28 - While My Shit Car Gently Weeps [T1] (Patreon)

28.

Thursday, 16th March

Before lunch, Jackie and I had a quick meeting with MD, whose emotional state was part despair, part anger. He gave us a piece of his mind, ordered us to work together, and kicked the door on his way out. One of the photos Livia had hung up wobbled, but didn't fall. It was a young Jackie - with hair! - playing one of the two matches he played for Everton in the League Cup.

I rose and adjusted it. "Do you think they put you in the team too early?" I said.

"Nah," he replied. "Moyes let me train with the first team sometimes, so I was champing at the bit by the time Roberto gave me a go. You see that, there?"

I stared into the photo, but I was watching Jackie's reflection. Behind me, he pulled a face - couldn't tell what - and pulled himself to his feet. He paused, pretending to be looking out his window, then came over.

"That little circle there, in the background? We're pretty sure that's my dad. That's where he sat, and it looks like him."

"That little smudge?" I laughed. Well, maybe it was. "It's good he was there to see it. The second highest moment of your career."

"What's first?"

I smiled. Gave him a friendly punch on the upper chest. "That's yet to come, mate. Come on. Car's outside. I threw a load of burger wrappers and empty cans in there to make you feel at home."

As fate would have it, Jackie had called me the night before, asking for a big favour. A big, discreet favour. He said he needed a lift somewhere. I said sure. He said I hadn't asked where. I said it didn't matter.

And now MD had ordered us to talk to each other. Work things out. What better time to bond than during a short, breezy drive?

“Er… Max. Your car is leaking.” He pointed to a tiny, almost invisible oil stain located underneath one of the least important pipes on the entire vehicle.

“Don’t tell lies,” I said. The truth was, a repair of my tubes would cost 79 pounds. Money I was curiously reluctant to spend. “It’s perfectly safe. Get in.”

Jackie got in the passenger side and looked around for the rubbish I'd mentioned. As if. My car was shit, and leaked, but it was clean.

I eased into my throne and handed him a roast beef butty. "So, Liverpool," I said.

"Liverpool," he said, eyeing the sandwich. He was right to be impressed; it was artisanal. The bread was covered in bits. "Turn left onto Bumper's."

"Ah, ah!" I said, holding a finger up. "We must observe the formalities!" I made a big show of plugging my phone into the car. "Can you guess what we're going to listen to?"

He shook his head with a grin that said, 'So, you're going to be a dick about this.' He looked up at the roof. "Obviously, you're going to blast This Is the One way beyond what your sound system can actually handle." When Jackie had taken me to Chester all those months ago, he'd serenaded me with an ear-splitting rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone, the dirge sung by Liverpool fans. The closest equivalent for Man United would be This Is the One by The Stone Roses. That was the song that was played when the teams walked onto the pitch at Old Trafford.

"Sorry, bro. This Is the One is a banger. You don't get nice things after what you did to me. I've waited a long time for this moment."

I pressed play, and we set off.

"What the shit is this?" yelled Jackie.

I grinned. "Do you like it?"

"It's torture."

I beamed and slapped the steering wheel in time to the beat.

It was a sort of electro-indie song with an addictive hook and preposterous autotune effects. It was based around a sample taken from a football stadium, and the musician I'd hired had even freestyled a little rap to give it a good bridge between sections.

Best! wickywickywickywakka Best will tear you apart - again.

Best! wickywickyWICKYwakka Best will tear you apart - HAgain!

They call him Best, the maximum of cool,

Risin' to the top, breakin' every offside rule.

A master of the game, no mistakin' his claim,

Best in the business, remember the name!

And back to the chorus. On a global scale, compared to all the music in the world ever, it'd be a 3 out of 10 tune. But to wind Jackie up - mate, mission accomplished.

We were driving past the university when it ended. Appropriate; I'd given Jackie a lesson in patience and payback.

Jackie rubbed his temples. "I'm speechless."

"Do you want me to teach you the rap?"

"No. Was that you singing?"

"I can't sing. There's an internet guy who makes songs on demand. That absolute tune only cost a hundred American dollars. That’s under 80 quid. Can you believe it? Maybe he's got an AI to do it in two minutes flat but I think it's impressive."

"You paid a hundred bucks to annoy me?"

"It'll play at my funeral, too. Double the value. You're going to tell me when to turn, yeah?"

"It's straight for miles. Until the A550." We sat in silence for a while. Well, mostly silence. I might have been mumbling the rap and slapping the steering wheel. Jackie finally stirred and said, "Do you want to know where we're going?"

"I presume it's to the recording studio The Beatles used. To get this pressed. To get this out there."

"You're not interested?"

"I'm interested but I think we have other things we should be talking about."

"Yeah," he said, settling back, rubbing his face.

"Let's start with Leamington. How did that go, from your point of view?"

"Not good."

"Okay," I snapped. "We're not doing that."

"What?"

"That fucking man-baby self-pity shit. We've got a football club to save, and being a man-baby is my job. First half, Leamington mullered us. Two-nil at half-time. What did you say to the lads?"

"Shouted at them. Proper lost my temper."

"You didn't change anything? Tactically?"

"No. The plan was fine."

"As we saw."

"Right. Next 25, we battered them. Bang bang bang, three-two."

I licked my lips. "Then you went defensive."

"I went counter-attacking."

"You went defensive." Jackie had reverted to 4-4-2, got men behind the ball, and invited pressure. Leamington had equalised, and there had been an agonising final five minutes. It finished three-all, but the point didn't help us much in the relegation battle. "Right. The players were scrapping, though? Battling? Because some people are saying they've given up."

"They haven't given up. They were battling."

I nodded. That had been my impression, too. I let out a sigh. A big one. "Then Banbury."

Jackie sighed, too. He rubbed his hands all over his face and head, like his palms were those squeegees in a car wash. "Yeah. Banbury."

"Is it just my imagination or did we set up against them like they were Brazil 1970?"

"That is your imagination, yeah."

"Because as you know, Jackie, they're shit. It was strange to see us treat their number 9 like he was Pelé." Jackie sighed again, was still for a moment, then started squirming around. I needed to have this conversation with him, but I didn't want him to nag him so much he shut down. "Do you want to hear my song again?"

"Their number 9 is massive and wins every header. You have to react to that."

"Yeah, you should base your whole plan around one gigantic farmer with a huge pumpkin for a head. Heading 20, speed 20... miles per year."

"He's a danger, that guy. You've got to do something about him."

It was actually fun, this, talking about tactics and plans with someone close to my level. At least, it would have been fun if Jackie wasn't a broken man. I had the weird feeling that I was meant to put him back together. Who else could do it? I needed to tell him off, first. He kept reverting to dinosaur football. "You made Glenn Ryder man-mark him. So our best defender was stuck in one spot the whole match, trying to win headers against a guy who wins every header! It was surreal. Just ignore him! What's he going to do? Win flick-ons? And then what? Charge into the penalty area? It takes him five minutes to turn around. You need Ryder doing his normal job, taking up the right positions, cleaning up the second balls, organising the rest of the defence."

"What would you have done about him?"

"About Jabba the Shit? Nothing. He's nobody. He's shit, his team's shit. 4-2-4, all-out attack, have some of that."

Jackie scoffed. "4-2-4, away?"

"Yep. What's the worst that can happen?"

"We lose."

"We lost anyway, Jackie. We made the whole match about some seven foot genetic throwback. Every team at Chester takes the initiative, poses the questions, every team tries to be the protagonist, every team except one."

"It's not that easy, Max."

"It is, actually. What's the greatest team talk in history? Alex Ferguson. Man United are at home to Tottenham. He goes in the dressing room, and what does he say?" I was sure Jackie would know the story, and I was right.

"'Lads, it's Tottenham.'"

"Three words. Done. It says everything. Lads, it's Banbury. While we're playing fantasy football, they'll be kicking it long to the Wicker Man. While we're scoring our sixth goal, he'll start crying coz he ran out of fingers to count on."

No smile from Jackie. Just a mirthless, "Take this exit."

I pulled into the slow lane. Still ages to go. "Right. You asked me to leave you alone, and I did. Like all alpha male executive types I've been reading The Art of War. There was one quote that stuck out. I forget the exact wording, but basically, wars always go bad when the sovereign interferes with the generals. Okay, I think I take that point. But you heard MD. He ordered us to work together. So I'm not the sovereign, any more. He is."

"You want me to wear an earpiece while you tell me what to do from the Director's Box?"

MD had fired all kinds of ideas at us, some more realistic than others. "No. I want to help you in the absolute most minimal way possible. I've been thinking about how to help you without you even knowing it. Mad, underhanded schemes like in movies. But that's not what you need. You don’t need me at all. Not in the slightest. What you need is to get out of your own way."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yeah. You're in a doom loop."

"Max."

"No, fuck you, I'm serious. We're doing this. It's not just for you and the club. It's for Livia. She has to put up with your marding around. At first I didn't mind it. A bit of worry makes her look like a sort of pre-Raphaelite Ophelia. But now she looks like a ghost. She wears baseball caps, mate. She never chats. She normally tells little stories about what her weird family is up to. Not any more. She only talks if you ask her something. It's depressing. So you're going to let me fix you. For her."

"You're going to fix me?"

"Absolutely. Lads, it's therapy. Piece of piss. There's my bag there, can you open it? Get that paper that's wedged into the pen lid."

Jackie rummaged and came up holding the item I'd described. He pulled the pen away and unfolded the piece of paper. He skimmed the page. "No. No way."

"We're doing it or you're fired." I cleared my throat. I didn't have much experience as a therapist. I'd have to learn on the job. "Livia told me this was the sequence they used when you did your rehab for your knees. What's the first step?" He didn't say anything. "Read out the first step or you're fired." Still nothing. "Read the first step or in a month Emma and I will be on a double date with Livia and Henri."

I was busy navigating the maniacs driving around Ellesmere Port so I couldn't check his expression. His voice was pretty flat. "Accept and acknowledge your feelings."

"Great. Let's do that."

There was a silence that lasted so long I thought this experiment was over. Twice I nearly pressed play on my song to punish him. Finally, he spoke. "My feelings... I feel embarrassed."

I waited for more. "Is that it?"

"What else do you want?"

"I want you to be honest."

"That's it, Max. It's enough, isn't it? What do you want me to say?"

"Say that your brain is fried. That the walls are closing in. Everyone's looking at you, laughing, they know you're inadequate. Your skin's on fire, heart's pounding, ears are thumping. Cliches make sense: you want the earth to swallow you up. You wonder how it came to this. You thought you were ready. You thought you could do it, but you can't, you're shit, there's nothing there, everything that led you to this moment was a cosmic joke."

I felt Jackie sag. "Is it that obvious?"

"No, you cretin. I was describing myself."

He straightened a fraction. "What?"

I sighed. Talking about feelings was not fun, but we had to get through this so we could get back to formations and training and squad building and all that top stuff. "I've been lucky in a way that you haven't. Remember that day I brought Ziggy to FC United? I managed the reserves for the second half of that training match."

Jackie turned his head towards me. "You said you'd do 5-3-2, but that was a lie so you could play with our toys."

"Absolutely. And what did I do? Smashed the first team."

"No, you didn't."

"I did. I realised beating Neil would be bad for Ziggy, so I eased up. What was that, thirty minutes of competing? A tiny syringeful of experience. Now, imagine that was my vaccination."

"Against what?"

"Against the stress of being a football manager. You get your shot, right, and you wait a while. That's how it works. I had weeks to think about my battle with Neil. Months. My first combat against a real manager, right? And I did fine. Next time was Chester reserves against Ian Evans. And all that stuff I just described to you, that's how I felt for the first twenty minutes. Smasho and Nice One talked me down from the ledge, I kept things simple, I realised there was no mystery to what Evans was doing, I smashed him. That was my booster."

"Huh," said Jackie. The metaphor was working for him.

"But after the booster, you need another break. And then at maybe just the right time, Dave Cutter gets himself sent off in the first ten minutes of a Darlo match. I take over at half time. I'm not exactly the manager, but the lads do what I tell them."

"That was the four-all," said Jackie, brightening for the first time that day. "I heard about it. You went nuts in the second half."

"Laser-focused counter-attacking," I said. "But it doesn't matter what happened, really, for this conversation. I'm saying, I've had three halves of football management against proper managers, all nicely spaced out, lots of time for me to absorb the lessons. Er... please don't tell anyone about the Darlo thing. That's secret."

"That could help your career if people knew."

"Secret.” I shook my head at some driver overtaking from the slow lane. Idiot. “I think it was very, very helpful that my first taste of battle went well. Now, take you. You won your first game. The energy was so positive it would have been hard not to. It's like a free hit; doesn't count. The next one counted, and you lost. And it's been a struggle ever since. So you're in the doom loop. There's a match on Saturday, on Tuesday, on Saturday, on Tuesday. Most are away so you're spending half your week on a bus. You don't have time to process the last match. You're stuck. If I'd lost my three halves, yeah, I'd be having loads of low-level anxiety, I think. Doubts. Am I good enough? I might have said, oh, I need another year. Maybe I'll stick to being an agent. But that's not what happened. What happened was: I slapped. I slapped three times and now I've got full immunity."

I focused on my driving for a bit, then nodded. I'd remembered where I was going with that line of reasoning.

"You feel embarrassed? Because why? Because you didn't have the chance to have a quick go in the hot seat six months ago when it would help you now? Because it was a wet winter and all those away matches got shoved to the end of the season? Because MD and the last five managers left you a shit squad full of morons? Feel what you need to feel but I don't think what you're doing is embarrassing. 95% of the time you're fucking killing it. What's the next bullet point?"

"Control what you can."

"Right. I read your interviews from the last two matches. Loads of moaning about the referee. What's the point? Focus on coaching and tactics. That's all you can control. I don't want to hear you talking about referees again. Anything to add?"

"I tried to control the Banbury match by marking the dominant striker and you didn't like that."

"Because he's shit. And anyway, it says control what you can. Imagine there's a two-metre circle around that guy. Fine, let's say he's got that tiny blob locked down. Control the rest of the pitch. We both know you can do that. And when you do that, this trundling siege weapon is a liability, isn't he? Next."

"Have clear aims."

"We're playing Blyth on Saturday. At home. They're shit. We should have a minimum of 20 shots in that game."

"I'm supposed to come up with the aims, Max."

"Your aims are, like, oh let's all dance around the tallest player. We're a bunch of June bugs. Wheee!"

"Jesus wept." He sighed. "20 shots. Why 20?"

"Because I don't want to stress you by asking for the real number, which is 25."

"What about goals?"

"What about them? You can't control how many goals there are. Shots, though. You can get me 20 shots."

"All right. I'll write it down and underline it three times. This is all brilliant, by the way, I’m nearly fully recovered. Next point. Ask for or accept help."

"You've done that one. You asked me for help today. That's why I'm driving you to," I did a fake vomit noise, "Liverpool."

"And I appreciate it. You've been before, though."

"No, it's my first time in my whole life. I've been putting it off. I half-hoped I could do a whole football career without stepping foot in Merseyside. You know, like Denis Bergkamp never got on a plane."

"All that driving around, all that scouting, and you never went to Merseyside?"

"Nope."

"Well, I suppose I'm honoured." I didn't say anything, so he looked down at the list again. "Use visualisation as a tool."

"On 70 minutes, when you're thinking of making a defensive change, thinking of trying to keep things tight, just imagine Henri and Livia walking hand-in-hand around Paris in the summer. She's wearing big sunglasses, he's got a jaunty scarf."

"Max."

"There's a breeze that brings the smell of onion soup, the distant strains of an accordion. 'My sweet', says the sandalwood-smelling striker. 'He's playing our song.' Livia pauses, smiles. 'Why yes, mon petit champignon, I do believe it is.' And they rush towards it, and they hear..."

Best! wickywickywickywakka Best will tear you apart - again.

"Fucking hell, Max," said Jackie, reaching over to press stop on my media player. "I can visualise my own nightmares, thank you very much. Why do you always go straight to the imagery of Livia leaving me?"

"Duh! I'm projecTING," I said, in the moronic, sarcastic tone I'd learned as a teenager. I still used it when I wanted to say something serious without being seen to take myself too seriously. "I'm afraid everyone will find out I'm a FRA-UD and I'll lose EV-ery-thing starting with Em-MUH. Oh-KAY? Is that all RIGHT?"

Slight smile. "Okay, Max."

I went right back to my normal voice. "Or you can use visualisation to, like, create patterns of play like the Max Best Challenge. And the last step, I remember, is: cultivate optimism. Optimistic Jackie Reaper in three, two, one..."

"Nyeah," he said, optimistically. "I want to be positive. I do. But we're so deep in dog shit. Three points behind Bradford, and they have two more games to play. If they draw both, we're five points behind."

"Holy shit," I laughed. "That's the worst optimism I've ever heard. Try again."

"No, Max. We're in the shit. We have to be serious about it."

"Ah, you're wrong there, Jackie mate. You're in the shit. I'm not."

"What do you mean?"

"After Leamington, there was an emergency meeting. Monday evening. The Board, MD, Joe, me, got together to discuss Scenario B planning. The main worry is that relegation means no enthusiasm for the Boost the Budget campaign. So that would mean cuts, and going to tier 7 means savage cuts. It was all pretty calm. People spoke and people listened. Refreshing. I laid out my vision for life in the seventh tier."

"Go on."

"Everyone who's out of contract leaves. We try to offload Sam Topps, get a fee for Raffi. Pascal can leave if he gets a club. Vimsy goes. Physio Dean goes. We keep the other coaches and Livia. Max Best, player-manager. The team is Magnus and Youngster, plus loads of 17-year olds. I start the season by winning games single-handed, until the lads get up to speed and I can come on for the last 20 to add a bit of pizzazz to the scorelines."

"Where are you going to find these teenagers?"

"That's just it!" I said, excited. "Have you heard of exit trials?"

"Of course."

"I hadn't! Someone told me about it on my coaching course. Players who are getting cut from their clubs get a day to show what they can do. Trials! Hunger Games shit, with a match at the end. Right?"

"It's not always like that, but you get to look at a lot of talented players in one place. Yeah... I can imagine you could get half a team out of those lads. And they'd be keen to come."

"Keen? Where else do they go from being rejects to being first team regulars? Yeah, look. Relegation would be a disaster. It's not the plan. Not at all. But if it happens, I'll make the most of it. We'll win the league on a literal shoestring. A few months into the season, the Deva will be full. Bunch of kids playing fantasy football! Imagine it. MD was like, you think we can cut the budget from 15 grand a week to 3 or 4 and build a title-winning team? Even Sean and Ollie, the twats, were into it. Maybe they just think I'll fall flat on my face and they can get rid of me sooner, but they really seemed to appreciate that the worst case scenario had a silver lining. They're going to let me try."

"I'm glad you're trying to help but you're not good at this cultivating optimism business, Max."

I laughed. "I’m just saying, Chester will survive. Come back stronger. I guarantee it.” I sucked my lips into weird shapes for a bit. “It's been interesting watching you from a distance. It's been a sort of safe space for me to think about my issues. You know us snowflakes love our safe spaces. I was thinking, I spend so much of my life afraid. Afraid my best player will quit because I annoyed her. Afraid my girlfriend will leave me. Afraid I'll run out of money. Afraid I'll get hurt playing. Afraid I won't be able to help my mum... or my friends." 

I paused. I'd made myself emotional. And I'd been doing so well. 

"We've all got different skills. One of mine has always been exams. Most people are afraid of exams. I was never bothered by them. You either know the answers or you don't, right? When I was moving into secondary school there was a test to see which classes I should go in. I whizzed through the pages, and then there was this question. It was a football league table! You got some scores and some numbers and you had to work out the rest of the scores and the rest of the table. Like, if team A conceded 7 goals and drew 2 games then that meant they couldn't have lost to team B, so team C must have beaten team D! I loved it. It's one of the most fun things I've ever done. I think I was, like, cackling with delight right there in the exam room. Do you get me?"

Genuine grin. "I can just see it."

"It was the perfect combination of being the right mental challenge for tiny Max and being super motivational. I wasn't worried about the results. I loved the process. You can guess I got an amazing score from that exam. And so what? To work in a call centre? Now, I know you love the football process. I know you're motivated. I know this level is actually easy for you. Fear's got you all twisted up. You’re scared of exams. I'd like to introduce you to a little concept I call Fearless Football. Take a big swing. What’s the worst that can happen? You see, people say it's always darkest before the dawn, but I say it's darkest just before the heat death of the universe. And that's in, like, loads of billions of years from now. All right? So cheer up, you miserable bastard! You played for Everton! You're the best man-manager I've ever seen. You're the best coach I've ever seen. You know, now that I think of it... yes, I think you're my favourite employee."

Jackie laughed. We hadn't really discussed the weirdness of our new roles. How could I be above him in the hierarchy if he was the one everyone took orders from and oh by the way, he's also sort of my mentor? "Thanks, boss," he said, which was positive. A bit of his humour coming back.

I slapped the steering wheel. "We get through this, you've got the summer to process it all, we dump some of the trash we inherited. I bring you the best of the best from the exit trials. You whip them into shape. I've never been more optimistic about anything than next season, except maybe the one after that. We're putting quality in the pipeline, and when those little gems get to the first team, you'll be coaching them. We're going to the moon. Ugh."

"What?"

"Is that Liverpool?"

"Yeah. Nice, innit?"

"I think I need to put on some music. Something upbeat to help me, you know, accept my situation and visualise a time when it will soon be over."

***

We pulled into a hospital Pay and Display. I parked - a study in perpendicularity; I should have won a cash prize - and the situation hit me. "Should I be worried?"

"You shouldn't be more worried than me, Maxy boy." He leaned forward and looked at the building. It was a private hospital, but didn't have the luxury and class that my mental image of private hospitals had. Where were the perfectly-ordered French gardens? The fountains? The carefully-chosen fonts? "It's me knee," he said. "Hoped I was done with this place for good."

"Your knee hurts?"

"Yeah."

I thought I knew where this was going. "Did it start hurting maybe the morning after we lost to Bradford?"

Jackie leaned forward until his head was resting on the dashboard. He came back up, eventually, with a little indentation in his forehead. "This is me own fault for helping you. No good deed goes unpunished. Come and help me out."

I got out, went to his side, and held his arm as he emerged. "Why aren't you on crutches, mate? Have you been pretending to be fine for weeks but you've been in pain?" The thought angered me. "You fucking dick! We're all relying on you to make good decisions and you're in pain! What the actual FUCK."

Jackie smiled. Put his palms on me. "I'm not in constant pain, Max. It's not good when I sit in one place for too long. And your car is uncomfortable."

I stepped away, lest I do something the law couldn’t forgive. "Apologise to her or you're sacked."

Jackie smiled again and patted the bonnet. "Sorry, luv. I didn't mean it."

"Do you want me to carry you in?"

Jackie's smile vanished. "No."

We glided, smoothly, virtually hovering on pristine knees (me) and creaked and cracked and shuffled and slid (him). Reception told us where to go. I asked Jackie if he wanted to be alone with the specialist, and he said, yeah, probably. I asked when he planned to tell Livia, and he said he'd tell her when there was something to tell because otherwise she'd worry and he couldn't do that to her. It sounded like horseshit to me, but he was allowed to fuck up his relationship. My job was to make sure he got us three points on Saturday.

The orthopaedic specialist - Sanj - popped out of his inner sanctum, said he was both happy and unhappy to see Jackie again, which was charming, actually, but said he needed a bit longer with his current patient and he'd be twenty minutes late.

Jackie, being a good person, first thought of me. "Max, I'm sorry."

"How long will your whatever take?" I spoke to the doctor as much as Jackie.

"Oh, half an hour, perhaps? Perhaps a little longer?"

"I'll go explore Liverpool, maybe. I saw some nice bits of concrete over there."

Sanj and Jackie exchanged a glance. Both proud Liverpudlians, not happy being dissed. Jackie pointed to a chair. "You do that, mate. But... stick around for the next twenty, eh?"

The doc retreated into his cave. Jackie perched on the armrests between two chairs. Sometimes he pushed himself off and had a little potter. Keep those knee juices flowing.

"What did you say to the lads?" he said.

"When?" I said, though I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Yesterday morning. Before training."

"How was the session?" I said, though I had a pretty good idea because I'd seen the results on the Chester Squad screen.

"Phenomenal," he said, frowning. "I've got to be honest... After Tuesday's defeat, I was pretty down. Wednesday training starts, my heart isn't really in it. The lads, though. I was looking around, like, what's all dis? It started normal, but then they, like, I don't know."

"Trained like their careers depended on it?"

Jackie gave me a level look. "Yeah." My reply was a smug grin and some little lip pushes. Deeply annoying to look at, I'm sure, but very satisfying when it's happening on your own face. "Max," demanded Jackie. "Tell me. Tell me or you're sacked."

"Ha. Doesn't work that way round. I'm sure you'll hear anyway. And listen, don't fly off the handle."

"Oh, God."

"So you know that email we got from the FA?"

"The new contract conditions?"

"Yeah. There was a big furore about it. The lads were up in arms. They turned up at the training ground at 7 a.m. demanding answers, stressed off their tits. Trick Williams wailing and gnashing his teeth about his mortgage. Sam Topps saying he’d just put his kid in childcare and how was he supposed to pay for it. All that, times twenty. MD called me at, like, three minutes past 7 to come and deal with the sitch." I studied his face. "You didn't read it, did you?"

"I did, but..." But I've got a million other things to worry about. Fair enough.

"Yeah, this is the week of Max Best being called to Chester every morning to put out some fire. So the basic point is, from this summer, non-league contracts are going to stop protecting injured players. In the new system, if you're injured, you get 12 weeks of full pay, and after that, they get 99 pound a week."

"99 quid?" spluttered Jackie. "A week?"

"Yeah," I said, delighted. "And the best part is, if there's an injury that'll keep a player out for four months, we can bin them off."

"Bin them off? For getting injured!"

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my hands. "These fucks think they can defy me. Think they've got the power because they've got a contract. But now when they get injured, I can chuck them out the door before the X-rays have finished developing!" I laughed, long and hard.

Jackie was getting steamed up by my attitude. "I'm pretty surprised, Best. I expected better from you. What you're telling me is horrible. We're athletes, not cattle. You should understand it, too." He looked down at his shitty knees. "This could happen to you."

I laughed and pranced around the room. "Don't you get it? I've given you a taste of what I gave them."

Jackie thought that through. "Oh," he said. Calm again, he pitched his chin up. "Fuck me. You went full Max on them, didn't you?"

"Oh, mate. I wish you’d seen it. But you'd have stopped me before I got thirty seconds in. I made sure to get rid of everyone. MD, Vimsy, Dean. Kicked them all out. It was just me and the players. I let rip. Said a lot of stuff I've been wanting to say for weeks. I called them worms. I called them brainless morons. I blasted D-Day for his soft penalty. I laid into Aff for getting himself injured. I savaged Trick and Sam for openly mocking me and my attempt to change the culture. I fucking let them have it for, like, three minutes. Three beautiful minutes."

"That's why you're so relaxed today. You've been all, kinda... calm. Less manic."

"It was fucking therapeutic. I'd printed out the email, and I laughed in their faces. 'You fucks are fucking fucked' I told them. 'All these agents sniffing around because they've heard this is Snowflake FC and you want out. Promising to get you moves to proper clubs where you can do your racist, sexist jokes all day.' I slapped the email again. 'Well good fucking luck, mate.'"

"Wait. Agents sniffing around?"

"Yeah, like vultures. A couple that absolutely hate me. For them, taking one of our players isn't just another new client, it's another poke in the eye for me. Yeah, so, I laughed at the lads. 'You go to some other club, everything's top for a while, you're well rid of that Chester mess, oops, you're injured, fuck you very much here's 99 quid a week'. I really hammered that; it's such a cartoon villain amount of money. I might have focused on Aff more than is justifiable. We should get together with him and have a chat. I do like him."

"Maybe not," said Jackie, calculating. "He was on it in training."

"Keep an eye on him. He's just the highest-profile idiot out of 20 idiots. So I ranted about injuries for a bit, then I turned to culture. I said that all I'd asked was that they treat the club like a normal workplace, stop fucking bullying people, make it a place where anyone of any creed or colour could flourish, and they'd spit in my face. They said they weren't willing to change, that they had the right to bully talented players out of the club, to laugh at disabled kids, to make crude comments about the women, and so on and so on."

"Were they doing all of that?"

"All that and more. The scum. So I slapped the paper again - I loved doing that! And told them, in case they missed it, that the people who run this sport just gave them less rights than a checkout girl. That this paper put full power over their careers in MY hands. And they'd spent the last 2 months flipping me the middle finger every time they saw me."

"Let me guess, you gave them all the middle finger."

"Some Vs as well. Quite a lot of laughing. From me. Stony, horrified silence from them. And then I put the paper away and switched to my low, dream-like voice."

Jackie nodded. "I would have stopped you long before you got to this part. I should have known. This is your MO. The switcheroo."

"I said there was probably only one Director of Football in the world who'd played professional football in the last year, definitely only one who'd actually had medical treatment at Chester. I said I knew the risks they took when they stepped onto the pitch. Pointed out that I'd tried to make the medical room a nicer place to be, and even THAT was something they'd pushed back on."

"How?"

"Making fun of Dean for buying the diffuser. He has it turned off all the time."

"No, it's on again."

"Huh. Good. Anyway, that's just a kind of symbol of how no-one gives a shit about this except me."

"I'm sorry, Max."

"What for?"

"I should have been pushing with you. You're right about it."

"Shut the fuck up, please, I'm telling a story. So I'm a DoF who gets it, and their manager is a guy whose career was ended by injury. If there's two people in the world less likely to bin a player off for being injured, please let me know who. Kind of left a pause so they could digest that. I tapped the paper. Would I use this to get rid of a player telling racist jokes? Of course I fucking would. Would I use this against a good guy, a guy who welcomes new players, takes time to do selfies with the fans, a guy who understands what being a community club means? Of course not. So you can fuck off to Wild West FC if you want, but you'll regret it. There's one job left in England where people will take care of you, treat you like an actual human being, and you've got that job. If you don't want it, thousands will. Then for some reason I was looking for Youngster, but he was at school. I went Biblical anyway. I held up the printout again, said, 'You feel that in the air, boys? There's a flood coming. And Chester Football Club is the motherfucking ark.' Then I ripped up the paper and walked out. Boom."

Jackie was smiling. Proper, full-mouth smile. No hesitation, no reservation, no dark shadows at the corners.

The doctor's office opened. An old woman went first and held open the waiting room door while an old geezer swung himself forward on crutches. He looked like he'd been crying, the poor old sod. I hoped my knees were still healthy when I was sixty-four.

"Jackie, do you want to begin?"

"Max?" Jackie said. The smile was gone. "You can come in if you want."

My eyebrows shot up. "No way. I'm in Liverpool. There's so much to see and do!" I said it with a laugh. I think under any other circumstances, Sanj would have flicked me some Vs. "Text me when you're done. I won't go far."

The door closed behind them, and before heading out into the terrifying world of Liverpool, I opened the squad screen again and checked some profiles.

There were a lot of green CA numbers. That was important in the short-term. But the most staggering thing was found on the profiles of Trick Williams, Sam Topps, James Wise, D-Day, and Aff. At various stages of delay since my rant, they'd all done something no professional footballer had done in the time since I'd started seeing player profiles. They'd all added one point in teamwork.

***

I met Jackie 90 minutes later. "What did you do?" I laughed. "Watch a football match together?"

Jackie was subdued. Sanj had given him crutches. "I'm going to stay here overnight. With me ma and da. Get some scans in the morning." He winced. "Oh, training."

"I'll take care of it," I said, smiling.

"What are you plotting?"

"Maybe we'll give the lads a refresher in 4-2-4," I said. Jackie looked away, but nodded, once. "And," I suggested, "a bit of 4-1-4-1." That was, in my opinion, one of the best formations for our group of players, even if it lacked a certain verve. It was also the next formation I could buy, priced at a meaty 2,000 XP.

"You like your DMs," said Jackie.

"Yup." Seeing his proud, worried little face made me realise football wasn't that important. "Er... Vimsy can do it. I'll get Terry or Spectrum to help out. I’ll come back up here and drive you around. Yeah?"

"Thanks, Max. But, er... I'll have to tell Livia. She'll, you know... Unless she, you know..."

I put my knuckles to my eyes and spoke in a mock-crying voice. "Oh no, my girlfriend left me because of my psychosomatic pain what I got coz I wouldn't talk to my friend Max waaah." Jackie stuck the tip of his tongue out of the side of his mouth. Trying to enjoy the teasing, since the alternative was attempting to murder me. I dropped the voice. "Are you good for a tiny potter? I want to show you something."

"You're going to show me something from Liverpool?"

"Come on. There's a good Jackie. Try to keep up. Come on! Good boy!"

***

We walked a couple of minutes and turned onto a busy high street. Pretty normal sights in England - far too many cars, far too much brick, concrete, and tarmac. Really noisy. You could taste the car fumes. If you wanted to design a space where it'd be hard for life to flourish, you could do worse.

I was beaming.

When I got to our destination, I couldn't believe my luck. Two young women were approaching. Black hair, big fake eyelashes (I guess), a bit too much fake tan, but very cute. Very, very cute. "I'm just going to see if I've still got it," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "I don't want to see you flirt, Max. It's aggravating."

"Hey gorgeouses," I said, as the women were nearing. They slowed but didn't stop. They were probably alarmed by Jackie's bald head. Perhaps it was an unexploded bomb from World War 2? "My friend here's from the area. He tells me Liverpool girls give good headshots." The fractional pause I included in the last word made them stop.

The taller one eyed me with interest. Then it clicked. "You want a photo, yeah?"

"Yes, please," I said, getting my phone ready.

Jackie turned around and saw which landmark we were standing in front of. "Max! I thought you hated The Beatles."

The Beatles were a massive, worldwide sensation. In a few years, they not only changed music, they changed the way people think about music. They weren't born into wealth, didn't go to a posh school, didn't learn Latin. In another life, they'd have all worked in call centres. "I love them, mate. They prove that talent can come from anywhere. Even Liverpool." I set my jaw. "Even Manchester. Bunch of random lads, combining their talents, bit of teamwork, made the world a better place. I love it. I just hate the way you never shut up about them." To the women, I added, "He talks about them eight days a week."

"I don't," said Jackie, defending himself to the shorter woman with a cheeky smile. She smiled back at him. That interested me. Jackie was, subconsciously or not, being my wingman.

"Put the crutches away for a second. Jesus Christ. We get one shot at this. I'm not coming back."

While Jackie hobbled away and rested the sticks against a bare patch of wall, I whispered to the tall woman.

Jackie and I got into position. I gave him a sharp glance. "No, I don't want to hold your hand."

He gave me a crazy look in return. Realisation dawned. "Are you doing Beatles puns? Don't do that. Please, anything but that."

We stood with our arms around each other's shoulders in front of the street sign. I smiled. The photographer said, "3, 2, 1, say chicken."

A few seconds later, we gathered round my phone to admire our work.

The photo was incredible. Jackie and I are both laughing, full blast, happy as clams, having the time of our lives in front of a street sign: Penny Lane.

"I'm going to blow this up, put it on your office wall," I said.

The taller woman - my one - said, "Where do you work?"

"Jackie's the manager of a football club," I said. "Local boy made good."

"Oh, really?" said the shorter one, increasingly interested in her man.

"Yeah, we're just off to sign a player," I said.

"Oh, cool. And what are you doing tonight?"

It was on! "I don't know, Jackie. What are we going tonight?"

His eyes twinkled, just for a second, but then he remembered who he was. "I have to rest. Might need a bit of surgery soon."

I watched him gather his crutches, and had one last quick eye bang with my Lady Madonna. "Okay. So I guess we're done here. Thanks for your help, ladies. It's a fucking good photo."

"What about you?"

"I have to rest, too. I'm his surgeon." I treated them to my cutest face, ending with a smiling double-blink. Blinkle-and-twinkle. They walked on, reluctantly. "Jackie, you dog," I complained. "How could you?"

He exhaled. "Back to the car."

"Nope. This way."

***

A slightly longer walk took us to a series of fields with a long, low building to the side.

"Sporting Club Merseyside," I said. "Ever heard of them?"

"Don't think so. What is it?"

"Like, a standalone youth academy. Doesn't seem to be attached to a club. I had a chat with some of the coaches. It seems pretty top. Serious, but fun. They've got more coaching badges here than at Chester! More age groups, too, and knowledge flows down like a waterfall. They've got teenage players working with under 7s and whatnot. I love it. We could do a lot worse than to replicate this. Hang on, I'm getting a call. It's the coach I hired for Broughton. Hey Jude. Oh, he hung up. Must have butt-dialled. Okay, be nice to this guy. Here comes the son's dad." We walked towards one of the dads who was watching loads of 9-year-olds run around doing skill-focused mini-games. "Mr. Watson, this is Jackie Reaper."

"Oh, this is real, then?"

Jackie smiled as they shook hands. "I don't know what it is, but it's real."

"Hey, this'll be fun," I said. "Mr. Watson, don't say anything. Jackie. Which of these kids is a future star?"

I thought Jackie was about to cry off, but curiosity won out. He decided to play along. He pushed himself a bit closer to the pitch. We watched for a couple of minutes. Finally, he said, "They're all good on the ball. They love passing it around. I see why you were drawn here, Max. It’s your kind of football, all right. If I had to guess, right now, I'd say... that one."

He pointed to a PA 35 midfielder. Pretty good guess. "Oh, he's mint, all right. But we're looking for a ball-playing DM. Great positioning, lovely technique. Sort of like Rodri at Man City."

Jackie gave me a sceptical look. Scratched his eyebrows. Fell into a blank silence. Then there was this burst of electricity that hit his face. He lit up. "There!"

He was pointing to Steven Watson, a 9-year-old DM, positioning 6 (great for his age, it seemed), technique 6, PA 146.

"Steven," I said. "Named after his dad's favourite director."

The dad laughed. He was a very average English guy. Shirt under a jumper. Probably had some mid-level job. Doted on his son, knew he was special, worried about fucking things up. "Named after Steven Gerrard." The famous Liverpool player. Poor kid.

Three men watched little Stevie W jog around, controlling passes, laying the ball off with crisp, one-touch redirections. A couple of times, an opponent pressured him, and he'd either turn in a semi-circle and brush off the challenge, or flick the ball away the way I'd taught Dani. But this kid was doing it with his back to his opponent and was flicking it diagonally behind him and running onto it - fifty times harder.

"Oh, he's boss on the half-turn," said Jackie. "He's gonna be tall, inne? But he's balanced. He's nimble. His hand-eye co-ordination must be mad."

I sighed, happily. "Mr. Watson. We're obsessed. We're going to spend the next ten years trying to sign Steven before someone else does."

"I looked you up when you were gone. You're not having the best season."

I shrugged. "If it was easy, it wouldn't be fun. It's good, this place. I love it. But players need hard matches to help them grow. And there's two reasons to come to Chester. Two things we've got you won't get anywhere else. Not Liverpool, not Everton."

"Go on."

"One. A Director of Football who's also the best player in the league. Who knows the names, strengths, weaknesses, of every single player at the club. Right down to the little guys."

"That's you, is it?" said the dad.

"Yep! I also take them on tournaments sometimes. What I'm saying is, I'm involved. Your lad isn’t just a name on a list somewhere."

"And what's the other thing?"

"He's right here. Jackie Reaper." I gave Chester FC’s manager a little push. "Go on. Tell us about yourself."

Jackie was perfectly comfortable listening to me boast, but didn't have much practice of doing it for himself. He normally communicated his virtues with a well-timed smirk. "Oh," he said. We waited for him to think of some nice things to say about himself. "I'm..."

"Youngest," I mumbled.

"I'm the youngest manager in the top seven divisions."

"That's right," I said, helpfully. "I read that."

Jackie rolled his eyes and the dad laughed. "Yeah, look. I played twice for Everton. I had a decent career, then my knees blew out. I've been coaching ever since, and now it's me first manager job." He paused.

"Tell him about your fit girlfriend," I suggested.

More laughs. "No, really," said Jackie. "I know a thing or two about dis game. I know a good setup when I see one, and your son is in good hands here. But what Max is doing with our youth teams, it's incredible. There's nowhere in the world like it. It's the place to be, I promise you that."

"Sounds like... something. What is it, exactly?" asked the dad.

Jackie indicated that I should take over, but I shook my head. It had to come from him. "What do you think, Max? The whole truth?"

"I'm game," I said.

Jackie turned away from the dad, slightly, to face me more. It was odd. Some unspoken understanding made us talk to each other, even though we were supposed to be selling the club to this talented player’s dad. "Max’s first day with the under 14s, he doesn't like what he sees. Four boys with bad attitudes, off you pop, we'll play with 7."

"Eight," I said. "We had a sub."

"Eight! Makes a big fuss. He was only supposed to be standing there, looking pretty, but he can't let it slide. Next he's banning parents from coming."

"All of them?"

"No, just the trouble-makers. The loudmouths."

"Finally!" said the dad, regarding me with new warmth.

"But it's the football, though. Those same under 14s go toe-to-toe with anyone they come up against. They beat Wolves. Can you believe it?"

"I didn't do it on my own. I had a little help from my friends."

"What's the formation?" said the dad. "What's the, you know, philosophy?"

Jackie looked down. Frowned. "Flexible. Customised for every match. But... attacking. Entertaining. Sometimes it looks reckless but it's not. Brave, yeah, but not stupid. He'll defend sometimes. Bit of the dark arts, where needed." Jackie groaned. "God. It's a complete football education."

The dad tilted his head. "You sound annoyed."

"Yeah. He's a gobby Manc twat. He’s just a kid. He shouldn't be this good."

"Mr. Watson," I said, finally turning to give him my undivided attention. "The women's team are playing Wrexham tomorrow night. It's our first go in the stadium. Big night for us. It's a brand new team, I can't make any promises about the quality of football you'll see, but you'll get an idea of the kind of football we want to play."

"Or," said Jackie, standing to his full height. "You can come and watch the first team on Saturday. Max is going to be my assistant manager for the day." I nearly broke my neck, I twisted so fast. "Because of my knee," Jackie explained. I liked that. Good excuse for why I'd be there in a way that didn't make it seem like I was looming over him.

The dad nodded a few times. He mostly liked what he'd heard about me, but he really, really liked Jackie. "I think I can do Saturday. Who are you playing?"

I went next to Jackie and put my hand on his back. I stared at him. "It doesn't matter. We're going to go at them. Twenty shots."

Jackie smiled. "Twenty-five."

My blood started pumping so fast I swear I heard it swish. After taking a second to compose myself, I turned to the dad. "Are you a betting man?"

"What? Oh, sometimes. Grand National. Liverpool in the Champions League final. That kind of thing."

"Put twenty quid on Chester to stay up. You'll get decent odds."

He grinned. "Is that a hot tip? I love it."

I thought through the first team's fixtures. "You know what? Put another twenty on Chester to win seven games in a row."

"Seven in a row, Max?" said Jackie. "How are we gonna do dat?"

I showed him all my teeth and twinkled. "We can work it out."

...

Thanks for your HELP in supporting this fiction. I always wanted to be an EBOOK WRITER and my life really does REVOLVER around Max Best now. I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, that the fact you pay silly money to read this makes me think EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT ME AND MY MONKEY.

Yeah, okay. That got weird. I'm going to GET BACK to work.

P.S. I Love You