8 - Space Invaders [T1] (Patreon)

8.

After lunch, I moped around for a bit wondering what I'd got myself into. Work was piling up, and I was constantly finding ways to give myself more. Chester needed an injection of money. Of talent. And I wanted to change the culture. Each of these felt like a full-time job.

A tension in my shoulders came and went. I found myself unclenching my jaw every few minutes.

One thing that wasn't helping was the commute from Darlington. I needed a place in Chester. Something bigger than a windowless room, but smaller than an entire stadium. I went to a local furniture store and checked out their single beds. Nothing appealed, so in the end I bought two mattresses, some bedding, and a memory foam pillow. The pillow was as expensive as a mattress, but sleeping on Henri's amazing bed had taught me the value of a good night’s sleep.

I snuck the bedding into my office in the stadium, then drove to Shona and Raffi's house. They'd been househunting in Chester recently; I could piggyback off their work. They graciously dropped their plans and we spent a few hours driving around looking at neighbourhoods. That was time well spent. I got a good idea about the local property market.

Raffi asked if I wanted him to help with the early evening training sessions - word had got round that Spectrum was 'wagging it'. I thanked him for the offer and said I might take him up on it some other time. "Think about starting your coaching badges," I told him. "See if you've got the knack."

"I'll think about it," he said.

"I want smart players," I said. "Thoughtful. Analytical."

Shona said, "Eleven heads are better than one."

"Yup. Do the first course at least. It's a piece of piss and it'll pay off big time down the road. The club is skint but in theory we'll pay for it."

Shona shot Raffi a look. Some history there. I got the feeling she'd been pushing him to get back into night school or something, before I discovered him. She wanted her man to be educated. I decided to wait a few months before broaching the topic again. Shona would do most of the work.

***

Raffi getting a coaching badge had been a stray thought. But Shona's nudge got me thinking - I was still in the grindset of doing everything on my own. That’s why I was so stressed. Three full-time jobs.

Fundraising - There was a universe where this meant running round local companies with a begging bowl while simultaneously applying for all kinds of grants and funding. Not appealing. I hoped money would come naturally through future transfers, although MD had said he’d put me in a room with some fat cats to raise money for my women’s team. It’d have to be me doing the sales pitch - that couldn’t be outsourced. Not a problem. It just meant going on the piss with some of MD’s pharma friends.

Culture - This had to be me, too. No-one else gave a shit about how things were done. My attempts at fixing the culture currently meant one of my staff was on strike and I was doing his work. Fine for a few days, since I needed to see the entire youth system anyway. I didn’t want to fire people, but it would certainly fix the problem pretty damn quick.

Talent - The fact that I needed to see players in the flesh was the biggest bottleneck. Hopping from football pitch to football pitch all over Cheshire and hoping for the best was a brute force attack. Not very elegant. But that’s how I’d always done it.

Now, though.

Now I ran a football club. I had employees, players, fans. How could I use these new resources?

I was in pensive mood when the under 16s started arriving. I stood, rolling a ball under my foot, watching them warm up or dick around, according to their personality type. The standard was underwhelming. The lowest CA was 5, so someone somewhere had done a bare minimum amount of scouting. But the highest PA was 28. None of these guys would make it to the first team. Very, very disappointing. The most talented kid on the pitch was, incredibly, Kian, with his PA 30.

At 5pm, I gestured for him to come over. "Can you go over to that corner flag and check if I left my phone there? Thanks, mate."

Kian, obviously, was in dreamland, so he took my absurd request at face value and sprinted off. Wasting his energy! His speed meant I didn't have much time. I whistled and fifteen teenagers came towards me. Nervous energy was off the scale. They knew who I was. The new boss! The mystery winger! The guy who’d left the league almost-leaders to come and fix Chester. I very much doubt Ryan Reynolds would have impressed them more.

I pointed towards Kian, who was methodically searching the area around the corner of the pitch. "Who's the new kid?" Blank faces. "Anyone know his name?" Head shakes. The vibe was, who's this noob? Who invited him? It riled me up. "Last one to learn his name can fuck off home. Time starts now." I blew the whistle.

It was interesting, what happened next. You could see tranches of intelligence. There was the fox: a crafty midfielder who thought fastest and sprinted first. Then there were three flight animal guys smart enough to get their legs moving and think as they went. Then a general panic from the sheep class. One guy was left.

"Mate," I said.

"I froze. I tried to outthink the task."

"It's not a TV show."

"Do I really have to go?"

I shrugged. "I can't make threats I don't follow-up on. Right?"

"Fuck. Sorry for swearing Mr. Best."

The herd of kids came back, with Kian tagging along, all highly relieved to see there was such an obvious loser.

"He's called Kian!" shouted one douche.

"Let me ask you a question, Douche," I said, showing I knew his name in a formidable display of competence. Yes, I used his real name. Relax. Douche gulped. I glared at the group. "When I invite someone to come and join the session, why do I need to invent a fucking minigame for you twats to find out his fucking name? Why were you all ignoring him? What are you, supermodels at the world's most exclusive nightclub?"

I checked behind me.

"Is there a disco ball over the halfway line? No, all I see is an all-weather pitch serving the community 365 days a year." I brought my tone down from an eight to a six. "I know you're suspicious of new kids because they might take your place in the team. But that's no excuse for being a dick. If I invite someone to come and you don't make them feel welcome, I'll get rid of you.” Pause for effect. “There will be a lot of new kids joining. Some might be good. Some might be to make up numbers for weird drills I want to try. If you're worried about some rando off the street taking your place, what does that say about you?"

I let them process that. Most of them had never thought of it from that perspective before.

"There's going to be a lot of change around here. Some of it you'll like. Some of it you won't. All of it will be for the benefit of Chester Football Club. If your hobbies include bullying and gatekeeping, start looking for a different club. A difficult part of your development will be dealing with new players who are better than you. What are you going to do? Whine and bitch and talk shit about them behind their backs? Or are you going to learn from them? Compete with them fair and square, drive each other to new heights, may the best man win?"

My hands were starting to get cold. I couldn't let the kids stay still too long or they'd pick up muscle injuries. Speech o'clock was over.

"Last word from me. If you want to be in a setup that is insanely obsessed with the idea of turning you into the absolute best player you can possibly be, get hyped. Get very hyped. Because that starts now." Many eyes widened at that. That resonated. And that was the moment three of the kids got a green teamwork attribute. "It's damn cold. Let's get you warmed up. Light jogs up and down."

"Mr. Best," said the loser kid. "What about me? Do I have to go?" Every other kid paused to listen to my judgement.

I laughed. "Mate, I'd forgotten about that. Way to dob yourself in. But yeah, you'll have to go home early. I read a website about dealing with kids. It said you have to always carry out your threats, no exceptions." I tapped my phone to bring up the time. "You have to go home... three minutes early."

"Oh." The noise came out of him like a sigh.

"Get fucking jogging!" I yelled.

He was so relieved that he burst into a sprint.

I tried to suppress a grin. These guys needed a real coach, but I could imagine taking some sessions now and then. If I shouted at them every three months, could I raise their teamwork by 4 points a year?

It’d be worth a try. And it’d be therapeutic.

I love a win-win scenario.

***

We did a few technical drills - passing, technique, dribbling. I got a bit absent-minded watching them. There was still this problem of me driving all over Cheshire hoping to stumble upon the best prospects. It was real needle in a haystack stuff. If I went to a match between two schools, would that include the best players? Not in my experience. Were P.E. teachers good judges of talent? Were they fuck. They picked the tallest boys and the best runners.

What were my options, though? In an ideal world, I'd get the schools to come to me. Now that was interesting. What would that look like? Some kind of tournament, hosted by Chester, with every school sending multiple teams. If they sent an A, B, and C team, surely that would include 98% of the players with basic hand-eye coordination?

Good concept, unlikely to ever happen. Maybe I'd mention it to Inga, though, just to see...

I blinked. Kian was talking to me. "Mr. Best. Should we change the drill?"

“Thanks, buddy.” I blew my whistle and called them all in. "That's on me, lads. Spaced out. Maybe you can forgive me since I'm running an entire football club." There were some goofy grins. They were starting to get used to my sense of humour. "Thing is, I've just had an idea. I want to find more good players. For complicated reasons, I need to play an A team - that's you lot - versus a B team, at the end of the month. Kian, you're the B team so far.

He put his palm flat. "Gooo Bs!" he said, throwing his hand up. A gesture that normally involved at least three people. The kids found it funny. Go, Kian!

"Don't be funnier than me, Kian. Thanks. Right. So here's the deal. Your teachers don't know shit about football. Your dads talk a good game but they don't really know. You know who I think can spot a good player? You. You pricks are actually quite good at this sport. So I'm going to incentivise you to find me some lads for my B team." Some confused looks. "Incentivise? Are you shitting me? You don't know that word? Fucking read a book you little... ugh! Okay, focus Max. What's a good player? Main thing: I don't want flashy showoffs who never pass."

From the fox kid, spreading through the herd to the sheep: sniggering.

"Right, yeah," I said, rubbing my chin. Of course they all knew about my beef with Tyson. "I shouldn't have started with that. What else? I don't want guys who always make bad decisions or don't understand their roles. I'm not interested in players who your dads think are good because they had a growth spurt and can win headers. I want players with a bit of technique, who can hit a pass, and have a brain. Players where I can use really, really long words like incentivise. Think: would I like this guy on my team? Right? You get me? Bring a player to training on Friday. Bring a different guy on Monday. You don't need to bring one dude every session. But if you bring a player and I like him and use him on the B team, I, Max Best, will give you one hundred English pounds."

Pandemonium.

Are you serious?

For real?

A hundred?

I blew my whistle. "I've never been more serious. Right. We'll do a quick match and I'll pick out some aspect to work on for the last ten minutes."

***

The session with the 18s was similar, but without a Kian to justify my 'welcome new players' speech. I gave it anyway.

They were even more disappointing in terms of PA. I supposed any really talented kids had left when they realised they were never getting into the first team. That would explain why the talent we had was shaped like a pyramid - five or six first-team prospects in the 14s (including the Broughton rebels), a couple of guys with an outside chance in the 16s, and nothing in the 18s.

The 18s were less motivated by the offer of a hundred pounds - they knew it wouldn't go that far. But it was better than a kick in the teeth. I expected they'd be bringing their mates and their cousins and whatnot.

The project could get expensive - up to 3,000 pounds in the worst case scenario! But if we got a big infusion of talent into the system it would be worth it. The more I thought about this semi-outsourced scouting, the more stressed and excited I became.

***

I spent some time with Henri. Little did he know when he accepted my invitation to meet at Goals that I wanted to spend the entire evening there. When he realised I was serious about staying till late, he sighed, and settled into the role of assistant scout.

There was one player we disagreed about. Henri said he was cowardly - always running away from the ball. My opinion was wildly different - the guy was trying to draw opponents towards him and make space for the rest of the team. Problem was, there was no-one on the same wavelength as him.

He was the only player of note. I didn't find any gems, but I picked up some XP. I was creeping towards my goal of unlocking Playdar.

Talking of creeping, Henri soon tired of watching the terrible matches and begged me to flirt with one of the women behind the bar. "A romantic competition," he said. "Like you promised me."

"What about Gemma?"

He let out an explosive sigh. "I am allowed to flirt! Jesus, Max. A man is allowed to live, is he not? How can I live if I cannot breathe? Do not assume I bind myself with chains every time I bed a woman. Metaphorical chains, Max. Remove your mind from the gutter."

I wasn't in the mood for a romantic challenge, even one I didn't take seriously. I was once again trying to combine grinding with spending time with a mate. It never worked! "Fine. How about you take the first turn? Pick a barmaid and give her your best shot. I'm sure you'll be the highlight of her evening."

"I may well just - what? What did you say?"

"I said go for it. But I don't want a reputation as a hound dog; I need a clean-cut image right now. Anyway, I'm off the market."

Another explosive sigh. "The market! You British with your love market. Human mating rituals reduced to the property ladder. Look at me! I upgraded from a red-brick council house to a semi-detached. Aren't I a successful man?"

He closed his eyes, apparently in genuine pain.

"Love isn't a market. It is a book of poetry, written in many languages but mostly French, a book you open in haste and read at leisure. Once or twice in a lifetime you find a phrase, an image, that speaks to the essence of who you are. It fills up your senses. It consumes you."

He held onto the netting that kept the ball on the pitch and swayed like a sailor.

"When you place the book by your bedside table and blow out the candle, you sleep, awaken changed, reborn, and next evening the poems are longer, more complex, more emotional. You can never read the same poem twice. You long to return to the simplicity of your youth, yet you must keep moving on. Forward. Ever forward."

"Right. So as I was saying, I'm off the market.” I was trying to be funny, but also sensed that I was out of my depth. Henri was not quite himself. He seemed vaguely dissatisfied. Ennui Lyons. I thought I knew something that might cheer him up. “I need to start a women's team. Do you want to help with that? There might be some cute ones you can charm."

He waved the idea away. "Office romance? Stolen glances by the photocopier? Popping to Tesco to buy Meal Deal lunches together? Max. You disappoint me. I need a story. A real story. Thunder and lightning. My love life must be the human condition writ large." He sighed. "But I must admit, I am less opposed to office romances than previously. Livia continues to dazzle. She is stupendous. Did you see her ponytail today? She used a new scrunchie. How I envy Trick Williams and his Gummi Bear hamstrings."

"I didn't. I haven't spoken to the medical guys yet. Been busy."

"Too busy for Livia. Max. Please think about what you are saying. Get a grip. I implore you."

***

XP Balance: 5127
Debt repaid: 299/3000

***

Thursday, 5th Jan

I went to see Cutter early - I had vague plans of going back to bed after the meeting, having a lazy morning, driving to Chester to take the under 12s and 14s, then some scouting in the evening. The day done, I’d sleep in the stadium overnight and do a full shift before heading back to Darlo before rush hour. Seemed like a decent mix of grinding and taking care of myself.

Cutter met me in reception - no making me wait, no powerplays. He nodded at some kid who was sitting in one of the seats. The kid was so nondescript that I've actually just spent three sentences describing him and your brain has deleted the lot. Long story short, he was skinny with black hair and whenever I looked at him, he turned red and forgot how to blink.

The reception girl was there, also blushing furiously. I wondered if anyone had done research into long-term blushing the way they had with cracking your knuckles. Cracking knuckles was safe. Could you get so embarrassed so often you'd get bad skin?

I followed Cutter to his office. He was making small talk and I was doing the bare minimum to remain polite. His office looked like the last time I'd seen it. Cutter had a superstition that every month he remained in the job he’d take one keepsake out of storage and display it. I scanned the room, trying to find the new items. There should have been at least one, right?

Another guy was in the room, sitting in front of Cutter's desk, tea mug in hand. I recognised him as one of Darlo's academy coaches.

I had no idea what this meeting would be about, but I doubted it would be anything good. Bradley Rymarquis was behind it. Cutter would benefit from me not being allowed to play for a few weeks because Chester were playing Darlington soon. Brad might have pitched the false registration scheme as a way to ensure I didn't play in that match. But then this meeting seemed superfluous - what else could they possibly do to hurt me? And anyway, I’d promised Cutter I wouldn’t play against Darlo this season. It wasn’t an issue. Unless, I thought, starting to sweat, he didn’t believe me?

I wiped my palms on my trousers.

"Thanks for coming, Max." Cutter leaned back on his office chair and put his hands behind his head. He was enjoying himself. He smirked. "Max, I have a complaint. It wasn't that long ago that you promised not to tap up our players."

I froze. Of all the angles of attack I'd prepared for, me trying to steal Darlington's players had not come up. I tried to speak but my mouth was both too wet and too dry to open.

Cutter was still smirking. "You could get in a lot of trouble for this sort of thing, Max."

I exploded off my chair. It was too much. "No fucking way!" I walked away from the shocked men in case my anger spiralled out of control. I was feeding off it but not letting it feed off me. There was always a risk of my fury hitting critical mass and taking everyone in the room out with it. "I did no such fucking thing. I haven't spoken to anyone and you know it. I have too much respect for the club. I tried to leave with dignity and this is my reward. If you think I'm going to sit back and take this shit, you haven't been paying attention. I will go fucking apeshit, mate."

I might not have been in full control of myself, because I realised my jabbing finger was close to the poor academy guy's face and he was trying to sink into his shoulders for protection. Like a turtle.

"Max," said Cutter, horrified. "What are you doing?"

"What am I doing? You just accused me of a fucking crime!"

He raised his palms from the desk. "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I apologise. It was a joke. A bad joke, apparently." There was a standoff. I kept my finger directed at the coach while Cutter kept his palms up. "I know you didn't tap up our players." I eyed him. This was very confusing. "Max. Put the gun away. I’ll explain."

I looked at my finger. I stepped away from the coach and picked my chair up. It had fallen during my outburst. "Okay. I'm calm. Pretty poor choice in jokes, Dave, considering the circumstances."

"What do you mean?" said Cutter, picking up an Italia 90 Ciao mascot and dividing his attention between me and it.

"I mean Brad!"

"What?"

I put my hands out. "Brad! What Brad did. Your mate Brad."

He seemed genuinely in the dark. "What did Brad do?"

My rageometer slid towards zero, and the coach guy visibly relaxed. I took a breath. "All right. You don't know. I'm sure it'll come out soon enough." The journalists who'd been there when the story broke didn't seem to have published anything about it. Maybe they were digging deeper. Maybe they were saving it for a rainy day. But it was feasible that if Brad hadn't told Cutter his plan, Cutter wouldn't know anything about it. If he truly was in the dark he could stay in the dark; ideally the mess would be sorted before the Chester fans even knew there was an issue. "Or you can get it straight from Brad. Let's just say my reaction will seem a bit less demented when you have all the info."

"Oh? That doesn't sound good. But why would Brad do something against you? He’s quite a fan." He put Ciao back on his desk, stood, and moved to his little tea-making area. "Cup of tea?"

I knew what he was doing. Giving us a distraction. A chance to reset. I went over and chatted with him and the coach about the academy kids I knew, Bark and Benzo.

With the unpleasantness behind us, if not forgotten, Cutter went to the window where the first teamers were starting to appear, ready for training. "All right, now. You didn't tap anyone up, I know that, but we had a transfer request. One of our players wants to move... to Chester. That’s why I made that little joke. I hope I seem a bit less demented now."

Stunning. Astonishing. I joined him at the window and tried to see who was out on the pitch - and who wasn't. "A transfer to Chester? That's mental. Who'd leave a title-winning team to join a basket case?"

Cutter looked down and did a three-quarter grin. "Good fucking question, lad."

"Junior?" I said, hopefully. "Larkin? Well, whoever it is, he's out of luck. We can't afford him."

Cutter nodded. "Pascal Bochum."

"Bless you," I said. My go-to joke when hearing unfamiliar names or words.

"Pascal is in our academy."

"I've never heard of him," I said. "I've been to a couple of training sessions. There was no-one called Pascal."

"He's German. He's been home for a couple of months. Grandmother's sick. Came back this week, first thing he did was ask to be allowed to go to Chester."

I scratched my head. I tried to place this news in the hierarchy of crazy things that had happened in the last week. It was pretty near the top. "Wait. He's German. He's under 18. He can't get an English club. Brexit and all that."

"He couldn't join a league club. Non-league is easier."

I was wracking my brain trying to remember an article I'd read ages ago. "Clubs can't sign foreign under 18s. It's pretty strict."

Cutter shook his head with a smile. "The kid got his parents to move to England and get jobs. If your parents move here and it's nothing to do with football, you're allowed to sign for a club. This kid," he said, with another fond shake of the head, "is an absolute maniac. He wanted to play in England and he convinced his parents to relocate so he could achieve his dream. He learned the rules and went through all the non-league clubs until he found someone willing to give him a chance. The idea of starting in the sixth tier and working his way up doesn't faze him in the slightest. Kid like that, when he says he wants to leave, he's going to make your life a misery until he gets what he wants. He's not selfish or difficult, just single-minded. If we talked to him and explained why we thought he should stay at Darlo, he'd stay and be good as gold."

"So?"

"So we can't do that. We're not the best place for him. We tried, we really did, but honestly, there's no club in England outside the Premier League where his style of play would work."

My head was spinning. So many questions! Cutter had to take training soon, so I wouldn't get time to ask them all. "What's his style of play?"

Cutter gestured to the coach, who unzipped a fabric folder and handed me a piece of paper.

SCOUTING REPORT: PASCAL BOCHUM

Pascal Bochum is a pressing monster, a dynamic miracle with absurdly good positional play, so much so that his teammates have nicknamed him the 'Space Invader'.

Pascal Bochum is a master of simplicity, the type of player who is often overlooked because he works more for the team than for his own success and thus has few moments of glory himself.

In other words: Pascal Bochum has a high level of understanding of the game, sees open spaces before they arise, and knows exactly how and where to run to tie defenders and open up paths for his teammates.

On offense, Pascal Bochum comes into his own when he can come out of space with depth, preferably down the flanks (combined with inverse runs, crosses, etc) - whether he's playing as a midfielder or winger.

Pascal Bochum has a wide passing range - simple passes, whether short or long, work fantastically. Bochum is fast, persistent, anticipatory, and can be used flexibly in midfield, although central positions are less his thing.

In terms of player type, Pascal Bochum is probably most comparable to Thomas Müller or Jakub Blaszczykowski (AKA Kuba).

I recommend a fast-track to the first-team squad.

I eyed the academy coach. "I know this is a weird joke given my overreaction earlier, but maybe I should be tapping you up. This report is incredible. I've never read anything like it."

The guy smiled. "Yeah. Isn't it fantastic? Only problem is, I didn't write it."

"Oh? Who did?"

"I'll give you two guesses."

I burst out laughing. The little shit had written a scouting report on himself. I re-read the document knowing it was autobiographical, laughing more with each repetition of the words Pascal Bochum. "This kid. What the fuck. Is it accurate?"

"In its way. He can do everything he says. He eats, drinks, sleeps football. He’s off-the-scale competitive. In small-sided drills, he dicks everyone. No-one calls him a Space Invader - that's wishful thinking. But you can sort of see what he means. He gets into space better than NASA."

"Nice line."

"Thanks. Pascal wrote it. Problem is, he's small. He gets lost in games. Headers? Forget it. Pressing? Yeah, he's high-level, but you can't press on your own. It's got to be co-ordinated. So that's a useless skill until he’s playing for a big team, which he won’t. He's playing on shit pitches so his neat little moves don't lead to anything. He's no threat from a long shot so teams learn to get goalside of him and let him pass sideways.”

“He doesn't really fit anywhere in a 4-4-2,” said Cutter.

The coach nodded and continued. “He's too small to be a second striker. He can't dribble or do tricks well enough to be a winger. You can't use him as a CM because most of the match it's like you've only got one guy there. It's like Dave said: we've tried but we've hit a dead end. We can't help him much more.”

"I've been telling him to go back to Germany," said Cutter, then winced. "Not like that. His style is valued there. Understood. They know how to use him."

"Makes sense," I said. "Why doesn't he listen?"

"He does. He knows that better than me. But in Germany, he's the hundredth best young player of his type. He's the best of his type in England. He's trying to carve out a niche."

I jabbed my thumb behind me. "Are we talking about that tiny little guy out there?" Nods. "Fuck me. I love everything you're saying. He's almost my dream youth team prospect. But I agree with you. There's no future for him here. In England, I mean. Footballistically, he'd be better off on the continent." They were smiling at me. "What?"

"We were starting to get through to him. It hasn't worked, his little adventure. We fucking admire him for trying, we really do. He's a weirdo, but he's our weirdo. There are academy kids learning German because he’s always banging on about pathways through the Bundesliga. He’s smart and well-liked. Anyway, we were getting through. His parents don't much like it here. Different work culture. Too informal. They'd stick it out for their kid, but he's not a complete psychopath. If it's not going to work, he'll be the first to start packing up. And we thought maybe this trip back would make him homesick. Speaking his own language and having currywurst on tap."

I’d never had currywurst. Maybe my career would take me to Germany one day. "Yeah. So you're making it sound like something changed."

Cutter scoffed and rubbed his forehead. "I’ll tell you what changed. Some fucking prick turned up and started playing like the guy in Pascal Bochum's scouting report. A Space Invader. In the National League North. For the same club as him, in fact."

"Oh."

"Right. The kid’s got it into his head that you’re some sort of genius. So he wants to join Chester. Something about how you might understand him."

I tugged my earlobe. I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Cutter was offering me a player... Could it be a scam? "Before we go on, what are the conditions?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say we signed him. What would you want?"

Cutter shook his head. "He has no transfer value. No prospects for a career. I want what's best for him. It's insane but he's right. If there's one person in non-league who can help him, it's you. He should probably stay in his school until the summer at least. He can stay in our academy and train there. But if you want him to go to Chester on weekends and play, something like that? Basically, you do whatever you want with him and we'll work around it."

"That's generous," I said, suspiciously.

"Max. Most young players don't make it. Telling them you're letting them go is awful, and you know most will bounce out of football altogether. Some of the stories of what happens next… Mate. If I can give one of those kids a glimmer of hope, I will. And when you've been doing your job a few years more, you will too."

That checked out. But if I had the budget for four more spaces in the squad, did I really want to sign a player who’d be hard to use? It depended on his PA. If it was high enough to let Bochum invade my precious space, then Darlington were handing me a prize asset. "If we sign him, I'll put a sell-on clause in his contract. You'll get 5% of any fee we get."

Cutter laughed. "Free money? Won't say no to that."

"It's not free. You gave him a chance. Trained him up. You get a cut. That 5% could be the most you ever make from a player. Then you'll give me more kids, right? We can all get paid. But that's putting the cart before the horse. Let's bring the Spaceman in."

"We're going to training, now. You have a talk to the lad on your own. Whatever you decide, go for it. Drop me a text or an email."

"I have a better idea," I said, pointing out the window. "Let him train with the first team. I'll stay and watch. It'll save me a lot of messing about organising a trial and stuff."

"Yeah," sighed Cutter. "Why not? I won't change the plan, though. Today's drills won't suit the lad."

"Pascal Bochum," I said, "never shirks from a challenge."

***

Pascal Bochum

Born 15.11.2005 (Age 17) German

• Acceleration 18
• Bravery 17
• Dribbling 5
• Finishing 7
• Handling 1
• Heading 6
• Jumping 2
• Pace 16
• Passing 14
• Stamina 13
• Strength 4
• Tackling 7
• Teamwork 19
• Technique 18
• preferred foot R
• CA 16 PA 133
• F (RLC)

He was a forward with relatively poor finishing. He could run for days but a slight breeze would knock him over.

Fascinating player. I imagined him fully trained, in his peak, zooming around being an absolute fucking pest, intercepting, causing turnovers, combining with his teammates. But how could he get to his peak in England? Which club could give him enough game time? There were two problems - most people wouldn’t see the value in the work he did - as proven by my recent discussion with Henri. Jackie Reaper might get it… or he might not.

The second problem was, Bochum was tiny. Tiny!

I watched as Der Spaceman struggled his way through the drills. He looked uncomfortable during a shuffle and slide drill, though he stuck to his work. He won zero headers in a set piece drill, and there wasn't even much point assigning him to protect a post on corners. He was easily the smallest player on the pitch. Passes to him had to be a little more precise than to other players; he was less able to hold the ball up, less able to win duels. Putting Bochum in the starting eleven would mean compromising elsewhere - you’d need more height in the rest of the team. Otherwise you'd get overwhelmed at set pieces.

I bit my nails imagining Chester's first team five years from now. If Future was in it, I couldn't have Bochum. Or could I? We could try to keep possession to the point where the height of the opposition didn't matter - like the Barcelona team of Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. But we'd always have a weak point. We'd always be vulnerable from corners. Long throws. Agricultural football would work against us. Being beaten by a better team was one thing. Being beaten by worse teams was another.

Yeah, it was very obvious why Darlo's coaches found it hard to use this weird German kid.

On the other hand, his PA was higher than any five kids from Chester's under 18s combined. I'd be insane not to have a proper look at him.

I'd already organised the next steps by the time Cutter whistled to signal the end of the session.

I waved the kid over. "Pascal. Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

He didn’t smile. He didn’t blush, although it was hard to tell since he’d just done a very demanding session. "You have?"

“I have.”

“How do you say incentivise in German?”

“Einen Anreiz bieten.”

“What’s your favourite Max Best goal?”

For the first time, he smiled. “One you didn’t score. The fifth against Scarborough. You made it possible by locking the left-back and drawing players into your zone. In my match report I awarded you a pre-assist. You created the goal with your movement in the previous ten minutes.”

“Match report?”

“I make detailed notes about every match I play or watch.”

He was everything I wanted in a youth team player. So why did it feel like too much? “I want to see you in a different environment. Put you through your paces the Max Best way.” His eyes widened. Fear, excitement, determination. Such an interesting kid! “There are two ways to play football. There’s the Max Best way. And that’s the only way. You in?”

He swallowed. “I’m in.”

“Good.” I named two streets near Henri's house. "Be there at 9:30 Saturday morning. Bring your kit. One dark top, one light. Boots and astroturf trainers."

"Yes, of course."

“This will be a challenge unlike any other. A real test of character.”

“I will pass it!” he said, eyes gleaming. I’d feared something of the sort.

“I wonder,” I said, staring into space. He stayed there, waiting for me to keep talking. "That was the end of the conversation, Pascal."

He nodded and walked off. After twenty yards he turned back to look at me, like in a romantic comedy.

The poor kid. I was sure my test would mess with his head. I laughed. On the way to my car, I rubbed my jaw. All the tension was gone.

...

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