4 - Flamingo Land [T1] (Patreon)

4.

Monday 2nd Jan, 2023

A two-hour trip to North Yorkshire through some of the ugliest and most beautiful parts of the country.

Junior was next to me on the team bus, asking what it was like at Chester and didn't it feel weird that I was going to play for Darlington today?

"The only weird thing is Cutter didn't pick me against Scarborough on Boxing Day," I said. "And you chumps lost three-two. There's stubborn, there's very stubborn, and there's Cutter."

"I don't know, man. Maybe he's right."

"Right to throw away three points?"

Junior hunched down in his seat, leant round the headrest to check if the coaching staff could hear us. "You're a big personality. We have to get used to playing without you."

"Come on," I said. "You were top of the league before I came."

"You stirred things up. It's different, now."

"What's different?"

"The vibe. Now when he says we're going to do a shuffle and slide drill, there's this little oh? moment. You know? We want to attack. You've messed us up," he added darkly, which was incongruous with his grin.

"Don't talk shit." I shook my head. "You need to win promotion this year. I don't want to play against you next season."

"Chester are playing us in a couple of weeks. You'll play us then."

"No chance. You won't see me for the rest of this season."

His eyes bulged. "Why not?"

I hovered my finger in front of my lips to indicate this was confidential. "The manager."

He processed that, then tsked. "You won’t play for your own team… waste six months of your career… There's stubborn, there's very stubborn, there's Cutter... and there's you."

"Mate," I said.

"Mate," he said.

***

We drove into the Flamingo Land stadium, which was something to do with a local theme park slash zoo. I saw a roller coaster from the motorway, but no action. Maybe there was a winter break? The zoo would still be open though, right? The website said they had penguins. I'd never seen a penguin.

While Pat the driver turned into Pat the kit man, the players checked the pitch out - it was a 3G all-weather one. Flat as a pancake. I practically drooled as I bent to rub my hand across it. I was 99% sure that an artificial pitch wouldn't be allowed in the top 4 leagues, but it was practical for this level and perfect for a highly-skilled technical player! Boss, boss, let me at 'em!

So naturally, I wasn't in the starting lineup. Cutter thought the lads couldn't be as bad again as they were in the previous fixture. My last day at the club and I probably wouldn't get to play.

My ears were pounding, so it was only when I calmed down that I heard the so-called team talk.

"Get stuck in, lads! They turned you over on our patch. Match their intensity! Match their work rate!"

Titan, the assistant manager, added, "Get up their arses! Keep it tight first twenty."

First twenty! These periods of tightness were getting longer. When I started my career it used to be first ten. Inflation was rampant in all sectors of the economy.

I raised my hand. Cutter didn't want to engage, but more and more players turned towards me.

"What, Best?"

"If we win, can we go see the flamingos?"

"No. My grandkids went and said the animals looked sad. If we win, I'll take you to the beach and give you a close up view of the bottom of the North Sea. How about that?"

"Sounds good. You taught me to shuffle and sink, boss."

He raised his eyebrows as he broke into a grin. I'd won that round, but the only thing sinking was my heart. It was going to be a long afternoon.

***

While the starting eleven did a proper warm-up, I pottered around, listening to the away fans and seeing if there was anyone I recognised in the VIP section. There was! I leaped the advert boards, climbed the terraces past a lot of confused Scarborough season ticket holders and greeted Bradley Rymarquis.

"Brad! Good to see you."

"You too, Max!" He seemed to mean it, as well. He'd been the second person I'd called when I'd signed for Chester. The first being the main dude at AFC Telford.

"Are you scouting someone?"

"Just checking in on an old flame." Huh. The phrase was supposed to mean me, but for a second I wondered if he really meant David Cutter. Nah. Although I'd thought Brad was gay at first, the way he looked at Emma concluded that debate.

"Listen, I'm sorry about how all that went down."

"I know. You told me. You don't need to keep saying it."

"I wanted to say it in person."

He shook his head. "You don't apologise for that. Sticking it to the owners? Oh, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Heh heh."

"Yeah but it can't have done your reputation any good. With Craig Summers and that." Summers was the manager of Sheffield Wednesday, and he'd been present when I'd exploded at Old Nick and everyone nearby.

Brad put his hand on my arm. "Don't worry about that. It's all good. I'm like buttered toast - I always land on my feet."

***

The match kicked off and Darlo struggled from the start. Scarborough were decent - their win over us had lifted them to sixth. They would fancy their chances of getting into the playoffs and then promoted - at Darlo's expense. My face started to hurt from all the grimacing and scowling. I imagined a TV camera was pointed at me - I relaxed and tried to breathe normally. Tried not to look as mutinous as I felt.

While I kept one eye on the pitch - I was gaining 2 XP per minute - I took another look at all the changes to my curse interface. I tutted. The number of screens I had access to had trebled! I should have been given all this shit from the very start! Why wait for me to get a management position before giving me tools that would help me become a manager? Old Nick was fucking clueless. He really was.

Control your anger before it controls you.

I am Max Best and this is my mantra.

Hom…

Hom sweet hom.

And... relax.

The most important addition to the curse was the button on the left that said Max Best. Now when I clicked on it the first options were Chester Squad, Chester Reserves, Board Confidence, and Resign from Club. Underneath this new 'Chester' section were all the submenus I was familiar with, including News, Player and Staff Search, and Retire. This section had also been extended with screens such as Manager Stats, Job Information, and Transfers.

By far the most important was 'Chester Squad' so I'll come back to that.

Clicking Board Confidence told me what the directors currently thought of me. At the moment, the screen said:

The Chester directors are looking forward to a long and successful era under your management.

The Manager Stats screen was amazing. It showed 22 pages of managers currently plying their trade in the English leagues. At the bottom of the 22nd page, in 352nd place, was the name Max Best. Reputation in England: Unknown. I skipped to page one. The 16th placed manager had a reputation of Good. The ones from 9th to 4th were Very Good. 3rd was the only one to say Superb. The top two, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp were considered World Class.

I went through the list looking for Cutter and Ian Evans. Cutter was 169th with a reputation of Very Poor. Evans was 131st, also Very Poor.

Even if they weren't my favourite people, it seemed pretty harsh. The curse didn't sugarcoat things.

Who else had I met? I went looking for Craig Summers from Sheffield Wednesday. It took me a long time to find him. He wasn't in the Poors or Averages, but was actually on the top of page two in the Goods, close to the big dogs in a very respectable 17th place. According to the curse, he should have been managing in the Premier League.

As for me, I was behind the managers of teams I'd never heard of like Cray, Whitehawk, Canvey Island, Bromsgrove Sporting, and Leeds United.

On the pitch, Scarborough scored. One-nil to the home team!

I checked the list again to see if Cutter, the prick, had lost a few places. No. The list didn't update in real-time.

The Job Information screen was my new obsession. It showed management jobs that were available for teams in England. On the left it said No Manager in grey and in the next column 'AFC Telford', England, a code denoting which division the team played in, and then the word available.

Handy, right? Yeah, if I had been given access to this months ago! Before I’d pairbonded with my soulpenguin - Chester Football Club!

But here was the really fun bit. The screen didn't only show positions that were currently vacant.

Graham Potter - Chelsea - England - PREM - Insecure

Frank Lampard - Everton - England - PREM - Insecure

Jesse Marsch - Leeds - England - PREM - Insecure

Nathan Jones - Southampton - England - PREM - Very Insecure

You'll remember that I vowed to stop being immature several chapters ago, but wow! If I was going to regress to the old me, I'd probably say something like LOL!

Nathan Jones had only just been appointed! Lampard was terrible! Jesse Marsch kept his LinkedIn profile up to date! It was unfortunate to see Potter's name up there. He deserved more time to fix things at Chelsea. It was easy to maturely think 'oh that's a shame' when it came to him. But then Lampard! Lol!

It was very satisfying to see so many badly run clubs in crisis, but I wasn't sure how I could benefit from this info now that I had a stable job.

Scarborough scored again. Cutter's head dropped. I checked the Job Information screen to see if his name had appeared. I remembered the imaginary TV camera and wiped the grin off my face.

The Transfers screen showed any incoming and outgoing transfers clubs had made. Two entries looked like this:

Sun 1st Jan - Henri Lyons - Darlington - Chester - loan

Sun 1st Jan - Timo Jentzsch - Benfica B - Crawley Town - £75K

Mere hours after the deal was formally announced, Henri had made his debut in the home match against Telford. Another defensive borefest ended one-all. Two points from a possible six against the worst team in the league? Abysmal. I kept checking to see if Ian Evans appeared on the 'Insecure' list - no such luck. But Henri seemed to be happy even if he hadn't scored, so there was that.

The Timo Jentzsch deal was one I wouldn't have ever heard about under normal circumstances, i.e. without the curse, but something about it caught my eye. It was quite a large transfer fee seeing as the guy was 36 and considering Crawley were languishing at the bottom of League Two.

I turned to Junior, who was on the bench with me. "Junior. Is Crawley the team owned by those Bitcoin dudes?"

"Yeah," he said. "They're mental."

"Like what?"

He tsked. "Imagine the best way to run a football team and do the opposite."

"Like leaving your best player on the bench making sure you have no chance of winning the title?"

He rolled his eyes. "Nah. Like letting fans pick the team on social media and paying bonuses for weird things."

"Such as?"

"I don't know. Strikers get a bonus for tackles instead of goals. Mad shit like that."

"Huh."

"No, Max! Don't tell me you think that's a good idea."

I spread my arms in apology. "I don't hate it! I want to know more. Maybe there's a good reason."

"You know who I feel sorry for? Chester. Anyway, trust me, Crawley's a mess."

***

We scored a goal, which was annoying because it gave Cutter hope that the first eleven would turn things around. Going into the break two-nil down would surely have been enough to get me on the pitch. Surely?

In the dressing room, the boss yelled at everyone for five minutes while I played with my new toys. January was a busy time for transfers, and there was a new one added to my list every ten minutes or so. Could I turn this knowledge into cash, somehow? It seemed unlikely. Gambling on which transfers had already taken place? Nah. Managers, though. You could bet on which ones would be sacked. If the Very Insecure status correlated strongly with actual sackings, then it seemed like an obvious play, but now that I was an industry insider I would never place a bet in my own name. Probably not in Emma's either. So who? I shook my head. No gambling.

"Problem, Best?" Cutter had taken my head shake personally. He got up in my face, wanted to give me the hairdryer. "Don't like the tactics?"

"Sorry, boss, I was just thinking about Nathan Jones being under pressure at Southampton. He's only just got the job and he did well at Luton."

"Are you taking the piss?"

This was a weird situation, now. Not just because he'd decided to chomp me, unprovoked, like a naughty pet - he'd done that several times. But I wasn't just Max Best, wandering agitator. I was also Chester's soon-to-be Director of Football. Could I really let him talk to me like that? Not just for my reputation, and Chester's, but for his! What if he wanted a job at Chester one day? Who would pick up his application form?

"I'm not taking the piss. I have no idea why you're yelling at me. I'm sitting here minding my own business. If you need to vent, go ahead. You can have ten seconds. Any more after that, I'll take it personally."

Captain Caveman decided to act as peacemaker, which was his job, so it was surprising to see him doing it. "Were you really thinking about Southampton?"

"Yeah. And the rest of the Premier League. It's a madhouse."

Caveman nodded. "Let's think about Darlo for the rest of the match, though, yeah? You might come on second half. We need your head in the game."

I gave him a Maxy two-thumbs and walked over to the tactics board and started dicking around with the magnets. "Their defenders are lazy as shit. They don't back each other up. Isolate one, turn him, it's three-on-one. Every time. Their right-back is slow. Build on our right, quick simple square ball, that's deadly. You're hitting crosses too long. Aim for their tall centre-back. He's shit in the air. He can't jump. Blondie has him on toast. Don't be afraid to go long from defensive transitions. They play here every week but they still aren't used to how the ball bounces. Think like a fast bowler. Get it to bounce five yards in front of a defender."

"Caught behind," nodded Caveman, completing the cricket reference. He looked more of a rugby dude.

"Yeah. Long story short, you'll waste these. And maybe don't worry about me paying attention? All right?"

I went back to my spot on the bench and, not to put too fine a point on it, sulked.

***

Cutter almost never made changes in the first twenty minutes of a half, so I knew I'd get 25 minutes of playing time, max. The best thing for me now would be for Scarborough to score a third. That would force a reaction. I closed my eyes - I hated wishing bad things would happen to my team but I wanted to put on one last show for the fans.

I realised it wasn't going to happen. I rubbed my scalp for a while, then opened my eyes to watch the action. Back to grinding for XP, like in the old days.

A shit cross from Webby - far too long - was too much for Cutter.

"Best. Get warmed up."

***

The Darlington fans knew it would be my last match for the club. They didn't know where I'd go, but plenty of rumours were out there. Top of the list? Sheffield Wednesday. Based on the reactions to the three goals we’d seen, half the stadium was Darlo. I wondered if they'd cheer me or boo me. You never knew with football fans.

I jogged up and down in front of them, giving them little waves and whatnot when they called my name.

Some wag called out, "Are you going to celebrate if you score?"

There were laughs. I'd become aware that my non-celebration celebrations were causing a stir. Some fans loved it; most hated it.

I grinned and jogged away, and when I jogged back I mimed kicking a ball. Goal! I ran towards the guy who'd shouted to me and mimed a James Ward-Prowse golf shot celebration.

There were more laughs.

I jogged away and raced back - scored another pantomime goal - raised my arm slightly higher than a Roman soldier and ran around like Alan Shearer.

I jogged away and raced back - another goal! - and did an homage to the famous 1994 Bebeto celebration - rocking a baby in my arms.

By now the crowd in that stand was going mental, roaring me on, ignoring the match behind me.

I jogged away, sprinted back - the crowd went oooh as I approached the fake ball and roared as I struck it - waay! I stood soldier-still and put my finger to my temple. Think! The new, iconic celebration from Man United's local hero, the greatest living Englishman, Marcus Rashford.

I could have gone on for ages: Ronaldo's Siiuu!, Robbie Fowler snorting lines from the grass, Cavani's archer pose.

"Fucking hell, Max!"

I turned and saw Cutter yelling at me. "What?"

"Fucking do that on the pitch. Jesus Christ you're such a prick."

***

I replaced Webby - 6 out of 10, yellow card, no goal threat - to a huge roar from the away fans. My direct opponent - a 28-year-old CA 33 right-back with decent pace - was eyeing me warily.

I jutted my chin towards him. "Hey, mate."

"What?"

"Did you know the collective noun for flamingos is a flamboyance?"

"I did know that, yeah. We get cheap tickets to the zoo. Not a day goes past without someone telling me about collective fucking nouns."

"Gotcha. How about I show you something you've never seen before?"

"Gobby Manc twat swanning around doing pointless stepovers? Seen it. Seen it all before, mate."

I felt myself smirking. This would be my last match for ages. The pitch was perfect and I had a worthy opponent.

I intended to enjoy it.