1.39 - Shocktober (Patreon)

39.

Saturday October 1st

Didn't murder my friends but I did murder a couple of pints. Woke up feeling really happy. At one with the universe. Not thinking about grinding and hustling, just enjoying the morning for what it was. Nice cup of tea. Toast where the butter melted absolutely perfect. Then a short walk to the shops - not because I needed anything but just to be outside and see a couple of trees and clouds and birds.

I had new cursemails, but I didn't open them right away. They weren't going to make me happier. Let me enjoy this one little morning. K? Thanks.

***

By lunchtime, I was ready. I clicked on the envelope and saw I had three mails. One was the monthly update. So far, these hadn't been interesting, but now? Now I'd beaten Manchester City Ladies Under 16s. Now I was kind of a big deal.

Your Reputation in England: Unknown

Your World Reputation: Unknown

XP: 936

So obviously 'unknown' was actually the highest level. Because mate. My victory over those little kids was a thousand times more impressive than Greece winning the European Championships or Leicester winning the Premier League or the UK getting a point in the Eurovision Song Contest. Come on! Unknown? That's taking the piss!

Jokes aside, I did wonder what the function of reputation was. Would being 'renowned' help me get jobs at elite clubs? Or was reputation the only consideration? And how granular did this go? Did I have a reputation score with FC United? Would I get reputation points that afternoon at Oldham if I was charming? Could it go negative if I was a dick? Did I have a reputation score with individuals like Jackie? If 'yes' then surely I had a reputation score with everyone, not just football people. Because what if they became football people? People like Emma, for example. With her, my score was certainly sliding since I hadn't texted or called since the leg break incident.

Well, Arsenal were about to play Tottenham in today’s lunchtime match and I could message her then.

The next mail listed my recent achievements.

New Achievements: Winner Winner Chicken Dinner; Winning Streak 1; Master of the Dark Arts; Pitch Invader

Pretty basic stuff. The first was because I'd won a game. The second was for winning one game in a row, a concept that annoyed me even if I understood why it was needed. Master of the Dark Arts was awarded because the curse, weirdly, blamed ME for Lula's dive, for Kisi's mental disintegration tactics, and for Beth's shithousery. Mate! That claim wouldn't stand up in court. Pitch Invader was given because I'd run onto the pitch when Lula was fouled. Like the others, it came with 1 experience point. That made me uncomfortable. I shouldn't have done it, and I shouldn't be rewarded for it.

The last mail detailed the monthly perk special offer.

Seasonal Special Offer

New perk collection available to buy until the witching hour on All Hallow's Eve: Shocktober

Cost: 2,777 XP

Effects: Increases your chance of winning when playing a team with higher reputation in the month of October. This special offer contains three mini-packs: Expected Ghouls; The Full Protonic Reversal Pack; A Nightmare on Filbert Street.

This perk was a sort of selection box bursting with mini-perks which, cumulatively, would help me win games in October, but only in October, and only against stronger teams. It was basically a long series of ghastly Halloween puns. More on that later.

***

I drove to Oldham (population 200,000). It was a half-hour drive, but I wanted to be mega early 1) just in case and 2) to get a feel for the town. The latter didn't take long. Oldham was like most of Greater Manchester. Lots of red brick terraces. Lots of walls with gaps, pavements with weeds, faded signs, black wrought iron gates, the general vibe that if every human vanished, the place would be covered in damp, squidgy moss within a season.

I popped into a cafe and bought a sausage and cheese bap. That was three pounds. Tea was a pound. The cheese was smothering the sausage, drowning it, but the cheese’s stickiness and viscosity meant it never left the soft bread. It was like a wizard made it. It was incredible. The tea blasted the roof of my mouth with the force of a tactical nuclear warhead. I wanted to stay and gulp the stuff down until I started getting caffeine headaches, but I restrained myself.

My phone shook. A long-distance text! All the way from the far, far, north.

Emma: I don't know what's happening but that was a great goal!

I checked - Arsenal had scored and were winning 1-0.

More interesting than the scoreline was Emma contacting me first. Could this day get any better?

Me: I'm missing it. I'm on a scouting mission in deepest, darkest Oldham. They're going to put me in the special scout seats. I’m a VIP now. No big deal.

Me: Are you joining in the conversations? Are they impressed?

Emma: No, I'm too shy. I thought I understood what you said but it's all just a mess. They run too fast!

Me: Be brave. Ask the one with the best tats if he thinks there's going to be a St Totteringham's Day this year.

Emma: Why do I feel like you're inviting me to a fancy dress party but I'll be the only one dressed up?

Me: St Totteringham's Day. I promise.

Emma: Oh god.

That was it for a while. I went looking for info about the Oldham squad. The recent history of the team was a complete mess - there was a video on Youtube called 'The Worst Run Football Team in the World' - all very bleak, but they had a new owner and a new start and I was really only interested in the here and now. What players they had, what players they needed. I found a fan podcast called The Boundary Park Alert System and listened to that while I worked.

Emma: The Brazilian players are kicking each other!

I laughed. I bet they were.

Me: Did you say anything?

Emma: No. I'm sure I'll say it wrong.

There wasn't a ton I could learn about Oldham online. There were websites like transfermarkt that had good stats for famous players, but this far down the English pyramid it was all a bit sparse. I'd learn more in the first ten seconds of the match than in ten hours of trawling the net. The podcast was good, though. I quickly got a feel for the mood of the fans.

I put my phone away for a bit and concentrated on the Shocktober perk. The first batch of mini-perks had been grouped under the name Expected Ghouls. That was a pun on the new data analytics term 'expected goals'.

The first mini-perk was called Ghoulkeeper, which should give you a clue about the standard of pun work on display. Who was writing this stuff? Polish Nick? The guys who tossed off the scripts for season 8 of Game of Thrones in one hungover afternoon? I felt my skull heating up, so I took a few deep breaths and let it go. In the end, it didn't matter. I'd buy the perk, or I wouldn't.

Expected Ghouls

This pack contains the following mini-perks:

Ghoulkeeper - Goalkeepers will perform better in one-on-one situations.

Grim Sweeper - Players set in the sweeper position will play better.

The Mummy - Wrap a player in bandages to give him/her +1 influence.

The Invisible Manager - Opposing players are slightly less likely to see or hear instructions from their managers.

Goblin Up Chances - Provides a random chance for a striker to gain a brief boost to finishing.

It's Not Over Yeti - Provides a slight chance that the referee will allow the game to continue up to 90 more seconds if you have a chance of scoring an equaliser or winner.

Frankenstein Is The Doctor Not the Monster - Referees will make decisions in a fussy, pedantic manner. Activation optional.

These were mostly self-explanatory, I hope. A couple of things, though. First, I didn't have access to any formations that used a sweeper. Presumably if I kept gaining XP I would unlock more formations. But if I kept buying these perks it would be slow going. Second, the whole thing was full of terms like 'slight' or 'brief'. Third, the Frankenstein one was very, very appealing. Why? Because it said activation optional. Which meant I'd get a button before kick off in games where this perk was in effect. So if I was - and this is just an example and not something I had started to regularly daydream about - the manager of Manchester United and we were about to play Man City, then if this button appeared in my vision I'd know for sure that City were rated higher by the curse. Not only that, I'd know that the other mini-perks were taking effect. It made me slightly more likely to buy Shocktober, because without something concrete like this, I wouldn't know if anything was happening and would always wonder if I'd wasted my XP.

Emma: Oh, god. I tried to be brave. It didn't go well.

Me: What happened?

Emma: I used the word protagonist. None of them know it. Now they think I'm pretentious.

Me: Pretentious? That's a big word. No wonder they think you're pompously grandiloquent.

Where was I? Slightly more likely to buy the perk. Yes. Increasing from about 0% to about 1%. The simple fact was that I was still vanishingly unlikely to ever manage a pro football team. But but but. Last night's evisceration of Man City had done something to me. It wasn't quite like the scene in The Matrix where someone says 'he's beginning to BELIEVE', but it was in that direction. I could do it. I could. I'd outfoxed Neil with his own players. I'd got a tune out of Moss Side Celtic. And I'd frazzled the floating megabrain that coached Man City.

A few years as an agent. Gaining financial freedom. A few years networking. Getting to know people in the business. A few years coaching Beth's team and maybe some Sunday League. Building a reputation. Then getting a chance to manage FC United. Or Oldham.

Why not?

Still, though. Spending nearly 3,000 XP on this perk seemed mad. It was about EIGHTEEN evenings of watching Powerleague games. The effects seemed minuscule and even if I found myself in charge of a real team, Shocktober would only be useful for ONE month a year, and only against stronger teams.

Oh. Except for the teams listed in the second collection.

The Full Protonic Reversal Pack

In addition to improving your chances against teams with higher reputation, your Shocktober mini-perks will also always work against the following teams:

AFC Bonemouth

Creepy Crawley

Dreading

Frighten and Hove Albion

Ghöstersunds FK

Ipswitch Town

Minotaurino

Plymouth Gargoyle

Rottingman Forest

Scareborough Athletic

Sheffield Wednesday

Shuddersfield Town

Werewolves

Wraith Rovers

Demented. Three of these teams didn't even play in England. What were the chances I'd manage a team who were playing a European match - in October! - against Raith Rovers (Scotland), Torino (Italy), or Östersund (Sweden)? As for the others, they were spread out over many divisions, so the chances were slim that I'd be in the same league as a particular team and that our fixture would be scheduled in October. This section was basically worthless.

Oh, oh, oh! And what was Sheffield Wednesday doing on the list? That wasn't a pun. That was just the name of the team!

I shook my head and left the cafe. Started to head towards the stadium. It was a strange place. From outside it didn't look like much. There was a fairly low wall, behind which some large floodlights stood. They were the only real proof that there was a stadium there. I walked around and from the next side, with the brown brickwork and the dark blue 'Oldham Athletic' sign, you'd have thought you were going into an old hospital.

A receptionist greeted me and bade me sit. While I waited for Bill Brown, Oldham’s hospitality guy, I looked around at the historic shirts from the club’s past, and re-read the last little group of mini-perks. They dealt with more 'environmental' factors and raised a LOT of questions.

A Nightmare on Filbert Street

This pack contains the following mini-perks:

Cauldron of Noise - Your stadium is turned into a theatre of screams. The home fans will be noisier and more intimidating.

Silence of the Lahms - Your opponent's stadium is turned into a library like Highbury. The home fans will be quieter and less intimidating.

The Ken Bates Motel - Opposing teams who play at your home stadium will have a restless night, causing their players to start the match with slightly reduced fitness.

Gremlins - Provides a slight chance that when losing away from home, a brief floodlight failure will give you time to reorganise your team.

Murder on Zidane's Floor - Play a 2001 megahit from the musical temptress Sophie Ellis-Bextor to receive a team-wide morale boost.

Where to even start with this shit? Probably with the fact that the curse was offering to change the mood of thousands of thousands of people! And mess up the sleep patterns of various hard-working professionals. And its taste in music was - actually, its taste in music was impeccable. No problem with that. But I did have a problem with the other stuff. How would any of it even work?

It seemed like the curse wouldn't need to actually make one set of fans more fervent or dampen the spirits of another set - it could simply tamper with what was heard by the players on the pitch. Sort of twist the volume button. And the hotel thing might just involve slicing a couple of fitness points off the players, not actually sending ghosts into their bedrooms or whatever. It was just a flowery description from some hack writers. Right?

I thought about it some more, but my head didn't heat up. That was odd. It was like the curse didn't mind me speculating about this set of mini-perks the way it had minded about the first set. When I started to speculate about why my head heated up sometimes and not others, my head started to heat up.

Fortunately, Bill Brown came to reception and escorted me up into the main stand. Along the way, he got stopped by another member of staff, allowing me time to check and reply to the message I just received.

Emma: I gave it a go but I think I still don't like football.

Me: Understandable. But one last try! Get one of your beefcakes to take you to St James’ Park to watch Newcastle. Watching it live is totally different.

Bill finished giving instructions and brought me to my seat. He promised to come and check on me at half time. I thanked him and felt another vibration.

Emma: I want you to take me.

Me: Okay.

Me: And then we'll go to the football?

Emma: blushing girl emoji

Emma: You're such a protagonist.

Me: Do you like Halloween?

Emma: I love it!

Ugh. Well, nobody's perfect.