27 - Monkey Island [T1] (Patreon)

27.

Henri's bed was so incredibly comfortable and I was so terribly fatigued that I overslept. I jumped out of bed and zoomed to training. To save three seconds, I even left my kit bag on the dressing room bench for the first time since Captain Caveman's Wet Welcome.

Fortunately, Henri's house was so close and the roads were so clear that I entered the meeting room for the weekly planning just before 9. Made it! Even though I was on time, Cutter gave me a murderous look.

"Glad you could make it, Best," he said.

Apart from the mild anxiety I always got when in a rush, I felt great. Refreshed, healthy, powerful. Maybe I should have been a bit conciliatory or whatever, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. I set my demeanour to 'Max is in a good mood and wants to share his joy. "Had the best night's sleep I can remember," I told him.

"Aye, grand," he said, his eyes sweeping around the first team squad. "But if you're not twenty minutes early, you're late." I laughed because what he said was so moronic it had to be a joke, but he seemed to be serious, which was borne out by the fact that he barely spoke to me the rest of the week. I wish I was exaggerating.

It didn’t bother me… at first. I wasn't at Darlington to get his approval, and all this mad kindergarten shit would simply make it easier to leave.

Later, when I reflected on this incident, I decided Cutter was trying to make sure my amazing debut didn't go to my head, and to tell the team that he would take a stance even against its star player. Those desires made sense on an abstract level, but I could imagine the ploy backfiring on a lot of people. One of the side benefits of being a player was watching up close how this experienced, highly-regarded manager acted, what he communicated and when, and how often and in which manner he interacted with players.

So far, I wasn't all that impressed.

We went to the training pitch - my boots were untouched - and had a good session with lots of passing drills. I used the team shower for the first time, then went home and made some phone calls.

First, I called my landlord and told him I wanted out of my contract as soon as poss. He was delighted. Although I was a model tenant, rents had rocketed and with me out he could get a few hundred quid a month extra. He said he might buy my bed from me, or store it for a while. So, part grasping capitalist, part good guy. We contain multitudes, as James would probably say if there weren't any women around.

So that was that. I was basically homeless.

Then I did some web searches and after a while, called Altrincham FC and left a voicemail. Alty were a 5th tier team, the league above Darlo, along with Wrexham and Oldham. They had a lot on their website about inclusivity and diversity and took the time to take and post large colour photos of their academy players. Just a good vibe, good first impression. They seemed to care about their youth system, and James lived within walking distance.

"Hi, this is Max Best. I represent a few players in Manchester. One's 16, no, just turned 17. Defensive midfielder, lovely kid, very talented, bit raw, lives really close to you. I was wondering if he could go and train with you for a while until I can find him a club. I'd come in person to beg you but I've just started playing for Darlington and the drive back home is starting to do my head in!" Also, it was putting a big dent in my bank balance. "Anyway, thanks for listening. This is Max Best," and then I gave my phone number.

It seemed the right tone. Not too pushy, bit of self-deprecating humour. Yeah, happy with that.

Those were the most pressing things on my to-do list, so I pottered around the house, thinking of what else I needed to get ahead of. Most of my next steps would involve money - paying off my debts, for example. Buying a second pair of football boots! But since I had no spare money, I would stay home and focus on the three World Cup matches. I couldn't find a notepad so I emptied Henri's printer and found loads of pens and highlighters. Not sure why, but the amount of highlighters I found was surprising. I didn't associate Henri with bright yellow lines. Don't ask me why.

One thing I wanted to do between matches was to take the pulse of the Darlington fans. There was this thing called Darlo Fans Radio where you could listen to matches online, which was a really awesome feature. But they didn't save the recordings, as far as I could tell. You could only listen live. Which meant I'd never hear it... Maybe it was for the best, but it did seem like if a particular player was extremely unpopular with the fans that would be a way for me to find out. And exploit it.

I was all ready for the first game of the day, England versus Iran, when my phone rang. It was someone from Altrincham's academy. Basically, he asked me to confirm who I was and quizzed me about my debut. He got more and more excited - turns out he'd looked me up and found the Player of the Season video, then checked me on Wyscout. He went on and on about how amazing my goals were, to the point that I had to laugh and tell him I had a contract and wasn't available to play for Alty. He was a bit reluctant to change the subject, but agreed to let James train with his lads for a few weeks. A few weeks! That was way better than I'd expected.

"And maybe one day you can come and do a free kick clinic with us," he said.

"Sure," I said. "That might be good anyway. For my coaching badges."

"Unless that one was a fluke," he said.

"A fluke? That free kick? Just be thankful we're not in the same division, mate, or you'd get to see one up close."

"All right, Max. Give me this kid's details and I'll sort things out with him. I'll take care of him, don't you worry. What's his name again?"

"Youngster." James Yalley was bad branding. Youngster was cool. Intriguing. Could be a rapper.

I hung up the phone and had a big old think. I'd only had 45 minutes of being a footballer and it was already opening doors.

***

As if I wasn't busy enough, Mike Dean called. He joked that he'd tried me at the reception of Darlington Rugby Club. At least, I think he was joking. He was calling to get me to sign some document sometime in November so Raffi could start being put in match day squads from the 1st of December.

"Already?"

"Ian loves him. Everyone does."

"He's not quite ready."

"Isn't it exhausting trying to micromanage every football decision everywhere in the country?"

"No. It's my duty. Listen, I'll drive to Chester if I have to, but as a favour, can we meet somewhere a bit closer?"

We bickered for a bit, but MD had a great idea. "Let’s run this up the flagpole, Max. This Saturday, you lot are playing in Hereford. And we're away at Scarborough. We can meet in Manchester!"

"Cutter is mad at me, or pretending to be. If I go ask him to drop me off in Manchester he'll go full hairdryer on me."

"I'll get Ian to call him. Don't worry about it." I paused to nibble my lip for a while. MD stepped into the void. "Max, it'll be fine."

"I'm not worried about that. It just means I'll miss another World Cup game."

"Which one?"

"Argentina v Mexico. If Argentina lose, they're out. No World Cup for Messi. It’s one of the most important games in the group stage."

MD made a hmm kind of noise. "I don't want to miss that one, either. Tell you what, let's meet somewhere. We'll sign this paperwork. Then we'll all watch the match. Make an evening of it."

"You, me, and Charlie's Angels?"

"Me, you, Raffi, and whoever else is interested. It'll be nice to spend some time with you when you're not being weird."

"Ah. Yeah. Riiiiight. I mean, I can think of one weird thing I might do. Nah, never mind. You probably won't even notice."

***

Training, landlord, James, MD. Busy morning!

***

Day two of the World Cup came with three interesting matches and a variety of pub quiz questions. They followed the same pattern as the first day. Five questions in the first half, five in the second. Some that I had the whole match to think about, some that I had to answer quickly. And an essay at the end.

I had to shout TINO every time the FIFA boss appeared on screen, which was, bizarrely, in every single match. Spoiler alert - he was on screen during every single match of the World Cup. Every. Single. Match. Yes, even though some matches were played simultaneously! The dude waited till he was on screen in one, then hopped out and zoomed to the other stadium.

World. Class. Prick.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I did okay on the 'highest attribute' questions. Some of it was pretty guessy. Spotting the difference between a pace 16 and a pace 17 guy was virtually impossible. Even though I 'lost' TINOs every time I got one wrong, it was interesting to be reminded of what it felt like to watch football as an uncursed person.

I did fantastic on the 'highest transfer value' ones.

Questions about formations were quite hard, but with Henri's TV I could pause the feed and rewind and go forward frame by frame and all that stuff. There was a risk of losing time for the rapidfire questions, but the curse didn't seem to mind me over-analysing certain passages of play. And I did quite well on the final questions, which were all essays about how a certain manager did.

I got 21 out of 30 questions right, plus picked up 3 bonuses for shouting 'TINO'.

That gave me 269.7 more TINOs, bringing my total to 346.9.

They say a top-level chess match is as tiring as boxing, and I can imagine that's true. Concentrating so much was hard, but at the end of the day I felt pretty good. I slept well.

***

The next few days were more of the same, but with four games per day. Every match was bursting with self-contained dramas, plots, sub-plots, twists, turns, the whole Shakespeare. Getting sucked into the narratives made the matches more interesting to watch, but also more tiring. And, I noticed, led me to draw bad conclusions.

If the commentator said that a player had just returned from a long injury, I immediately discounted the possibility that they were the fastest or had the best jumping. Which was dumb. I turned the sound off, and that helped in terms of my answer accuracy, but made the whole thing feel more like an exam. An endless exam.

My motivation dipped. Trying to concentrate on every player's pace or heading was burning me out, so with the attribute questions I switched to 'best guess' mode. I always put a lot of effort into anything about player values and formations, because those didn't really feel like work. Trying to get to those answers was fun.

But my overall response rate was dropping, so from 12 games, I scored 63 out of 120. Not that impressive, really. But by Friday I had added another 812.1 TINOs.

TINOs: 1159

***

Friday, November 25th

Training on Friday morning was the best one yet. It was all about duels! That Liverpudlian coach I used to know would have loved it.

There were duels of all kinds. Headers, sprints, tackles, and one v one dribbles. One of Cutter's assistants must have known what was up because I was pitted against a caveman in every drill. So you better believe I was motivated. I ran hard, jumped high, and thundered into tackles.

Strangely, the part I was shit at was dribbling one v one. In a real game, I had the freedom to feint, pass, or shoot. But in these drills, the cavemen knew I had to dribble past them. I had the physical skills to do it, but not the experience.

I bombed. There was no backchat because I'd been beating Captain Caveman at headers and out-tackling Chumpy and Colin. I wished there had been some banter; it would have relieved the stress I was starting to feel.

So far, the Darlo coaches had been absolutely useless to me. But now, one of them took me aside and hosed me with two minutes of liquid footballing education.

"Max. You've got the ability to put these guys on toast. What's up?"

"I never dribble straight towards people." He opened his mouth to speak, but I got there first. "I'm not complaining about the drill! I'm just saying I don't play like this. So I don't know what to do here."

"I heard you talking to Junior about movies. I'm guessing you're a big movie guy. That right?"

"Yeah, I suppose. Less so recently."

"Have you seen Leon? It's about an assassin who spends way too much time with a teenage girl."

"Er... no. My search history is problematic enough."

"It's good. The assassin teaches the kid how to kill. Level 1 is long distance. Sniper rifles and the sort. Level 2 is a pistol. Level 3 is a dagger. The better you are, the closer you get to your target."

That didn't necessarily make sense to me, but I hadn't seen the movie. "Okay."

"You're Level 1."

"Does he say Level 1 in the movie? Is it CinemRPG?"

"No. I've adapted it. Level 1 is your corners and free kicks. Your long dribbles. I tell you what, if that's all you ever do in your career, you'll have a good career. Level 2. That's your passing and making connections with other players. That's missing in your game."

"Yeah, well," I said, glaring at the cavemen. You should see me play with Raffi and Henri.

"I'm not too worried about that, though. I see you trying. You've nearly got something going on with Junior. Keep at it. But level 3. That's your close combat. Your duels. Close up magic. Sleight of hand. If you're in a tight spot, how do you get out? Can you win us a free kick when we're under pressure? See Harry Kane? Watch him - he's very sneaky. He'll back into a defender until the defender fouls him. Gets hundreds of free kicks doing it. Team goes from defence to attack like that.” He snapped his fingers. “All those details, Max. If you want to get to the very top, that's what it's going to take. First things first, though. You're playing right-mid. Three main skills, there. Get the ball, dribble past your man, put in a cross. You’re top at the first and last. The middle …" He pulled a sour face.

"Yeah, I get it," I said. "I agree with everything you've said. But I've not been in an academy or anything. I played five-a-side. One of my best moves was bouncing the ball against the wall! I was hoping the training here would be more... what you said. Obviously, the other players don't need it as much as I do, so I get it. Maybe when I get paid I'll hire a private coach or something."

He frowned and had a little think. "You could do that, sure. If you’re on Henri Lyons wages. Have you ever heard of Monkey Island?"

"Gibraltar?"

"No. It's an old computer game. You had to learn swordfighting."

"Cool."

"No it wasn't cool. Well, it was, but not the way you're thinking. There was no action. It was all about insults and comebacks. You had to learn the insult from one fighter and then go and use it on another. Then you'd learn the comeback and the next insult until you'd mastered it all."

"I love talking about computer games I'll never play."

He laughed. "You're such a prick. I'm trying to help."

"Bad joke. I'm listening. Really."

"Let's put you on defence. Let someone use a trick on you. Watch what they do, learn it, then use it on someone. Just like in Monkey Island. Yeah?"

"Thanks," I said.

So that's what we tried. One of the attackers tried to get past me, and I blocked it. Another one came at me, and I came away with the ball. And that's where the coach's scheme failed. I'd been watching these guys - Junior, Glynn, Tim, Doop - in training and in matches, and I knew their styles. It wasn't like I knew every single move they could ever possibly try, but they came at me with their best stuff and I defended it all easily.

Still, the idea was great. If anyone ever beat me in a match, I'd learn that skill and add it to my repertoire.

***

After training, I popped into the Longstaff sports shop. I wanted to go back when I had cash in my pocket, but Longstaff was delighted to see me anyway. I explained I hadn't been paid yet etc etc and he said he didn't give two shits and would happily go bankrupt if I quote did that again end quote.

"Thing is," I said, "you're one of the coolest guys I've met here. And I need help watching the World Cup."

"You need help... watching the World Cup?"

"I do it different than most guys."

"I bet."

He said he had plans for the England v USA match but he’d love to watch the third game of the day, Netherlands v Ecuador, with me. I had to watch the two earlier ones on my own, then drove back to the shop - his flat was upstairs.

Longstaff was hospitable, but somewhat intimidated at first. Presumably this was a function of my otherworldly attractiveness multiplied by my astonishing debut performance multiplied by the weirdness of the questions I was asking him. Who's faster: Gakpo or Dumfries? Who would you rather see at Darlo: de Jong or van Dijk? I used self-deprecating humour to make him feel relaxed, and only a few times did I go internal.

At half-time he asked me what it was like at Darlington FC, and I told him some things. It didn’t seem right to slag off the other players, so I didn’t get very gossipy. I did let the handbrake off for a vivid retelling of the post-training penalty-taking practice I’d arranged with the goalies. I’d organised it as a competition, so it was in Paul’s interest to tell me where to shoot to score past Smokes, and vice versa.

“So you were learning their weaknesses from the people who know them best?” he said, ecstatic.

“Yeah. But after a while the goalie coach, Taff, got annoyed. ‘If you can hit it wherever you want, just hit the top-left or top-right corner. No-one can save that.’ So I tried that for a bit and then he ended the sesh because the sound of me pinging balls into the net was demoralising the lads. Kind of a reverse Pavlov’s dog.”

Longstaff got annoyed. “You’re pulling my leg,” he said.

I smirked at him. “Probably.”

***

Watching the match with a friend was mentally soothing. It broke up the monotony of the day and made me feel less like a prisoner of the tournament. I decided to try to watch one game a day with someone or in public for the mental health benefits.

But there was more. I got 7 out of 10 right for the Longstaff match, compared to 4 out of 10 for the dreadful England vs USA, which I watched on my own. And I’d done better than average in the match where I had James by my side.

Interesting.

I ended the day lying fully clothed on the top of Henri's bed, staring at the ceiling. I wanted to be a manager. That meant taking final responsibility for picking the team, making substitutions, all that guff. And sure, I thought I'd be good at it. But if this mini game was teaching me anything, it was that discussing my ideas with someone else led to better outcomes.

Very, very interesting.

***

Saturday was Darlington's next league game, deep in the middle of England in a little-known village called Hereford. Wikipedia says it has a cathedral, a river, and its chief export is cider. So you can guess what kind of place we're talking about.

I'm joking. It's a beautiful part of the country.

But what was most interesting about my research was that Hereford FC was yet another fucking phoenix club. How many shitty owners had destroyed hundred-year-old teams? Almost every team in the National League had either been destroyed by a former owner, or come very very close. It was shocking; these clubs were the backbone of the local community.

Getting ready at the ground and our long drive from the north-east meant I missed two World Cup matches. The curse deducted 127 TINOs from my balance for each. Quite harsh, but there was one silver lining - Hereford’s Edgar Street was my favourite stadium so far. The stands enveloped the pitch - no gaps - and that made such a difference. It all seemed proper. Meant. I loved it.

So when Cutter announced the team, and that Webby would be playing right-mid, I was pissed. But only briefly, because there was a very definite atmosphere. A mood that came to life in the dressing room, and then spread to the dugout and the pitch. Uncertainty. Doubt. No Max? Why not?

And during the match, when we got a corner or free kick, or Webby did something shit, there was this weird kind of moment where everyone, including the cavemen, turned to look where I was sitting. Best would have scored that. Best would have made that pass. In other circumstances, I would have loved it. But all I could think was that I was missing France v Denmark.

That's not quite true. I was also thinking through the implications of the fact that I was earning XP for watching this game. 2 per minute. By half time my XP balance read 81, and I had a choice. Buy something - anything - asap so that it couldn't be converted into TINOs, or let it accumulate. I mean, once I'd gotten over the resentment of having my XP stolen, I had to admit that the World Cup mini game seemed to be not only fair but actually beneficial. Even if I lost XP overall, I felt my understanding of football was deepening, and that was worth paying for.

I quickly checked the perk shop - the cheapest one currently available was Match Stats 2 for 300 XP. I wouldn't get enough from this match, and any grinding I did (e.g. watching Middleton Rangers) would stop me doing the World Cup mini game. Once the group stages of the World Cup were over, there would be fewer matches per day, and even some days with no football! So I could try to grind for XP then. The thought… exhausted me.

While I was considering all this, Hereford scored. Darlo were looking shaky. Webby was steaming around like a madman, trying to justify his place in the team, but nothing was working for him. He was on 6 out of 10, which was generous but to be fair, he was doing his defensive work. It was just his passing, crossing, dribbling, and shooting that was abysmal.

At half-time, though, Cutter didn't bring me on. I started to worry. I needed to play every league game so that I'd have ten appearances by the time I left. Even if I came on for the last five minutes, that would do. And of course, five hundred quid was on the line.

Over the next 25 minutes, I started to resent Cutter for his management style in a way I hadn't before. I hadn’t been late for the team meeting. I’d stayed late to practice penalties. I hadn't bought a Ferrari or started a fashion label or given a bizarre newspaper interview. I'd done absolutely nothing to warrant this treatment. There he stood, the big boss, infallible as the Pope, jaw working over some poor, innocent piece of gum. My resentment simmered, getting dangerously close to contempt.

Desperate for an equaliser, Cutter summoned me on the 70th minute and told me to warm up. I pottered up and down the touchline a few times. There was a break in play but I didn't go on. I jogged around some more. Another break, still I didn't go on. I think he was hoping that seeing me on the touchline would motivate Webby to finally do something, and if there had been a goal in those minutes, Cutter would have been very pleased with himself.

Reluctantly, he signalled for Webby to come off. As Webby trudged towards the side of the pitch, several plotlines decided to intersect and climax. Me versus the cavemen. My loneliness. My resentment at my recent treatment.

"Junior was sharp in training," I told Cutter. "He makes the kind of runs I can pick out. If you want a goal, Junior's your man."

Time stood still.

My tone was superficially friendly, solicitous even. Just trying to help! But Cutter knew what I was doing - telling him how to do his job. Neil at FC United had hated me doing it. Ian Evans had hated me doing it. And now Cutter hated me doing it. His eyes narrowed and he stopped chewing - there was still time to cancel the substitution.

Had I just talked myself out of my 500 pound appearance fee and my league winner's medal?

...

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