32 - Kettering Town [T1] (Patreon)

32.

Friday 2 December

On Friday morning we did a light training session, just loosening up and going through the match plans one last time.

I ate in the canteen and really had a lot of questions about it. The food was the same as the day before, even though we had a match scheduled for that night. I didn't know much about being a professional, but I knew I wasn't supposed to eat the same food the day before and the day of. I didn't expect a small club to have its own nutritionist, but there didn't seem to be any help for the players in terms of what to eat and when. But look, I kept my mouth shut. The boat was rocking and I simply smiled.

***

Around 1pm I got a rare notification from my bank app. I logged in and found the call centre had sent my redundancy money. Two thousand pounds! The relief was inordinate. I went to my laptop and paid my rent and my last bills from Moss Side. I pulled the screen flat and exhaled. I had some walking around money! I could buy all sorts of things!

I thought about Henri's yellow card and opened the laptop again. I sent Shona the money she'd lent me. In the notes field, I wrote 'Thanks.'

Next I texted Emma, saying I had that Saturday free and if she wanted to explore Darlington with me, I'd like that. She replied right away saying yes and what time. Huh. I said I didn't really know what I'd feel like the morning after playing a night match, but maybe we could pencil in 10am so we'd be done by the first World Cup match at 4. That would be the first of the Round of 16 matches. Finally, a relaxation in my workload. How better to spend some of that free time than with a platonic friend?

***

I chilled until the evening, dipping into the final four World Cup group matches but without making myself crazy trying to answer the harder questions, then drove to the stadium. Our match was against Kettering, who were near the bottom of the league. Piece of piss. My intention was to set Junior up for a couple of goals, and if he wasn't playing, maybe help myself to a hattrick.

Cutter got us together and told us the team - I was in, as he'd promised, and so was Junior. Blondie was out. I nearly punched the air, but had juuust enough restraint.

The only cheeky thing I did - and it's astonishing really that this could be considered cheeky - was to ask who was on free kicks, corners, and penalties.

Cutter eyed me, but decided it was a fair question. "You're on set pieces. First choice for pens is Gray. Then Blondie if he's on. After that, it's captain's choice."

I nodded. Putting our lumbering second striker on pens ahead of me was wrong on all sorts of levels, but at least I knew.

An evening match is different to a daytime one. The fans have had more time to drink, for one thing. But there's also the floodlights, the colder air, the way rain seeps into your bones, the way the edges of the pitch build up a dewy mist.

We kicked off, and the opening was pretty sedate. Kettering's average CA was about 30. The worst team I'd seen in this division so far. Our average was fractionally lower than our usual 40 because Junior was playing instead of Blondie, but we were in total control. I was doing my usual thing of scoping out the opposition, learning about my direct opponents, looking for the goalkeeper's trigger movements, all that jazz.

I found it almost funny when Kettering scored in the first few minutes. Caveman was put under pressure and he passed it back to Smokes. He took a heavy touch and the striker nearly got it. But Smokes's clearance was weak, and Kettering had enough about them to take advantage. No big deal. I would tease Smokes about his mistake during the next week, because we were so dominant it wouldn't actually matter. It was a foregone conclusion that we'd win, so much so that I was trying to estimate the attendance and looking at the crowd to see if I recognised anyone.

I was reading some of the names of the local sponsors and wondering what services they provided when I saw a commotion on the far side of the pitch. My first instinct was that the ref had shown a red card to a Kettering player. I checked the match commentary.

That's a foul by Tim. He came in late.

And the referee shows him a red card!

It seems a harsh decision.

Darlington will play 85 minutes with ten men!

I stuck my bottom lip out. We were down a man, but Tim was so technically insecure that it could actually be a bonus playing without him. The ball would come down the right a lot more, that was for sure.

So I continued strolling around, waiting for my chance to strike.

What happened next was the dumbest of dumb luck. A long ball from Kettering's keeper was contested in midfield, but neither player made contact with it. The ball bounced up towards our defensive line, and Caveman rose to head it away. In a one in a million twist, his powerful header crashed into the head of Kettering's second striker and flew back towards our goal. Their first striker reacted quickest, dashed to the ball, and took it round Smokes, ready to roll it into the empty net. Smokes had one of those goalkeeper moments and flung out a hand - he tripped the attacker to the ground.

My skin tingled. Red card, penalty. Unless the referee would bail us out somehow?

Nope. The guy pranced forward, pointed to the spot like he was doing some fucking performance art, then took out the red card and stalked towards Smokes with it partly hidden. Fucking attention-seeking prick!

Smokes, normally such a bubbly character, tottered towards the dressing room like he was walking the plank. No wonder - like Tim, he was finishing with a match rating of 4, with a three match ban to follow.

There was a slight delay while Gray - our least mobile player - was subbed off so that Paul Larkin could go in goal.

Kettering scored the pen and as they celebrated I looked around in shock. We were all shocked. We'd have to play 80 more minutes with 9 men, and somehow claw our way back from 2-0 down. I looked over to Cutter hoping he'd seen a situation like this before and would know how to reshuffle us. And that's when I saw he was bright red, spewing venom at the referee. The telling-off he'd given me in the office was nothing compared to this. The referee inched his way towards Cutter, seeming to dare him to continue with his tirade. Cutter obliged. The ref, delighted, gave him the red card, too!

Down to 9 and without a manager.

What the...

The match kicked off again. Junior passed it to me and I just kind of frowned at the ball. What was I supposed to do with it? Kettering players were storming towards me like an orc horde, so I did something I hadn't done much of since I'd realised how good I was. I fucking booted it as far away as humanly possible. But that only delayed Kettering's next attack by a few seconds. They moved the ball, uncontested, to the wing, and played a cross in. Their taller striker got a head on it, but put it over the bar. A lucky break.

Caveman screamed at us to wake the fuck up.

For the rest of the half, we shuffled and sank and kept our shape. I put a shift in, same as everyone else. Stuck to the task. We'd get in and Cutter would be in the dressing room and would reorganise us. And we'd come out for the second half and turn this fucking disaster around.

***

Clomp clomp clomp bang crash. The sound of nine footballers plus subs and coaches going back into the dressing room. I took my place on the edge of the U-shaped bench and squeezed some marathon paste into my mouth. Two coaches were having a whispered conversation by the magnetic team board. Because of the shape of the space, I was one of the furthest players so I couldn't hear what was going on.

I turned to Junior. "Will Cutter be in?"

"He's not allowed."

"No-one will know."

"Ref will check. Or a lino. Or anyone. If he's seen in here, it's bad news. He won't risk it."

I vaguely remembered some story of Jose Mourinho being smuggled into the half-time team talk in a laundry hamper, so there were some managers who'd risk it, but I didn't know what the sanctions for being caught were.

"All right lads," said the oldest of the coaches. I'll call him Titan. "All right, listen up." He was trying to be confident, but having all the responsibility thrust on him was not his bag. He liked being second or third in charge. He liked coaching. "Bad half. Bad news. Referee's done us up like a kipper." Lots of agreement. "So second half, put a shift in, keep tight to your man, keep things tight. If we keep it tight, we might get away with a 2-nil. So keep things tight for the first five. Right, keep your chins up. No-one's going to blame you for what the ref done."

This plan was garbage. I looked around the dressing room waiting for someone to speak up, but no-one even seemed to be thinking about raising a dissenting voice. My heart sank. If I kept my mouth shut, we could all just go about our business. Live long, happy lives. So why not do just that? Just zip it. Keep schtum.

But if Darlington didn't win this, they'd be three points behind King's Lynn. It'd be so so so much harder to win this league. I couldn't say nothing. But I tried to keep emotion out of it.

I pointed at the whiteboard. It had a football pitch background and two sets of magnets to represent the teams. We were blue. "What formation will we play?"

Titan pushed the blues around until they were in a 4-4-0. "Two banks of four. Make it hard to play through us. Keep things tight."

I leaned forward and rubbed my face. "We're two-nil down. How are we going to score?"

Predictably, he didn't like being challenged. "We'll keep things tight and see what happens."

"You can score a free kick, Best," said the coach who had told me about Monkey Island.

"Not from 80 yards out."

"Oh, what is your fucking problem?" Caveman, full of pent-up spite.

Weirdly, it didn't provoke me. At that moment, he wasn't really mad at me, and I suppose I had just enough maturity to know that. "My problem is that I can't do that."

"Do what? Score a free kick?"

"I can't play to lose." I pulled my jersey off, which of course made the tension ratchet up about a million times. In fact, I just wanted to use it as a prop, but to the rest of the guys it looked like I was throwing a tantrum.

Titan lost his shit. He stepped towards me. "Are you refusing to play?"

There was a little moment where I tried to understand why he'd said that. I couldn't put 2 and 2 together fast enough. My mouth took over. "Play?" I stood and walked towards to the whiteboard. All eyes were on me. I put my hands on Titan's arms and gently moved him a few inches so I could get past. "I don't mean any disrespect to you coaches. I really don't. You're not responsible for this mess. But to me," I tapped the board, "this isn't playing. This is lying down in front of the goal. This is what I did in training and got a bollocking for."

There was a bit of an uproar. I waited for it to settle down. What had Cutter said? They didn't trust me. Well, I couldn't exactly build trust in sixty seconds. But I could be honest. I started by staring at Caveman.

"Most of you hate my fucking guts. Fair dos, I probably deserve it. Here's a little secret. Darlo can cancel my contract at any time. No penalties, no problem. You get onto your journo friends and your Whatsapp groups and say Max Best refused to play the second half. I'll be toast. I'll be out of the club by midnight. But just wait a fucking second." I paced back to my spot and gathered my jersey. I held it up so that the badge was facing them. "Those fans out there built this club brick by brick and some madman took it from them. So they did it again. Pheonix club. Darlington 1883 they were called, until they got the name back. There's 1500 people who built this club, who bought tickets to this tonight, out there watching us play. Play. Not hope to get away with a narrow loss." I unclenched my balled up hands. Looked at the badge. "You're all professionals. You do what you're told. I'm an amateur. I'm so stupid I always think there's a chance to win." I draped the top over my shoulder.

Caveman tried to help me understand the situation. "We don't have a chance to win! We've not got a manager and we're down to nine men!"

"So? We're top of the league, they're almost bottom. The worst player on our team is better than the best player on theirs. Our reserves would beat them 6 times out of 10. We're going for the title. We're the better team. We're at home. There's 1500 of our fans out there. It's our fucking duty to try to win!" I paused and shook my head. Waited until I was as calm as I could get. I looked around at them. "If I'm the only one who feels like this, I'll shut up."

"Great, shut up, then," said Titan.

The other coach shook his head. "No. I want to hear him out."

I looked at Titan until he gave me a little nod. I spread my arms wide. "No big speech. I just want to have a go," I said. Simple as that.

Shrek, Caveman's brother-in-armpits, fumed. "And what if we go nuts looking for goals and lose 6-0?"

"We won't lose this league on goal difference, mate. We'll lose it by three points. These three points from today. It's already as bad as it can get. Seriously."

Junior spoke up. "Have you got a plan?" He looked around. "Guys, he does tactics. He knows football."

A little sigh built up inside me, but I squashed it down. "It's not my place to suggest plans," I said. I pointed to Titan. "Titan's in charge." I took the right-mid magnet and pushed it off to the side. "Max Best has done a runner, the prick. What now? Bearing in mind we need three goals."

"Two," said Titan.

"Point's no good," I said. "King's Lynn are winning. We have to win. We need three goals. How do you get them without magic free kicks?"

Titan put his hands on his head and turned around, facing the corner. He wasn't paid enough to deal with pricks like me.

Monkey Island dude checked his watch. Time was running out fast. He decided he could yell at me later. He moved the magnets around. "Bring Blondie on. Play two strikers. Tight at the back, but try and cause a nuisance up front."

"Great," I said. "Let's call that 6-0-2 long ball. Team vote. Option 1, surrender. Option 2, have a go. Everyone votes. Ready? Option 1?" Nobody moved. "Option 2?" A few hands went up. "Everyone votes! Blondie. Glynn. Doop. Everyone. Option 1? Nobody. Option 2? That's pretty conclusive."

"You didn't vote," said Caveman, who also hadn’t joined in..

"I'm in the car park trying to get my shitty Subaru to start."

He shook his head, exasperated but very very mildly amused. "Vote."

"Yeah," I said, looking at the whiteboard. "I vote for option 3."

"Fuck sake. I knew you were up to something. Jesus Christ. Fuck! Fine. What is it?"

"Do you want to know? Or do you just want to laugh at it on the back of the team bus?"

"Both."

I inhaled. "Fine. Good enough." I moved the Blondie magnet off the pitch and brought the Max Best one back on. It was dumb because they all looked identical, but it made the point. I pulled my jersey back on, too. Then I shuffled the magnets around.

"4-3-0-1. Back four. Three defensive midfielders."

"What the fuck? I thought you wanted to attack?"

“Transitions are attacks.” We had a minute or two left. I spoke faster. "Here's how the half is going to go. They're going to have most of the ball. That's all right coz they're shit. They're going to get out wide and cross. Full-backs, do your normal job. Try to stop them getting quality deliveries in. Centre-backs, head it away. Three DMs here, get those second balls." This meant being first to the rebounds, deflections, defensive headers, whatnot. "This handsome character here in the middle of the three is... you guessed it... Max Best."

"You're going to play defensive midfield?" said Junior, showing a woeful lack of faith in my ability to hack Champion Manager.

"Bad news, mate. I might be the best DM in the world. True story. If I get the knock-downs, I'm going to drive forward five or ten yards." I moved the magnet up a little. "If it's one of the others, you pass to me. Right. Here comes the hard part." I wiggled the striker magnet around. "Junior, you know you're my favourite. But sorry to say, I need Blondie for this."

"Jesus," said Blondie, straightening from a slouch. "Are you going to fucking pass to me, then?"

"No, you're going to pass to me." I slid the Max Best magnet forward. "As I drive forward I'll play the ball to you."

"Oh, hashtag plot twist!" he said, the prick.

"This is the only really hard bit, I think. You need to give me time to get forward. Hold the ball up. Hold it, hold it," I moved my magnet until I was near the halfway line. "And go! Send me. Pass through, or over the top. I know it'll be hard to get good quality on it, but anywhere between the defence and the goalie and I'll get there first."

I stopped talking.

Caveman put his arms out. "And then?"

I smiled. "Then I score." I scoffed. "What else?"

"This is bonkers."

I stepped away from the whiteboard and looked at it. "Why?"

"Because," he said, but ran out of mental Scrabble tiles.

"Huh," said Monkey Island, moving closer to the board. "It's interesting, Max. Way more sophisticated than my idea. But they'll put a stop to it soon enough."

"Yeah," I said, going back to the magnets. "So when they adjust, we increase the pressure. If it stops working with just me and Blondie, one of the DMs joins us. Three in the move. I pass to Blondie and sprint, he lays it off to the DM who plays it over the top for me to chase. When they try to stop that, we get a full-back involved. At that point, it's four in attack. But we'll always have four in defence. That's plenty for most counters."

"Most," said Caveman.

"Yeah, man! Most! Most of our attacks will be more dangerous than most of theirs. It's just percentages. Odds. The odds will be in our favour. And by the way, as soon as we get some momentum, our fans will go nuts and their manager will sound the retreat. All these guys do."

Caveman wasn't sold. "You make it sound easy."

I blinked at him. "Well, that's bad communication from me. Let me correct that. This isn't easy. It's simple, but it's not easy. This will be the worst 45 minutes of the season. Every one of you will have to put 120% effort in. You'll suffer. You'll have to run more, win more headers, concentrate more. You'll need to make sure the passes to me and Blondie are crisp and clean or that whole attack cycle will be lost, and every time we go, it'll get slightly harder and slightly harder until by the end we're all running on fumes. You'll have to rotate who supports the attacks. You'll have to save energy every way you know how, and more. Don't celebrate our goals. Don't come up for corners."

"Don't go for corners?"

"No. I need two in the box, that's all."

Paul, the goalie who had come on to replace Smokes, smiled. "You're going to shoot."

"I'm going to shoot from every corner we get. That reminds me, don't harass the keeper. Don't give this ref any excuse to disallow the goal. Got that?"

Lots of nods, including from Blondie. That's when I realised that we'd gone from discussing the plan to working on its implementation. I needed to take things back a step. Get consent. Make sure everyone was on board.

Caveman forestalled me. He walked up to the board and jabbed it with his index finger. "You want us to do 120%, Best. But what about you? Seems to me you'll be doing the work of two men."

"Nah, mate. I'll be doing the work of three."

"You're so full of yourself!" It burst out of him. "How does this guy walk with balls that big? Fuck me." The buzzer rang. Time to get back out for the second half. "Right lads. Big shift coming up. Blondie, you warmed up?"

"Wait! We need to vote!" I said.

"We're not a fucking democracy, Best. It's like you said: we're professionals. We do what we're told. So we're doing Titan's plan."

I sucked in some air, but let it out again. Fine. Whatever.

But while I tried to stay calm, I felt the mist that was coming in the sides of the stadium wrap around me. Wrap around my eyeballs. All I could see was a tiny, plate-sized piece of the dressing room. A bit of wood and some damp corner of a towel.

I knew that at the end of the day, I'd feel good that I'd tried. Yeah, I needed to stop pissing off the world and its dog. But I couldn't just sit by and let shit happen. I wouldn't.

Still, being ignored hurt.

It really fucking hurt.

While these dark tendrils of thought swirled around, I heard a strange squelching noise. Caveman was writing on the top of the board: TITANS PLAN. When he finished, he dropped the marker into the tray and looked at the coach. "We're doing your plan, yeah?"

Titan nodded. "Yeah," he said, but it came out in a crack. He tried again. "Yeah, good lads. 4-3-1. Have a go. Yeah."

Caveman eyed everyone else. "Titan's plan. Anyone got a problem with that?" Nobody did. "Best?"

He was asking if I was cool letting the coach take the credit for my idea. He was actually trying to save me from the consequences of my actions. Or just trying to maintain dressing room harmony in a tough situation. Was it possible that nobody in the room would tell Cutter what had happened?

"Best?" he repeated.

I wanted to call out, 'Three cheers for coach Titan!' But I resisted the impulse. Talking was no longer part of the plan. The plan needed all my energy. Talking was wasted effort. I thumped the badge on my chest, which now that I think about it, cost way more calories.

Caveman yelled, "COME ON!" He turned and led the team back out.

Slightly dazed, I followed.

Junior, hoodie in hand. put his arm round my shoulder. He simply said:

"Give 'em hell, Max."