was Pascal Bochum, a player who I knew I couldn't use in every game, but when it's the right game, boy is it the right game. As long as we balance specialists with generalists, we should be able to put out a coherent team. And by the way, he's making a case that he can play every game.
- How many players do you want to sign?
- Up to eight for the men. Five women. Four stars for West. Plus we'll take an infinite number of talented youngsters.
- [Scoffs.] It sounds like a lot of work, Max. And a lot of squad turnover.
- A wise man once told me you can prune a third of a tree. The men's team could get to those levels, we have to see. It's a lot of work, yes, but the first half is easy. Some of the deals are already lined up, by the way. But take the men. Four deals will be easy. The fifth gets harder because our options are narrowing and our needs are increasing. It'll be all right. I've got a way to do it that I think will be quite fun. Sort of like the draft in American sports, except we'll be the only team doing it. [Laughs.]
- Can you tell us about the solar panels, though? You made a lot of money selling a player and instead of investing it into the first team, you're doing solar. From my point of view it's like you're fighting with one hand behind your back.
- Before I answer that, complete this sentence. Global warming is...
- Real?
- Okay, I'm going to assume it's a legitimate question and answer in good faith. Yes, I could have spent a few hundred thousand on new players. Okay. Have you seen the National League?
- Not really.
- About half the teams are owned by multi-millionaires and they're really putting money into those clubs to try to get into the EFL. There's silly money sloshing around. Not quite at the levels of Wrexham or Stockport, but Grimsby lost a million pounds the last season they were in the National League, and they're back in, now. I know what some of those players are earning. Forest Green Rovers - God knows what's going on there but the owner has money to spend if he's still motivated. Ebbsfleet have Kuwaiti owners and lose over a million a year. Barnet's owner is as rich as Chris Hale.
- Grimsby's owner.
- Right. There's loads of American money sloshing around, too. There's going to be money flying all over the place. Competing on transfer fees would be insane. Okay, so then solar panels. There's the obvious environmental benefit, there's the long-term finances.
- Three million pounds, you said.
- Or two grand a week. You could say I bought three National League players per season with the money. Four National League North ones. Do you know what I mean? That's locked in, now. For the club. You've started a whole podcast about reaching goals and if people find it interesting it's because most people don't achieve what they want. Right? Now, when I started at Darlington the manager was David Cutter. Good guy, good manager overall, but he was convinced he'd get the sack any minute, and he was right. A few bad results was all it took. I'm flying high, now, but the start of next season is likely to be pretty rough. I could easily be out of the job by September, especially when all my new signings look like flops, which they will, because they haven't been signed for September, they've been signed for May.
- Right.
- So if the new board don't like me or stop believing in me, I'm out. Just like that! Then what does it matter about all my big plans and strategies? But there's going to be something tangible at the club that literally generates money. It's there heating our water, powering the laundry machines, saving us cash, protecting the club's future to the extent it can, keeping season ticket prices down, but most of all it's something they can't take away from me. I've made a contribution to the football club that's more or less permanent. Those panels will still be rocking in thirty years. The next manager can come in and get rid of my talented young players and bring in a bunch of pricks. A future board can shut down the women's team or disband the reserves or the youth team age groups. But I've made Chester a lot more solvent and they can't take that away from me.
- You want a legacy.
- I want to build something. Next stop is some 3G pitches that we'll train on but will also be rented to the community. More money for the club, more facilities for the area. So this podcast is about goals and stuff but I'm not completely in charge of how much I achieve because what happens in rough patches? People panic. There's a big red button that says 'fire Max' and people love pressing big red buttons. So here's my mindset. I plan for the future. The end of this season. The start of next. I've got a player called Vivek who can illustrate that. But what about five years from now? We've got the training pitches and some basic facilities. What's next? I'm not planning, I'm not in the planning stage, but I need to know what's next. Ten years. There's no way the stadium's big enough, so what do we do in the next ten years to make sure we can sell tickets to everyone who wants one? I'm thinking in crazy time horizons for a football manager because the average life expectancy is about six months. But if I don't think about all that, the club will stagnate. So I'm thinking and planning and scheming on long, long horizons and I'm acting, in some ways, like I've got a job for life. Do you know what I mean? Because I think that's the only way to get certain things done. Now, that might cost me because I should be doing PR so that I keep the job. But PR isn't real. PR isn't going to develop our youth system or give us undersoil heating. Look at our political leaders - they think five minutes into the future. How's that working out for us?
- Tell us about Vivek.
- He's a talented centre back who hasn't played much football. I loaned him to West and after a tricky start he got into the team. Our promotion is bad for him because the National League is a big step up from where we were. I'm looking at him and wondering what's best for his career. He could train with the first team and improve, but I think he needs match practice as much as anything. I'm tempted to send him on loan again, to tier seven, maybe. FC United. But he's a centre back so if he makes a mistake, which he will, he'll be out of the team, and there's no point him not playing at tier seven when he can not play at tier five. Do you get me? It's very difficult deciding what's best.
- What are you leaning towards?
- I'm half tempted to loan him to West for a couple of months at the start of the season to get more minutes into him. Then he'll come back to Chester and train hard. By January, if he's close to FC United levels, I could try him there. What I need, right, is an ally. Someone at tier six or seven who thinks like me.
- But they'd be developing your players. What's in it for them?
- Loads. Vivek's inexperienced but he's quality. He's got that Rolls Royce movement some defenders have and he can play a pass. And I'd do a bit of horse trading. Put Vivek in the team and I'll lend you this other player, too. Example off the top of my head - Ryan Jack coming back from injury. And by the way, if you're a tier six manager there are hundreds of players who come across my desk who aren't good enough for us but are too good for West. I'll send you some names. Know what I mean?
- You've been developing allies in League Two. I'm thinking of James O'Rourke at Tranmere and TJ at Crawley.
- Crawley will be League One soon, fingers crossed. But you’re right, knowing there are a few guys who’ll always take my calls is just fantastic. It's real win-win. I mean, it's not just shuffling players around but swapping training ideas and for me, having someone to talk to. Managing's a lonely business.
- It doesn't help that you're so moody.
- What?
- Remember when you were managing Grimsby? You did your presser and you were pretty down and you left and came back just as Sutton's manager was talking about you. He made a noise that you misinterpreted and you went off sulking.
- I did not.
- I saw you! I asked him what it was like managing against you and he said it was like being caught in a trap and when you got out there was a bigger, deeper trap. He was very complimentary.
- Oh.
- Right. Oh. But it's good you've got this bromance with TJ.
- It's not a bromance. I just want to spend all my time with him and I miss him when he's gone.
- Let's talk about TJ.
- What section of the podcast are we in? I'm confused.
- It's called You Are My Sunshine. I'll drop the music in later. You went down to watch Grimsby against Crawley. First half, Grimsby were on top and they had hopes of survival. Crawley then made some radical changes at half time.
- I didn't notice any.
- Maybe because you were slow getting back to your seat from the Crawley dressing room.
- Get real, Beth. Why would I go in there? It's not in my interest for Grimsby to be relegated. You're basically saying I broke into a zoo to release a 600 pound gorilla except my house is next to the zoo and my garden's full of banana trees. Plus I was at the match with a Grimsby player's family. Seriously, I had nothing to do with it.
- Okay but you helped them prepare for the Wrexham match.
- Only a bit.
- Max, I know for a fact you took over their training for a week and picked the team. The players had it all over their Instas and TikToks. Monday morning they were pretty perplexed. Tuesday they were annoyed. By Friday they were fully paid-up members of the Cult of Max.
- Is this still the podcast?
- I want to know what's going through your mind as you're taking over Crawley's training sessions.
- First of all, I didn't take over. I suggested some things, is all. But if I did yell at a couple of slackers or whatever it's because I'd spent Sunday with TJ -
- Bonding.
- Chatting amiably and taking strolls. And he sees football like I do. It's beautiful but rotting and we have to get the most out of it before the rot ruins it forever. I told him I knew how to beat Wrexham and he said show me and I said yeah but do you mean it and he said yeah I don't want to spend another year in League Two I've got big plans. So I was sort of testing him, maybe. Like, if you want to win, here's how. And I pushed and pushed and he didn't resent it or get annoyed. If anything, he got more excited and egged me on even more. [Smiling.] It was so much fun, Beth. He's a top manager and he's a great person and he loves football.
- Doesn't everyone in the sport?
- No. They love winning and hate losing. They love showing off or getting paid or getting laid. TJ loves football. The history, the romance, the possibilities.
- Interesting perspective. We were talking about the present but that naturally spilled into talking about the future. Maybe I can't split conversations up so neatly. But outline how you think the next season will go.
- The women will smash their league. That division will be crazy fun. Have you seen who’s in with us? It’s almost unbelievable. The kids will go deeper into their competitions. The men will struggle at first and start to pick up steam. That's it, really.
- And what about you personally? Do you have any specific goals for yourself?
- As a player? I'm not too bothered. Maybe I'll get inspired over the summer. As a person? I would like to build up a bit of savings. You know, in case my mum needs something. I'm going to be on German TV -
- What?
- Yeah for their Euros coverage.
- Max, that's great!
- I suppose. I'm doing Group E, the boring group. They're not even letting me do the Belgium matches, the dicks. It's Romania, Iceland, and Slovakia. That'll be amazing, obviously, but I'd love to go full Max and really give the viewers something to remember. [Sigh.] But it's a pretty big opportunity and could lead to more media work and that's a side hustle that could pay for my mum's care. It's like, maybe I should take it seriously.
- That's what's hard for outsiders to see about you. You always take things seriously. You went at Man City under 16s like you were planning a bank robbery, and you went so hard at Grimsby you broke the place.
- Okay not seriously but... soberly. Give my analysis and smile and shut my mouth when the guy next to me is talking shit.
- There's no way you'll be able to do that.
- I can. I'm mature and sophisticated these days.
- I've got a couple more quick sections if you have time.
- Yep.
[Audio clip - 'Man In The Mirror' cover version - 'I'm looking at the man in the mirror.']
- Max, how would you manage yourself?
- You mean if I were split in two and there was a mystery winger doing whatever he wanted on the pitch?
- Yes.
- I'd let him get on with it. He knows what he's doing.
- He's disruptive in the dressing room.
- He's really not. I think I'm easy to manage. The way to manage me is to let me manage. There we go. That's the solution. We'd swap places.
- But then - you know what, never mind.
[Audio clip - Beth plays a chant used by away fans to taunt home fans who aren't singing. 'Is this a library?']
- In this section, we talk about the books and media that have shaped who you are.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. That one specifically but none of the others. I don't like the others.
- Are you getting hangry?
- Yes, a bit. Is it that obvious?
- Big effort, Max. Two minutes to win the league. Come on, Max! Tell us books or movies that helped you become a manager. A decision-maker.
- Thinking Fast and Slow. It helped me recognise that my brain is always up to something and the knowledge helps me get a bit of distance. If I make an impulsive decision I try to wait until the morning before doing anything about it. You know, if that's possible. Shopping, for example. What else? I mean, Moneyball was fantastic. Managers should read that. I recommend Simon Jordan's autobiography, too. The guy gets his pants pulled down by footballers on every page, he's burning money, he's driving a clown car and even when times are good somehow it's ablaze. And this is the biggest voice in the English football landscape. He's ready to tell everyone what they're doing wrong. Read the book and you'll understand that these rent-a-gobs don't know the first thing about anything except self-promotion.
- I think that's a good place to end. I'd like to wish Max good luck as he scours Manchester for future talent, and Max? Thanks for being the first guest on Goalscorers.
- No. There's one more section.
- Oh, is there?
- Yes. It's called Max Calls the Shots.
- Oh, boy.
- In this section, I offer you a dilemma. A trade of sorts. Are you ready?
- I'm actually excited. I've got goosebumps.
- Here's the deal. You keep all the stuff I said about the Daily Mail and gammons -
- You didn't say anything about gammons.
- Didn't I? Shit. Well, you keep everything that you want to edit out and I'll get you a big-name interview for episode two.
- Do you think it's got potential, then? This show?
- Beth, don't be needy. I have no idea, do I? If it's not good now, it'll get good. That's the whole point, right?
- So, go on. Tell me who it is.
- Donnie Wormwood.
- Shut up!
- Okay.
- Max, don't tease me. [pause] Are you serious?
- I told him what you did for Mr. Yalley. That's all it took.
- But why? Why would you help me without a quid pro quo?
- Because when the alarm sounded you got in your speedboat and rushed to the rescue and that’s the country I want to live in. You're a hero, Beth.
- Fucking hell, Max. [Quietly.] Thanks.
[pause]
- [Max doing his ad voice] This podcast was brought to you by Glendale Logistics. Glendale Logistics - it's only logical.