20 - Managing Expectations [T1] (Patreon)

20.

Dirt. Dirt and decay. Dirt, decay, and debris.

Sweat. Stale sweat, the stink of sweat, dried sweat, sweaty beanbags, discarded sweaters, bags of socks both sweaty and discarded.

Boys. Teenage boys, teenage men. Belch, burp, hack, spit, cough, fart, drip, drool, scratch, repeat.

A woman comes to tidy, to clean, to rub, to bleach. King Canute goes to shore and instructs the tide to turn. Same result.

By the standards of the entire sweep of human civilisation, the digs is habitable. Compared to Henri Lyons's house - tasteful, respected, clean - the digs has the vibe of a museum recreation.

This is how the Victorians lived. 18 people shared this one room and self-respect hadn't been invented yet.

And there, somehow managing to not gag at the stench, looking perfectly at ease, was my dream woman. Dressed like a lawyer, but a sexy American one. Why was she here? I didn't care - my heart soared. Her lips twitched - I took this as a signal to be playful - and the Scholarship boys turned in their seats to see what she was smiling at.

Frowning, I moved slowly but carefully towards the table, with my arms slightly raised and my palms facing down. Trying to project a calming, soothing vibe.

"Bark," I said, my voice setting him on edge. "Benzo... Who let this person in?"

"Er..." said Benzo. The boys were clearly smitten with this sexy blonde who had entered their lives, and why wouldn't they be? She was the perfect mix of attractive and approachable.

"That's my stalker," I murmured. In a slow, loud voice, I said, "Hello, Emma. Why are you here?" She was wearing a suit, but with a smart grey sweater instead of a shirt. She must have come straight from work. Big law firm in Newcastle.

Her face smoothed out as its expression changed. A crazy kind of look came into her eye. "To see you, Max. You know I always want to see you."

I shook my head. I looked at Bark. "Do you know she's got a tattoo? Of my face?"

Two thoughts entered his head. One was 'oh my God'. The other was 'yeah but where?' He swallowed.

"Do you want to see it?" said Emma. She started to lift her sweater.

"They're too young," I snapped. Her hand relaxed, and so did the young men. "Now, Emma," I said. "Push the knife away."

We all looked down at it. It was slick with strawberry jam, which looked very much like blood. "No," she said, gripping the handle. "I need it." She scraped the jam onto her toast. The hairs on my neck stood up; I can only imagine what the boys felt.

"Guys," I said, licking my dry lips. "Don't move." Benzo shifted. "Benzo, really. Don't move. She can throw that with deadly accuracy over 20 yards... She was raised in a circus."

"Oh," groaned Bark. He flopped forwards, arms on the table, head on his arms. He sat back up and laughed. "You had me going! Fucking hell, Max!"

I grinned and went over to Emma - she stood, knifeless - and we hugged. It was very sweet, very chaste. "Miss Weaver," I said.

"Mr Best," she said.

The fun mood didn't survive long. That seemed to be a theme in Darlington. "I thought you didn't like pranks." This came from the kitchen, behind me and to the right. It was Glynn. By my reckoning, he was a Team Caveman wannabe.

"Max?" said Emma, reacting to the hostility.

Well, now. He didn't know it, but Glynn had sent me through one on one versus the keeper. A tremendous opportunity! My aims were many - beat the cavemen, get closer to Bark (if possible), and test my man-management skills. If I wanted to be a football manager, I couldn't rely on the curse. I needed to actually manage footballers. Off the pitch, anyway. And this was a low-stakes way to practice. Benzo, sadly, didn't have 'it'. Bark was at a good club and was on track to have a good career without me. And both of them would be disposed to take my side while Emma was around.

So then. Story time.

My natural inclination had been to keep the whole 'hazing' thing to myself, to keep it internal, but that wouldn't help me achieve my goals. I knew which story angle would work best, and while it was extremely distasteful for me, I had decided to go for it. The snag had been - when? When could I launch into it without my intentions being obvious? Well, Emma had solved that problem.

I took her hand and coaxed her to sit down again. I sat close, held her little hand, and launched into my little tale. The real audience, of course, was Bark and Benzo.

"Emma. I told you my mum is sick. In the home. The things she remembers best are from when I was a teenager. When I was a total dick, in other words. She used to try to connect using football. Did you see the match? How did you play? It annoyed me. I didn't get it. And now that I lose her a little bit every day, I look back on those times with … shame. One thing, though. One thing I wasn't a dick about. She must have asked my friends or something because I don't know how she knew, how she got it so perfect. She bought me these football boots for my 17th birthday; I was playing for a Sunday League team. We were bottom of the league but the boots were top. I felt like George Best in them. Well, Sunday League wasn't for me, but you know I kept those boots. Thought I’d keep them forever. Fast forward to Monday and I come to Darlington for my first day of training. First day as a professional. I haven't even told my mum about it. I want my photo in the newspaper so I can take it to her. Look, mum! I scored a goal in the boots you bought me! Do you remember?" I'd started this story as a mathematical exercise in manipulation, but holy shit, I'd manipulated myself. I had a stream coming from my right eye and my throat was trying to close so that I couldn't cause myself further pain. I let go of Emma's hand so I could wipe my cheek. "The guys," I said, legit furious at the memory, "decide to prank the new boy. They don't like me because I'm taking their mate's place in the team, because I'm Henri's agent, or this is what they do to everyone because they’re fucking cavemen. They tell me to leave my boots in the changing room..."

"Oh, no," said Emma, whose eyes were not dry. She glared in the direction of where Glynn had been - I sensed that he had fucked off during the story. Guilty as fuck.

"While one of them distracts me, the rest take the boots into the shower, run the water, and piss all over them. They think it's fucking hilarious. They think I'm supposed to just take it. But those boots are one of the only things I have left from my... from my... One of the only things that mean anything to me. I've done some shitty things in my life, God knows I have, but I've never done anything unforgivable."

There's a silence that finally ends with Benzo saying, "Holy shit."

And that's how simple it is. Word will spread. The guys in the first team who think I'm a cry-baby because of my reaction to the prank will have a choice. Some will choose poorly. That’s fine; it’ll give me something to do when training gets boring. A man needs a hobby.

The scene ends with me getting a warm, moist hug from the north-east's greatest achievement, while Bark retreats to his room and calls his mother.

***

Five minutes later, the mood had normalised enough for me to quiz Emma on why she was there.

"To stalk you, of course. And to hang out. You're not that far, anymore! I got Gemma to get the details from Henri."

"Are you really Henri's agent?" said Benzo.

Bark came back into the room. "Yeah," I said, looking at him. "And I'm always on the lookout for talented players."

Bark eyed me. "What about Benzo?"

"Like I said, I'm always on the lookout for talented players."

"Prick!" said Benzo, laughing.

"So," said Bark. "Where you taking your girl? Raby Hunt?" That was a restaurant in the area with two Michelin stars. The kind of place - I imagined - that pumped vegetables full of helium and served it as a dish called Pea Balloons. Or made a lovely cheesecake then had the waiter smash it with a hammer in front of you.

A chance to drop in another little nugget of the story. "Slap-up dinner? I spent all my money on new boots, didn't I?" He had a point though. What was I supposed to do with her? "Emma, I promised to take you to a football match."

"You did!"

"Okay," I said. "Let's go."

"Wait," said Bark. "Who's playing? There's no match tonight."

"Bark, mate. Middleton Rangers. I invited you to come. You're the one who told me about it."

"You're not... You're serious? You're going to take your girlfriend to watch... that?"

Emma and I looked at each other. Was I going to let the girlfriend tag stand? I grinned. "I spend most of my time watching football, Bark. My girlfriend has to be the type of person who knows that when she suggests going on a mini-break to Dublin, she knows I'll be checking to see if Shamrock Rovers are playing. And if she pops in to visit me when I'm in the arse end of nowhere, she's always ready to be swept away to Teesside Airport to watch a terrible match in the cold and the rain."

"It's not raining," said Emma. "And I brought a hat. So quit yapping and get in the car."

"Are we still invited?" said Benzo.

Now that was interesting. I wouldn't bring Emma back to the digs and I'd made a big deal of our first kiss being after I'd scored a goal. "I’d like that."

"Do you mind?" he asked Emma, which is a question I should probably have asked.

"It'll be nice to have someone to talk to," she said. In response to his confused expression, she added, "Apparently, he gets carried away and starts coaching the teams."

"Managing," I said. "I'm not good at coaching."

"What's the difference?"

"I'll explain in the car. Bark, are you coming? Yeah? Great. Can you guys put on a Darlington training top or something? That might help me out. Thanks."

***

So the four of us headed out to the airport. I tried to tell Emma that for me, managing meant picking the team and choosing the tactics, and in real clubs, being involved in transfers. And coaching was about improving the players. But there was more and more overlap between the roles. She said she didn't really get the difference.

"I want to be a manager," I said. "And not a coach. That'll do for now."

"But..." she said, "Didn't you tell me you wanted to get your coaching certificates?"

"Yes," I said. "I need those to become a manager."

"So it's the same thing."

"Guys," I said to the kids so I could focus on the road. "Help me out, here."

Bark stepped up like a champ. "He needs to learn to coach so that when he's the manager he can make sure the coaches are doing the right things."

"The manager is like the head chef," said Benzo. "And the coaches are like the chefs. But this head chef doesn't make any food. He writes the menu."

"And flirts with the waitresses,” said Emma. “Gordon Ramsay was a footballer," she added, and we were all relieved to get out of that conversation.

***

It was a cold evening and the lads were soon complaining. Emma looked, for the first time, regretful. Within seconds she was blowing into her hands.

But I was in heaven. Two dozen kids split into four teams, playing on a quarter of a full-sized pitch each. Wonderful! They'd come from all over the region. Plenty of cars, plenty of parents, but there was only one main coach guy, and only one assistant. Plenty of scope for me to insinuate myself into the sitch.

I made a beeline for the coach dude. He was 52, with enormous bags under his eyes. He had that gruff northern way of being suspicious but friendly.

"Hi, I'm Max," I said. "I play for Darlington. I'm here with two Scholarship lads and one lucky, lucky lady."

"Oh, hi. Hiya. I'm Trev. I think Nas warned me about you."

I laughed. "Warned? Yeah, that sounds about right. Nas is the coach of the men's team?"

"Yeah. He said you were doing your badges. Looking for guinea pigs."

"I wouldn't put it like that," I lied. "Thing is, I'm making my debut on Saturday." Benzo made a weird noise behind me. I ignored it. "So I'm close to achieving my dream of being a professional football player. And I want to give something back. Help these kids get where they want to get. But look, today I'm just here to watch. If you need a hand with anything, give us a shout. And these lads are whip smart, too. You need a UEFA B licence just to play them at FIFA."

"Yeah?” He nodded at the lads. “They teach you that at Darlo? That's good to know. All right. Max, was it? Nice to meet you." He wandered off and got things ready.

Me and my bros and my girlfriend question mark watched and made small talk with each other while the session began. Trev got them warmed up, did a few drills, and then split them into 4 teams - A, B, C, and D. A played B, and that’s the match we watched.

As the players started swarming around and crashing into each other, I gave my companions a quick primer in Para football - told them all the stuff I'd learned in Chester. But while I was externally calm, inside I was bouncing. The curse was still struggling with the player profiles, but instead of switching from nothing to all question marks and back again, now it was switching from all question marks to actual data! For almost every attribute, a player would have one of three numbers - 1, 10, or 20.

Tommy Gordon

Born 24.12.2010 (Age 13) English

• Acceleration 1
• Bravery 10
• Dribbling 1
• Finishing 1
• Handling 1
• Heading 1
• Jumping 1
• Pace 1
• Passing 1
• Stamina 20
• Strength 20
• Tackling 20
• Teamwork 10
• Technique 1

preferred foot R

CA ?? PA ??

Position: ??

Very mysterious!

My best guess was that the curse was trying to map the abilities of the disabled players onto the template of the professionals. And it was rating players as either shit, okay, or excellent for every attribute.

Which wasn’t ideal but it was clearly trying hard to be less of a dick. Which - in my opinion - reflected very well on me and my personal growth.

The thought nearly made me kiss Emma right then and there.

The lack of CA/PA data didn’t bother me, but I did wonder if it would appear one day. Maybe if I watched Para football at a higher standard? So the curse would have points of comparison? Becoming an expert on this topic really wasn’t one of my life goals, but maybe I’d one day get the chance to -

“Max,” said Emma.

“What?”

“What are you grinning at?”

“I was thinking about kissing you.”

Bark and Benzo moved away, probably cringing, but Emma was unmoved. Perhaps a slight lifting of the corner of her mouth. “No, really. Come on.”

“I just love this. I know it makes no sense to anyone normal.”

“But what are you doing? You’re doing something.”

She wanted to know what was going on inside my head. Huh. “Okay…” I said, carefully. “A day in the life of Max Best. So… I’ve come to a football match. Er… I’ve never verbalised this before. I start by scouting the players. That’s the foundation, right? You need to know if a player is fast or technical or whatever. What can they do? What can’t they do? Then you work out their best position and take a guess at how good they could be, one day. That step is for my little agency business. I’m not doing that now. There’s no money in this.” I gestured towards the pitch. “But I went to see the Darlington Scholarship kids, and Bark is good. He’d be a great client.”

“What about Benzo?”

The lads were in earshot. I hoped they were both listening, but I needed to be careful. “He’s a defender,” I said. “I don’t have any defensive clients.” That was true, but only by coincidence. “I might one day, but right now I think I’m better with attacking guys. I can help them more.”

“What’s Bark?”

“Right midfield. Same as me.”

“Oh, perfect! Did you talk about signing him?”

“No. He should probably stay at Darlington until he finishes his Scholarship. I’ll check on him every few months, make sure he’s progressing. He might be best staying here, trying to break into the first team.”

“But you won’t make money from that. Henri said he wouldn’t pay you to keep him where he was.”

“If I manage a client’s career well and take them to a big club, I’ll make more money from one week of that than five years down here. It’s actually better for me to put the football first. Anyway, we shouldn’t discuss it before I’ve talked to Bark. So I’ve scouted the players and the match has started, and now I’m thinking of tactics and formations and so on. When you play chess the pieces have to start in a fixed position. But if I was the manager of Team A I could do whatever I wanted.”

“What would you do, Max?” said Benzo. So they’d been listening. Perfect.

I jogged away and got one of the tiny magnetic tactics boards that Trev had with him. I was on my way back when I thought that a marker might be useful, so I grabbed one of those, too.

Back next to Emma, I used the magnets to show what the team was currently doing. “It probably looks quite chaotic to you, but they’re doing 2-2-2. The goalie, two defenders, two midfielders, two strikers.” I moved all the magnets to the side of the board and pushed one back. “The goalkeeper. Imagine he’s got the ball in his hands.”

“She,” said Bark.

I looked up. “Right. She. Now my question is, how do we get the ball from there to a position where we might score a goal?”

“Close to the other goalie,” said Emma.

“Right. What’s that called, Bark?” When did I become a fucking schoolteacher? Jesus.

“Position of maximum opportunity.”

“Yep. What I did at Chester was this,” I said, and laid out the magnets. “I had this girl here who could pass and told her to pass to this guy. Johnny Winger. Then he could run down this whole side of the pitch.” I moved the magnets away again. “But we don’t have a Johnny Winger comp here.”

"Comp?" said Emma.

"Comparison," said Benzo. "Equivalent player."

I pointed to sets of players. “See here? I’ve got two defender types. Three passing types. One finisher. And one goalie,” I added, as an afterthought. “When we say 2-2-2 that shows it’s 7-a-side because there’s always a goalie. On Saturday Darlington will play 4-4-2. That adds up to ten, plus you’ve got the keeper.”

“Right.”

“So what I’m thinking now is something like this…”

I split the pitch into 9 zones like I’d done in Chester. In the right-hand zones, (3,6,9) I wrote a letter P.

“P for passer. Goalie gives the ball to this guy, who passes forward to this girl, who passes forward, and now we’ve got one of our best passers, with the ball, in a forward position, and we put our finisher in zone 8.” I wrote F at the top of the board. “Easy. Boom.”

“That’s five players,” said Emma. “Where do the others go?”

I shrugged. “Wherever. Defending is over-rated. Isn’t it Benzo? But fine. Let’s defend. I’d probably put them in zones 1 and 2.” I wrote D in those boxes.

“Max!” complained Bark. “You’ve got nothing in the centre of midfield and you’ve given the other team the entire left flank.”

“So?”

“So that’s mad.”

I laughed. “This would work. 100%”

“At least move the guy from zone 1 to zone 4.”

“Why?” said Emma.

“He can still do his defensive work there. He can support the middle. And he might get on the end of some attacking moves. Like if the pass is too hard from the right, it often goes to the left.”

“Bark!” I said. “I approve.” I resketched the tactic.

“I actually understand this,” said Emma, with a little smile. “It’s like laying out a factory. But the other team has a manager, too, right? They can try to stop you.”

“Oh, sure,” I said, cleaning the board. “It normally takes people a while to work out what I’ve done, and as you can see, even two minutes in these matches can produce a lot of goals. But yeah. Let’s say I’m the manager of Team B and my opponent is a Max Best-level genius.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Emma. Teasing me.

“So that’s easy. One passer in zone 3, somebody in zone 9. That’s our attack.”

“You never go down the middle?” said Emma.

“It’s normally congested, there.” I added a D in zones 4 and 7.

“Mate!” said Bark. “You’re doing it upside down.”

“No,” I laughed. “These guys block the passing lanes.”

“But there’s someone behind! Unmarked.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The ball will never get to her. Ditto their striker. So we’ve got two attackers on the right, two defenders on the left. Shit, that might be enough. 5 against 7. This is why I want to run a football club, Emma. So I can do these mad experiments without having to get permission from everyone.”

“Hold on,” said Emma. “I don’t know football but can’t the goalie kick the ball all the way to the other side?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s called long-ball. But these kids don’t do it because half of them can’t see that far.”

“What about when you guys play? You can do all this fancy chess planning but then oops!” She mimed kicking a ball. Definite CA1 talent, there. “I just bypassed your entire plan.”

“That’s why every team has a caveman in defence,” I said. “To head the ball away with his massive atavistic slab of a head.” I looked around. We were watching Para football for no XP and I was holding a tactics board the size of a Christmas card. I was basically playing imaginary chess against myself, out in the cold. The lads were engaged, but only just. Emma was interested but shivering. “All right. Guys. We don’t need to stay all night. This is me. This is what I get up to. What do you think?"

"I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it," said Emma. She gave me that smile. The one I dreamed about. “So we can go? Thank God. Who wants dinner? My treat.”

“What, really?” said Benzo.

“Yeah. Preferably somewhere with heated seats. My arse is numb. What do footballers eat?"

"I don't know," I said. "No-one's told me.” I closed my eyes. “I don't know why, but I'd love some pea soup."

"Footballers eat chicken," said Bark. “I know the perfect place.”

***

We said thanks and bye to Trev, and went to Nando's, famous for its chicken-based meals and weird ordering system. We talked about anything and everything and got warm. After half an hour Emma turned the conversation to my debut. She told the boys she was coming - What should she expect? Had they seen me play? Would they be there? She was very excited, and Bark was happy to answer all her questions.

But Benzo started to look sick.

"Are you okay?" I said, leaning towards him.

"Yeah," he whispered. "You're dead nice. And Emma’s..." He munched a chip, unhappily. "Max, listen. Your debut. I heard... Look. Look, maybe you'll get kicked in training tomorrow. And maybe you'll miss the match. I just think... Maybe she should check you're in the team before she leaves home. So she doesn't waste her time. You know."

I thought this through. Of course the cavemen would try something like that tomorrow. It could be their last chance. Once I got in the team it would be hard to get me out. Their best bet was to stop me from ever playing.

Meh. There were a hundred ways to deal with that. For now, I was happy. Emma didn't know it, but she was helping me get a new client. And Benzo's confession was proof that I had achieved at least one of my aims.

I pointed at him with a chicken drumstick. "Mate," I said, "That's not how this story goes." I smiled. "No-one at training will get within a hundred miles of me. You can count on it."

...

Thanks for your support!