4.

Football glossary: Welcome to Wrexham. A pretty good football documentary which describes how an upturn in football results can lift the mood of an entire town. It is notable for proving the axiom that anything looks good if you show it in slow motion. Cough pub team cough. No but really, it's very good.

Saturday June 1

On the last day of May, the contracts of thousands of football players expired, making them free agents. In theory, they were available for any club to sign, including Chester, but in practice Toni Kroos and Antony Martial weren't going to take a 99% pay cut to play in the English fifth tier. I hadn't scouted every player in Europe but it was perfectly conceivable that there were ten thousand men whose contracts had just ended, and loads of women, too.

That meant my database was bulging with opportunities. Defenders with mortgages and no income. Midfielders with families to feed. Strikers who might take a phone call from a fifth tier club on the basis that it was better than nothing.

Also bulging: the medical room at the Deva stadium. Physio Dean had been working on it and now it was quite a welcoming space. It had the little gym area off to one side, some office space to another, and the dressing room was only a few steps away. It was a good base and I'd filled it with good people. Overly attractive people, some might say, but today was the day I'd decided to call in all my favours.

One of those attractive people came up to me now. Her name was Emma and she was my girlfriend, but she was not the charming, witty, emotionally intelligent Emma you've heard about. This was Emma pre-coffee. Emma out of bed far too early. An Emma who'd spent the last twenty minutes 'doing her face' instead of blankly munching on toast as was her custom.

"What are we doing?" she said. "I thought we were going to start the documentary this morning."

"We are. This stuff is what comes after. This is where I'm going to try to sign loads of players."

"Oh." She really needed some carbs but she didn't want to have crumbs in her teeth when the cameras were rolling. She'd decided - some might say bravely - to suffer until we'd filmed the scene. She opened her eyes as wide as they'd go to see if that would help her concentrate. "You're going to buy lots of players today."

"No, they're free. Mostly."

"I thought it was one of those Transfer Deadline Days."

"Well, it is. But only for us. Most clubs aren't doing this. I'm going to go out on a limb and say we're the only club in the world doing this or anything like this."

"Oh." She thought about it. "What are we doing?"

I smiled. With Emma I had virtually unlimited patience. Talking to her so calmly made me feel like a real boy. Like, this is how other people were able to be all the time, it seemed. "Okay, let me try to set the scene. There's loads of players whose contracts ended yesterday. They're at home, stressed off their tits wondering what they're going to do with their lives. Right? Meanwhile most Heads of Recruitment are out on a beach somewhere. Most managers are in Spanish hotels thinking far more about sexy cleaners than midfield schemers."

"Did you prepare that line?"

"Yeah. Thought I might say it in the documentary but I don't want them filming in here."

"Why?"

"I don't want other clubs doing this. I want them to be on the beach right now. But there's a few people working today and managers can still make calls from a pool. Crawley are in a much tougher league now so TJ's looking at players who got released from Championship and League One clubs, but he's not doing anything like this." I waved at my team and my whiteboard and everything. "He's in no hurry. No-one is. Except us. This is our one chance to get the players at the top end of our wishlist. Every day we wait, hundreds of players will be picked up."

Emma frowned. "I think I can't process what you've said. Shouldn't... shouldn't every club be working really hard today?"

"Yes!" I cackled. "But they'll stretch this work out across two or three months."

"Why?"

"Arrogance. Snobbery. Who cares? Where they zig, I'm happy to zag. Hang on, let me do that again. Where they zig, I'm happy to Zach."

She didn't have the energy to ask about my brilliant joke. "So you've got the entire club working on a random Saturday in June... to what?"

I smiled. Infinite patience. "We're going to go hard at some of these free agents. Very hard. We're going to try to get them here to wow them with our trophies and our sex appeal. If we can sign four women and three men, we could win two leagues based on what we do today."

"That's good."

I stuck my tongue out while smiling. "That is good! I know. And while we've got a room full of absolute worldies, why not bring some Exit Trials kids here, too?"

"Oh! That's why you were waiting. To do it all in one day."

"Something like that."

"So you've got it all planned out and you've got your A team and you're going to smash it. What are you nervous about?"

I looked up and smiled. How did she know I was nervous? I thought I'd hidden it well. "Because maybe there's a reason other clubs don't do it like this. What if what we do today is a huge, colossal waste of time and a humiliating setback for Max Manager of the Year Best? I think I've been careful with the targets. Like, I've not overreached. The top targets are so, so good but they didn't play much for their last clubs and their contracts didn't get renewed. It's not crazy to think they might agree to drop a level. Or two."

"You think it's crazy. I can tell."

I made a weird huffing sound. "It's... No, it's not crazy. Just, you know. It's like I want people to believe in what we're doing but I don't know that I would believe in it from the outside. I think..." I tutted. "I don't know. I have to act all confident and brash but... You know what it is?"

"No."

"I'm a United fan. If there's a good player somewhere in Europe, there will one hundred percent be a transfer rumour saying United want to buy that player. Okay? And it's like, as a fan you start to dream. Like last summer, I didn't follow it for obvious reasons but the big story was United wanted Harry Kane. As a fan you think, hey we've got seven great players. It's always seven, I think. You can persuade yourself your team has seven top guys. So you've got a good base, you're so close, and then you imagine what it'd look like with Harry Kane up top. And you convince yourself you'll be the best team and you'll win the league. You really sort of bathe in those fantasies. Yes! This is the guy who'll take us from fourth to first! And it feels so right that you go, yeah, amazing. But guess what? A week goes by and there's no news. So you think gosh that's odd. And another week and there are some stories saying the deal's in doubt. More weeks and you're just in turmoil now because United need him and you need him. And then he goes to Bayern Munich and it's like a dagger to the heart. Other fans take the piss. Your phone is billions of memes and messages you've sent to your mates crowing about this coming season. And very quickly you start telling yourself you never wanted him anyway. He's slow, old, and got bad ankles. Kane to United? No way. United should buy Evan Ferguson, that's the real smart play. And off you go again."

Emma shook her head. "Sometimes I think football should be banned. You're all wrong in the head."

"So I've got all of those doubts and anxieties, right? I have to imagine what my teams will look like with these players in and if we don't get them it's, yeah, it's going to be sort of painful. Not getting the player you think you need is a kind of sick feeling like a girl's just dumped you. Which is absurd, I know, but... Yeah. I'm wrong in the head. That's sadly very true."

"Brooke said she had something to show you. I'm going to the room."

Emma went into the office space on the left, and Brooke saw I was free.

"Gaffer," said Brooke, sidling up to me with a big smile. She'd heard people calling me gaffer and decided it was her new favourite word. It really didn't sound good in a Texan accent. "I've got the final edit. Wanna see?"

"Oh, already?" We had recorded a quick piece of infotainment to prepare our fans for some news that the gammony ones could turn into a culture war if they were left to set the narrative. Fucking joyless husks. Maddening that I had to spend even a minute a month thinking about them. Still, as my role model Max Best often said, a problem is an opportunity. "That was fast. We only just filmed it."

"I was bored."

"Well, let's take a look."

She handed her phone over and came far too close beside me. She pressed into me; I pressed play.

***

The scene was simple. We had set a table down in the middle of one of the fields we wanted to buy and covered it with white tablecloth. On it rested all the trophies and cups and League Two Player of the Month for January awards we'd won over the past season. There was also my shiny new UEFA B certificate, neatly framed by Inga. (I was required to take a break before starting UEFA A, and my application would be given more priority if I was managing an EFL team so the delay suited me just fine.)

I was wearing a Napoleon hat and Bea Pea, the scene's other participant, was in a camo baseball cap. "What's wrong, Chester FC's Director of Football Max Best?"

I pretended to wipe away a tear and gestured to the table and the wide world beyond it, which naturally included our stadium. "When Max Best saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer!"

Bea Pea nodded. "Yes, sir. But have you considered... turning round?"

A quick cut and the table was behind me - trophies reflecting the sun a little too much in the opinion of certain Frenchmen who had deigned to show up and mansplain blocking and historical accuracy for twenty minutes until his girlfriend said she was bored. "What? What am I looking at?"

Bea Pea tapped an Ordnance Survey map. "It's called Wales, sir."

"Have they got football there?"

"Yes, sir. They have the Welsh Women's Cup, for a start."

"Any famous teams I might have heard about?"

"Don't think so, sir." She jammed her thumb behind her. "But our stadium's in Wales and you've sent the women's team to play over there somewhere." She pointed in the direction of Flint, the town where the women would play until our pitch could handle a bigger workload.

I visibly cheered up. What a great actor I was! "If we play in Wales anyway let's enter this cup of theirs and win that."

Bea Pea saluted. "Yes, sir." She got a close-up and she winked at the camera. "One Welsh Women's Cup coming this way."

Text came on the screen - Chester Women have accepted an invitation to compete in the Welsh Women's Cup. #InLikeFlint

***

"Fuck me, that's a good hashtag," I said, back in the real world. "In Like Flint. We're in Flintshire, the women will play in Flint, Flint is in Wales, and now we're in the Welsh Cup. How can a simple hashtag be so masterful? Whoever came up with it should get a raise and a trophy."

"Oh, sure," said Brooke, not moving away. "All our teenage fans will get the clever reference to a picture from 1967." She scoffed. "I had to look it up. If so much as two percent of people get the reference, I'll eat a balloon and call it crispy."

"Yeah, well. Video approved. It's simple and it'll give people something to talk about. Shame we can't overtly mention we're doing it to qualify for grants. Maybe we can leak that to some podcasters? Whatever, it's good and funny and I like it. In the spirit of using all available talent, you might want to show it to some of the others to see if they get it. It's only really aimed at lifelong Chester fans but an outside perspective... You're giving me a weird look. That means you've done all this already. I'll stop talking now. The website's all set up with details about the new stadium, right?"

"Yes. When the fixtures come out we'll be able to start selling tickets."

I nodded. "It'd be good to break even on hiring the stadium."

She nudged me. "Don't be so unambitious. Break even? Where's your fightin' spirit?" She took her phone and walked away feeling that she had scored a victory. Why are Americans so competitive? They're exhausting.

"Max," said Jackie, standing in the doorway. "We're ready." He held the door open.

I held some air in my cheeks before blowing it out. "Right." This first part of the day was another of Brooke's ideas. I wasn't really keen on doing it but it made a ton of sense. Brooke walked past Jackie into the office space. Jackie, I noticed, didn't wait to hold the door for me. I followed and let the door close. The noise from the medical room diminished but was still quite loud. I poked my head through, made eye contact with a couple of people, and called out, "We're doing some filming. Go to the Blues Bar for a bit."

Angel jogged over and peeked through the gap, trying to see inside. "Are you doing the squad-building scene? I should be in that."

I scratched my eyebrow. When it came to wanting to be 'in shot', she was far, far worse even than Henri. "That doesn't make narrative sense, does it? You're a rando squad member with three appearances." This was pretty outrageous of me because I'd stuffed the room with a physio, a former board member, a b-girl, and my girlfriend - Angel was actually more qualified to talk about the needs of the squad. My thought process was that since I had invited Livia, Brooke, et al to the stadium to help with the day's work, why not use them in the documentary, too? "You don't get to be in the room where it happens."

"Why am I even here, then?"

I smiled. "Because you have a nice phone voice." I flicked my eyes in the direction I wanted her to go; she obediently left. I closed the door behind me once again, slapped my hands, and said, "All right! Whoo! Let's do this thang!"

"Sorry, I wasn't ready. Can you do that again?" This was one of the 'documentary crew', meaning a student from the university who would help us get the project going. The plan was that they would handle certain key scenes and the to-camera interviews while the players themselves would film bits from the dressing room plus conversations at breakfast or on the team bus. The younger ones filmed themselves almost all the time anyway, so it was more a case of remembering to upload the choice cuts to the cloud where the editors could splice it all together. Angel wasn't going to let anyone forget.

I glanced around at all the cameras. Surely one of them had picked up my awesome entrance? "No redos. This is the fast-paced world of international soccer. Every take is take one. Okay let's check everyone's present and correct. Jackie Reaper, manager of the women's team, what is two plus two?"

"Four, Max."

"Present and correct!"

"That's dead funny, dat. Are you gonna do dat with everyone in the room?"

"You think it'll get old quick?"

He rubbed his face. "Not as quick as me. You know I don't normally get up this early. Can we get on with it?"

"Fine. You're so miserable. We're not signing any more Scousers. Someone write that down." I fiddled with my flipchart and looked at my audience. In addition to the bald man, there was Livia, Brooke, Emma, and Ruth. "Hmm. How's this going to look on camera? We're smoking hot but we're very white and disproportionately blonde. Should we get an uggo in? Where's MD?"

"Max, hurry up," said Emma. "I'm coffee-deprived."

I clapped my hands together like they do in movies to sync the audio and video. "Unnamed documentary, scene one, take one. Hi, everyone. My name's Max Blest. Oh, shit."

"Don't talk into the camera," suggested the student. "Try to be normal."

"Good luck with that," said two-thirds of the hot blondes. So annoying.

"Why don't we have a name, yet?" said Ruth.

"We'll film it all and see what themes emerge," I said. "You think Rob Ryanhenny came up with the name Welcome to Wrexham before they started filming? No. Someone said it to them and they realised that was the emotional core of the project. Me? I think they could have done better. Welcome to Wrexham's more like an episode one kinda name, right? They should have called it Enter the Dragon. No, Red Storm Rising. Oedipus Wrex."

"Holy crap," said Emma, as if it was my fault she'd chosen to stay in bed until the last second instead of getting up for brek.

I picked up a marker. "Right. Chester Women. Chester Women are top. They are mint and are getting more tactically flexible. Jackie, you still prefer 3-5-2?"

"Yes."

On a blank page, I sketched five midfielders and two strikers. They were represented by Os. "We have strength in midfield but not much depth. I want to add someone there but it's not the top priority. I was thinking a Sam Topps type, Jackie. Give us some bite. What do you think?"

"I'd love that but we know you go weak at the knees for a creative midfielder. I've got a bet with Liv that you'll find another 16-year-old dribbler who takes mad risks."

"No, mate. You tell me what you want and I try to get it. That's what today is all about. All right? That's what we say when they're recording, anyway. Now, this lot are pretty young so can you work with another teenager or would you like someone older?"

He considered it while a second student fiddled with a camera - zooming in on Jackie's face, maybe. Imagine having four celestial beauties in the room and giving our viewers close-ups of a bald man. What a world. "Someone older, maybe, for the cups. Wise old head sort of thing. We got ragged in the FA Cup and in the games against Alty."

I nodded. A lot of football insiders thought young players were more likely to freeze in big games. I wasn't so sure but had no way - currently - to disprove it. A mix of ages couldn't be a bad thing, though. Outside the defence we only had Pippa who was over 23. She would turn 33 during the season so while she had that old person wisdom, like which food you could eat past the sell-by date and how to play two bingo cards at once, she hadn't played many football matches; she wasn't bringing tons of hard-earned match day wisdom. Even Charlotte had more of that. "I'll see what's out there. We've got three strikers for the two slots. Do you want another?"

He twisted his mouth and was about to give a simple answer when he remembered that he had been asked to explain his thought process so that viewers would be able to follow the story. "Three's a good number because we don't have that many matches. If we got a senior striker she'd want to play every minute of every match, so the other three would have to compete for the other spot. It could hurt their development. I think... If there's a younger option that'd be ideal. Another sixteen or seventeen-year-old who can get some minutes and help in an emergency but would be happy to be backup."

"What if there's a really great option?"

"Then yeah, do it."

I paused. So far, our women's documentary would be two men talking to each other. I shook the thought off. 99% of the rest would be from the players and fans and all that. I'd be in the first scene and maybe the last. "Okay, I might hang fire on a young striker and hope to find one when I'm scouting. I'll decide later. Goalie." I drew an X, this time. X marks the spot. "Robyn's been okay and Queenie's a big talent but we need a serious goalie for this season. I've got someone lined up but I want to check a couple of options before we call her." I drew three Xs in front of the first one, but lower than the row of five Os. The left-most X got a line leading to the left and the one on the right got a line to the right. "The defence needs to be seriously beefed up. I want to get a left back so we can switch formations sometimes. If I can get one who can play centre back, too, then perfect. But if I can only get a pure left back, will you play a back four enough so she can develop?"

"Course," said Jackie. "We need to do your 4-1-4-1 sometimes to give Diane minutes."

"What about Lucy?" said Livia.

Without thinking, I pulled a face and instantly fretted about how it would look on film. Lucy, plus her friends and family, would watch this one day. I couldn't be totally honest on camera in case I revealed something about the curse, but as much as possible I wanted to be authentic and show people what it was like at Chester. I couldn't turn back time, though. Lucy was all kinds of old. I inhaled. "She has done well and is a great character and the younger players really benefit from having her around. I really want to keep her as part of the squad for as long as possible and keep her involved beyond her playing career. But this will be her last season as a player and I can't imagine her playing a full ninety minutes. So, yes, we need someone else." I looked down. "Er... but we definitely need centre backs. I want two plus another who can play right back."

"Do you have names?"

"Yes," I said. "Our top target is Femi. I can't afford Christian Fierce for the men's team, so Femi's going to scratch that itch. She's fantastic. Tall, good positioning, fast. We're going to pull out all the stops."

"Who was she playing for?" said Emma.

"Leeds. Two levels above us. It's kind of incomprehensible they'd let her go, but they smashed us in the cup and she wasn't even playing. I think they just don't know how good she actually is." I scoffed. People were so stupid. "It might be that they let her deal run out and they'll give her a new one just before the season starts. They could save three months of wages doing that. If that's what they're doing, holy shit. But that gives us a chance to jump in so fuck 'em."

"How good is she?" said Ruth.

"Mint. Absolutely mint. Plus she'll be 26 this year so she got some of that seasoning we want and she's great in the air and, well, fierce. I'm going to assume she's a Christian so I can say she's not Christian Fierce but she's a fierce Christian. Wow, that's terrible. No-one watching this knows who Christian Fierce is. Cut all that. Femi plus a goalie and we'll be favourites for the league. Femi, a goalie, plus two more and we'll absolutely smash it to the point everyone will be glad to see the back of us." I checked my phone. It was nearly nine o'clock. "Any last questions? Okay, review your player packs and let's get into position."

***

Before I left, the student begged me to do a quick segment to camera. She said the whole documentary wouldn't make sense unless I outlined my strategy. She asked, "You're using some of your funds from the sale of Raffi Brown to boost the women's squad. Why?"

I frowned. I didn't really understand the question. Why wouldn't I? But this wasn't a journalist too lazy to do his research. This documentary, if it ever saw the light of day, would be watched by people who didn't know the first thing about football.

"Okay so at the moment there's way more money in the men's game. A million pounds buys you a League One striker. Third tier, that means. With a million I could run absolutely wild in the women's game. So it's honestly just a sporting decision. The money goes a lot, lot farther and I think with a bit of investment we'll get promoted for sure. Then promoted next season again. And again. It'll get slightly harder every year because the women's game is improving in all respects. The coaching, the scouting, the types and amount of girls who take up the sport - number goes up. But as it stands right now we've got a chance to attract top-tier talent and blast through the leagues. You can think of a thousand reasons the men's team can't get to the top division. But the women can and will - if we can keep the group together. I planned to turn the women into a profit centre. Take young talents, train them up, sell for a big profit. We might still do that but right now I'm more interested in winning loads of stuff as fast as possible. For the price of a National League central midfielder I can make the women's team pretty formidable." I laughed. "We've got ourselves invited to compete in the cup in Wales. They think they've let in a tier five team they can smash around; they won't know what hit them."

"So what exactly are your ambitions for the season?"

"The plan is to win and win in style. Chester Style. Is that a good name for the documentary? Gangnam Style has nearly ten billion views on YouTube. Wah wa wah Chester Style! No? Fine, fine. Stop fretting about the name! It'll come. I need to go sign some players."

***

At two minutes to nine, the Phwoar Room was ready and humming with quiet anticipation. The Phwoar Room, you say? Yep. It was a War Room full of people who make you go 'phwoar!' As in, 'gosh that person is attractive.'

I'd asked all my hotties to come and help, even ones who didn't technically work for Chester. The Brig had expressed annoyance when I said I planned to ask Livia but not Dean and Wes instead of Sam Topps, but I pointed out that he was the one who had asked me to go full Max. "It's not like I hired a bunch of models to pretend to work here for the day," I'd said, and got a dreamy, faraway look. That wasn't a bad idea...

"One minute to go," said Brooke, and I checked everything was in order. I had a giant magnetic whiteboard next to me, on which I had drawn five columns: Phone Call - Video - Meet - Tour - Medical - Seal the Seal. I had written a lot of names on rectangles of card. A separate flipchart showed the positions I urgently needed to fill - GK and Ds for the women, GK, CB, S for the men - I would cross them out when a player got to 'Seal the Seal'. Everyone in the room had their phones charged and ready. I wasn't sure exactly what a draft room in the NFL or baseball looked like, but I could imagine it was something like this.

How many names would make it all the way across to the very right? The nerves came rushing back into me. We needed players of a certain quality to come if we were to reach the next level at the speed I wanted. If players who would improve us didn't want to come, what the hell was I supposed to do? After all, we weren't a tier six team any more.

***

The night before, the curse had updated. When I woke up, there were some minor graphical tweaks and some areas had been reorganised and rationalised. Three new patches were available, each for 100 XP. I bought them all right away.

The first added a section in the Squad screens showing the current league table. From there, I could click on a team name and see the current squads plus the player profiles of any guys in my database. That was fine - convenient, more than anything, but not all that much of a difference since I could navigate my screens at the speed of thought and bring up any profile with no lag - but the real benefit was that it made it crystal clear to me that buying the Finances perk would show me what other clubs were spending.

The second patch improved the filtering system throughout the curse. The Player Search screens now had a lot more options when it came to filtering and sorting, though there still wasn't an option to filter by CA or PA. That'd be too easy, I guessed.

The third patch added new filters to the Squad screens. I could arrange my players by salary, by individual attributes, by contract expiry, and so on. Basically, if the curse measured it, I could line my players up in order.

The perk shop had a couple of new options, too. Manager Stats would add more detail to a manager's profile - number of cups won, player trades, how much they'd spent on players and so on. Seemed like something I could get on Wikipedia, but still, there were always moments where this stuff could be handy. I shoved it to the bottom of my wishlist for now.

A perk called xG would add expected goals data to my otherwise rudimentary Match Stats page. Yeah, nice, but not for 2,000 XP. To the bottom with you!

Of much more interest was one called The Stattoo Parlour. Despite the moronic name, it was appealing, since it would add three interesting tabs to the league table: Team Stats; Player Stats; Referee Stats. Now, you'd think the curse was already giving me most of the stats I could ever want, but reading the description made me realise there were tons I wasn't currently getting. The Team Stats including streak data - how many matches a team had won or lost in a row. Average attendances. Most red cards. Player Stats would show me which players in that league had the most goals, assists, Man of the Match awards, average rating, and so on. Referee Stats would tell me which refs were strict. It was mostly data I could get elsewhere, but having it just there in my head was obviously very compelling. The curse knew it was good, though, and had priced it accordingly. 3,000 XP. It'd have to wait.

Finally, there was an option to become fluent in German for only 200 XP. Just joking. I didn't need that kind of help, anyway. In preparation for my big trip to the Euros, I'd been learning on an app and my Dutch, as Germans call their language, was sehr sehr gut. Ja amigo, my language skills were sehriously gut.

Okay, so lots of little changes to the curse, but the main thing was that Chester FC were now officially a fifth tier team!

I went to see if there was a news item about it, but my feed was nothing but a seemingly endless list of players signed and released - mostly released - and looking through them one by one seemed like a lot of pointless work. I'd do it after the day's real work was done. Or I'd skip it. Ain't nobody got time for that.

My phone beeped.

***

"Nine o'clock," I said, and all eyes turned to me. I placed a piece of card into the top slot and pinned it with a round magnet. "Jackie, Femi." He nodded and dialled. He had a player fact sheet in front of him and had watched plenty of videos. I'd chosen him as the person most likely to impress the player. She'd want to hear from her new manager, first. I had instructed my team to make first contact by phone then find an excuse to hang up and call back on video. Hence the hive of activity and the friendly, wonderfully symmetrical faces.

"On it."

I watched as he got through. He instantly broke into a big smile. "Femi? It's Jackie Reaper..." I put a tick next to Femi under Phone Call. The goal was to get ticks all the way to the right until we had 'sealed the Seal'.

I got two more bits of card. "Brig, Omari Naysmith. Brooke, Cole Adams." The first two targets from the Exit Trials. They'd been more flattered and seemed more interested in coming than I'd expected, to be honest, and waiting until today to nail down their signing had exasperated the Brig. But, as I pointed out to him, they knew they were wanted and if they signed somewhere else in the meantime, that simply meant we would rescue another young man, instead. Two saved for the price of one. I couldn't explain to him about the curse updates, but I had promised him it'd be all right. The kids were higher on the list than the actual needs of the squad, but I'd been as moved as anyone to see their little faces light up as we piled into their living rooms. That said, if they chose to go to a different club or to move to Sweden, no hard feelings.

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"Yes, sir."

"Yes, gaffer."

I looked through the female goalie options on the curse Player Search screen and was unimpressed. Teams were hoarding good goalies. We would go with our first choice. "Sandra, Scottie Love."

"Yep."

Scottie Love was Altrincham's goalie and we'd played against her twice in the season before. She wasn't out of contract but I'd agreed a four thousand pound fee with Alty and we had permission to talk to her. She was a huge step up from Robyn and had a bit of room for improvement - as long as we found a new goalie coach, that is. It was on the list! The room was already abuzz with even just a few conversations. Jackie had turned the charm up to 300 - the warm, friendly voice briefly stopped me in my tracks. Someone coughed to break my thought patterns. Okay, it was onto maybe the most serious target. The one I was most worried about turning us down. "Ruth, Zach Green." Zach was the American centre back I'd seen as a sub for Wrexham. He was as solid as Glenn Ryder but could pass from defence. He was my top priority for the men's team - if he would take a massive pay cut and come down a level. I'd chosen Ruth to make first contact since she knew how to talk to Americans.

She nodded and leaned back in her chair all sultry. If Zach had a weakness for hot blondes, we had just improved our chances of pulling off a coup. I checked the player profiles for my second and third options for centre back. Their screens were unchanged from the hundred other times I'd done it that morning.

Who next? I looked at the massage table that was acting as my desk. I had the names of my targets and options B and C on little slips of paper. The first step was to call them and ideally try to get them on a video call so they'd see the eye candy. Then we'd beg them to come to the stadium so we could charm the pants off them - not literally. If necessary, we would go and pick them up. No-one in the stadium had other plans for the day. They understood what the stakes were.

"Livia," I said, before pausing. I showed her the name. "I can't say it."

She smiled and said, "I'm on it."

She was calling Luxury Bell, a real - holy shit I can't do this - a real luxury player. She could play centre back or right back, meaning Jackie would be able to switch between 3 and 4 at the back with relative ease. She was good, too, and aggressive. Her, Bonnie, and Femi would scare the shit out of a lot of opponents. The name, though...

I looked around the room to see who wasn't busy, yet. Emma, Wes Hayward, MD, Angel, and Bonnie were in one corner, relaxing on their phones until needed. I closed my eyes and went into the Player Search screen, filtering for out-of-contract female defenders. I went through the options a couple of times. The best ones in terms of having good CA with room to grow were centre backs and I'd already made a move on the very best one: Femi. Luxury Bell wasn't the next best numerically, but her flexibility made up for that. Femi, Luxury Bell, and Bonnie would be a hell of a back three. What about a back four? We just had to have that option. I opened my eyes.

"Bonnie," I said. "Ridley T."

"Really, Max?"

"Really." I smiled. "Be nice. Just see if she's interested, please. I mean, if you want to win the league."

"I'll do it," said Angel.

"I'm already dialling," lied Bonnie.

I watched, amused, for a minute as Bonnie tried to be charming to this girl she didn't like. Ridley T - that's what everyone called her - was 19 and with PA 85 was more than talented enough to join us. She had good CA, too. My only hesitation was that she was a pure left back. If she could also play CB or LM, she'd be amazing. As it was, her minutes would be more limited than other players. Given Jackie's preference for three at the back, should I be spending our cash on a striker? Bea Pea would probably hit her PA limit this season...

"How you doing, babes?"

Emma had drifted over, maybe mistaking my concentration for worry. We had been doing our tour of Cheshire and Wales in little doses, finding decent players here and there. Oh, and having a nice time and all that. "I'm good. This is fun, isn't it?"

"I think you're having the most fun. You do love bossing people about."

"What else do you like about me?"

"Your humility." My face crumpled. Her eyes widened. "What?"

I stuck my bottom lip out. "I thought you'd say my poetry."

She went to the whiteboard and admired it. She tapped one piece of card, the one that simply said LB. "You need to remind yourself you need a left back? What kind of Manager of the Year are you?"

"That, sadly, stands for Luxury Bell. I can barely bring myself to say it out loud. I wish she was a left back. LB the LB is way better than LB the RB."

"Is she good?"

"I like her. I want all the ones we're talking to. Ah! Jackie's on video already."

"Bonnie was first."

I snapped my head around. Bonnie and Angel had their heads close together and were laughing into the phone. I did a tiny punch. "I knew it!"

Emma ticked the Video columns next to Femi and Ridley T. "What was the deal there?"

"The girl they're calling is a gobby Manc twat and she was shit talking us when we played. When I said I liked her and would be interested in signing her there was almost a mutiny."

"So you got Bonnie to call her? That's either madness or genius."

I pointed. The women were getting on like a house on fire. "I vote genius. Players want to play with good players. If I'd called it might have been tricky, but Bonnie? That's the ultimate demonstration of yes, we really want you."

Emma twisted her lips in that way of hers. I think she thought I was spouting a whole lot of bull. "What's next?"

I sat down at my laptop. "I need to see what else is out there. The men need a good striker. And goalies. And I don't have any names yet."

The Brig had gotten up from his place. He ticked his Meet column and, unlike Emma, replaced the lid on the marker. "Omari Naysmith is on the way."

I smiled. Omari was a great kid and I was delighted to help kickstart his career, even if he wouldn't actually add anything to the team. "Tom Westwood."

The Brig simply nodded, but he'd been showing a lot more emotion recently and I was getting good at reading him. He did his version of floating away.

Emma rubbed my arm. "Want me to leave you alone?"

"No. But yes."

She scanned the room with its many conversations, the many smiles, the laughs, the pursuit of talent the Max Best way. "I'm proud of you."

"Aww," I said, then added with a chuckle, "Better wait to see if we actually get anyone. This might be a huge waste of time."

Bonnie appeared from nowhere and slammed her hand down, scattering my little pieces of paper everywhere. She didn't give a shit; she was high. "She's in. She's trying to arrange a lift. We're gonna show her round and take her for mocktails in town. I absolutely nailed that, Max. I'm a natural. Who else do you need?"

I side-eyed her as I picked up a slip of paper that read CRAFTY MIDFIELDER? "Thanks, Bonnie. I need to see how this lot get on then I'll get back to you." I didn't want to start on plan B until plan A was proper dead.

Bonnie gripped the massage table and shook it. "No, come on. Angel's weak. We need a big target up top."

"Oi," said Angel.

"You know I'm right, Max. She can't hold the ball up to save her life."

"How about," I said, ready to enjoy the look on Bonnie's face. "How about you go talk to the film crew about Ridley?"

"Yes!" said Angel. "Great idea. That's a good theme for the doc. From enemy to friend. Last season's villain to this season's ally. That's proper Fast and Furious. Is there a character in that called Ridley? I'll tell them about the title decider and how this brat was winding us up and say how surprised I was when Max said we should sign her but that when we got talking she was simply amazing and we can't wait to be on the same pitch as her!" She narrowed her eyes as she thought through what she'd said, decided she was right, and stormed off. Her sister chased after her.

"Max," said Emma, and followed it up with a sigh.

Jackie had pottered over, holding his camera up like he was doing a selfie. "And here's the big man himself. Max Best."

Femi had her hair done in braids pulled tight down into a ponytail. Her big black eyes showed a high level of amusement. "Femi!"

"Max Best. I know this name."

"Femi, I'm a big fan of yours."

"Come on."

"No, I'm super serious. We're trying to get our transfer business done today and you're our number one target. Jackie, show her." He fussed with the camera and then held it up to show her name at the top of the whiteboard. He came back into selfie mode.

"I am flattered."

"I don't know about that but I know you're an incredible player and I'm willing to move heaven and earth to get you here."

"It is very sudden and unexpected."

"Sudden and unexpected are my middle names," I said, and my heart pounded as she did a big laugh. She was fun! "Femi, listen. We're very serious about this so all I'd ask is that you give us a chance to talk to you."

She kind of rolled her head in a half-yes, half-no gesture. "I will talk to you, of course. But Chester. It is too far to commute and I am settled in Leeds. I have my church here."

"We have a good Christian boy in our first team. Youngster. He's from Ghana. He tells me there are plenty of sinners who need to be saved in Chester. You could help him!"

She laughed again and wagged her finger at the camera. "You are very persuasive, Mr. Max Best. And very funny."

"Oh, and we've just signed a lovely Nigerian man. He's just settling into the area but Jackie, maybe Wesley Good Christian Name knows a good church."

"Let's find out!"

Jackie went over to Wes, who was soon smiling into the camera. This was going crazy well. What would the first stumbling block be? How was I going to mess it up? I looked around the room. Smiles all round. If this was me messing it up, I loved it.

I glanced at my flipchart - the men needed a striker. I went to my database and searched for out-of-contract male forwards with good finishing. There were a decent number, and even some good ones. The ones I liked had all been earning five grand a week or more, though. Being dazzled by all the hot people at Chester would be flattering but not to the point a man would forget what the market was willing to pay him. As I looked, I felt a flush on the back of my neck. One of the tastiest strikers had a new line in his Contract area. It said he was currently considering a contract offer from Preston North End. It was happening! My options were already dwindling.

With slightly more urgency, I reset the filters to look for guys with good technique. Same story - not much going. I tried with something cheaper - good heading. There were many more options, but none that appealed, and the half-decent ones already had clubs interested.

My heart sank - I'd been dreading something like this. Being reliant on Henri to score goals hadn't seemed so bad until recently. Now he was worrying me. He'd found something he liked more than chasing balls around grass. If I couldn't find an oven-ready National League striker before the start of the season, I would have to consider the dreaded loan market. I would end up giving my precious first-team minutes to someone from another team. I would increase the transfer value of someone who didn't belong to me. No, please! Anything but that.

I spent another few minutes scouring the striker database, getting more and more worried.

Emma brought me a cup of tea and I looked up to see that all the phone calls had finished and people were waiting to give me feedback.

Jackie started. "Femi's intrigued. Not interested, exactly, but intrigued. I asked if I could go and talk to her in person and she said yes. I could be there in ninety minutes."

"Great."

"Did you want me to do anything else?"

"Mate, get her to Chester and we win the league. Livia, will you go, too? This is top priority."

"Don't you want to hear about Luxury Bell, first?"

"Er, sure."

"She's open to a meeting."

"She was playing for Stockport. You could combine the trips."

"Way ahead of you."

"Wait," said Sandra. "Scottie Love is in that direction. We could all go."

"She's interested enough to come today? If we get them all, that's six of you. Too many for one car."

"Max!" said Bonnie. She was back; Angel wasn't. "Ridley's in Altrincham. We should call her and tell her we'll pick her up."

Brooke had been making notes. "Jackie and Livia will go to Leeds to get Femi and pick up Luxury Bell and Cole Adams along the way. Sandra and Bonnie will get Scottie Love, Ridley T, and Tom Westwood."

"Right," I said, thinking about it. "But you spoke to Tom at the Exit Trials and he'll be the most nervous in that car. You go instead of Bonnie. Done. Don't come back without at least two footballers per car."

They went off, chattering, energy off the scales.

Ruth smiled. "This is tremendously exciting, Max. Better than Netflix. We just need someone to try to enhance some CCTV footage and someone else to shout, stop that plane!"

"You watch Netflix?" I said, surprised. "Never mind. Watch what you want. How did you get on with Hunk Williams?"

"Zach was... surprised. He's not very interested. His preference is to move back to the States but he's got dogs so he's willing to hear us out."

"Great. Get on the phone and keep yapping." I ticked a bunch of boxes on my whiteboard and fretted. This was all going far too smoothly...

She smiled. "No need. He'll be here later. He was out on a moor somewhere but he'll come in a couple of hours."

I shook my head in an impressed way. "Top. Top bins. I'm just, wow, Ruth. You're good. We're all good. Brig?"

"As I said, Omari is on his way. And if I may say, Josh Owens lives between Omari and Chester. If I spoke to him and he agreed to come, it'd be simplicity itself to collect him."

"Simplicity itself? Really?" I looked up at a stained ceiling tile. Josh Owens was a wing back, a position I didn't use often, though I suspected he would be fine at left back or left midfield. He was bloody good, but that's not why the Brig wanted him. When it came to football academy horror stories, Owens was right up there. I was trying not to think about it but off the pitch he would be a big project. I made some calculations. Owens had said he wouldn't move north. He'd been firm about it. There was no risk he'd get in a car with some strangers and drive three or four hours to Chester and even if he did and we got him, he'd be a solid addition to the squad. I could make the Brig happy with no downside. "Fine. Call him. Everyone else take a break while I look at goalies."

"Goalies, sir?"

I sighed. The Exit Trials normally ended with three kids getting contracts. We were pushing hard to get four on our own, and now the Brig was pushing me to take one of the goalkeepers, too. "If I get a goalkeeping coach who can be second choice, we can think about the goalies we saw at the Exit Trials. But that won't be today, Brig." He was just about to push the issue when I said, "Gosh, I hope we get Josh Owens." That was me dismissing him.

The Brig rearranged his lips. "Very good, sir."

***

I took my laptop to a quiet room and went through the curse checking every male goalie whose contract had just expired. I was hoping to find one with the telltale arrows showing that a player had a coaching profile. Magnus had such arrows, as did the players who had taken coaching badges under my badgering - their staff profiles had appeared overnight during the update.

Henri had an unremarkable set of coaching numbers. Youngster had some surprisingly low ones, too. I had sent him on a scouting course. Him not being a super scout was fine - it was possible his numbers would increase the more he played the sport and by the time he retired he'd be good at it. Or his numbers would stay low forever and he'd have to make do with the millions and millions of pounds he would make as a player.

Yeah, there were no outstanding coaches in my squad, more's the pity.

In my mental database, there were quite a few goalies who had started to take their badges, leaving me with almost twenty names to look into. But while some looked good as pure goalies, I only had the coaching stats on four, either because I hadn't had the Staff Profiles unlocked when I scouted those guys or because they'd only just completed their coaching courses. How was I going to get them in a match scenario so I could see what skills they had? They were too old to ask them to come to a trial.

Mad idea. I could invite two to join as short-term cover until January. Once they were here, I'd see their coaching numbers! If one was good, sign him long term! If they were bad, I was only committed for a few months. It wasn't a great option, but it was something. And thinking about it, who said I needed one goalie coach? Could two guys on 500 a week give me more than one on a thousand?

My speculation didn't matter if they wouldn't come to Chester, so I wrote down the names of the best prospects and their former clubs and asked my troops to try to get in touch with them. The ones with good Handling had been at big clubs and it seemed unlikely any would want to drop so far. But you didn't know until you asked, so why the hell not? One was based in the north east, so I let Emma chase him up.

I had been expecting to be knocked back by half our targets but thus far no-one had come out with a flat no, so I told my team to relax until the others came back or there was some news. I went to the trophy cabinet to stare at what I'd achieved in my career so far. Quite a lot! But would there be more to come?

If we got everyone we wanted, the women's team looked in good shape. In football terms, there was space for one more player but I did have to be mindful of the budget. The men, though. On my mental map of the CAs needed to compete in the various levels, the National League clubs tended to sit between CA 57 and 74. Grimsby would blow that out of the water, obviously, as had, in previous seasons, moneybags Wrexham and moneybags Stockport.

I tried to imagine the eleven we would put out in the last game of the season - the playoff final. The two centre backs would be stuck on their max values of 54 and 53 - far short of the level, though Glenn Ryder's leadership had a worth of its own. It was possible but not certain that Magnus Evergreen would climb into the 60s. Our goalie would max at 67, the left back 75, right back 77, and left winger 70. Absolutely in line with the top teams at the level. Sam Topps' maximum was 60, but he was experienced and had a lot of try. Even if he was at the low end of what we needed in the league, I would probably play him in the most important matches even if one of the young bucks overtook him in pure CA terms. Next to him would be one of Ryan Jack or Andrew Harrison, and both had the capacity to finish the season at CA 70 or so. Ditto Pascal and Youngster, while Henri's only limit was his new girlfriend.

Luisa. Bloody hell. I was happy for Henri but I also needed to know I could count on him! I was starting to understand why Alex Ferguson had taken such a dislike to Victoria Beckham...

Okay, in summary, we could have a competitive team by the end of the season, plus we would have a couple of aces up our sleeve. Me, obvs, but maybe also WibRob and Sharknado.

Yeah. It wasn't bad. We could survive the first half of the campaign scraping results and keeping in contention, then put on the afterburners near the end. If we could get this Zach guy or someone similar, we'd fix our main weakness in a stroke. If we had an experienced goalie on the bench, plus a good striker, we'd probably romp through the last third of the season.

Yes! I mentally roared. Come on!

***

About half an hour after the cars had departed, all my nerves had returned. I couldn't face talking to a goalie or striker until I got one of the other deals out of the Schrodinger stage. Is the deal alive or dead? Give me some certainty, please.

I was feeling itchy and needed to move so I took everyone out to lunch, which was very agreeable until MD dropped something of a bombshell.

"Shame about your friend," he said.

"Henri? I don't know. Maybe it'll help build his stamina."

MD smiled. "I meant James O'Rourke."

Emma and I looked at each other. James had helped me when I was recovering from my coma. "What happened?" she said.

"Oh, you didn't hear? First time I get to break some football news to Max. He's left Tranmere. Mutual consent, it said, but, you know."

A twang of pain shot through me. "Ah, mate." I went to the curse screens and obviously the news had been buried under thousands of 'player released' notices. In the Job Information screen, though, the Tranmere job - and several others - was listed as available. I clicked into the Tranmere Squad page and on the top right there was a shiny button: APPLY FOR JOB. What would that do? If I clicked that, would Mateo get an email from me? A text? Would the curse implant a fake memory of him interviewing me?

James, though. He'd been so good to me just when I needed it. I ate wordlessly for a while, keeping my thoughts to myself. I'd always known he wasn't going to survive long. The eleven points I'd helped him get in January had eased thoughts of relegation and lit a fire under the arses of a few players. The good results had continued for a while, but then tailed off and the end of the season had been pretty poor.

"Ruth," I said, quietly. "You negotiated with Mateo for Lucas Cook. Did this come up?"

"Not exactly," she said. She'd got Lucas Cook a deal there for 800 a week. Not bad but given his high PA I would have given him a higher salary if he was willing to drop a level. "We talked about Nelson Smith-Howes and I said he was quality but we'd already had problems bringing a right mid to Tranmere because James played 4-3-3. He said to call him back in a couple of weeks. I took it to mean James wasn't long for this world."

"He's not dead," I said, unhappily. In football terms, he was. I shook my head. She could have told me, but then again, what difference would it make? "Thanks."

***

After lunch I bagsied a sofa and lay on it for an hour, clicking through news items or scanning and re-scanning the out-of-contract players. Maybe if I checked again it would be different. Maybe some clubs released players at ten past one.

One thing that was different - my fourth-choice centre back suddenly had two clubs who were interested in him. One was in League Two, the level above us. Signing him had just become highly unlikely. Dammit.

I'd expected the day to be a constant whirlwind of activity. Get knocked back by option 1, move onto option 2. So far, the whiteboard was pristine. The ticks had stopped spreading, but two carfuls of players would be here soon. No, three! Three chariots. Two from the north, one from the south. Wait - four! Zach was coming from Wales. Four lots of players. Then would come the tour - the mighty Deva, the trophy cabinet, the medical room - and all the way, the eye candy, the laughs, the Chesterness.

I texted Brooke asking when she'd get here, but then got fidgety and irritated. I needed action!

Brooke: We're coming. Warning - Scottie and Ridley are quite happy at Altrincham. That club has a great vibe and they're worried about losing that. Seems to be very important to them. Tom is shy but he's very excited.

I bet he was, the horny bastard. But of course that was typical. Three players I wanted and I'd get the one who didn't do anything obvious to improve the squad. The only one I hadn't daydreamed about.

Livia: Femi and Luxury are sweet but they're worried about the vibes. They had a shit time last season. They're being very cautious about their next steps. Both are worried about moving to a new city to end up with the same problems. Cole is a bit worried about the vegan hotdogs and that sort of thing. His mates have been teasing him about becoming a soy boy, whatever that is. Jackie is putting him straight, don't worry.

Fuck me this was all so frustrating. Chester was the best destination for all these guys. They'd all win and improve and have fun. Why did I need to spell it out to every single one of the fuckers?

Annoyed, I got changed and went out onto the pitch with a bag of footballs and did some light jogs and some tekkers and generally walked around being moody and handsome and imagining there was, like, knee-high mist and a hair-high breeze. My mind kept drifting to what the teams would look like with my targets. Femi zooming around on her long legs, stopping attacks at source, maybe roughing up a gobby twat every now and then. Zach Green doing the same but in an American accent.

But first impressions were so important and me telling them how badly I wanted them was a very bad first impression. I needed to be slightly cool, slightly aloof. I'd done what I could to make everyone who came here today think positively of Chester. Now I just needed to be patient and not ruin it when they got here.

I found myself doing laps of the stadium with my mind pleasantly blank. I'm not sure how many laps I'd done when I saw MD on the 'home straight.' He was standing by the tunnel looking worried. I jogged to him and stopped.

"I'm sorry, Max. I don't know what I did wrong."

The first reversal of fortune! It was almost a relief. "What? What happened?"

"Zach Green came! I met him at reception, took him through, showed him the Phwoar Room. He said it was like a baseball draft."

"Yes!" I said, punching the air.

"I brought him out here. He saw you jogging around and he just left. He left!"

"Weird."

"I know! Hang on, I'm getting a call." He walked off.

Okay so Zach was a nutjob. I shrugged and started on another lap. Who was next on the centre back list? I went to my database, filtered by positioning, and had a very unpleasant shock. My number two target had interest from Ipswich Town and my number three was wanted by Crawley. Fuck you, TJ! Zach Green was now the outstanding candidate. The next best guy after him was just a taller Steve Alton. I mean, an upgrade but nothing to daydream about.

When I completed the next lap, MD was there with Angel, Bonnie and - relief - Zach.

I slowed to a stop. Zach had light brown hair, blue eyes, and Hollywood teeth - I'd read his dad was a dentist. Zach was wearing a red and white checked shirt rolled up to the elbows and a blue pair of shorts. Had he come dressed as America? He was wearing loafers - no socks - with a matching belt. Angel and Bonnie were staring at his arse like it was hanging in a gallery.

"Thanks for coming," I said. "I'm Max."

"Zach," he said, accepting a fist bump. "Cute little stadium!"

He said it enthusiastically enough, but the words irritated me beyond belief. It wasn't a cute little stadium, it was a hate-filled cauldron. Teams came with hope and left with nothing. They left as husks. Cute little stadium? We should hang up a sign saying, "Welcome to the Huskmaker!"

"Right," I said, suddenly very chill about not being able to afford this guy. But then I remembered he was by far my best option.

"Say, Max, I've been on my arse the whole year. Seeing you run around, shucks, I don't know, I just wanted to join in, you know? Mind if I do some laps with you?" He raised his kit bag. So he'd gone back to his car to get it.

A bit of sweaty bonding seemed like a good way to get to know him. "I'd like that. Yeah. Locker rooms are through there."

"Ha!" he said. "You don't have to speak American to me. I've had plenty of time - " He paused to rip his shirt off, revealing a ludicrous washboard. Like, seriously, no-one needed that many abs. Angel clearly disagreed with me. Zach fished in his bag. "Plenty of time to pick up the lingo." He smiled as he pulled on a basketball top that said TEXAS on it. Then he whipped his shorts off and Angel took a step backwards to get an eyeful. Ten seconds later he was fully dressed and tying his boots. "Hot damn this feels good! Left or right?" He was asking if we would run clockwise or counter-clockwise.

"Right," I said. "You've crossed the border but we're not barbarians."

We jogged for thirty seconds, getting into a comfortable pace, then we both started talking at once. I laughed. "You first," I said.

"Who's Femi?"

Huh. Last question I would have expected. "She's a centre back. She's amazing."

"She's your top draft pick."

"What makes you say that?"

"I saw your draft board."

"Oh! Right. Yeah, I suppose she is. She's the single most important player we could sign. It's not quite that she guarantees we win the league but it's close."

"Your girl Ruth, on the phone, say, where is she? She sounded real nice."

Internally, I grinned. Ruth hadn't moved to video chat, assuring me it would be even sexier to stick to audio. "She is real nice."

"She said I was your first choice."

"You are."

"I was fifth on the board. Look, Max, I was sold a pup by Wrexham. They said I'd be an important player but I got froze out right away. Being told I'm number one and seeing I'm number five, that's not what I want to see. You feel me?"

Interesting. I couldn't decide if his reaction was more about being lied to, feeling unwanted, or was simply about status. The Brig and I had called around to try to get a sense of the man. There wasn't a lot on the negative side. Maybe he tried too hard. Maybe he could get gobby in a way old-school managers didn't like. It didn't surprise me someone like Zach would fall out with the Wrexham boss even if the higher-ups were hoping he would be a hit with the show's American audience.

We'd arrived back at the tunnel area, now deserted, and continued at the same pace. "You know I'm not just the men's team manager, right? I'm the DoF here." He grunted that he did know. I continued. "The biggest hole across the squads is in the women's team. So we started there." I laughed. "Mate, you're an American male soccer player. You should be used to playing second fiddle to the women's team."

He had to grin. "That's fair. So the first four are women?"

"What was the order? Scottie Love was fourth, right? She's a goalie. The second and third are young lads we saw at the Exit Trials. My assistant - well, my Head of Performance - he's super engaged by the prospect of, what would you say? Rescuing their careers. The order on the board isn't just what we need, it's me managing the needs of my employees. We could easily get by without those two players but I can't get by without my assistant. Does that make sense to you?"

"Just about."

We were about halfway round the lap.

"It'll click when you get to know him. If you were me, you'd want to keep him around. No, Zach, Ruth wasn't blowing smoke up your arse when she said you were my first choice. We've got a few kids coming today and yeah, I hope we sign them all, but there's three senior positions going. Centre back - that's you - striker, veteran goalie."

Zach suddenly picked up the pace, leaving me three strides behind. I couldn't understand why - had I said something to offend him? But then I passed a gaggle of onlookers. Angel had spread the word that there was a show underway and everyone from inside had come outside. Angel, Ruth, and Emma were the most eye-catching.

Massive pangs of irritation zapped me. Zach, the prick, had seen the beautiful women and sped up to make me look bad in front of my hotties in my stadium. What the fuck?

I tried to keep my shit together. If there was any chance of him joining the team, I needed to take it. I needed to be rational. I didn't have a plan B or a plan C. This was not the time to go full Max.

As he turned round the corner flag, he slowed and I caught up. I glared at him but he simply looked ahead, letting his muscles glisten in the sunlight. That's why he'd chosen a basketball top. To show his guns. Another pang of irritation zapped me.

"You're not real popular in Wrexham," he said.

"Oh, no," I said, with lots of maturity.

He said, "We had a big party on the team bus when you blew that four-one lead."

Max Best is very diplomatic and sophisticated. Max Best is both diplomatic and sophisticated. "You know what's funny? If you'd played in that match they'd have crushed us."

He glanced at me. "Why'd you say that?"

"A centre back who can pass? We had a plan to stop their full backs. Can't stop a centre back, too. It's mental they didn't use you."

Yes, Max! Well played! That was good, Max. "Tend to agree with you there."

We jogged along opposite the dugout section, where there was an even bigger crowd. I supposed one of the cars had turned up. "So - '' I started.

"Is this to mug them off?"

"Who?"

"Wrexham. You've been pissing in their chips ever since that day in Grimsby. Is this part of that?"

He’d been learning British phrases, all right. "Nope. I want a top quality centre back. Strong, good in the air, decent pace." That was a dig! It was clear that Zach thought of himself as fast. He was, by centre back standards, which was part of why I wanted him. He'd be a step in the direction of playing a high defensive line. In digging him out, I'd reverted to old Max. No, mate! "Yeah, great fundamentals. The fact that you're good on the ball is, oh man." I did a chef's kiss. That was better. "I don't know how the fans here will react. They might be, like, not him thanks. Or they might think we're taking one of Wrexham's stars without paying a transfer fee. I have no clue how it will go and I don't much care. You're a ball-playing centre back who can defend and I know exactly how to use you and how to improve you."

We turned onto the straight and the mob in front took a few steps back. It very much looked like all the cars had turned up. In addition to the other beauties, we were now heading towards Livia and Brooke, too. Zach went up a gear but I was expecting it, this time, and I didn't let him get the jump on me. No gap this time, buddy boy. I didn't let him look good in front of the ladies.

He grimaced and kept his speed up until we turned by the corner flag when he took the chance - now that we were far from the bevy of beauties - to slow down without embarrassing himself.

He had a face like thunder and I'm sure I did, too. Me matching him run-for-run had somehow turned this jog into a battle.

"Lot of people in Wrexham think you're a joke and you got Grimsby relegated."

"If I'm the joke, Wrexham's the punchline."

"Be real. You've been cruising here in Chester but it's soft. It's not serious. You don't shout at half-time. You win on talent. What happens when you don't have the edge on ability? You get Grimsby, is what you get."

"Took me two games to weed out the soft boys at Grimsby. Then we got three good results and we would have blasted out of trouble but the owner lost his nerve." I laughed. "I fucking crushed it at Grimsby and if you can't see that, you should have stuck to lacrosse."

"You think you're the hot new thing after beating up on a few semi-pro teams."

"German TV thinks I'm the hot new thing. I'll blow you a kiss from the Euros, mate." He brooded for a few seconds and I started looking for a way to get out of this hole. He wasn't going to come to Chester. I'd just blown up my A signing while B, C, and D were all off the table. I'd have to rethink my whole plan for the coming season. Jesus fuck! But I didn't need to make it personal with Zach. We didn't click, okay, but I'd just had an amazing year and he'd had a miserable one. I didn't need to make him feel worse. What would the Brig want me to do? "All right, you don't rate me as a manager. That's probably more understandable than I want to admit. So what are your plans? If you need somewhere to train while you look for a new club, you can come here. I've got some young defenders who could learn a lot from you."

That stumped him, briefly, but then we were back on the home straight and the sight of the women made him stretch his legs again. The fucker was racing me! I went up two gears and smashed past the halfway line a good few yards ahead of him. Why, Max? I slowed and let him catch up. He was starting to blow pretty hard.

"You want me to drop down to play for a team that was nearly relegated the year before? What's your offer?"

"I can't pay what Wrexham paid."

"You don't know what Wrexham paid."

"Three thousand three hundred, basic."

His feet caught on the grass. "How the heck - ?"

"I know things, Zach. If you read about me instead of listening to your idiot friends in Wrexham, you'd know I'm a fucking wizard. I would break the bank to give you two grand a week."

"Two thousand? Plus bonuses?"

"All in." I grinned, savagely. "That'd make you the highest paid footballer in this club's history, mate. Sorry it's so offensive to you." I sped up without thinking. I was getting sick of the guy, but once again I slowed at the corner.

"What's... plan for… season?" he said.

"It'll be hard. We need to catch up and we've got a lot of kids." I looked to my left. Four of those kids were there. I could see the Brig practically levitating. "And Sharknado. The plan is to come good at the end and smash the playoffs."

"Those kids?" he said, waving a hand back towards the dugout. "They're... babies. Can't win anything... kids."

I was done with Zach Green, now. He was annoying from top to bottom. Every single thing about him wound me up. "What's it like being wrong all the time, Zach? This place is on the rise, mate, and those kids will fuck you up. Yeah, it'll be hard. Hard for everyone. Hard for our new centre back. We're going to lose some games and those kids are going to be feeling shit and they're going to look around the dressing room and what are they going to see? They're going to see Glenn Ryder, Sam Topps, and Carl Carlile. They're going to see champions. Warriors. Winners. I'm going to stuff that dressing room with winners and warriors, Zachy boy. Leave no man behind, yeah? I'll fucking pick the kids up and carry them on my back if I have to. And check this out. I'm going to lap you, now. I'm going to lap you by the end of the next circuit. All right? If you want to impress the girls, quit now because otherwise they're gonna see you chew dirt."

"Wait," he said, but I'd gone.

I stormed around the corner, flew behind the goal posts, and mere seconds later I was powering down the right touchline. I had the fleeting impression of lots of confused faces, but then Zach turned onto the right and they realised a proper race had broken out and they started cheering.

"Come on, Zach!" cried someone. The voice echoed across the otherwise deserted stadium - Ruth, I think - and as Zach passed the throng of watchers I was just turning onto the far straight. To lap him, I needed to do one and a half circuits in the time it took him to do one.

Piece of piss.

I settled into a long, loping stride while the idiot American pumped his arms and legs like he was Rocky running on sand. Wasting energy. Inefficient. I would utterly destroy him.

I passed the onlookers, who had now spread out to form a sort of tunnel to get a better view of what would be the finish line, and I cruised behind the goal. Zach was fifteen yards down the opposite stand. Huh. He'd sped up.

I stopped thinking and put everything I had into it. The fans were jumping up and down, cheering, yelling and whooping.

My legs were burning, now. Every nerve ending was aflame, every one a matchstick. Pain is purifying. Pain is exhilarating.

Zach hit the last corner, but even in his desperation he didn't cut it. He turned onto the home straight, just fifty yards from the finish line where the crowd was going bonkers. His technique was ragged and the turn cost him a few fractions of a second, as did the glance over his shoulder to see where I was.

I was almost to the first goalpost - now the second, now the corner. I took it smooth as silk and clicked into top speed - and beyond.

The fire had spread to my lungs. I had proper tunnel vision, now, and all I could think was how delicious this was going to feel. Forgive me, Lord, for I am about to murder a man.

But Zach, the stupid bastard, didn't know that I'd already beaten him. He lifted his chin high and pumped for dear life. After a few strides of that, he went the opposite way, lowering his head. His heart must have been one bpm from exploding.

I was twenty yards away, he was ten. I was ten, he was five. I was Achilles, he was a tortoise.

Zach threw himself over the finish line a yard ahead of me. He collapsed to his back, hands covering his head. The tortoise retreats into its shell.

I kept going for another twenty yards as I slowed, then I raised my arms, not in triumph, but in ecstasy. Mad, mindless competition, arbitrary rules, the wild release of dopamine.

I ambled back, grinning uncontrollably. The crowd had formed a kind of circle around Zach. "Glorious defeat," I proclaimed. "Zach Green, ladies and gentlemen. Guy doesn't know how to quit. Fuck me, you'd love it here, Zach." I looked up at the blue sky. A warm day, not too hot, the promise of a cool night. It was perfection. The sweat was pouring off me. My lips parted into what was probably a winning smile. "I hope you like cold showers."

"Cold showers?" This was a voice I'd heard once before. Rich, deep, and melodious. Femi. The other female players and the Exit Trial boys were shuffling closer. The boys, in particular, had a weird look on their faces and I wondered if my little showdown with Zach had put them off.

I was too high to fret, or worry, or calculate. The right thing to say? How about the goddamn fucking truth?

I took a few steps into the middle of the pitch. I pointed up. "Did you see the scaffolding when you came in? That's the solar panels going up. We'll have hot water by pre-season." I swept my hand around. "It's a cute little stadium. I want to make it bigger. I want to score in front of ten thousand - there's nothing like the rush of scoring in front of a big crowd. Everything you want, I want. We'll show you the training ground and the new kitchen. It's good but it's not good enough. I'm working on it. We'll offer you a salary; it won't be what you hoped. Win and I'll pay you more. Win and another team will buy you and pay you more. Even better." I spread my arms wide. The run had purified me, all right. Wiped away all the secret doubts. Zach had put his arms down so he could watch me speak. I offered him my hand; he clasped it and I pulled him up. "It's not paradise but in every way we're getting better and we're getting better faster than any other club in the world. I want you all here to be part of it because together we could do something truly epic this season. Back to back promotions with the men's and women's teams? No-one's ever done that. That's bonkers. But we'll do it and we'll do it with style."

I realised that the students hadn't gone home. The main camera dude edged closer and I suddenly found myself exuding charisma. A cheeky possible name for our documentary popped into my head.

I couldn't use that, could I?

I looked around the group, resting my eyes on the potential new recruits. "You've come to the most exciting football club in the world. It's a top city, the countryside's beautiful, and the football's off the charts. Femi, Luxury, Ridley? With you around we could go unbeaten this season. Invincible. Lads? You think you learned football at those academies? Fuck that. I'll teach you Max Best football and holy shit, there's nothing like it. Zach? We need more nutjobs round here. We need guys who look at the fastest manager in world football and think 'I can beat him'. Every one of you is wanted and needed here. I offer you glory. I offer you a life bursting with meaning. Every sprint an Olympic final. Every match a chapter. Every season a book. I know you'll all make the right decision. I know you'll all join us." I looked right down the lens and the guy - he had great instincts - got closer. He knew I was about to say something they could use in the trailer. "Welcome to Chester."