1.61 - Twelve Angry Men [T1] (Patreon)

61.

The referee blew for half-time with the score still nil-nil.

Seeing all the kids walk towards our technical area raised my pulse a few bpm. I had to give them a team talk that not only motivated them but used as much time as possible. Ideally, I didn't want to start talking to the rebel parents until the second-half had kicked off.

"Future," I said, pulling him aside. "Can you run and get your dad?"

His face fell. "I'm with my nana."

Some story there. Shit. "Even better! I'd love to talk to her."

"Am I in trouble?"

"No, you're my hero today. But hurry up, please."

He zoomed off. The gran was part of my Maxterplan for the second half, a plan that would take effect if I could make sure the kids trusted me. She came and I begged her to hang around the technical area because I'd need her at the start of the second half. She was pretty taken aback, and it didn't help that I was talking fast and being mysterious like a true Manc pixie dream boy. (That’s a pixie dream boy from Manchester.) But she agreed to help me. I got the sense she’d do anything for that little kid. I would put that to the test soon enough.

Future joined the rest of the team in a semi-circle. The lads were drinking, eating some kind of paste, or munching on bananas, depending on how much spare cash their families had.

Before I could dive in, the referee came over and took me aside. He was a young guy, about my own age. He wanted to check everything was all right. I hinted at what the problem was, without being too indiscreet, and his entire demeanour changed. He even gave me a raised-eyebrows nod and wished me luck. I warned him that the second half was likely to be quite weird and apologised in advance. Basically tried to make sure he knew my upcoming weirdness was aimed at the parents, not at him. That intrigued him, but I saw that Mike Dean had already gathered the Bulldog Brothers and some other adults and was trying to catch my attention - he wouldn't accept me chatting to the ref as cause for delaying our Code of Conduct Tribunal.

What he would accept as a suitable delay was the half-time team talk. I looked around the semi-circle. 8 kids in front of me. The current first team. The 4 rebels were over on the subs bench. Of the 12, none looked feral, none seemed to glow with intelligence. They were normal kids. A jury of my peers. The overall vibe was two parts ‘wary’ to one part ‘sceptical’.

As well as the 12 kids, Henri, and Spectrum, there were a fair few parents within earshot. That was unfortunate, because it meant I needed to retain some measure of self-control. I couldn’t just let rip. No hairdryers. I had to be calm and rational, but highly persuasive, like a courtroom lawyer.

A flash of pony tail and the way Henri started volumising his hair suggested that Livia was part of my audience, just out of my line of sight. Fine. To increase the sex appeal, I mentally changed my role model from ‘Perry Mason’ to ‘Tom Cruise in That Movie’. I wiped the whiteboard and turned the markers upside down. Ready.

"Hi guys. I'm Max. This is Henri. Bit of a wild half, that. I'm very impressed with the eight of you. You've ended the half strong, and throughout the whole mess you've not let Broughton have a sniff of goal." I clicked my fingers like I'd just had a great idea. "Goalie, can you play left-midfield?"

He scoffed in a good-natured way. "No!"

"Ah, well. We're going to take more risks in the second half so they'll get some shots eventually."

The goalie seemed pleased. He was vaguely on my side, but that wasn’t saying much. Goalkeepers are weird. Future was mooning at me. State of affairs: two votes for Max. 6 abstainers. 4 against. I didn’t care much about the latter group - I wanted a majority of the first 8 to buy in to my plan.

The guy I'd set as captain spoke up and I started to wonder if I'd chosen the wrong dude. Maybe there were more against than I thought. "Take more risks? You mean attack more? When we're three players short?"

"Yes," I said. "We're the better team. We're the home team. We're the protagonists. We will attack."

I left a space for that to sink in, but it didn't really work. "But who are you?"

"I'm Max Best."

I left a space for that to sink in, and weirdly, it sort of worked. They'd never heard of me, but being teenagers they assumed that was their ignorance, not the fact that I was a nobody. "And why's he here?"

"Henri Lyons? Clairefontaine graduate Henri Lyons? Darlington's record signing Henri Lyons?" I let one crutch drop while I used the other one to stretch my arms behind my head like bad boy Americans do with a baseball bat. "He's come to learn how it's done." I dared to glance at him and he was fuming at me so hard I burst out laughing. I relented. "He's come to help me out and I'm very grateful." Henri pursed his lips, paused, then nodded once.

The kids weren't very invested in this particular aspect of the scene. "Why did you take those four off?"

"Why do you think?" Nobody wanted to be the first to talk. "It's like that, is it? Fine. I'll lay it all out."

"Without swearing, please," said Spectrum, who had visibly shrunk and was all too aware of the audience.

Some of the boys turned to look at him, then turned back to me. His intervention had raised my status. Good. That’d make it easier to win hearts and minds. "I don't swear that much, do I?" Henri shrugged. I dropped the other crutch. If I didn't move too much, my ankle didn't hurt. "Okay. Why did I sub off four players? Without swearing... Tricky..." Some of the smarter boys were already wide-eyed. They understood what I was doing - slagging off the four kids without even verbalising it. They couldn't believe it. For the slow-on-the-uptake ones I said, "What's another way to say they were playing like fucking clowns, but you know, without swearing?"

"They were not following instructions," said Henri.

"Thanks, mate!" By now the entire first 8 were staring at me as though I was their headmaster filming himself doing viral dances during school assembly. Whoever I was, whatever I was about to say, this wasn't your bog-standard team talk. "Yeah," I said. "That's better. Not following fucking instructions. Argh, I swore. Shit. I mean, shoot. Not following instructions. Now, we all know why. Maybe on another day it would have been your dad and it would have been you. Maybe if I was in your shoes it would have been me. So in at least 75% of cases, this isn't personal." Every single pair of eyebrows shot to the moon. They knew exactly what that meant! "And Henri did it all the time at Clairefontaine. He was always meant to be a striker but his dad wanted him to play as a CAM." Henri responded with a tiny moment of surprise, but then did three large, slow nods. "But now Henri is a professional player and the idea that he'd disobey instructions is long in his past. So from where you are," I pointed to them, "to where you want to be," I pointed to Henri, "there's a moment where you stop doing your own thing. You stop being selfish and you start putting the team first." I paused. That hit home. Won me a couple of votes. "I know it's a tough environment. Up or out. But some of you have learned the wrong fucking lessons. It's not every man for himself. If you think you're going to make the first team because you did the most dribbles, had the most shots, made the most tackles against Broughton Under 14s, you're delusional. The absolute fucking simple starting point is: are you a team player? If the answer is no, then do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 pounds."

I really wanted to pace around at this moment. The spirit was in me!

"I'm a Manchester United fan. I've said that many times but no-one's ever asked me why. It's self-explanatory, innit? But let me answer it, anyway. One, I'm from Manchester. Two, they play in red. Three, they've got the biggest stadium. Four, they've won the most trophies. Five, great history. Six, famous players."

I lowered the volume and turned up the emotion slider. Made strong eye contact with as many abstainers as poss. "Seven. They're called United. Think about it. United. When I was a kid I literally couldn't understand why every team wasn't called United. It was a name that made me think of the whole city coming together, as one. A community united. A city united. Then I grew up and realised some pricks in blue had ruined that fantasy for me, but never mind. When you go to Old Trafford and the away team score, the home fans will start chanting United! United! They’re behind their team whatever happens. It's goosebumps every time, guys. Every time."

I picked up the whiteboard and a marker. I drew circles for the three defenders, and as an afterthought added the goalie, too. "United. U-N-I-T. Unit. Today you're a back three. Lads, you're like a fucking brick wall out there. Winning every header, getting good tackles in. It's impressive. But I haven't seen you work as a unit. I haven't seen one of you drop back a few yards in case the other guy misses the header. I don't see you talking to each other. I don’t see you checking how Future’s doing. I don't see you giving the goalie a touch of the ball every few minutes. I don’t see teamwork. You need to be a fucking UNIT." Boom. That hit Captain right in the solar plexus. His eyes dropped. It was 50-50 if he’d respond well.

I wiped the defensive lines away and drew a striker, the right midfielder, and a central midfielder. "Let’s talk attack. We're short-staffed, now, but you're still attacking as individuals. How's that going to work? You three, you've got to attack as one. The Three Musketeers, yeah? The striker has to hold the ball up so these two can come and help. If the RM dribbles but the CM stays, nothing's going to happen. All of you move, or none of you move. If you three start talking to each other, helping each other, we'll score. We'll score loads. I fucking guarantee it. Unit." I didn’t bother looking at the guys. I didn’t want to interrupt myself. They’d respond or they wouldn’t.

I wiped the board clean again and drew a single, isolated circle. "We're fucked on the left. Someone's going to have to play out of position. That's going to be a shitty 35 minutes for one of you. Boyce, probably. Yeah? Think about it. The people looking at you for the 16s next year. What are they going to be thinking? Oh, Boyce had a shit game? No way. They'll blame me for playing him out of position. But what about you? Did you do anything to support your mate? Or did you leave him out to dry?" I put on a voice. "Hey, do you remember when fucking Mitchell sprinted 30 yards to cover Boyce when Broughton had that overload? Do you remember when Seven let him take the corners so he'd get to do some of the fun stuff? Yeah, that's the kind of lad I want to work with."

I wiped it clean and drew the full formation with the player's names. It was a shambolic 3-3-1. More holes than in the goal nets. "Here’s the team. Nothing matters except the person playing next to you. You defend together, you attack together, you win together. Unit, unit, team. Defend, attack, win."

I left another pause then returned with another change in emotional energy. I was almost wistful as I said, “My dad always said football shows character. One guy’s a coward, one’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, one’s a show pony, one’s a prick. But he was talking about the pros. You’re 14. You’re not set in stone. It must be fucking grim playing in this team week after week. So yeah, now there are less of you, but you get one chance - maybe your only chance - to play as a team. Do you understand what I’m saying? Next week’s business as usual. I’m only here today. One chance. Unit, unit, team. I’d fucking love to see it, lads. I’d fucking love to see it.”

The defence rests, your honour.

The captain jutted his chin at the whiteboard. “Will that work?”

“Yes,” I said. I tossed it away. “But I don’t care. It doesn’t matter if the plan works. It matters that you try to make it work. It matters that you show some fucking character. Help Future. Be there for Boyce. Hunt in pairs. Work on your units.” I looked around. Playing as a team wasn’t such a revolutionary idea. Most seemed willing to give it a go. They were leaving a space for me to say or do the last, hugely inspirational thing that would pump them up and get them going. Perversely, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted it to come from them. It had to come from them. “Enough talk. Do it, or don’t. Captain, take them out.”

Has the jury reached a verdict?

The tall centre-back stood, waved at his mates to do the same, and shouted, "Come on!"

With a roar, they stormed onto the pitch. Some of the nearby parents clapped.

Seeing the charge of our kids, Broughton's coach sent his back on. Seeing all the players ready, the referee cut short his break and brought his whistle to his mouth, ready to signal the restart.

With the players standing in their formation, our captain yelled, “United!” and I got fucking goosebumps.

I shouted, “Come on, Chester!”

Somehow I’d gone above and beyond what I’d expected. The 8 on the pitch were all in. All the way in! Boyce was on the side of the pitch closest to me, and he was striding around with his fists balled up. Ready for war. He wasn’t alone.

I was extremely pleased with myself. Trust a Frenchman to ruin the mood.

"A bit heavy-handed," said Henri. "A bit overwrought. I rate it 7 out of 10. Make that 6. I'm withdrawing a point for inaccuracy."

"Huh?"

"Liverpool have won more trophies than Manchester United."

"Don't talk shit," I said, but our bickering was cut short. Mike Dean was calling me. He was more than ready to get on with the Tribunal, to get the rebels back in the game asap. I held up a finger - one moment, please! - and went to Future's grandmother. I told her what I'd like her to do and she said that if it was a joke, it was in poor taste. "Trust me," I said. She walked off, down the side of the pitch towards the corner flags. Away from the main throng of parents.

So having done all I could to sort out this shitty team, now I had to deal with 4 shitty parents.

“Hi again, Mike. It’s all go today, isn’t it?”

He had warmed up a bit since our last conversation. I think he liked my team talk. Well, maybe not all of it. “I didn’t know you’d be using this match to spread your Man United propaganda.”

“Oh,” I said, with a superficial chuckle. “Doesn’t quite work with ‘city’, though, does it?”

“The kids responded well. You’ve challenged them. I like that.”

I quarter-turned so I could be in the conversation while keeping half an eye on the match. I also kept dipping into the match commentary. When I had a moment, I needed to find a way to take elements out of their tabs and add them to my vision. For example, having the commentary semi-transparent would let me ‘see’ what was going on even when my head was turned away.

With that thought came a pang of headache. The curse trying to reprogramme itself again?

It wasn’t the right time. I focused on Mike. “How do you want to do this?”

“One at a time.”

I looked at the parents and tried to match them to the kids. It was easy. Except… “Where’s Benny’s whoever?”

“They’re not here.”

That was one of the most shocking things yet. “What? Seriously? No parent, no guardian? Not even a gran? Okay, let’s do him first.” I felt a thrill of anticipation. I’d gone from being a courtroom lawyer to being a detective.

If Benny’s parents weren’t guilty, then who was?