8.10 - Pick Your Battles [T1] (Patreon)

10.

Saturday, August 24

Match 5 of 46: Hartlepool vs Chester

"You're shit AAHHHHH!" roared the home fans as Ben launched a goal kick. In my brief career as maybe the best rugby player in the world, I had demoralised Hartlepool's rugby team with my inhumanly accurate kicking. Today, they had walloped us with no need for divine intervention, outmatching us CA 68 to CA 46.

46 was how we started. When I replaced Ziggy with Tom Westwood and Eddie Moore with Cole Adams, our overall CA fell to 45.7. You might say we'd done well to keep the score down to three-nil.

James Wise won a header. Tom chased it into the channel and put pressure on the full back - great - then kept going... and going... and going... By the time he'd sprinted the width of the pitch chasing short passes, he was gassed. The ball went back to the Pools keeper. That guy was in no mood to play keep-ball. He wanted to play keep clean sheet. That was a mini-game that, according to his contract, would see him get a one hundred pound bonus. So in the guise of trying to play a long pass, he hit the ball downfield as far as he could.

Carl won the ball and it went to Magnus Evergreen. He took a good first touch, held off a challenge, and, looking at his options, chose the safest one.

Peep, peep, peeeeep!

The ref blew his whistle and we got another L on our permanent record. One point from the last three games. In the eyes of the crowing home fans, Project Youth was floundering. With the draw at Wealdstone, we now had one point from a possible nine. We had played three games - 270 minutes - of mostly shit football. And Cole Adams had cost us two goals in the last ten minutes, turning a loss into a rout.

"Vimsy!" I called. "With me, please."

My favourite Proper Football Man hurried over. If anyone was going to tell me not to give a young player a bollocking on the pitch while the stadium was still full of home fans, it was going to be Vimsy. But he didn't say anything as I pushed a football into his arms. We set off across the pitch, swimming against the tide of players leaving the pitch.

The Brig saw my hard, flinty expression and left the conversation he was having with an opposition coach. The young men like Cole were his project - rescued from the scrapheap to be turned into fine young soldiers. "Sir," he said, trying to catch up with me. The guy was a former commando but I was a twenty-four year old professional sportsman and I'd been supernaturally doped.

"It's a football matter," I said, and the words came out strange. They hit the Brig hard and he did something unexpected - he stopped.

I continued to stride forwards, across the pitch, until I intercepted Cole Adams. He was eighteen and a left back. Left backs were often short because they were put up against fast, agile wingers who would dribble. Having a low centre of gravity was a massive advantage. But Cole was a very accomplished defender - or he would be once we'd finished training him - despite being tall.

And having tall full backs had the potential to be transformational to my teams. I had a penchant for tiny midfielders which left me exposed at set pieces. Cole Adams was the antidote to Pascal Bochum - not that the German Bad Boy was anywhere near my first team. I'd rather give minutes to one of the under 12s than him.

"Cole," I said, gripping his arm and dragging him back in the direction of the zone he'd been occupying. "How do you think you played, mate?"

"Not good, boss," he said.

"Their second goal was a bit of a kick in the teeth," I said, checking Vimsy was with us. "Why do you think it happened?"

Cole said, "Er..." and looked at the stand to his left. There were still hundreds of people there - Hartlepool played in front of massive crowds. Four and a half thousand, today. They were gawping at us. Still mocking. Singing 'going down!' while pointing their cameras at the freak show.

"Are you talking to me or to them?" I asked, annoyed at Cole for not paying attention and annoyed at myself for how like a schoolteacher I sounded.

"You, boss."

"Then don't fucking look at them. Look at me. Talk to me."

He tried to remember the sequence of passes that led to Pools' second goal and his role in it. "Erm... I think I was out of position at the end and he got a tap in."

"Yeah but I don't really give a shit about that. You had two guys to mark and you froze. It happens. At that point I'd like you to pick one and hope for the best but the real damage was done before that."

"It was?"

Vimsy bounced the ball and caught it between his palms. I continued. "Think back. When did that goal start?"

"When the winger crossed it. Carl could have been tighter, I thought."

"It's not Carl's fault in the slightest. Think before that."

Cole frowned. He was a good lad but deep thinking wasn't his specialty. "So... Wisey missed a tackle."

"Do you seriously think I'd be over here on your side of the pitch in front of thousands of monkey hangers to chat about something James Wise did?"

"No, boss." My intensity was freaking him out, but I didn't give a shit. The guy wanted to play at Wembley in front of 80,000 people. He could have a conversation in the north-east in front of four hundred jeering nobodies. He closed his eyes. "Sorry, gaffer, I can't think."

"Vimsy, can you take Glenn's position and pass to me? Cole, you be the winger."

Vimsy moved about fifteen yards diagonally behind me. I stood facing Hartlepool's goal. "Now?" said my coach.

I raised my finger. "Get ready," I told Cole. "I'm going to do what you did." I dropped my hand like I was starting a Formula One race. Vimsy passed. I took it awkwardly on my right foot and crabbed back to goal. The ball bounced off me, ready for Cole to run away with. "Remember that?" I called, quite loud.

"Yes," mumbled Cole. I indicated he should speak louder so Vimsy could hear. He repeated himself.

"Vimsy," I called. "Ready to go again." The four hundred fans were proper jeering at us, now. The losing left back was being given an on-pitch telling-off by a management fraud in an arm cast. "Cole, mate. I'm going to do the same thing. I want you to run at my right side and get the ball. You with me? Do what the Pools guy did."

I signalled to Vimsy and he passed the ball. Cole aimed himself at my right foot. Obviously, I didn't do what Cole did in the match. Instead, I let the ball roll across my body onto my left foot. While Cole ran at my inside, expecting to get the ball, I exploded past him on the outside, close to the touchline.

The jeering stopped.

"Mystery winger!" yelled Vimsy, beaming.

"Reset," I called. Cole walked back, staring at my feet with astonishment. "Don't look impressed," I called out. "That was a piece of piss. I touched the ball, like, ten inches to the left and you went flying like a proper nutjob. Okay, so now you know what I'm going to do, right?" Cole nodded. He didn't exactly know what was happening or why, but he was getting into it. "I'm going to dick you on the left because I'm a full back in a Max Best team. You feel me?"

I thought I saw his mouth twitch. "Yes, boss."

"I don't know how to say it any plainer, mate. I'm going to dick you on the outside and I don't think you can do a fucking thing to stop it."

He didn't reply. He simply set himself. I sent the ball back to Vimsy, raised my hand, and dropped it. The pass came and I shaped to make the same move. Cole threw his whole body towards the touchline. None shall pass!

I made the same initial motion of letting the ball come across my body, moved my weight in the same way, but at the last moment - after the last moment - I gave my first touch some extra energy and redirected the ball diagonally back across the pitch. While Cole moved outside, I sent the ball inside and followed it with a lightning fast dribble to the halfway line followed by a booming shot that went high, high, and bounced on the goal line and into the roof of the net.

Vimsy walked towards me. So did Cole. Both were grinning stupidly.

I rested my cast on Cole's shoulder and gave him an intense stare. "You're playing Max Best football. You don't retreat. Why would you ever retreat? First touch left and you take control. Second touch right and you take control. Your opponent has to go back. He has to stop you doing what I just did to you. He has to retreat or his manager will never give him another contract. He has to go back or his kids will starve.

"Do you get me, Cole? Attack and they will retreat. That's a rule of life, my friend. So you fucking attack, all day every day. Now, if you've not got a pass on or you don't fancy a dribble, that's okay. But your first move always always always needs to be positive so that theirs is negative. Then, right, then if you want to turn back and pass to Glenn, that's fine. I'm not going to be in your grille for every decision you ever make and you've seen our Let It Happen drills - you're allowed to pass and move backwards if that's what the game needs.

"But you've got the ball so you pick your battleground. You're the protagonist and defenders go where you want them to go. Is that one million percent clear, yes or no?"

The kid was having some kind of out-of-body-experience. His eyes were shining. "Yes, boss!"

I waited three beats to make what I said next as funny as possible. "Great. Now go and get that ball. I'm injured."

***

WibRob's equaliser had done something to me. Not just saved my job, not just got the entire club to sit up and take notice. He'd made me realise that I had doubts. I had been fretting about the team, the season, our progression. The moment the ball had hit the net I'd been converted to my own religion. I was deep in the Cult of Max, now.

Sandra's job was to make players better, but I had a role to play in their development, too. The youth teams responded when I got evangelical with them. I knew I'd had a direct impact on some mental attributes like teamwork - I had seen Tyson's teamwork turn green. I suspected, but obviously couldn't prove, that I'd got Captain's Influence score higher. I was sure I could impact some other, hidden attributes, too.

And at the very least, morale went up when I brought forth my righteousness like a light.

Max Best was getting preachy.

Can I get an amen?

***

I smiled most of the way to the dressing room and once there, headed straight for the tactics board. I shuffled the magnets around for a minute. "Sandra," I called. "Vimsy, Tom."

My coaches appeared next to me, but not my player. "He's in the shower," said Vimsy.

"Why the fuck is he in the shower when I need to talk to him?"

"Well," started Vimsy.

"Please get him!" I said. I stared at the tactics board until a cough told me that Tom had arrived. He was in a towel and was dripping everywhere. Bit rude. He was somewhat gangly, but not too many workouts from being muscular, I reckoned. As he aged, he needed to maintain the right balance between winning duels and being a mobile nuisance. "Got you some nickname options. Tommy Gun," I said. "Because you're Tom and you're a gun. TomTom - you know your way to goal. Tom Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - you drive opponents crazy."

"My mates call me Terrier Tom."

"Why?"

"Coz I like chasing balls."

I looked up. "Terrier Tom? Terrier Tom? No, don't like it. Veto. But that brings me onto the point. Tom, your work rate is phenomenal and I love it, but there's a but. I think we need to combine your demented harrying and scampering with some of my famous Max Best logic and rationality."

Tom was already standing in a puddle and it was spreading. "Yes, boss."

I laid five magnets out in a very familiar shape. "Goalie and back four. There's five of them and one of you. How many can you cover, do you think?"

"I have to do all five if I'm on my own up top," he said.

"See that's not what I want to hear, mate. I'm as willing to believe six impossible things before breakfast as the next man, but no no no. You've got to pick your battles. I'm going to suggest maybe four pressing plans. Pressing Pete picked a perfect pressing plan. Say that five times fast."

I picked up one of the marker pens and drew a circle around the left centre back - the guy on the right from my point of view.

"Option one. You could mark one guy. You'd stitch anyone up good, I'm sure. If we were playing against Zach, that'd be smart. You get that, right? He's the dangerous on-the-ball guy. If you're running around like a blue-arsed fly, you're not cutting out the danger. But what about," I started, before erasing the circle and drawing a line down the middle of the penalty area.

"Option two. Split the pitch into two halves. Let's say you take the right half. You could harass these two and the goalie. That'd be fun, right, but it'd also be dead smart because the limit would keep you fresh. See at the end of the match today Magnus was looking for support but you'd just done the craziest press since Gutenberg used his new invention to write a blog post about why it's dumb to rotate goalkeepers."

Sandra handed Tom another towel and he took it gratefully and began drying himself a bit.

"You think you're helping the team with this mad release of energy but maybe you're not, right? We need you to get on the ball, too. I do want goals, mate. You like scoring goals, right?"

"Yes, boss!"

"So take half the pitch and you're running half as much. Simples. You can take a breather when the ball goes across. That's efficient. By the way, you're still affecting the game. They can't pass back this way, can they, if you're in the way? It's like a rudimentary cover shadow." I tapped my temple. "Braaaaains!" I said, in the zombie fashion.

I wiped out the line and drew a box around the two centre backs. "Option three. Could be the smartest thing is to only track these central fuckers. Right? You give them a tough time but you save energy by not going to the full backs. If we're doing 4-1-4-1 we've already got good cover on the sides. Don't worry about what the full back gets up to. And if you do force a turnover from one of these clowns, you're right in front of goal! You break and they take you down it's a red card. Or a penalty and a yellow. Yes, please!

"Do you get what I'm saying? I don't want you covering five players any more. Before every match I want you to decide who you're going to cover and tell me why. If you need help at first, Sandra and Vimsy will advise you."

"It's my decision?" Tom seemed to find the idea bewildering.

I smiled. "I reserve the right to suggest something better," I said. "But yeah. Why not? I think you'll get good at it. I want you to watch the videos of the opposition before we play them. You can ask Spectrum to get you good clips. Pitch your ideas to Sandra and Vimsy, have a chat. It's not a fucking... exam, Tom. If you don't know what to do, pick one of the options I've just given you. Do it for the first half. At half time we can reassess. Do you have any questions about what I've just said?"

"Erm... you want me to be more... You want me to have a pressing plan? For every game?"

"Why do you say for every game like it's a fuckton of work?"

"Isn't it?"

"No. It's watching videos of the defenders you'll be up against and visualising how you'll annoy them. Sorry, mate, is that going to interfere with your personal clothes label? Do you need time off to go to Paris Fashion Week? Do you have daily meetings with the other members of your startup?"

He smiled, sort of, and his eyes flickered from Sandra to Vimsy. "I just want to be sure what you're asking."

"Pressing Pete picked a perfect pressing plan! Pressing Pete pricked a perfect plessing pan!"

"Get back in the shower, lad," said Vimsy. "I'll talk you through it on the bus." He took Tom's second towel and dropped it onto the wet patch.

Sandra gave me a strange grin. "You're upbeat considering we just got hammered."

"Hammered?" I said, confused. "When?"

"Want me to do the media?"

"There's no me in media," I said. I took a look around the dressing room. Half the guys were in the shower. A couple were getting some treatment from our physios. I wanted to do a third intervention. But who?

Magnus Evergreen was sitting quietly on the bench. He'd done yet another 6 out of 10 performance. Solid, unspectacular. He showed no signs of reaching his CA limit, so that left the obvious question - what sort of player would he become?

I'd always been scared of giving him feedback. For a start, I didn't know his PA limit. If he was CA 50, PA 100, I would have known how far he could improve. But he had that mysterious minus 2 thing, so was there even any point trying to mould him into a certain direction? I didn't know what I was dealing with.

There was also the fact that he wasn't a deeply committed player. Football was merely a stage in his journey and if I annoyed him too much he'd simply walk away at the end of the season.

Doubts, fears, anxieties. Be gone!

I squatted in front of him. "Magnus. How you doing?"

"I'm worried about the season. After the great start - "

"Forget all that," I said, dismissing his doubts. I plucked the negative energy that was in his aura and chucked it away. "Reiki healing! Reiki healing!" He rolled his eyes slightly, but in a good-natured way. "Right, now listen. You're getting to be amazing at covering ground, doing your work, filling in holes, all the dirty work. I mean, if that's all you ever did I'd be pretty happy but I think you've got another side and I want to explore that. I want to give you a quest."

He pointed to my right hand. "What was that?"

As I had said the word quest I had shaken an imaginary little stick. "Oh. I think I was being a shaman."

"You'd be a good shaman."

"Well, now we can find out. Your quest is to add verticality to your game."

Magnus closed his eyes and thought about it. "I might need an example of verticality."

"Okay," I said, standing up to give my muscles a rest. "The guy you played against today, he had this move where he let you come into the challenge and when you were committed, he went up a gear and you couldn't react. That's smooth, that. It's really subtle. Can you learn that? Or have you seen that thing Aff does where he fakes a square ball but he dribbles forward? He gets three yards out of that five times a match. You can pick but I want you to get to work on developing a move that takes us up the pitch. It doesn't have to be spectacular. Give me three yards and I'll be buzzing."

"I'm not sure - "

"Fuck that. I'm sure. Now, that's one thing but I've got another. I want you to think about how you combine with players. One thing I like when I play deeper roles is for someone ahead of me to play the ball back to me first-time. Because I'm looking at the whole pitch, right, and I can ping a pass anywhere. So a first-time layoff back to me is actually an amazing weapon for getting higher up the pitch. And Zach is decent with his medium-range passing. I'd like to see you practise that combination, and maybe you can come up with some others."

"It's hard because I don't play the same position every week."

I spread my arms wide, a sublime expression on my face. "If it was easy, it wouldn't be this satisfying!"

Magnus Evergreen smiled, nodded, and gained two levels of morale.

***

Sunday, August 25

I drove to Manchester for a day of non-stop achievement. I started by driving to Hough End playing fields for a big burst of scouting, whizzed to Platt Fields for another dose, then headed to a church in Wythenshawe, one where everyone was welcome but which mostly served the Ghanaian community.

Later, I would go and see my mum, then scout West Didsbury's women's team and chat to Jay Cope about how the men's season had started and how Chester's loan players were getting on. West, by the way, were already tearing the league up and had kicked their campaign off with four wins and a draw. If I had time, I would pop into a five-a-side place. Then if Emma was still having fun on her day out with some WAGs, I'd go to Platt Fields to get a kebab and pick up some XP from the early evening games. If Emma needed to be rescued, I'd zoom back to Chester.

But first, I had a sermon to give.

***

"Hello," I said. "My name's Max Best."

"Everybody knows who you are," said Pastor Yaw. He was on the stage to my right, settled into a wooden chair that looked much too small for him. He didn't need the microphone to be heard all across the room.

"Right," I said. "You probably told them about my Manager of the Season award."

"It is possible I mentioned that," he said, smiling hugely and easily. "You might be better-known for other events."

I nodded. "The time I defused a nuclear bomb with one second left on the countdown." This didn't get more smiles because everyone was already smiling. The men were in their best brown suits and the women were in all kinds of colours. The Yalleys were there, except Kisi. The women were due to play their first pre-season friendly and Kisi refused to miss it even to see why I'd requested a few minutes of pulpit time.

I looked around at the less familiar faces. The older ones had been born in one country, the younger ones in another. Was it weird? It had to be weird. "Guys, I'm here to talk about, you guessed it, Youngster. He has been playing first-team football for a while now and he is beginning to look very, very good. We played in London last week and a scout was there. I suspect the man is lazy and doesn't travel overmuch unless he has to."

"A scout?" said the Pastor, and I realised I'd missed out a key piece of information.

"A scout from the Ghanaian national team."

The reaction started huge and got bigger. From smiles to beams, from murmured 'ohs' to hearty 'praise Jesuses'. Many turned to check out the Yalleys. Mrs. Yalley had happy tears streaming down her face. Mr. Yalley was hugging his son. Youngster himself was doing the goofiest version of his always goofy smile.

"All right, calm down," I said, and while the hubbub didn't completely die down, people were listening. "It's possible they were there to check me out as the next national team manager. There's no way to know." I grinned to show I was joking. "But it does raise the issue of whether Youngster should play for Ghana or England."

"What are the considerations from a footballing perspective?" said Pastor Yaw.

"Well, no offence but it's easier to get into the Ghana team. But that doesn't matter in this case. Youngster's good enough for both."

"Which would you prefer?"

I scoffed. "There's no question, really. If he plays for England he'll get even richer and even more famous. Do you remember in the pandemic? Marcus Rashford raised twenty million pounds to feed hungry schoolchildren and he used his fame to make the government U-turn on one of its typically cruel, heartless policies. Rashford could do it because he plays for England and half the kids in the country have his poster on their wall. Youngster might think he could do more good for the world playing for England.

"Also, if he plays for Ghana then every two years he'll fly off to Africa for the Cup of Nations so he will miss a month of the season and come back tired. It's definitely better for me if he plays for England."

"And yet you are here," said Pastor Yaw.

"Yeah, well, it's not about me, is it? I'm fighting like twenty different fights all the time. This one isn't mine and it's actually a very difficult decision and I don't have the background to have an opinion, really. I'll support him a billion percent either way. I thought it would be an interesting thing for the community to discuss. And Pastor, I don't know if there's any Bible stuff around this kind of topic but you could maybe use that? It must get repetitive talking about avoiding temptation."

"It does not," he said. "But you have inspired me, Mr. Best!" He paced around the stage, in front of the drums and the guitars and the amplifiers. "The story of Paul!"

"Paul?"

"Formerly known as Saul. Saul was a go-getter, Mr. Best. A social climber. Very educated and a terrible snob! Although he was a jew, he had Roman citizenship. He travelled to Damascus, saw God, became Paul, and turned into an evangelist for Christ!"

"Amen," called someone. Pastor Yaw had slipped into his preacher voice.

"The Romans did not like that. Not one bit! They arrested him. But Paul the Christian was also Saul the Roman citizen! He had the right to plead his case before Caesar. Perhaps that was the equivalent of Marcus Rashford pleading his case before the British government. Perhaps that is the message. But Marcus Rashford, as we have seen, exists. Do we need a Marcus Rashford for Ghana? Could that be the young man I see before me? Yes, Mr. Best, you have given us a wonderful mission. Who are we and why are we here? And what a wonderful opportunity this is to revisit the life of Paul!"

"Yeah, that last part is the main thing."

Pastor Yaw laughed hugely. "But it is! Our petty worries are nothing when set against eternal salvation."

"Kay. So listen, sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun in here over the next few weeks. I do have a request, if I may?"

"Speak, Mr. Best."

I swept my gaze around the church. The community was so colourful and vibrant, but I knew how quickly tribes could be torn asunder. Under the surface there was always greed, jealousy, and stupidity. "I hope it's important and useful and healthy to talk about this, but in the end it's Youngster's decision. I won't be mad if he chooses Ghana. Please don't be mad if he chooses England. I'd like to come here and watch his first World Cup match on a giant screen - whichever kit he's wearing."

Yaw put his arm around me and gave me a friendly shake. "That will not be possible, Mr. Best." He did his version of a goofy grin. "You said it yourself. You will be our national team manager by then! I think you'll be needed in the stadium, will you not?"

***

Tuesday, August 27

Match 6 of 46: Chester vs Altrincham - penultimate match before the transfer window closes

'The tale of the tape' is a phrase from the world of boxing. Measure the height and arms of both fighters and you have a pretty good idea how the bout will go. If you had any sense of self-preservation, you wouldn't fight a guy taller than you who had longer arms. Not unless you were Mike Tyson, anyway. But Iron Mike AKA The Tooth Fairy was a professional boxer and boxers got to pick their fights.

Chester FC didn't.

My pre-match analysis of the teams told me how this particular bout would go. Altrincham were much taller, had much longer arms, and their abs were way more symmetrical.

CA 71. 

Altrincham were a very good National League team who had been in playoff contention the year before and had strengthened with an injection of American money.

CA 44.

Chester were a farcical team literally getting weaker by the minute. Youngster needed a rest, which had the knock-on effect of making me have to use Omari Naysmith in the centre. Ziggy was up front, Wes Hayward was on the right, and Eddie Moore had a tight calf so Cole Adams got another start. That gave us four players who were miles off the level, and James Wise was still only CA 43.

With Henri and Pascal out, my squad was suddenly incredibly thin. One more injury and I would have had to name two goalkeepers on the bench or bring in one of the under eighteens.

Just over three thousand one hundred fans watched us huff and puff as Alty blew our house down. They put two defenders on Aff and that was enough to stop us having any attacking threat whatsoever. We were three-nil down at half time. I didn't throw in the towel but there was no point bringing WibRob on - though there was tremendous interest in seeing the National League's youngest ever goalscorer. Instead, I gave Zach and Tom the entire second half, and threw Josh Owens on for the last twenty minutes.

Alty eased up in the second half, but cut through us near the end to make it four-nil. At the final whistle I praised Magnus for trying a move he had been practising in training. I hugged Tom, whose pressing had been deeply annoying for Alty's centre backs. And I spent a minute with Wes talking about his body shape when he was collecting the ball from a defender.

The fans showed no sign of turning on us, and I had arrested the squad's season-long slide in morale. Some of the old togetherness was back. These setbacks would only make us stronger.

I gave a cheery post-match interview.

***

Wednesday, August 28

Heroic Special Offer

New perk available for the next forty-four days: The Fantastic Four

Cost: 4,444 XP

Effects: To celebrate International Read Comics In Public Day, this perk allows you to nominate four players who do not currently appear on your squad screens and track them as though they were part of your squad. Perfect for long-term scouting! If any of the four players being monitored are added to a squad screen, the free slot may immediately be reused. Otherwise, only one change can be made per month. Choose your prey wisely!

I lay in bed looking at the beams above me. Really interesting perk! It was one that wouldn't directly power me up but would help me to work out how this crazy football business actually worked.

For example, I could follow four players from different rival clubs, like Christian Fierce from Kiddies and Tom Hickman from Grims, and see how their numbers changed across a season. Did my teams lose more CA in the summer than other clubs? If so, I could investigate that. If not, it would be one less thing to worry about. I often felt that my personality had a distorting effect on how the curse worked. My recent cheeriness was artificially lifting morale, for example. Having four clean data points would let me investigate the relationship between things like morale and CA growth, Condition and injuries.

Or I could use it to track the effects of these 'dislikes Zach Green' player complaints. I wanted to blast my ones out of the water as soon as possible but it would be interesting to study them. If I followed four players who hated a teammate I'd be able to see their morale and how they were training. When I unlocked the Form perk I'd be able to add that to my analysis, and some combination of perks would unlock the average rating for this season. (Currently I only had it for the previous season.) It could be interesting to track three dislikers and the dislikee. Did everyone suffer equally? Did the dislikee even give a shit?

Another use case would be to track four young players with PA 100. What exactly was the benefit of being in Man City's academy versus Birmingham's versus Grimsby's?

Yeah, interesting, but I didn't have enough XP to buy it, and for once the deadline wasn't the end of the month. I could take my time thinking about this one.

***

Talking of getting rid of the 'dislikes', I'd set up a special meeting that I hoped would tackle some of my problems. My guys didn't like Zach Green because he had rugby tackled me and was hella annoying, but I didn't get the sense they really hated him.

So I had asked three of the defenders who 'disliked' Zach - Steve Alton, Glenn Ryder, and Eddie Moore - to come to my office before training. The first two had played the night before so they would normally have had the morning off, but I promised it wouldn't take long.

Zach was there, too. Like all of them, his morale had taken a hit because of the back-to-back defeats.

"Thanks for coming, dudes!" I said. "As you know, I'm giving out sort of personalised training plans. You guys get a choice." I opened my flipchart and picked up a marker. I drew a rectangle and cut it into three vertical blocks. "We need better ball progression and this season's training is all about getting that. How do we get from the defensive third to the middle third? The full backs can pass or dribble, no worries there, but I need a central option, too. Give me a central passing option and we'll be able to do all sorts of wonderful things like keep clean sheets and score goals. The way I see it, there's two main ways we can achieve this. One, we let Zach do it."

The three dudes turned to the American, who was drinking from a Starbucks container. Just for a moment, the thought that he'd crossed town to get an American drink infuriated me, but I realised there was probably one on his drive up from Wrexham. He didn't know what to say. "That's, er, that's why you signed me, boss."

"Yeah, because you're mint. So if we go for the Zach option, let's call it plan Zed because that's how we do alphabets round here, then Glenn and Steve, you'll be doing defensive drills. The stuff you're used to. Shuffle, slide, set piece. Duels, dominating zones, physicality, leadership. All that good stuff." Glenn sat taller. It was what he'd been doing his whole life. It was what he loved doing. What he was born to do! I tapped the marker onto the page. "Yeah. That's definitely the simpler one. You guys give the ball to Zed Zed Top here and let him slice teams up like, er... what do you slice?"

"Life," said Eddie Moore.

"Sorry what?"

"Slice of life," he said. "It's a story genre."

"Sounds exciting," I said. I drew a 4-2-3-1 formation and spoke faster and more crazily. For once, that was a conscious decision. "Option two is we lean into positional play in a big, big way. Double pivots and inverted full backs. Glenn you'll bounce passes with the 6 here - " I drew lines between the circles " - and you'll create this double triangle here but that's all to draw the oppo into the spaces between us here but these seven passes are all about getting the 6 a free shot at the 8 and then we're away."

The circles were getting lost under the endless stream of lines.

"Or we could get into inversion and Eddie in possession you'll be moving here to be a false 6 and Glenn you'll slide left and that'll form a triangle with our nearest DM and it'll be like a flurry of passes and all you need to remember is someone needs to cover zone 14 so we'll be doing loads of spatial awareness work, reacting to pressure, and we'll do phase of play training so we can have multiple build-up strategies. Sandra wants us to have a nine-stage build up but I've persuaded her to start with 6 so you're not overwhelmed."

I stopped and managed to keep a straight face even though I'd finished on the phrase 'so you're not overwhelmed'. Glenn was trying not to look panicked and Steve's eyes were following the tracks of the lines I'd drawn - an impossible job. "Yeah," I said. "That's option two."

I shut up for a minute. Zach opened his mouth but - miraculously - shut it again without speaking.

"What was option one again?" said Glenn.

"Pass to Zach."

"And with that one, the rest of us focus on, like, defending?"

"Yeah."

Glenn eyed the American, who lowered his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. My captain said, "I think I'd prefer that one, to be honest." The dislike notice vanished from his profile! My plan worked! It worked like a dream. I nearly did a jig.

Somehow I kept my reaction contained to the size of a tiny, enigmatic smile. "Oh? Well, that works for me, too. I'll talk to Sandra and Vimsy about the next few weeks' training. That's it. Thanks for coming."

The three Brits got to their feet but Zach didn't. "Can I ask a question?"

No! No you can't ask a question! I've just done an elaborate piece of social engineering for your benefit. Shut your stupid mouth! "Nothing could delight me more, mate."

"I, er... I don't like getting my ass whupped, boss." I didn't hear a question mark, so I waited. He looked at his fellow defenders. "Shoot, forget it. I'm on board. I'll work harder."

"Speak up, Zach," said Glenn. "Gaffer doesn't mind."

Zach took a sip. If he was trying to take a pause before speaking, then I heartily approved. "Last night was a shambles at times. I want to trust the process but we're regressing. I know, er... some of that's my fault." His eyes darted towards the defenders, anxiously, but that moment of self-awareness was the moment Steve Alton lost the dislike message! "But I don't think we're gonna do real good if we don't change something. I'm thinking of the transfer window. Will we be bringing anyone in?"

"Yeah, I've got another left back coming in," I said.

Eddie Moore spluttered, "But! But!" I tilted my head, causing Glenn and Steve to laugh. They knew my sense of humour better than most. "Oh, very funny," said Eddie. He didn't think his place in the first team was under threat from the two Exit Triallists, but they were obviously going to cut into his minutes, as was Lucas Friend. He understood my reasoning for that but bringing in another left back would have been a slap in his face.

I went to the window and looked out, then went over to a magnetic wall chart I'd put up. It was pretty rudimentary but it showed the options we had in different positions. I had 900 pounds remaining a week in my basic budget, and I had the option of burning my reserves - at the cost of potentially delaying our new training ground. "We could bring in one more player now or wait till January. What would you do?"

Zach stood and strode to my board. He pointed at three different spots. "I'd bring in a creative midfielder, a right-mid who can cross, and a striker who can hold the ball up." Talk about a win-now manager!

Glenn pulled him away. "I'd leave it to you, boss."

Zach looked a bit dismayed, like he'd put his foot in it again, but to be honest I was impressed by his analysis of the squad. Judging Player Ability - high. Judging Player Potential - low. "Good news, Zach. We've got all those things. The striker... that's up to me to fix, I reckon. The other guys need time but they'll come good." I smiled and put the Zach magnet back on the board.

The irony of my squad was that three of the guys with the lowest PA limits were in the room. Steve had 53, Glenn 54, and Eddie 75, but no-one thought of them as a problem. I jabbed my finger at the collection of names. "That is the most talented National League squad of all time. Couple of whuppins are a small price to pay to get that group in one place.

"If I had infinite money I would maybe get one more experienced guy, but basically that is great. I love that squad. I'm proud of what we're going to accomplish together. Maybe I'll print out a big sign that says 'THIS IS A WINNING SEASON' and we all have to touch it every time we go in the dressing room. What do you think?"

"Is that a reference?" said Steve Alton.

"Zach, tell him."

"Gee, boss. I don't know," he lied.

I blinked. "It's from Ted Lasso. He puts a big sign up that says BELIEVE."

"Ted Lasso?" said Zach, shaking his head. "Don't watch it. Way too American."

As we all laughed, Eddie Moore's dislike of Zach vanished from his profile.

***

I watched training for ten minutes - the energy was absolutely outstanding and numbers were going up. Sandra had been gently mocking me for my manic post-WibRob energy but she understood it better, now. New rules for life. One, you don't train you don't play. Two, no dickheads.

And the results? Green, green, green. Number goes up.

Deeply, deeply satisfied, I went back inside BoshCard HQ so that the lads would think I was watching from my office window and snuck out into town to buy myself some swag. My bank balance had reached ten thousand pounds. I could afford to splash out!

I spent a kind of reprehensible five hundred pounds on a pair of AirPods Max. These were stupidly heavy headphones that instantly connected to my iPhone. Footballers loved them and I was a footballer. Also - it said Max on it. There was an option to change the name so I went with MaxPods Max.

I treated myself to some new clothes and trainers and spent twenty minutes trying on new sunglasses while a woman said everything looked good on me. I'd have preferred it if she said eight out of ten made me look rancid. In the end I pretended to get a message and left. On a whim I bought some tartlets and left them in Ruth's fridge.

Then I went for my usual jog, though the timing was a few hours off. It didn't really matter if Clive wasn't at home - I actually liked it when he was out. Busy people are happy people, right?

I paid full attention going past the horses in case one of them decided to kick my head into the next postcode. I crossed onto the Old Trail, and fell into my 'deep thought' cadence.

With the transfer deadline looming, clubs were doing all sorts of deals. It wasn't just managers flailing around trying to pick up good players, either. Some managers who'd had bad starts had been sacked. The idea, I supposed, was that there were quite a few managers out of work and if you were going to sack your manager you might as well do it early so you could cherry pick from the best ones available.

The name Ian Evans appeared on my screens for the first time in many, many months. He'd come out of retirement - again - to manage Ross County in Scotland.

I searched and found David Cutter had been taken on by Tonbridge Angels in the National League South. Folke Wester was somehow still at Darlington. Their season had got off to a flyer.

There were interesting deals and crazy ones. Guys going for way too much and surprisingly little.

One thing I always looked out for was the Saudi Pro League. There was that one transfer window where they had bought anything that wasn't nailed down, but then the one after they bought literally no-one. I'd learned that the SPL teams had a hard limit on how many foreigners they could use, so the team that bought Raffi had used him a few times, bought another player, and deregistered Raffi. He hadn't played for half a year as a result.

Now, it seemed he was registered again, because a few players had decided they didn't like living in a repressive totalitarian regime - shocker - and had left. Bad for the league, good for Raffi. Most analysts agreed, though, that the SPL was here to stay, and I was perhaps more anxious than most to see when they would start their next round of big-money signings.

If they offered me ten million for WibRob...

I knocked on Clive's door and checked my phone - the time had absolutely flown by! I needed to be careful with how I trained. There were times when I wished I had higher stamina, but not at the expense of technique. I could serve the team best as a twenty-minute impact sub than being a workhorse.

The door opened and Clive smiled with surprise. He backed away and I went inside. Normally, Clive spent most of his time on his sofa. As far as I could tell, he often just sat there doing nothing. Today, though, he was in his kitchen diner. He'd set up a table - there wasn't enough space, really - and was playing cards. Okay!

"How you doing, Clive?"

"Mustn't grumble," he said. "Nice day, isn't it? You're looking well."

"I'm feeling pretty fucking great, tbh." It always took him a few seconds to parse these phrases. He had learned OMG and LOL from his daughter, but TBH, IYKYK, and NBD weren't in his active vocabulary.

While he thought about what I'd said, I went to the kitchen sink and checked his electricity meter. I fucking hated the bastard thing and wished I could do something to help Clive live somewhere he was treated with basic human dignity and not like a lab rat.

His toilet flushed, there were various watery noises, and into the kitchen area emerged Pascal. "Max," he said.

My spirits sagged. I didn't have the energy for his Bad Boy bullshit. He had been training and improving but I hadn't spoken to him directly since that time outside the dressing room. "What are you playing?" I asked Clive.

He smiled. "Schwimmen," he said. "You get three lives. We use pennies for lives. See, I've got one left and Pascal has two. When you lose your third life, you're said to be 'swimming'. It's your last chance. Would you like to join us?"

"No, thanks. I've always got time for some strip poker, though."

"Max," he said, settling down into his seat. He picked up some cards.

"Maybe he would prefer to play Kuhreiter instead," said Pascal, which seemed to be one of his trademark new pieces of spite, but judging by Clive's reaction it was harmless enough.

"All right, well, you've got company. I'll be off."

Clive stared at his cards, then at me. "Bad result last night."

"Yeah, we're shit. Seeya."

"Max," he said, softly enough to make me stop. "I went last night. I was hoping to see Pascal."

"Sorry to hear that."

"I can't understand it. He told me you got mad at Henri for not training well."

I gave Pascal a look so savage he was rocked back. He showed his palms. "That's true."

His stupid dyed hair was making my eyes itch and I had the sudden thought that in a fight I could use my cast like a shield. "I'm doing a podcast tonight. Would you like me to tell everyone what goes on in our dressing room? Is that what we do now?"

"I didn't tell everyone. I told Clive."

Our tone was making Clive stressed - the exact opposite of the purpose of my visit. For his sake, I let all the rancour leave me and I put on a big friendly smile. "Well, Clive's practically family, isn't he? So that's all right."

I turned and put my fingers around the door handle, but Clive was unusually determined to finish a thread. It seemed like some kind of progress for him and obviously I wanted to play my part. He said, "Pascal has been training well, don't you think?"

"He's definitely been the best trainer this season. He's almost our most capable player, now."

"Who's ahead of me?" said Pascal.

"You're level with Aff and you're just behind Carl." I was careful not to look at him but I knew he was emitting a bright, golden glow.

"It sounds like he could do a job for the team," said Clive.

"He could," I said. "He could finish the season as the best player in this league. He'd be Young Player of the Season. He'd get noticed. His career would explode. He's motivated for that, but not quite motivated enough."

"What do you mean?"

"We've got a bit of a Cole Sheringham situation on our hands." I sat down in Pascal's spot and looked through his cards. Only making eye contact with Clive, I said, "Do you remember Andy Cole and Teddy Sheringham?"

"Course I do, yeah. Sheringham was playing for England and was annoyed at being subbed off so he didn't acknowledge Cole, who was replacing him. It was Cole's England debut and he felt Sheringham humiliated him."

"Right. Petty, petty shit. They ended up at Man United together and never spoke. Never, ever spoke. They didn't let it affect them on the pitch but I always hated that story. It tarnished everything from that era. You watch clips of Sheringham pass to Cole, who scores, but how can you enjoy that goal knowing they hate each other? No, that stuck with me. I won't have it. I'm not having it." 

"Is Pascal Cole or Sheringham?"

"Pascal is Sheringham. He's the one starting the beef."

Pascal said, "Those are two different pairs of shoes." Whatever he meant, I ignored him.

Clive frowned. "So who is Andy Cole?"

"Cole is me. Cole is the team. Cole is Chester Football Club. Cole is everyone who isn't Pascal."

"That's not true!"

I picked out three cards, and placed the others to the side, face down. In a space on the table, I put down a queen. "There's a football manager and it's the FA Cup final tomorrow. She's got to make a decision about who plays." I put down a King and a Jack. "She's a win-now manager, Clive. She's not messing about. She picks the King. There isn't a single football fan in the world who would blame her."

I picked up the Jack and stared at it, my face hardening.

"Sheringham didn't do much to Andy Cole, but it was something." I flipped the card around so it was facing Clive. "This guy's lashing out for absolutely nothing. I never thought he was too small to play for me until now."

"No," snapped Pascal. "My private life is none of your affair."

"You get three lives in this game. Did I understand that right? One penny per life." I slid three pennies towards me. "In my version of the game, you lose a life when you laugh at a team mate." I plucked a penny off the table. "When you throw your hands in the air on the pitch." Another penny. "When you talk shit about him behind his back." The last coin. "No lives left. You're swimming."

I jogged home in record time.

***

Extract from Deva Station, the newest and Bluest Chester fan media channel. By real fans, for real fans, with mild swearing.

[Epic theme music plays, interspersed with commentary of memorable moments from Boggy and the BBC]

J: Yes! Welcome to Deva Station, I'm your host, J.

Smakk: And I'm your other host, Smakk.

J: That's Chester firm legend, bad boy turned good, Smakk with two Ks if you want to follow him on the socials. We're on all the usual places with the username Devastation. With us in the studio today are two super special guests. The one, the only - 

Max: Hang on. Let us introduce ourselves. Me first. The name's Best. Max Best. Okay, you go.

Pond: I'm James Pond.

Max: Seriously, am I the only one who - 

J: For anyone who doesn't know, that's Chester Director of Football and men's team manager, Max Best. Obvs. And the other voice was James Pond, one of this years' board members.

Max: Vaguely frustrating.

J: Max, we normally ask to have you on about once a month and you always turn us down, which we get! You're busy. But this time you approached us. Why's that?

Max: Last time we did the fan's forum thing was just after the transfer window and that turned into a disaster. I thought, let's do something before. You said you'd already booked James Pond, the man with the golden gunnel, and I was like, yes, perfect, amazing, let's do that.

Smakk: Because he's a board member?

Max: Yes. They're supposed to represent you, right, so what better than to talk to them and you at the same time? Okay but let's crack on.

J: We don't have any questions about the women's team because their season hasn't really started. Are you going to yell at us?

Max: No.

J: The men's team, then. We'd rate it as three decent performances out of six. Are you happy with our start?

Max: On a, like, cosmic timescale, no. The aim for this club is to be amazing five matches out of six at least. But under the very specific constraints of this particular season, ah... also no. [laughs]

J: What aren't you happy about?

Max: A couple of issues have set us back. We are very much on track now, but the start hasn't been quite what I wanted. How are you guys feeling?

Smakk: Don't you listen, Max?

Max: Should I lie, should I lie? I do... not. Your first section is discussing the lineups and you do six minutes about why Andrew Harrison isn't starting and I'm punching holes in my wall screaming 'He's out on loan! He's out on loan!' I think the concept of your pod can be summarised as 'We try to understand what Max Best is doing' and therefore, I'm not your target demographic. My girlfriend listens so she can sue you. She tells me if there was a good bit.

J: Why's Andrew out on loan?

Max: He needs minutes and I made that deal when we had approximately six hundred midfielders.

Pond: Was that decision a mistake?

Max: At the time, no.

Pond: Why don't you recall him?

Max: I'll only recall players if they are being mistreated. As far as I'm concerned, I made a deal and I made that deal in Chester's name. Do you want me breaking promises left and right? Trashing your good name? No, he's playing there in Manchester and he's getting way more minutes than he would get here, even now. It's good for him. You two, when you're talking about the players who are out on loan - they're out and they're not coming back until the specific time.

Pond: What circumstances would count as mistreatment?

Max: Bullying. Racism. Exclusion. I think when I send a seventeen-year-old out to a tier eight team there's an expectation of a certain amount of toughening up. Bit of old-school shock therapy which doesn't really apply I suppose because the first team have been playing on sloping pitches with portacabins for changing rooms and that sort of thing. It's not really an eye-opener for our lads, going to lower leagues.

But, you know, as our facilities improve and we get new twelve-year-olds coming in, they'll only know the higher level stuff and yeah, going to see what lots of football is really like can be a shock and, if done right, beneficial. I can imagine a world where one of the teams we lend a player to runs out of money and our kid has to muck in.

Wash his own kit, help around the stadium, I don't know what. Basically I think if I were there, would I do it? For a struggling team I think there's a lot I'd do to make sure there was a game on Saturday. Bit of character-building while they're learning football. Absolutely. But bully my kid I will absolutely ruin you and the Brig will do worse.

J: Seven points from a possible eighteen. One goal from four games without you on the pitch. Grimsby, Barnet, Solihull, Oldham, Altrincham, all pulling away already. One question - when are you back?

Max: I'm going to get another scan on Saturday morning to see if this little crack has healed. Now, I can just imagine my head physio bursting into tears if I say I want to play at 3 p.m. so I might skip that match just because there's a week until, I think it's Aldershot, so that's another week of healing and he really can't complain about that. Aldershot will be fun because the Brig's got loads of army mates there. But you didn't tell me. How are you guys feeling?

Smakk: I'll go. I'm lovin' it, Max.

Max: You are?

Smakk: Everything's just bigger, isn't it? Bigger attendances, harder matches. Hartlepool away is a great trip. I look at the upcoming fixtures and most of them are bangers.

Me: You don't worry that we're stinking the place up?

Smakk: You get some slack, in my eyes. Okay, the team's a bit raw, everyone can see that. There's players we look at and suck our teeth in, like. Not sure about him, like. But with you in the team it all works and we'll be all right. Without you, it's a bit of a deflated soufflé, isn't it?

J: Is Bake Off back on already? He's mad about cakes, him. Supposed to be a big tough guy. So last night was a shocker. It was really bad, Max, but Grimsby was so good. There's some of the new players I don't rate but some I think look mint and you've asked us for patience and I think most of us can swallow a few bad results. We'll follow you where you go.

Max: Wow! That's motivational. Who don't you rate?

J: Hayward.

Max: He's mint. I wanted to ease him into the team. It's not his fault he's playing so much. The thing with him, right, is that he always gets to the same point at a club. He shows some promise, shows his speed, he's clearly got ability, but people lose patience with him and that's that. Onto the next team.

What's going to shock him about me is that I'm not going to give up on him. No-one's ever believed in him as hard as me and I'm never, ever going to stop pushing him and stop working with him and stop demanding he works harder and sharper and more and better. There's going to be a day where we're so far past the point that everyone else would have given up on him but I'm still there, his teammates are still there, his coaches are still there, that it's going to be easier and less hassle for him to get good than to deal with my relentless fucking positivity.

He's mint whether he likes it or not! Are you listening, Wes? I'm coming for you! Let's go, mate!

Smakk: I want to run through a wall!

J: Come on you Seals!

Smakk: [headbutts his microphone]

Max: It'd be better all round if the fans got behind him and stayed there but I'm not going to die on that hill. It's pick your battles week in the Max Best household! Just understand that Wes Hayward is a baller and if you slag him off you're going to look like a dick. Is he raw? Yeah. That's fair criticism, but that's not his fault. He hasn't been coached properly and we've only had him for a few weeks. He's a great signing. You'll see.

Smakk: I want a Hayward 15 top!

J: Cole Adams gave away two goals last night. He doesn't look right to me. He runs funny.

Max: [laughs] He runs funny? Like Borat? I don't know if my girlfriend owns your house yet, but if she doesn't you can bet it on Cole being a success.

J: I've transferred ownership of my house into a shell company. She can't get at it.

Max: [laughs]

Smakk: What was that at the end of the match last night?

Max: What was what?

Smakk: You told Cole Adams off on the pitch.

Max: Told off? What for? He made one minor technical mistake that led to a butterfly effect. I was showing him what I wanted him to do.

Pond: It would seem proper to do it in training and not in public. He must have felt humiliated.

Max: He got instant feedback and he had three hours on the team bus to think about it. He was in training today, light session, and he was practising what I told him. There's no need for him to practise, in a way, because he's got the technique to do what I want. The issue is having the confidence to do it and him trusting that I mean it when I say do it my way.

If he messes up doing it my way, it's one in a thousand that we'll concede a goal from it. If he does what he did, mistakes are like a one in ten chance of a goal. So seriously, let's do it my way! But it takes time to process that. That's why I addressed it right away. Also I was hyper and it helped me burn some nervous energy. There are times I'm so excited about this team I want to explode.

J: Personally I loved seeing you get stuck in with that level of detail, but yeah, maybe don't do it on the pitch in from of the Hartlepool fans.

Max: Um... no. I'll do it whenever. You're worried about Wrexham fans laughing at us. I'm not. Cole wants to become a better player and I want that, too. We don't give a shit about anything else.

J: How active are we going to be in the rest of the transfer market? At the time of recording this we've got five days left.

Max: No-one else is leaving, unless we get an offer we literally can't turn down from you-know-where.

J: [nervous laughter]

Max: Maybe we'll get one more player in but I'm hoping to avoid that because we already took in a lot of new faces and that's caused more problems than I anticipated. We need some time to be together and gel and to mould what we've got. We can ride out this bad patch, see what the team really needs, and have some funds in January.

Pond: Can I ask about the decision to sell Sam?

Max: Sure.

Pond: Why did we sell him when the midfield is so weak and how did we arrive at seventy-five thousand as a proper valuation?

Max: The valuation is based on supply and demand. Tranmere wanted him but there are similar players on the market.

Pond: I understand they came in with a low offer at first and you somehow persuaded them to pay more.

Max: Yeah I have a good relationship with Tranmere, as everyone knows. I wasn't interested in haggling over every penny for days until five minutes to eleven. Let's skip to the part where we get a fair offer and let Sam decide if he wants to move. As for why we sold him, it's because that's what we do here. We train players up and sell them. That's the model. Tranmere got a good player, Sam's got a big move, we got a fair fee for the work we put into him. It's literally win-win-win.

I understand that it's shit losing loads of matches in August and September but you've got to think long-term. When I came here the club was living day to day and now we're being very strategic. I'll admit I might have gone slightly too long-term this summer but selling Sam and bringing James Wise in to replace him is good business.

J: Sam was very popular, though. He's a loss in the dressing room, isn't he?

Max: Oh, it's a terrible move from those sorts of aspects. He was passing on some of his wisdom to the kids and the women's team and he was showing a lot of what I call Chesterness. I don't know what contract he got at Tranmere but it's probably double what we were paying him and in the end he has to provide for his family and every player at the club wants to move up the pyramid and play in front of big crowds and now they see the pathway is very much open. It's sad but happy at the same time.

Pond: Why have Henri Lyons and Pascal Bochum not featured in the team?

Max: I got all the British lads together and we voted 52% to kick them out. It was a non-binding decision but I decided to follow it through to the bitter end even if that was insanely self-destructive.

Smakk: Let's not start that again.

Max: Henri has a bad back. And Pascal has a bad... back.

Pond: It's curious but I get the impression you aren't being wholly truthful.

Max: Okay.

Pond: Going back to the Sam deal, it seems you think James Wise is a replacement of equal value.

Max: He will be. He'll get close this season, I reckon. They're slightly different players but I think Wisey can get to Sam's overall levels.

Pond: It's quite a business model to buy low, sell high. If only it were repeatable.

Max: It's repeatable.

Pond: You've never told the world how you find new players.

Max: I use an AI computer that I acquired from a nuclear submarine that crashed. The AI didn't like its former programming so I asked if it could find me a box-to-box midfielder and it said yes and now it just spits out squad suggestions every three minutes and tells me to buy Tom Hickman.

The buy low sell high model only has one flaw - there will always be a dip in quality while you wait for the new player to catch up to the levels of the last one. Managing that dip is going to be a big challenge for me and I think it's obvious I've not quite nailed it this summer. Losing a home match without really entertaining the fans was not how I wanted this to go.

Pond: I note you're evading the question again. So tell us how we found, ah, Sticky.

Max: Free agents call us in the summer pimping themselves out. Which is fine, actually. I love the hustle. Sticky was one of those and he's great.

Pond: He's expensive.

Max: Another way to look at it is that he's cheap. It's an interesting story, actually, because I only recently learned something Sticky didn't tell me at the interview. We went to the Exit Trials and picked up five players and helped to find spots for a few others. The organisers were pretty blown away because normally there's only three or four kids who get picked up. They've been sort of evangelical about us, which was a nice unexpected side effect, and because we signed a young goalie we got mentioned on this Goalkeeper's Union WhatsApp group and that's why Sticky thought to give us a chance.

J: That's cool.

Max: It is cool! Sometimes I feel like it's me against the world and it's just such a relief to hear that there are good people in the industry. There are plenty of villains and I bump into them often enough and they try to land digs on us when they can. I mean, one agent, I wouldn't call him a villain - he actually cares about his clients - but there was a misunderstanding and it sort of blew up and -

J: You okay, Max?

Max: Yeah. I just realised I accidentally created a Cole Sheringham feud. Shit. It's probably too late but maybe I should talk to him.

J: Don't look to us for advice - this whole podcast was started out of spite.

Max: I heard that episode! I understand why you left the old show, J. Some people just want to be unhappy. My mate TJ, the Crawley manager, says there's a fan who used to scream at him when he picked this one striker. Get him off, he's rubbish! You don't know what you're doing!

Now that striker's the top scorer and when he scores the whole stadium erupts and there's limbs everywhere but you'll find one guy who's sitting with his arms folded. He won't even celebrate the goals! I just don't have the patience for people like that. I don't want you to get like that with Wes and Cole and the others.

Pond: I understand you are a Manchester United fan.

Max: I'm more of a Max Best fan these days.

Pond: Quite. But there's an interesting story developing at United. For a long time the owners didn't put money into the club and it stagnated, to say the least. Now the new billionaire owner is investing. There's talk of a new stadium - the Wembley of the north. Professionals are being hired to fill positions. The club will be modernised and professionalised. The academy will be restored to being the best in the land.

Max: Okay.

Pond: I just find what we do here baffling. Virtually every decision flows through you and there's very little oversight. The youth teams are clearly doing better than before and you have created a pathway to the first team but everything is ad hoc. When I ask Spectrum for paperwork or documents he says it's all in your head. That's not professional. We should be aiming to move to an academy model.

Paperwork, documents, tracking the progress of the young players through the age groups. We don't even collect physical data. I like to think of myself as a methodical and thorough person and this football club is too important to run in anything other than a methodical and thorough way.

Max: Yeah, those academies are mostly shit. J, do you know what the E triple P is?

J: No.

Max: Elite player performance plan. Remember England got smashed by Germany? There was a big panic about why our academies weren't producing technical players so they copied bits of the French model, the German model, and created the E triple P.

If you're the England national team the results are good. If you're a big club, the results are incredible. If you're a small club with an academy, you got shafted, big time. Now, apart from the fact that I wouldn't want one of my players to go to a big club because they'll be chewed up and spat out, almost literally, the compensation for those players is pitiful.

They can take our best twelve year olds for, like, three thousand pounds. It's beyond a joke. One thing the Premier League clubs aren't short of is money, but they've designed a system where they can hoover up the nation's talent without paying compensation. It's sick and it keeps me up at night. If they want to give me a million pounds for Simon Black I'll probably take it because at those levels of spending you'd imagine they would actually look after the lad, right?

Someone's signed off on a big fee so that person is going to be highly motivated to make sure he's a success. Three thousand pounds? What does it matter if he rots? The other thing is if we get a million and it doesn't work out for the lad, we'll take him back and he'll be a hero. He bought us a new training pitch! If he goes for three grand against my advice then he's not coming back so the one place in the country that would actually take proper care of him is the one place he won't be welcome.

Yeah, guys, you can't believe how much time I spend fretting about the youth players. We don't need to measure their craniums or whatever, we need to make sure they're learning and having fun and that they hear the horror stories from the kids we're rescuing from academies and that they hear the positive stories from our kids who made it from the youth system into the first team.

Pond: I'm honestly glad to hear you have thought it through so much but it's a big problem for us that everything's in your head. What if you quit? What if you, ah, have a bad back? There are reasons to have processes and it's not only about entangling you with red tape. It's about planning for the post-Max Best era.

Max: That's fair but the Max Best era is just starting. I do want to set up some kind of academy structure but it won't be in the E triple P system. It will be some kind of bespoke, hand-made alternative that's not linked to the wider system but yeah, we can borrow some of the best practices. There's no need to measure kids, though, unless you need an excuse to cut half of them every season. I don't think cutting a kid because he's only going to be as tall as Maradona is a sign of professionalism because you know who was as tall as Maradona?

Smakk: Maradona.

Max: That's right. 

Pond: From what I understand, once we get to League Two we will be subject to the rules governing E triple P because the club will receive solidarity payments from the Premier League. It's in the region of half a million pounds per year. In addition, there's something like eight hundred thousand a year in TV revenue. The rewards for going up are substantial and I worry that we're not even going to be in a position to reach the playoffs.

Max: We'll make the playoffs for sure.

Pond: It's hard to be so optimistic after seeing the performance last night.

Max: James, it's easy to doubt and and worry and complain but what do you want me to do differently? I'm on a limited budget and I've used that to assemble a team that will get better and better.

Pond: My solution is to give you a bigger budget.

J: How? MD won't put the club at risk, which is annoying but it's also correct.

Smakk: Yeah, I do back him on that, to be fair.

Pond: What if Max could have a bigger budget, we could buy and rebuild the stadium, and we could set up a proper academy with good training facilities?

J: Did you win the Euromillions, mate?

Max: If you talk about selling the club I'm leaving and you and I will never speak again.

Pond: I'm a Chester fan. I know what happened in the past. I'm talking about selling, say, forty percent of the club. We get a big cash injection and help with everything we want to achieve. The stadium, the facilities, a real striker. The investor is repaid when we reach League Two, plus from player sales. We can go to someone and say, look at the money from Raffi, look at Sam, look at the talent we've got. It would be an easy sell. It's clear that we can't compete at this level as a wholly fan-owned club and some investment is needed.

J: Forty percent? It doesn't sound too bad.

Max: The idea is logical in an abstract sense. On someone's spreadsheet it's an elegant solution. The problem with it is that you seem to think I would work eighteen-hour days to make a rich dude richer. That's true if the rich dude is called Max Best, but otherwise, no thanks. The model of finding undervalued players and selling them for a profit, let's call it the Max Best model, doesn't work without Max Best. I have no doubt you can find someone willing to get rich off the back of my work, but you'll find I quit the minute a single share is sold.

Pond: Well, that would seem to be a great shame.

J: Max, are you saying that if the fans voted to sell a stake - 

Pond: A minority stake.

J: Then you'd walk out?

Max: It's your club, J, you can do what you want. I don't get a vote and I don't even want a vote. I'm working flat-out to make this the number one fan-owned club in the country. I want other phoenix clubs to say, well, if we're patient and clever we can have the same amount of success. Do you get me? That's my drive.

If you sell out I'll go and get fifty grand a week to play for Watford and switch my brain off. I'll have a nice life without having to look over my shoulder all the time. Let me get my phone. I've got a screenshot of a Wikipedia page. I read it every time MD says I can't have more money. Here we go. Chester City Football Club was an association football team from Chester, England, that played in a variety of leagues between 1885 and 2010.

I don't want to be part of a past-tense football club page, guys. If you want to go down that road, you'll do it without me. As soon as you sell a single share I'm out and the next twenty years I'll break out in a cold sweat every time I see the name Chester in a headline. Chester sold to convicted criminal. Chester sold to shell company owned by convicted criminal with links to far-right nationalists. Chester sold to hedge fund. Chester sells stadium to itself. Chester sells itself to itself. Chester relegated after new owner places huge bet that Chester will be relegated.

I see you're not laughing because you know that story. That'll be you, but it won't be me. I'm building something incredible here and if a couple of defeats are enough to make you flash your knickers at any silver-tongued b-boy who comes along then what am I even doing here?

J: Max, calm down! There's no question of us selling.

Max: You elected a guy to the board who wants to sell! He's sat right there!

Pond: This is not mature. I merely want us to explore all avenues.

J: I think we need to discuss this as a fanbase.

Max: [into his phone] Hello? Is that Watford? I hear you're looking for a mystery winger.

J: Come on.

Max: I merely want to explore all avenues.

[The harsh scratching sounds of someone picking up a piece of recording equipment and looking for the off button.]

***

Thursday, August 29

I intercepted Henri in the dressing room and stopped him getting changed. "Come with me," I said. He followed me out to the car park. His morale was very poor and his CA was stuck on 57, as it had been since the start of the season.

We got to a nice Volvo and I opened the passenger door for him. "Where are you taking me?" he asked, sulkily. "To Tranmere Rovers? To Crawley Town? Fobbing me off on some other poor manager who must suffer the indignity of having Henri Lyons in his squad?"

I took his kit bag and threw it in the back seat, then followed it. I belted up in the seat on the right and closed the door. If we crashed, would my cast act like a steel girder that would crack the passenger's skull open? Henri bent to look at me, squinted, and decided to get in.

No sooner had he clicked his seatbelt into place than the Brig slid into the driver's seat and we rolled away.

There was quiet for a while. Finally, the Brig wanted to talk about the podcast. J knew he'd struck gold and had edited and released it with incredible speed. "Sir, if I may say, you were riled up fairly easily."

"I know. I had a shit day."

"Hmm. Pond does seem to want to provoke you. But is his idea really so bad?"

"No," said Henri.

"Yes," I said. "Look, I feel like I've explained myself a million times over and I'm not in the mood this morning. I can't keep having these fights all the time. It's hard enough running a team without external shit, too."

"Sir, you said one pertinent thing in the interview. You mentioned allies. You seemed surprised that you had some. You have more than you think. Before you do anything rash that will adversely affect the Exit Triallists and the other players, would you please consult with us so that we can help you?"

I mean, when you put it like that... "Yeah, course. Let's get Overprepared Grandmother locked and loaded."

"You laugh, sir, but she has tremendous organisational skills and as your favourite political party knows all too well, old people always turn out to vote. For you, this is yet another battle, one fight too far. I do understand that, sir. So let us fight it for you."

"Who's us?"

"Me, Ruth, Emma, Brooke, MD, Boggy, Sandra, Vimsy, Jackie, Dean, Barnesy, Sumo, Bulldog, Nice One, Smasho, Jill."

"Henri," said Henri.

The Brig coughed to indicate he didn't think much of the suggestion.

"If you're trying to cheer me up, Brig... you've succeeded. But it might be there's nothing we can do. It depends who's behind this investor idea." My thoughts, as you can probably guess, instantly turned to Old Nick. But why? I was earning XP for him. If he thought he was helping me by getting me more resources, the imps would have set him straight. "Unless he started it last season and it's taken this long to come to fruition."

"Who?"

"Whoever's doing this," I said. "It can't be Pond. The timing is diabolical. It's the one time in years we'll lose most of our games." I ran my hand through my hair. "I did some calculations and I reckon it'll take eight weeks for us to get to National League level. And what's worse, the more we struggle on the pitch the more people will be attracted to the idea of getting some outside money to compete. You know what people are like. They lose their nerve."

Henri had been listening like a child, looking from the Brig to me with big, round eyes. "You have to tell them a story," he said.

"I don't have to do shit," I snapped. "It's their club. They're allowed to fuck it up if they want. Same as you're allowed to fuck up your career."

Henri's childlike face morphed into something more like the last one I'd seen on Pascal. But just then, we turned onto a long road with only one barn-shaped building. It was surrounding by fencing, razor wire, those jagged bits of stuff to stop people climbing on the roof, and every angle was covered by multiple CCTV cameras. "Where are we going?" whined Henri.

We pulled into a road, paused while a uniformed man and his dog took a look at us, then drove into the prison. The Brig parked but before he turned the engine off, he eyed Henri and said, "No sudden movements."

We got out - one of us much more slowly than the others - and Henri grabbed himself like he was wearing a straitjacket. Around were very serious-looking men dressed quite like police. We heard a peep and Henri relaxed. "Prison football! We're going to do something with that. I see, Max. I see. We will sort out your problems the only way we know how - by gatecrashing a match and finding a pearl among swine. Ah! I was worried for a moment."

I shook my head. "No, Henri. We're not here to watch football. You're right, though. We are here to fix your problems."

"But Maaaax," whined Henri. A second-floor window slid open and he whimpered.

The Brig stopped and turned to face him. "Mr. Lyons, surviving prison is easy. If you get into trouble, pick the biggest, meanest looking fellow and headbutt him."

I smiled. "Henri, don't worry about what's inside. The Brig will keep me safe."

As the Brig and I strode towards the entrance, we had to avoid looking at each other or we would have burst out laughing. Thorn Cross was a Category D prison - no violence - and the only fight that would take place inside would be one between competing timelines. A future where Henri played for Chester... and one where he didn't.

...

Thanks for your support! I love writing this story and you make it possible.

The next chapter will be SHORT. Well, it'll start short. Might get medium. No! It needs to be short - I've been working too hard. It might be late on Monday like the last one - it depends how it goes. Let's see!

I also want to namecheck some of the many people who are helping me write this thing. Long overdue I reckon.