37 - Double Dribble [T1] (Patreon)

Quick note - I'm sure you sometimes think 'this story is top but the footy bits are slightly unrealistic'. Not so! Remember Darlo vs Kettering? So many red cards? Check out last night's Man United vs Fulham match - 2 red cards for Fulham players and one for their manager WITHIN 40 SECONDS! Events in Player Manager are tame by comparison!

Kay. On with the show:

***

37.

Basketball glossary: Double dribble. A rule interpreted on the side streets of Manchester to mean 'don't dribble twice in one move or you get done.'

Manchester glossary: To get done. To be punished.

***

Monday 5th December, 2022

The mood in the meeting room can best be described as disappointed excitement. Friday's result had been poor but the performance was the talk of the town. The lads were buzzing off the attention and keen to keep the vibe going. That'd mean getting six points in the week ahead.

Cutter showed his experience by quietly riding the wave. "Today, light sesh. Tomorrow AM, light sesh and brief, then off to Manchester for the night game. No team bus, so don't leave any valuables in your cars. No offence, Max."

I was miles away. Thinking about Emma. About Henri. About Mbappe. Hoping for a quiet few days. (Spoiler alert - as if.) Some response was needed. "Manchester is the home of the industrial revolution, the home of the nuclear age, the birthplace of the computer." This truth bomb dropped and caused an ear-splitting silence. "We also have the best chips."

I'd gone too far. Uproar.

***

After, Cutter pulled me aside. I was suddenly afraid he'd bollock me for taking control of his team after his sending off. But he never mentioned that, so I never knew if anyone told him or not. No, he wanted to suggest I keep my schedule clear on Wednesday in case my new friend Brad called with an opportunity. The subtext was very clear: there would be an opportunity. I nodded and walked away.

Huh. Interesting.

A club wanted me. Not one in tier 6 or Cutter would have blocked it. Something higher. League Two, maybe? Nobody poor or Brad wouldn't be making deals with them. Who had spare cash? Stockport. Salford. A step lower brought Wrexham into the mix. It didn't really matter - I wasn't interested in moving. I had a plan and was sticking to it. But any club smart enough to want me was smart enough to want James Yalley and other players I found.

What would Brad arrange? I was pretty sure I'd get a tour of the stadium, meet the potential manager, and start negotiations about a potential financial package. (By the way, spoiler alert: yes, yes, and yes. I didn't expect to be lured into a fucking Bond movie scene, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

In football documentaries, I always saw players visiting interested clubs with their girlfriends, so I texted Emma to see if she wanted to skive off work on Wednesday and help me pretend to be a real boy.

Training was not intense and I mostly just kept my head down and did as I was told, but the one time I made a suggestion, people actually listened and thought about it. Incredible.

***

At Henri's gaff, I hit the phones pretty hard. My first call was to the Football Association to try to get on a coaching course that had already started. They said they'd get back to me. I also called my contact at Altrincham FC, plus James Yalley and Ziggy. I also called the Northern Echo and left a message for the guy who claimed to have interviewed me after the Kettering match.

Then I called Nice One. He was excited about the upcoming Broughton vs Chester 14s match, but when I told him my latest plan, I think he was a bit disappointed in me.

***

There were two World Cup matches. First, I was Japan against Croatia. I won 2-nil, and in football parlance, Croatia were lucky to get nil. In the second I was Brazil, but only beat South Korea by one goal.

The most interesting thing was getting a closer look at the Japanese breakout star, Kaoru Mitoma. He was a mystery winger who had been discovered playing for a university team and literally wrote his dissertation on how to dribble past players. The trick, he wrote, is to wait until they move and then go the other way. A dribble in two parts. A double dribble, you might say.

He was deadly. I thought I could learn a lot from him.

***

Tuesday, 6th December

There were two World Cup matches that day but I only interacted with the MUNDIAL interface briefly. The first fixture kicked off just as the Darlo players set off for Manchester. And the second started during the match I was playing in. Both times I quickly tinkered with the formations and gave my focus to the real world. I did badly, no TINOs.

***

As Cutter had said, there was no team bus for the match against Curzon Ashton - I fretted I was costing Darlington too much with my goals and assists - so everyone had to carpool. I was with Junior and Doop in Smokes's car. Pretty good crowd, all things considered.

Smokes asked how I was getting on with my new free kick technique. "Bad," I said. "You can stop asking. When I've perfected it, you'll be the first to know."

Junior asked if I'd be 'doing more tactics if we needed it'. I reminded him that I hadn't 'done any tactics' and that our modified 4-4-2 would be perfectly fine against Curzon Ashton.

Doop made a joke about it always raining in Manchester, which was annoying because it's an insipid thing to say, factually untrue on a statistical basis, and in this one specific instance, totally accurate.

"Fuck," I said, as we hit the outskirts of Greater Manchester. "That's torrential."

Torrential begins to describe it. It was beastly. Simply beastly! I like rain. I like playing football in rain. But this was a new level of rain. This was rain that had spent all its XP on bigger, colder, more invasive droplets.

We were already drenched from the warm-up, which in this case would be better described as the soak-up. In the dressing room, Cutter gave us our last instructions, then had to fuck off to the stands. This was the first of three games he was missing because of his red card. Same deal with Smokes and Tim. I thought it was good of Smokes to come even though he couldn't play. When I said that to him he looked blank. "What else would I do?"

Curzon Ashton were a decent team. Mid table. No great strengths. They had one big weakness - the fact that I was in no mood to play 90 minutes in that weather and had other things to be getting on with. There was a chance I was a CA 200 player. Until that night, I'd been keeping a lid on things - hiding my light under a bushel. When we got back onto the pitch I looked around the stadium. It was virtually deserted. If I really had access to God-mode, it was time to bust it out. My plan was to have the game won in a quarter of an hour and then make up an injury. 'Bit of tweak in my hammy, Titan. Best if I come off, yeah?'

Then, after a quick shower, I'd go up to the stand and hang out with my friends.

What could go wrong?

So. Fast start needed then. 30 seconds before kickoff, I told Doop and Glynn, our starting central midfielders, to take positions ten yards further to the right. I told them to pass to me every time they got the ball or I'd go full murderhobo on them. They didn't know what that meant, but they understood what I wanted. And thank fuck, they obeyed. Although in retrospect, that might have contributed to me taking the whole God-mode thing to a bit of an extreme.

Now that my teammates actually sort of respected me as a player, in the first five minutes the ball came to me more than in most of the halves I'd played. I did tricks and skills to annoy my opponent, a generic skinhead type I'll call Thugso for a few paragraphs and then never mention again. Once Thugso was riled up, I told Glynn to play balls over his head for me to run onto.

That prompted five minutes of pure, gleeful mayhem. The defender's first instinct was always to come and stop me from doing skills, but then I'd splash past him and jetski towards goal. It took him three tries to realise he should stop leaving his zone to harrass me. The first time, I took a touch then smashed the ball low and hard so that it would bounce in front of the goalie - if he even bothered trying to save it. He did. The ball didn't bounce. It hit a patch of water and just kind of aquaplaned for about 12 yards. Comical. One-nil!

The second time, I kept going all the way to the byline where I pulled it back for our big lump of a striker, Gray. An open goal for him - he thumped the ball and several gallons of water into the net. Two-nil! The handful of plastic-coated Ashton fans behind the goal retreated like they were standing too close to a log flume.

The third time, I smacked the ball at goal from thirty yards out - the goalie saw it late and it smacked him on the nose. There was a delay while he got treatment, and Curzon's biggest caveman took the chance to yell at Thugso. "Stop fucking fannying around trying to press him! You useless twat."

So that was fun, but Thugso didn't like chasing my shadow and didn't like being told off by his captain. He spent the next five minutes trying to kick me, elbow me, and rile me up by saying things about my mother.

Wait till they go one way, then go the other way.

Now, one thing about me is that I don't really like using other people's material. And if I do, I want to put my own spin on it.

So my version of the double dribble... went a little something like this:

***

I was soaked to the atom. Humans are supposed to be 60% water. I was about 90. At 92, I'd probably burst. It was time to finish the job.

Doop span the ball towards me - it spat water off like a mohawk haircut - I trapped it and accelerated. To top speed. I whizzed past Thugso in a straight line. It would have been thrilling, had anyone been there to see it. When I was about ten yards past the guy, I stopped, did a skill to turn around, and moved back towards the defender. Dribbling back towards my own goal. When Thugso realised I'd stopped playing properly and was simply out to humiliate him, something cracked.

I dropped my shoulder and he stuck a leg out to kick me, so I nutmegged him and gathered the ball on the other side. I did another jolly little feint, but now the fans on that side of the pitch were going feral, screaming blue murder at me, and his teammates were storming towards me. One of them would get me! I hit a long diagonal that led to nothing.

When the ball next went out of play, Thugso stormed up to me. He had steam coming out of his ears - literally, it was that kind of weather. "Do that again I'll bury you." Good Manc accent. Local lad.

"I've been meaning to ask," I said. "You haven't played much recently. Now you're back in the team to face me." I chuckled. "Does your manager hate you?"

"You what?"

"You know what's funny? When you get subbed off, I'm going to let the new guy tackle me. You, no tackles from ten. Him, five from five. When your boss looks at the video, he's going to wonder what the point of you is. I hope you aren't pay-to-play."

"You're dead."

"How do you spell your surname?"

"You what?"

"You're going to be in my dissertation. It's called How to End a Career in 45 Minutes Or Less."

"Dead," he said, probably thinking I was talking about diss tracks.

Sure enough, next time the ball came to me, he sprinted and launched himself at me. Two-footed. Face distorted. Going for my shin. Leg breaker. Career ender.

Now, I knew it was coming. And I saw it coming. But holy shit, that moment haunted my nightmares for a long time to come.

I threw myself up and started to lift my right leg. As long as it wasn't planted on the ground when the guy hit me, nothing would break. Probably? My intention was to throw my leg backwards and up and flail around like a ragdoll. I'd scream, land safely, perhaps using the thug's face as a crash mat, and roll around for a bit. I was even thinking of doing something I'd seen a lot in the World Cup - a new innovation in the world of shithousery. It involved putting your hand up instead of rolling around. It signalled more authentically that you were really hurt.

But man. The guy's studs actually thumped into my shin - I hadn't started my hurdle in time to completely evade the brute. There was nothing fake about my cry of pain or the way I crumpled into a ball when I landed.

A melee ensued, and this time there were no handbags. My teammates were livid. Almost as livid as Curzon Ashton's lot. Caveman was on the scene in a flash, pushing people away from me, and once I was in a safe pocket of space, he grabbed someone by the throat. Blondie had someone in a headlock. Colin was leaning forward, fists clenched, ready for the actual fight to start to he could collect some teeth.

Our physio checked me out.

"Stretcher," I mumbled. "Get the stretcher. Quick."

The physio turned white, and made the lego-man-hands gesture that is used to summon the St John's Ambulance people. Then he came back and fussed over me.

"Just shut up for a second," I said. "Without being obvious, tell me what the ref's doing."

The physio gritted his teeth. "Max. Fuck's sake. Are you hurt or not?"

"Yes I'm fucking hurt," I hissed back. "But I'll live. The ref?"

Big sigh. "He's waiting for the sitch to cool off."

"Red card, do you think?"

"Yeah. Clearest red of all time. Now answer my fucking questions."

He went through his routine of checking for breaks and shit, and as soon as the guys started putting me on the stretcher, the ref showed the thug the red card.

"Great," I said. "Tell Titan to replace me with Junior."

"What? We've got Webby on the bench."

"Mate," I said, putting my hands over my face as though I was sobbing. Part of the theatre.

"Fine. I'll tell him. But he won't listen."

The physio was right. Webby came on to replace me. Missed opportunity. Junior would have run riot. Apart from that, things had gone perfectly.

We were 2-0 up, playing against ten men. I'd get my appearance fee, plus a thousand pounds for scoring and assisting. And, even better, I'd earn 2 XP per minute from watching in the stands compared to the one per min I got for playing.

Better than perfect - if my shin was intact.

***

It was, though there was swelling and an already glowing bruise. The physio said I was millimetres away from a nasty break. He suggested that I stop prancing around like a twat winding everyone up. I asked if he was talking about football or just in general. He laughed, but quickly got serious. "Max, really. You were lucky. Really, really lucky. Buy a lottery ticket lucky. Don't do that again until you've signed a long-term contract. Preferably with us."

I smiled at him. Not many people inside the club had actually said they liked having me there. "Yeah. That was dumb. Even for me." Unbidden, I remembered the moment I saw the thug launch his attack. Anywhere but on a football pitch and he'd have been in jail already. I shuddered.

"Don't go anywhere. Keep that iced."

"Nah," I said, shaking off my first, but not last, flashback from the tackle. "I'm off. I've got mates here. I'm going up to sit with them."

"Fucking hell, Max. Are you serious? Are you serious right now?" Turns out I was. He rubbed his temples and let out an animalistic groan. "I'm going to tell Cutter about this. You're supposed to listen to us. Here. Crutches. Use these for now and I'll check you again after the match." He pointed to my shin, my foot, and to my face in succession while he said, "Ice. Elevation. Prick."

So I was back on crutches. It took me a few seconds to remember how to move, but then I zoomed up into the stand and found James. As I went, a few heads turned to glare at me. Going into the heart of enemy territory was maybe pushing my luck a bit too far, but I suppose most people decided I couldn't have been the same person who was just stretchered off the pitch.

"Youngster!" I said.

"Mr Best! Are you all right?" His eyes bulged at the crutches and the ice pack.

"Don't say my name too loud, buddy. I don't seem to be very popular round here for some reason. Am I all right? Not sure. Can you hold that in place, please? Just for a minute. Ah...! That's the spot. Thanks. The physio said with these impacts sometimes nothing happens for a while, then the bone spontaneously breaks."

His eyes bulged even more. He swallowed. He was wondering if he might cause the break by holding the ice too close. "Is there any - ? Oh. You are joking." His exhalation of relief made me laugh. "Mr Best. Why are you like that?" He shook his head and as he did, his natural goofy smile returned. "You know Gavvo, though I do not believe you have met."

"Gavvo! My man!" I wedged a crutch into an armpit so I could bump him. He was my contact at Altrincham FC. The guy who had allowed James to train with his lads.

"Max," he said, with a big grin. "That was a hell of a show. Almost worth getting soaked to the gills for."

"You're under a roof," I said.

"That's no help when the rain comes horizontally. You went off in tears. We were worried sick."

"That was just me using my hands as a face umbrella," I said. "I'm surprised you even saw it in this weather."

"Oh, everyone saw it, and everyone saw your little..." He wiggled his fingers around, miming my double dribble move, which made me laugh and distracted me. If I'd been paying attention, I would have realised how ominous that statement was.

I changed the subject. "How's Youngster getting on? Is he behaving himself?"

"Oh," said Gavvo, cracking into his broadest smile yet. "He's a top lad. Trains well. Sponges up instructions. You got any more like him?"

I laughed. "Not yet, but I will. Youngster, are you enjoying it?"

"Yes, Mr Best!"

"I was telling Youngster," said Gavvo, with care, "that we'd be interested in taking him on. As long as he doesn't copy any of your, ah, special moves."

"Oh?" I said. I gave him my full attention. "That could work. I'll come and check out the vibe first, if that's all right."

"Sure. You promised me a free kick clinic, anyway."

"Look who it is!" said a new voice. "Mister five goals in three games!"

"Ziggy! Mate!" I was so delighted I didn't correct him. I'd appeared twice as a sub, so my official record was 5 in 5, with a measly 2 assists.

"Don't get up," said my first ever client. He was holding two beers in plastic cups. He saw me staring at them and looked guilty. "You dragged me outdoors in this tropical storm," he said. "I deserve a pint. I thought I'd be spending the night at a hospital waiting for news about you."

"If it was tropical," said Gavvo, taking the second beer, "The rain would be warm."

I'd taken Ziggy's seat, but he didn't mind. The stadium was far from full. I tried to guess the attendance, but could barely see the other side of the centre circle let alone count how many spectators were lining the pitch.

I had a great time. The kind of low-stakes normality I'd been craving. A brief moment of contentment before things really started to spiral.

Ziggy and Gavvo were a good hang. They were interested in my adventures. Ziggy was agog when I told him I'd been seeing more of Emma. James asked to see a picture of her and I told him he was too young.

I made him promise never to do a double dribble, and he said it was an inefficient play and he liked having his leg in two pieces.

"You mean one piece," I said.

"Tibia and fibula, Mr Best," he said, with a big smile. He'd done me there. I showed him a pic of Emma. That shut him up!

Exchanging goss for goss, Ziggy told me that Jackie Reaper had some bee in his bonnet and FC United had been doing some weird new drills and Jackie had actually named the drill after me. He refused to elaborate.

The on-pitch action slowly changed from being a war to being a football match, at which point it re-engaged me. "James, look at that," I said, and started pointing out things that Doop and Glynn were doing well, or badly. When I talked about the midfielders, James became still. Soaking it all up.

***

At half-time I learned that Ziggy was downbeat. As FC United's 5th-choice striker, he couldn't see where his next game was coming from. I gave him a little pep talk even though I didn't think he really needed one. When I'd done that, he shook my hand as if to say thanks, but he was actually giving me some cash.

The feel of the banknotes in my hand reminded me how poor I was. I'd started to ease into a mentality of knowing there'd be a few thousand pounds heading my way every month, and that if I ever needed a bit more I could just score another goal. But I'd come so close to having no income. With a shattered leg I'd be relying on the 35 quid a week from Ziggy and the 45 from Raffi. Henri's 80 would kick in soon, but then again, in a month or so he'd want me to move out of his house or start paying rent. I stared at the colourful paper for a bit too long; it made Ziggy uncomfortable.

I found a way through the awkwardness. "I'm not sure if I was hallucinating, but I thought I saw a kid wearing a BEST 77 shirt this morning. I nearly crashed."

"Well, if you play like that every week, no wonder. When you turned back and dribbled that guy again, I nearly pissed myself laughing. What kid wouldn't love a player who can do that?"

"I shouldn't have done it."

"Probably not. But no-one who saw it will ever forget it." Prophetic words, indeed. "Fuck it. I need another beer. Last one, I promise. You want?"

"Nah. Might need painkillers later."

"Have you heard the rumours?"

"What?" I said.

"Ian Evans is in the shit."

"Are you in some Chester fans Facebook group?" I said, laughing at the absurdity of the idea.

"Jackie's connected to them over there. He hears things. They're only a few points above the relegation zone, now. They can't score. They're in trouble. Evans Out is trending on Twitter. You know, in Chestershire."

"Cheshire," I said. I was excited, briefly. Evans out! Max Best in! But my performance at Shona's house had put the nail in that coffin. "Yeah, well. There's only a few more weeks for them to worry. In January, Henri will be able to play, and they'll sail out of danger."

"Jackie isn't so sure," mused Ziggy. "He thinks there's something wrong there. Something deeper."

"You don't need to be so mysterious," I laughed. "It goes no deeper than Ian Evans. They've got good players."

Just then I got a panicked phone call from Brad, the agent. Cutter must have called him. I assured Brad I hadn't broken my leg but that it had been a close call. Admitting that made me feel like I was going to be sick, so I hung up and swung myself to the nearest sink to splash water over my face. Ironic, given I'd worked so hard to get out of the rain.

***

Shortly after the start of the second half, I finally arrived at 300 experience points. I instantly tried to buy Match Stats 2, and was actually quite surprised when the purchase went through.

The Match Overview area now boasted even more data!

I could see each team's possession stats - who had the ball the most. In theory, possession would tell me at a glance who was dominating a game. Darlington were currently on 76% possession, which was very high.

On the newly-unlocked Match Stats tab, I could see how many shots each team had attempted, plus how many were on and off target. Darlo were crushing that particular stat. Curzon hadn't had a single one, so far. Then there was the number of corners, free kicks, throw-ins, fouls, offsides, and then three stats given as percentages: passes completed, tackles won, headers won. Finally, there were yellow and red cards. So yeah, useful stuff.

I also got the match attendance - which only appeared in the second half - plus details of the weather and referee. The attendance was 287, by far the lowest since I'd started playing, and the curse showed it had a sense of humour by describing the weather as 'wet'.

"There's only about 300 people here," I said. "How can they afford to pay the players?"

Gavvo knew. "It's semi-pro, Max. They're not paid much. They train a couple of times a week. Try to stay fit. But they've all got day jobs."

Well, shit. I'd just taken the piss out of some hard-working Joe. On the other hand, he had tried to amputate my leg.

I shrugged. Beating him and getting him sent off was my job. Cutter wouldn't approve of me running back to dribble past him an extra time, but he'd love the rest.

All in all, Match Stats 2 was a step forward, and it made me feel good to know that underneath the weirdness of the MUNDIAL stuff, the curse was still working as I had grown to know and love.

Buying that perk unlocked a couple of others. Action Zones sounded exciting, but was only 300 XP. I wasn't sure what to make of that. Did that mean it was exactly as valuable as the one I'd just unlocked? Or that 300 was my new base price?

It also gave me the option of buying Bibliotekkers 1, a grotesquely-named perk that would let me see the last 20 match reports from teams I was watching. Absolutely awesome, but at a cost of 1,000 XP it'd be fairly low on my list of priorities. When my TINOs matured, I planned to tuck into as many Attributes ones as poss.

***

The evening was a dream. I had played 15 minutes of football, earning 1,500 pounds. That was what I used to be paid per month. Also, my team won and we kept the pressure up on King's Lynn. I spent time with my football mates, old and new, and made progress towards my goal of becoming a manager.

It came at a cost - a big, painful bruise - and something of a near-disaster in terms of injury. A reminder, if you will, that my financial situation was precarious. I couldn't afford a broken leg! So, no more double dribbles. No more verbals. No more risks. Get to ten league games for Darlington, then get out of playing completely. That was the sensible thing.

Football without emotion.

That's what I needed.

My resolution lasted about as long as you'd imagine.

...

1st May, 2023 note for T1 readers - no chapter this Wednesday! See you on Friday!

Thanks for your support!