18 - As It Was [T1] (Patreon)

18.

"Sorry for barging in. What's this you're doing?"

"I'm doing a no glitch 112% Hollow Knight speedrun."

"Wow. Is that what I sound like when I talk about underlapping full-backs?"

"Probably." Sumo chuckled. I think he was really happy I was there, even if I was messing up his stream. "I know what an underlapping full-back is, though. I did it to you when we played FIFA. You didn't notice."

"Okay, you're good at games. I get it." I watched as he mashed a keyboard to make the little on-screen character do things. "Can you do that and talk to me?"

"Oh, yeah. I talk almost all the time. And read the chat. There might be a few sections I go flow."

"You might go flow," I said, testing how the words felt in my mouth.

"You do it. When you play. You forget the fans, the cameras, the everything. It's just you, the team, the ball."

"Sure. Sometimes. There's normally some twat trying to ruin it." I realised what I was saying and sagged, comedically. "I'm doing it now. I'm the twat."

"It's okay. My jonokuchi liked you last time and the re-watch metrics were way above average." He glanced at me. "I'm saying you bring good engagement. They want me to make a custom emote of you saying 'munkey'." Another glance. "I'm saying it's really okay. You can barge in whenever you want."

The streaming world was mad. The economics of it baffled me. "The metrics were good? How good?"

"You're somewhere between Cat Cafe Manager and Hogwarts Legacy."

"Good to know. Right. Sumo. Chat guys. I need your help. You ready? How do they signal their readiness? Press F to be ready." Before I'd even finished the sentence, tons of Fs flew down the chat. "Wow. This is fun. Type Murica if you're from America or Canada."

"Max," complained Sumo, but the chat was going wild. Loads of Muricas, strings of Canada flag emojis, Statue of Liberty gifs, and one guy going 'I'm Danish is that okay?' Sumo looked up at a wall clock and said, "It's mostly North America right now. Mostly."

"With the Danish guy I could skip to the hard part," I said. "Because he knows the structures. But American sport is different; they might need a tiny crash course to understand my issue. If you're a talented player in the States, you go to high school, then college, and the recruiters are all over the schools and colleges. In football, or soccerrrr," I added in an impressive American accent, "it's the clubs who do it. So I'm the recruiter for a club and it's my job to find players. I'm good at that, it's not really a problem finding them."

Especially not with me being so close to having the 8,000 XP needed to buy Playdar.

"I can find the players, but not everyone wants to become a professional athlete. A lot of that's down to culture. Loads of people have had bad experiences in teams in the past. They've been bullied, excluded, misunderstood. I want to make a little viral video that people will watch and go 'oh that's cool I'd like to be part of that'. Right? I want to say Chester is not like those other teams you tried. We've changed. We're different." Sumo was pulling a face. It didn't seem related to what his little game character was doing. "What?"

"We're not different, though, are we?"

I wondered what had made him say that. I decided to let him tell me in his own time, if he wanted. "We are now. I'm in charge of who comes in and who goes out. Can I swear?"

"Better not."

"The bad apples are getting tossed. Don't worry about that. If it's a choice between replacing the entire first team squad or signing the female version of me, I choose me." I laughed. "It's not even close. Okay so the video should be sort of generally appealing, but my main target is one girl in particular. Dani is 15, she loves Harry Styles, she's an attacking midfielder, she has a really high ceiling."

"Is Dani the girl from those videos from Crewe?"

"Yeah."

Sumo paused the game so he could explain to his viewers what he knew, remembered he was trying to break a record, and instantly unpaused. He told the story of the tournament as he'd gathered it from snippets of TikToks and Tweets and whatnot. It was accurate enough.

"Right," I said. "So she's top. What I need your help with is choosing a Harry Styles song for the background, and some ideas for what could be in the video."

"That's easy," said Sumo. "You doing tekkers." He explained tekkers for his viewers.

"The future of Chester isn't me doing tekkers," I said. "It's pass and move. It's one-twos. It's isolating defenders one-on-one and smashing past them with power and purpose. It's hundreds of quick, short passes that draw defences out of position before we thrust a dagger down their gob."

"Right but tekkers is cool."

"Not to me. We don't teach that. We teach positional play, linking with your teammates, having each other's back, busting a gut to get your mate out of a jam. We teach mutual respect and understanding that everyone's got something to offer and individually we're flawed but collectively we're invincible. That's the message. That's the story. Me bouncing a ball from shoulder to shoulder doesn't tell that story. Does it?"

Sumo bit his bottom lip. I realised he was trying to stop himself from saying something he knew he shouldn't. He lost his inner battle. "Can you do that?"

"Can I bounce a ball from shoulder to shoulder? Yes. Mate," I sighed.

"I'm sorry, Max, but you need to grab people's attention before you can tell the story!"

The chat was starting to understand the mission now.

HAMBO: You could do a teaser trailer. Teaser has you doing teckas. Trailer is longer, tells story, bits of buffoonery to keep Sumo engaged lol

THE_STEVE: It's tekkers. Good idea, hambo

MEGASHIRA: Didn't someone say she's deaf? It doesn't matter what song it is

I nodded. "It does matter. It has to be Harry. She has to know how much of an effort I'm making. So that when I say I will change the culture, get rid of all the cavemen, she knows that I mean it. That I will keep at it, relentlessly, until it's the way it needs to be. By the way, it's not just for her and the kids. I have to work there, too. I'm a player, too. I want to go to training and become better, fitter, stronger. Anything that stops me doing that, anything that distracts me, has got to go. It will go. Yeah, anyway. Picking the song. The problem is that I don't really listen to a lot of music."

TURCULENT_TEDDY: Neither do Harry Styles fans

THE_STEVE: lol!

"Whoa whoa whoa," I said. "Let me stop you right there, er... Truculent Teddy. That's a great joke. You're smart and you're quick. But I'm not here to gatekeep what people should or shouldn't like. I like football - soccer - and a lot of people think that's pretty dumb. The most common result is a draw. You call it a tie. Almost 8% of matches don't have a single goal. Players pretend to be hurt and it's pure cringe. Sometimes when people find out I like footy, they give me this whole spiel about how rubbish and pointless the sport is. Is that fair comment? Of course it is! But I like it. Why do I have to like the same things as you? I listened to some Harry Styles songs with my girlfriend and nothing really stood out to me. She thinks they're all great - she had a big Harry phase that I'm not completely sure she's completely out of - so I thought I'd come here and get help. Oh, Sumo, by the way, I need you to film and edit the video. I meant to say that before."

His little monster was jumping on some platforms - he missed one and fell into a chasm. "What? I can't do that."

"Mate!" I said, sweeping my hand around his room. "You've got cameras and stuff. You've got skills. I need you."

HYPECARROT: Sumo you can do it!

TURCULENT_TEDDY: Sorry Max

HAMBO: I pledge many thousands of bits to see Sumo's soccer dance video!!!

"There, that's settled," I said. "It's good Hambo is paying you because the club is skint. Right. Guys, pick a song for me."

HOOSIER_DADDY: Sorry is this a skit? It's obvs

"Hoosier, it's not a sketch. I really am this clueless. Please hit me."

HOOSIER_DADDY: As it was.

The chat went nuts - it was so clearly the right answer. I'd have liked to watched the video there and then but Sumo was doing his stream, which let's face it was his job. I took my headset off. "Er... I'll leave and listen to it in your kitchen and come back."

"No, Max, the run is dead," said Sumo. He tussled his hair and made a little argh noise. "I always forget the third buzzsaw. Guys, we're off Hollow Knight and we're temporarily becoming a Harry Styles reaction video channel." He grinned as the chat expressed massive approval. They loved Sumo's normal content and they loved when I came and disrupted it. "Wait, Max. You've never heard this song before?"

He'd gone to YouTube and brought up the video. The thumbnail was one I hadn't seen before, but that wasn't conclusive. "Er... I think my girlfriend was making me listen to the older stuff? The stuff she liked. This is pretty recent, is it? Yeah, I think this is one I haven't heard."

"Oh, amazing. I'll clip this. When you're massive I'll make millions. Okay, headphones on. Harry Styles, As It Was, reacted to by superstar footballer Max Best, in three, two, one."

The video starts with Harry Styles walking in a crowd. He's sucked back into his memories of a failed relationship. (The chat assures me this is all about the pandemic and his break-up with Olivia Wilde.) For a massive, massive hit song, it's extremely strange. I'm not sure my reactions were very interesting - it was so far from what I was expecting. The video adds to the weirdness - Harry and a beautiful woman come close to each other but can't stay together. It finishes with him dancing happily. Suddenly it's over and I'm asked to explain my feelings.

"Shit," I said. "I don't even know. The music's so upbeat, the lyrics are almost depressing, then there's a kind of triumphant ending." I laughed. "I think I like it but... Was that a rap near the end? That was baffling. I'd need to hear it again, like, ten times."

MEGASHIRA: When Harry looked at the camera you melted

I laughed. "Did I? Yeah, sure, why not? Some stars do that, don't they? They look through the lens right at you. That's the X-factor. That's why they're stars. The camera loves them." I closed my eyes. "I don't have that. I think I have it a bit when I'm running in full flow or taking a free kick or something like that. But okay, yeah. That moment did help me understand why Dani is crazy about the dude."

SHY_TORI: Would Harry be a good soccer player?

"Wow! Great question. Sumo, can you play the bit where he's walking around the circle thing?" I leaned forward and watched and asked him to rewind again. "I'm going to say probably not. He's a great dancer, you'd think he'd have a good base compared to most people. I mean, I'd need to see him live, obviously, but my guess is no. How can I explain it? To be good at most sports you need a kind of..." I gestured with my palm making a chopping motion. "Kind of a directionality. There's the ball, go get it. He seems maybe too fluid."

TURCULENT_TEDDY: He's only got one direction.

The chat blew up. Sumo was soon crying with laughter. My total bewilderment only added fuel to the flame.

"What?" I said.

Sumo wiped a tear away. "Max!"

"Oh. One direction. Holy shit, that's good. That's like a stealth joke." I mimed taking my hat off. "Teddy, chapeau. Amazing. Right, what was the name of the guy who chose this song? I still don't quite get it. Why this one, bro?"

HOOSIER_DADDY: It's about change. Things are different now. It's what you said about your team - it’s not what it was. And you could understand the lyrics of the chorus to be about a team instead of a relationship. In this crazy world we can only rely on each other.

HYPECARROT: True, but there be millions of tiktok dance videos with this track. You've missed the party by about two years.

"That's fine," I said. "I don't need to reinvent the wheel, here. Sumo, can we hear the last thirty seconds again?" There was the rap bit, Harry went 'hey!' and then the chime of massive bells. "Epic feel to the end. Uplifting. Same chorus but opposite meaning. That's the bit I need to choreograph, right?"

"We can mix bits," said Sumo. "Bit from the start, middle, and the end. 30 seconds total." He smiled. Maybe it was the belly laugh he'd just had and the overwhelming feeling of positivity coming from the chat. He stared at nothing. "Yeah. I think this could work. Let's spend a couple of weeks planning it out, storyboarding everything. Maybe we'll do a test run to get the equipment set up right. I might have to borrow some lights from a mate."

I slapped him on the shoulder. "Love the energy. But no. We're doing it tonight."

"Tonight?" he spluttered.

"And don't worry about lights. We'll have the floodlights on."

"You mean…?"

"Yeah. We're filming on the pitch. In the stadium."

"I get to go on the pitch?"

"Not only that," I said, grinning. Sumo being told he could go on the pitch? That was the real reaction video. "You get to boss me around."

***

I went into the city centre and pottered around, deep in thought. I was trying to get my shitty verbal brain to think in images. A thirty-second video, timed perfectly to music, telling my story through the medium of football. Good luck!

I checked my bank balance and decided it was time to finally buy myself something nice. My flea market earphones wouldn't do what I wanted - work properly and stay in my ears - so I went into a shop and let a sales girl convince me I needed Airpods. They were insanely expensive, but she promised me I wouldn't regret it.

"What do you have?" I said.

She reached into her left pocket and pulled out an Airpod case.

"You've got the Samsung ones in your other pocket, haven't you?"

"Ha, you got me," she said, and reached into her right. She came up empty. "Not really. That's a good trick, though. I might start doing that!"

Back in my office, I lay on the mattress and played the song about twenty times. I started to see the shape of what I wanted, and made rather a lot of phone calls.

***

At five I was at the training session for the under 14s. The rebels were back! Future, Benny, Sevenoaks, Captain, and Bomber. Tyson was there, looking subdued.

"Spectrum, mate, I came to cut the spare players but I forgot there weren't any." I'd only offered the hundred pound finders fee to the two older groups. "So I'll leave you to it. One thing, though, I need half the pitch."

"Oh. Sure. I can work around that."

"Ace."

I popped my new toys into my ears - they connected instantly without me having to dick around in the settings; incredible overall feeling of luxury given what I had before - and I pottered over to the far side of the pitch. There I had a bag of footballs, some small round markers, some cones, and some poles.

I did a cursory warmup, then played As It Was on a loop while I experimented with skills. I did kick-ups in time to the beat. I imagined Sumo editing together multiple different types of control - parts of the foot, thigh, chest, shoulder. head - perhaps that could be the progression. From toe to head.

No, I thought. It's not about me. It can start with me, but then we'll add more characters as we go. That's the progression. From me to us.

Holy shit, that felt right.

So I focused on what would be the first few seconds of the video. The part where I would be alone. What mad tekkers could I do?

While the music played, I tried to combine football with dancing. A moonwalk became me dragging the ball backwards. A hip wiggle became me dropping a shoulder to trick a defender. But how to put it all together? It didn't seem possible. So I went back to the start. I did some kick-ups, then as I added something extra to the routine - swinging my foot over the ball, letting it bounce before flicking it up with my standing foot, kneeing it over my head and continuing from the other side - I added a bit more conventional dance.

Yeah, it was a bit less 'pure football' than I wanted, but it would be much more entertaining. Probably. It was hard to be sure. Maybe it was total garbage.

When I paused, I noticed the under fourteens had stopped playing. They hadn't come closer to my side of the pitch. They'd just stopped and had been watching me for God knows how long. Spectrum should have made them get on with their sesh, but he was gawping at me, too.

I popped my earphones out. "What the shit are you doing?" I said, to the collective.

Benny answered. "What the shit are you doing?"

"None of your business, you little oik."

"Is it what we're doing tonight?"

Oh, that's right. I'd invited him. "Yes. Does it look good or cringe?"

"Good," he said, nodding slowly. The nods turned into head shakes. "But I can't do that."

"You probably can. It's a piece of piss. But you won't have to, and I'm only doing this once for a video. This is not how I train. This is not how you train. That's an order."

Future pointed to the balls I'd lined up. I'd put six there, about a metre apart, on a slight diagonal towards the goal. "What are you going to do with them?"

I followed his finger, then shrugged. "I'm thinking of ending by taking a shot, using my momentum to spin and take the next shot. You know, hitting the same corner with each go. In theory I'd time it with the sound of the bells. Not sure I have enough practice time, you know, to perfect it, but that's the general idea." Instead of returning to their drill, most of the kids came closer. "Get back to work," I said, arms wide.

"Can we see it?" said Captain.

"What?"

"Can we watch you do it?"

I rubbed my eyebrows. That was the core problem with this tekkers stuff. Kids loved it, but it was useless. On the other hand, maybe doing kick-ups and skills was good for their technique, and maybe this feat I was attempting would make them practise shooting.

"Fine," I said. Almost all of them went 'yes' under their breath, did little punches, moved closer. "I'm gonna put my music on. When the last shot goes in, get back to work. I'm serious."

I found the place in the song where I thought something like this might work - the bit with the bells. Now that I played it again, the gaps between chimes were really short. I'd have to hustle. I tried to ignore my audience, and focused on the task. The song, the balls, the distances, the goal. Top-right corner. My favourite.

I rewound the song, flicked a ball up, and did twenty seconds of basic tekkers. Then on the first GONG I smashed the first ball. One twist later I was hitting the next. And the next. Top-right, boosh! Top-right, bosch! Top-right, bash! Top-right - well wide. Top-right, swish! Top-right, swish-bosch!

I reviewed what I'd done, wondering what went wrong on the fourth hit - trying to hurry because I was falling behind the beat - then turned to check how the kids liked it. They were in a state of ecstasy. I noted that some of the little cretins had been filming me on their phones. It's often hard to read faces, especially those of teenagers, but I was pretty sure they'd all progressed a level in the Cult of Max. I pointed my index fingers and twirled them. Turn around. Get back to work. They ran off, laughing, pointing. Did you see that?

Hitting free kicks to end the video was not an option. That would make it all about me.

I gathered the balls and packed away the cones.

The filming session was only a couple of hours away, but I wasn't stressed. One more little concept would do it. I had a feeling that everything would click into place.

***

Once we'd filmed things from different angles, we had to leave the editing in Sumo's hopefully capable hands. I pretended to leave, then snuck back into the stadium. I didn't get much sleep. I was thinking about what we could have done better. What we could have achieved if we had more time, more money. But we didn't have either. I tried to knock myself out with a camomile tea and a brown noise video. It helped.

On Wednesday we got a call from an agent who'd heard we needed a left-back. He had a lad rotting in the reserves at Solihull Moors. Would we take a look at him? Inga had already got me tickets to a higher-tier match. I needed the XP, and fast. Getting whacked on the head had really slowed me down. But at the same time, the squad needed cover on the left. I checked the agent’s guy's transfermarkt page and it said he'd also played in midfield. A guy who could play left-back and left-mid would be incredibly helpful. He could be the difference between safety and relegation.

I drove to Birmingham and checked him out. He was CA 28, PA 39. His average rating from the previous season was 6.75. Decent.

While I collected the usual 81 XP and paid off a tiny sliver of debt, I wailed and gnashed my teeth.

We needed a guy like this. He was about as good as Prick Williams with a slightly higher ceiling. The guy would be motivated to get his career back on the rails. But he was the epitome of dead money. We only needed a left-sided player because Ian Evans refused to change formation. We were back to the ultimate culture clash - sexy tekkers phenom versus actual human-sized fossil.

MD had told me I could go to a hotel and put it on expenses, but I knew the club's financial situation too well. I drove back to the stadium and slept there.

Thursday was similar, but since I watched a match in York, I could at least drive back to Darlo and get a proper sleep.

On Friday, my desperate grinding continued. There was only one match being played within a million miles: Holyhead Hotspur versus Porthmadog. That involved a ninety-minute drive to Anglesey, which is in that top-most little blob of Wales close to Ireland. Probably really nice, but like most places I visited for work, I spent more time in car parks than in beauty spots.

The game was incredibly one-sided, and notable for being a rare example of a player who wasn't me getting a ten out of ten rating. Holyhead's goalkeeper must have saved thirty shots and was almost faultless in their two-one defeat. But neither side had any interesting players and I only got 1 XP per minute. The curse didn’t think much of the Welsh League.

While I watched, I fretted about Vivek. He’d had five or six training sessions but was still stuck on CA 1. What was that about?

Adding to a vague sense of unease, a sense that things weren't quite going my way, that I was on the wrong track, came more and more headlines about a potential sale of my boyhood club, Manchester United. There were three interested parties - a hedge fund, a dubious billionaire, and the nation state of Qatar, who’d use the club as a political pawn.

The billionaire was, at least, from Manchester, and he was said to be in pole position. By far the best of a grotesque bunch. Local boy gets rich, buys his favourite team? I could stomach that.

***

XP Balance: 7,573

XP Needed for Playdar: 427

Debt repaid: 538/3000

***

Saturday 21st January, 2023

This was going to be the day I destroyed Chester while wearing the black-and-white Darlington kit. I'd told Henri the score would be eight-nil, and I'd hinted that I would release a bombshell interview saying that Ian Evans had said I wasn't good enough. It would have been bye-bye dinosaur.

As it was, I was in the main stand at Blackwell Meadows alongside Emma, Henri, MD, and Ruth, and we were all backing Ian Evans. I was in disguise, with opaque sunglasses and a plain black baseball cap. I'd asked the others to call me Cliff Daps.

Emma leaned over and whispered, "Remind me why Henri isn't playing."

"He's a Darlington player," I said. "He can't play against his own team."

"That makes sense," she whispered. “I think.”

I'd made a WhatsApp group so we could rant and rave without drawing attention to ourselves. We were surrounded by Darlo fans. I wasn't worried about them, it was more about paying attention to the match and not being bothered by hundreds of people with strong opinions about my life choices.

My fellow VIPs were on edge because an hour before kickoff I'd lost my mind when I saw the Chester Squad tactics screen. The formation and line-up had been untouched since the previous match, but when Evans handed in his team sheet for the match, my screen updated to show Tony Hetherington had replaced Henri.

And that was it!

The only change!

The fossil had picked an injured player. Aff was in the team despite his dodgy hamstring. After I'd kicked up such a fuss about how I wanted small injuries to be treated and rested so that they didn't turn into big ones. It felt like a provocation from the pensioner. He was pushing back against my authority, against my change in culture. But how we treated injuries couldn't be considered wokeism or snowflakery - it was pure common sense. A player misses one game to make sure he's available for the next eight. Why would anyone resist that?

On the pitch, the teams were ready. Lots of familiar faces and profiles. The referee blew his whistle, Blondie passed to Junior, and the home crowd roared. Game on! Darlington had been on a strangely poor run of form since I'd left, and like Chester they'd been slipping down the table. Talk of the title seemed a distant memory. Now their focus was on getting into the playoffs.

Funny how quickly sport changes. If I'd played, this game would have been the peak of Darlington's campaign. A thrilling and ruthless eight-nil win that put fear into the hearts of everyone they played thereafter. A stunning, crushing display that would have given them more than enough momentum to glide through the rest of the season without me.

But the players knew the stakes were lower, and they played like it. Darlington were sloppy. Careless. Out of position. Slow to turn, slow to support, slow to decide.

For twenty minutes, Chester were on top.

Then:

Walker collects the loose ball. He plays it neatly into midfield.

Topps gathers, lays it off to Flintoff. He sweeps it wide to the left.

Aff runs onto it, and with a burst of pace gets past Colin!

He's clear. The cross is good!

GOOOOAAAALLLL!

Hetherington nods home.

It’s no more than Chester deserve - they have started so well.

.

MD: You had me worried, Max! Aff's hammy seems fine. Maybe Dean cleared him this morning.

I rolled my eyes so hard I ended up looking at the stadium's roof.

Me: This is what pisses me off. It's not about what happens. It's about the percentages. If there's a 50% chance he's out for two months, you don't take it. If Evans gets away with this, great. Good for Aff, good for us. But don't pretend Evans didn't walk into the casino and bet our best player on black.

Henri: Best player?

Me: Yes, mate.

Ruth: He doesn't mean it. He raves about you.

While Henri pouted and Emma pulled a face that showed she wasn't pleased by my disloyalty, the match continued. I found myself wondering what the best outcome would be. A win for Chester, of course. But in terms of Aff, it was obviously, miles better that he didn't get injured. But MD didn't seem moved by my percentages argument. If Aff really did wreck his hamstring, that would surely be the final nail in the old-school way of treating injuries.

Right?

It was the 29th minute when it happened. Aff sprinting to cover for Doug Walker. Doing his defensive duties, helping out his teammate, putting in a shift. If you put Aff on the pitch you knew you were going to get 100% from him. Or, as footballers call it, 110%.

"Merde," said Henri. You didn't need a curse to tell you when a hamstring had popped. The tell-tale stumble, the hand reaching to the back of the thigh.

The injury did one positive thing - it answered the question of how it would make me feel.

I slumped forward, head in hands. The planet's gravity had been recentred to a spot somewhere in my gut. Eight weeks. If he couldn't play for eight weeks that would be... that would be... I got my phone out and checked the fixture list. All the winter's postponed matches were about to come thick and fast. Eleven matches out, and he'd be half-fit for the remaining seven.

Me: Mike, your boy just got us relegated.

I let the truth bomb explode behind me as I walked away. Michael Bay eat your heart out. I made it to the bottom of the steps, turned around and retook my seat.

Me: I'm only back so I don't get a reputation for dramatic exits. This fucking sucks. Nobody talk to me. Bye.

Emma: Okay bye.

Ruth: Seeya.

Me: Holy fuck! He's going to put Raffi on left-mid! I can't watch this. Emma, let's go to Scarborough. They've got flamingoes.

MD is typing...

But MD never pressed send. I knew he was writing something along the lines of 'Ian would never do that.' But sure enough, Raffi appeared on the touchline, went to left-midfield, and MD deleted his missive.

Darlington equalised before the break, and won three-one with a miscast Raffi putting in a four out of ten performance and contriving to make the abysmal Webby look good. The home fans were jubilant. They had three points in the bag. I got 162 XP and a splitting headache.

***

I'd made the mistake of inviting a bunch of people to Henri's house after the match. The ones I'd watched the atrocity with, plus Longstaff, Junior (when he had finished celebrating), Bark, Benzo, and Pascal Bochum.

I think I tried not to be a miserable bastard, and, yeah, let's say I partially succeeded. Apart from hanging out with some friends, I had an ulterior motive for the event. I wanted to introduce Ruth to Junior and Bark. They would be very good starter clients for our agency (tentatively named R.E.M. Sports - "We Never Sleep"). And I thought it would be good for Pascal to meet MD and Henri. Henri was delighted, switching instantly to German and bringing the kid over to his bookshelf to discuss goats. I think he said goats.

MD sidled up to me. "Did you mean that, about..." He couldn't say it. "About Scenario B?"

"Yes. We are fucked."

"Even if the FA hearing clears you?"

"Oh, no. Then I'd play and we'd win every match. But not under Evans. What he did today was disgraceful. Aff isn't some fucking cattle. He's the only player we've got who can run the ball from midfield to attack. Whatever point Ian was trying to prove, he's proved it. And he's fucked us. Because I won't be cleared. I won't be able to play this season. From the summer, I'm a free man. Until then, you'd best assume I can't play. Unless I can find a guy as good as Aff who'll play for free, we're toast. That's it. I'm done talking about it. Have a crisp."

"I don't want a crisp."

"An olive on a stick, then! For fuck's sake."

I pottered outside and took a few deep breaths. The evening air was sharp. I went out to the crabapple and rubbed its bark. If it could talk, what would it tell me? That it had some hairy moments early on? That it nearly didn't make it through the winter of 2020? That Hurricane Whatever nearly wiped it out in '21? But it came through even stronger and now look at it.

Nope. It wouldn't tell me that because it had been grown in a massive greenhouse in Holland. The guy had been pampered.

I went back inside - everyone except MD was having a great time. Ruth was good at the schmoozing. Junior was eating out of her hand. Bark and Benzo were mooning over Emma.

"MD," I said, about to smooth things over. But I got a message and the sender made me double-take. "It's from Sumo. He's finished the edit. Um... I think we should watch separately, to get the full effect. Do you know what I mean?"

"Sure. Send me the link."

"It's not online yet. We have to approve it, then he'll send it to Spectrum. Won't take long. Who should go first?"

"Me," said MD.

"Nah. Wasn’t a serious question."

I wandered back out to the tree, put my earphones in, and pressed play.

The file was thirty seconds long and the suggested name for the video was: Chester FC - Not the Same.

***

Intro

What You Hear

We hear the first ten seconds of the track. It's poppy, fresh, upbeat, the hook is addictive.

What You See

Max Best reclining in the D of a misty, floodlit Deva stadium. He's wearing full Best 77 Chester kit, but he's pensive, lonely. We let this play out as long as modern attention spans can bear, though throughout the video the camera is always moving.

A ball rolls towards him. Max looks up. [The camera] is there. [The camera] is you, the viewer, because it could be you getting all this attention from Max. Max rewards you with a smile while he flicks the ball up, doinks it from foot to foot in tune to the music, until the ball comes to rest on his head. He stretches, gets to his feet without missing a beat, bounces it from shoulder to shoulder, lets the ball drop, kicks it up, rolls his foot all the way round the ball as it is dropping, and passes it back to you. He begins to stride forward.

Chorus

What You Hear

Harry Styles sings, 'ooh-oh-oh' and eases into the butter-soft chorus. Like most of the song's lyrics, they're melancholic, almost dystopian, an intriguing contrast to the underlying pop sound. In this world, he sighs, it’s just us.

What You See

Max walks, copying the Harry walk as far as he can manage, in a circle to the side of you. You move closer, and as your gaze sweeps longingly towards Max's upper body, he uses sign language to perform the chorus. While he has literal eye sex with you, he points down - captions show what word he's signing - 'IN' - he makes a big football shape - 'WORLD' - he points one finger up - 'IT' - a second finger joins the first and they 'walk' upside down - 'US' - both index fingers pointing up, coming together - 'JUST'.

The words rearrange to follow hearing grammar: In this world, it's just us. The look on Max's face tells you he means it.

Coda

What You Hear

The music skips to about two minutes eighteen seconds into the official track - it's the song's triumphant, exuberant ending. You hear Harry Styles yell, 'hey!' and massive bells start ringing.

What You See

Max passes to someone off-screen, the video cuts to her, and now you're looking at a girl wearing a cyberpunk hearing aid, who passes to a tall, black, former bouncer, who passes to a kid with Down's Syndrome, who passes to the son of a former star player, and then a whole diverse cast of characters tries to follow Max Best in scoring a free-kick, and every strike is set to the gong of the bell, dong dong dong dong, and all the results of all the attempts are shown in one cleverly edited moment.

Then as the bells continue, Max is holding hands with you, you're spinning round, and every rotation brings a new face into view - Vivek, Zoe, Raffi, Benny, Wilson, James, and finally, Max again. It's the happiest you've ever seen him.

Suddenly, a wide shot shows fifty players of all shapes and sizes, all in Chester kits, all taking a shot at goal. There's a guy acting as goalkeeper - he makes a valiant effort to save all fifty shots. Could it be - ? It is!

The video closes with Max still in goal, daring you to take a shot. He smirks, but you wipe the smile off his face with a powerful shot that CRASHES into the right-hand post. The ball flies way over to the edge of the pitch. A black girl is walking past in her school uniform. She sees the ball, sets herself, and smashes the ball back to Max. He winces as it stings his palms.

He looks surprised, smiles, waves her over.

She frowns and points to herself. Who me?

Max is still smiling, a huge, impressed smile. Yes, you!

Kisi runs in and is swamped by fifty excited Chester players, parents of players, fans, and employees.

The scene fades, the Chester badge hits the screen (as though it has actual weight and it's bursting through a powdery film, super cool effect), and some text appears. Not the same as it was. Chester FC. New players welcome.

The video ends.

***

A little too on the nose? Yeah. On the nose like a Mike Tyson left hook. I’m instantly punch drunk.

I watched, pulse racing, as MD went through all the emotions I did.

“You did this on Tuesday night? With no budget? I recognise almost everyone. I’m actually quite moved. Taken aback. This is community spirit, Max. Let me watch it again.”

“Pass and move, mate. Don’t dawdle on the ball.”

We passed the phone around the room, energy flooding in from all around, my guests being converted, one by one, by the power of the story. Bark and Benzo almost refused to let go of my phone. They wanted to watch it again and again. Emma looked me up and down like she was seeing me for the first time. She kept replaying the bit where I did sign language. Henri watched in dreadful, impassive silence, then gave me a hug that lasted far too long and gregariously insisted I live in his house for as long as I needed. Ruth tried to play it cool, and she was the only one who didn't try to watch the video more than once. She would, though. When it was released, she'd rewatch the shit out of it.

Me: Sumo, mate. You are the greatest living Cestrian. I owe you big. I'm deliriously happy. Get it launched.

I stood there, leaning on Henri's kitchen counter, waiting for my pulse to come down. This video was going to sweep Dani off her feet, no doubt about it. When I thought of her in a Chester kit, I couldn't stop smiling.

Things couldn't possibly have gotten any better.

But they did. Holy shit, they did.

MD asked if he could have another look, and when it was finished, he smiled and handed my phone back. He wandered outside and stared at the tree. I felt something had happened, and some instinct took me into the Job Information area of the curse.

Guess what I saw? Near the bottom of the many, many managers at risk of losing their jobs was this entry from the National League North.

Ian Evans - Chester - England - NatN - Insecure

...

Thanks for your support!

I wanted to joke about turning this into a Harry Styles fanfic but there's too much risk someone will take me seriously.

No promises but I'm pretty sure the next chapter will be called... drum roll... PLAYDAR.