12.

  Wednesday, August 6

  Before our first competitive game of the season (against Fleetwood Town, our first fourth tier fixture in fifteen years) I had to tell the men's first team squad our plan for the campaign as a whole.

  Monday was the only logical choice for when to give the talk, but I had moved it back to Wednesday. The seemingly pointless change could have been seen as more proof that I was untethering, but the reality was much more mundane - I simply wanted to know if playing against Slovakia had done anything.

  And? Had it?

  Yup. Seen from the right angle, the results were already stupendous. Every single player involved had increased in CA by at least one point. Banksy, who had played goalie for the final seven minutes, had popped once per day of training, roaring ahead to a mighty CA 16. He was still useless, but a twenty-three percent increase in ability from seven minutes was nothing to be sniffed at.

  Other players had only increased by one point but I felt sure more was to come. It takes time for a human brain to absorb shocks, and the sheer gulf in class, quality, control, and tactical awareness between us and a major team was not one we could cross in three days. The training sessions had been mint, though. Players zipped around, focused on every drill, talked about what they'd experienced, begged the coaches to hurry up and clip out relevant bits of video.

  I decided I would give the optimistic version of my speech. The one where our players improved rapidly and, after a few dubious results, got into their groove faster than anyone could have expected.

  As for me, my extra training was going well. We had four first team goalies and I got them to give me fifteen minutes each, in shifts, every day from Sunday to Tuesday. Three days where I took different kinds of penalties, free kicks, corners, and long shots. I had split them up, sensing that seeing me demolish the others might have been demoralising, and that proved to be a good instinct. I wasn't back to my Darlington best, but I felt sharper than I had for a while. My crosses had more whip, my shots more power, my free kicks and pennos led to howls of frustration.

  Yeah. The optimistic version for sure.

  ***

  We were in the meeting room at BoshCard. We had the entire first team, physios, coaches, Jackie, MD, Brooke, but no-one from the board. The board had very quietly been put on pause. I wasn't sure who had agreed to that, if anyone, or if MD had simply not sent out certain emails. It seemed more likely he had got together with a bunch of key fans and they had agreed to leave me the fuck alone for a year. Whatever - it was one less thing to do my head in, and no board meant no possibility of a takeover.

  Spectrum was helping me with my tech setup and I had the luxury of a clean flipchart and three new marker pens. Chester moving up in the world!

  "All right," I said, and the noise level died down.

  "Quiet," growled Christian Fierce, the new club captain, and noise ceased. He was a lot more intense than Glenn Ryder, which was partly his character and partly his eagerness to nail his new role. When I had signed him, his player profile had said 'Keen to impress his new manager' for a long time. Now it said 'Proud to be at Chester' and 'Proud to be the captain of Chester'. It also said 'Hopes Max Best will remain manager for a very long time', but that doesn't seem relevant, really. Might delete that.

  "New guys. Where my new guys? New guys stand up." A few people got to their feet and I introduced them before gesturing they could sit again. "Dazza Smith, Australian striker. Will call someone a bloke but won't use the word strewth. I can't make him out, but he told me his top bucket list goal is to visit the seven wonders of the world. Sunday Sowunmi, centre back. Good skills, good base, needs some experience to kick on. Banksy, goalie, talented, ditto. Lee Hudson, ten years at Barrow, knows a fuck of a lot more about League Two than we do. Ask him questions but don't peck his head, all right? Lee, we might ask you on a Monday morning to say a word or two about the teams we're facing that week. Nothing in-depth, just things like it's noisy, it's quiet, they're a good lot, they're wind-up merchants, that kind of thing. Quick thoughts on Fleetwood?"

  "They're noisy when they're winning. They're wind-up merchants."

  I smiled. It wasn't exactly megabrain stuff but it did help us prepare. "Thanks. Lee Contreras. Tranmere. He's Sam Topps but faster and more technical. You might be confused because Tranmere kept Sam and let Lee go. Yeah, I don't understand it either. Dan Badford didn't stand up when he was told but - yeah, bit late now, Dan - but he's proper in the squad. He's on the edge of seventeen. Great, top. You know Clive OK and Ray Hart as part-time coaches but I think this might be their first Maxterplan so it's good to acknowledge them as part of the team. You might recognise that guy. That's Kian, former youth teamer I scouted when he was skipping school. Now he's Brooke's intern. Who says crime doesn't pay? Last but not least, our new sports psychologist, Alex Short. Now, I did ask Brooke to find me one with great legs, but..."

  Brooke gave me something of a glare. "Max, that isn't appropriate."

  Alex was a very slightly scruffy guy. He was average height, average build, but with a hint that he had played a lot of sport himself. My first instinct on seeing him was career-ending injury, wants to stay in the game. His short beard looked itchy but he seemed approachable and if one of my lads was having a bad time and really needed help but didn't feel comfortable talking to a suit, Alex would grab his car keys and say, 'come on, pub'.

  Yeah, very good first impression from him. But how would he handle my banter?

  He smiled. "To be fair, Brooke, I do have great legs."

  The group loved that. Bosh! Scored on his debut.

  I turned my attention back to my players. "Alex isn't starting just yet but I asked him to come today because I get the feeling a lot of what you talk to him about will be triggered by today's session." I paused with my tongue slightly sticking out to show I knew these meetings veered towards the ridiculous. "Seriously, though, Alex is a great resource. I'm going to see him once a month at least. I don't really know what to expect but I think having someone to talk to might help calm me the fuck down or whatever. It's worth a try, right? For you lot it's playing under pressure, recovering from injury, dealing with your manbaby boss." I smiled again. "It's not mandatory but if it's the FA Cup Final tomorrow and I have two players of equal talent in good form I'm going to pick the one who's been talking to Alex because why the fuck wouldn't I pick the guy who has been doing his best to improve over the last ten months? Do you know what I mean? It's not intrusive therapy like you've seen on TV, it's looking for an edge in your game. Think of Alex as another coach. I can't stress this enough - seeing him is not mandatory."

  Youngster put his hand up, then slowly put it down.

  "Okay I want to hurry through this presentation but you know what we say - go slow to go fast. It's better if I'm methodical, I think. The first game of the season is against Fleetwood, so there's a pretty obvious theme for this speech."

  Spectrum tapped a key and tinny music blared out of his laptop. It was Dreams by Gabrielle. I shook my head and crossed my hands in the universal gesture of 'stop, that's wrong'. He stopped the music; I pinched my nose.

  "That's the wrong Dreams! That's... how can you even...? Pretend that never happened, everyone."

  I cleared my throat.

  "For the new guys, what's happening now is that I'm setting out my dreams for the season. It's more like a prediction, really. You can go your own way if you want, but if you come with me and you don't stop, you can go everywhere and you can be the ledge. Open your sweet little eyes, come a little bit closer, and the sky's the limit."

  Vimsy called out, "You haven't said Rhiannon yet."

  "Why would I do that?" I said, pretending to be annoyed. "So weird. Alex, fix Vimsy first." I nodded at Spectrum. He turned our big screen on and pressed a key on his laptop. A slide came up. It simply said 'We're all part of the Maxterplan'. I pinched my nose. "Isn't that an Oasis lyric? I told you we were doing Fleetwood Mac."

  "Aha!" said Vimsy, pointing in triumph.

  I grinned and said aha back. "Guess what? We're not doing Fleetwood Mac. It's too obvious. Good band, many bangers, but far too obvious. Here, Alex, check this out. Last January, I think it was, I updated the Maxterplan. It isn't set and forget, right, we update it based on facts and evidence. I'm very scientific like that. The presentation happened to be the first day at the club for Christian, Well In, and Chipper and let's say things got weird."

  "Megashrimp!" called out Wes Hayward.

  I frowned and spoke to Alex in sotto voce. "I know your sessions are private, but can you ask him why he keeps shouting that? Thanks." I twinkled at Wes and paced around. "Yeah, in retrospect that was a pretty strange introduction to Chester and it's no wonder Chipper went absolutely tonto. So this time I decided to keep things simple. Nothing from four hundred million years ago, nothing too abstract, nothing that makes people think I'm a fucking nutjob." I paused and made a show of thinking over what I'd said. "Hang on. Everything I said that day was true. In fact, it turned out better than even I thought possible. You grew hard shells and claws, we won the league, I ascended into legend. Huh. Maybe I should... Maybe I should say whatever the fuck I want?"

  Zach said, "Lay it on us, boss!"

  "Ah," I said, swinging from bombastic to worried in an instant. "Zach. Forgot you were here. Oh, this is awkward."

  Zach stood up and gripped his hair with both hands. He paced around while his teammates laid consoling hands on him.

  Alex's eyes were bulging cartoonishly. "What's going on?"

  Youngster helped out. "Mr. Best's last presentation was a delight for Zach, but Zach was not permitted to speak during the lecture."

  Alex gave me a strange look and said, "Why not?" I felt like I was being psychoanalysed and in that moment regretted hiring a psychologist.

  "I don't like being fact checked," I said. "Ain't nobody got time for that. Zach, good news and bad news. Good news, you're gonna love this presentation. Bad news, every time you speak I'm taking a hundred pounds from the player pot and sending it to a flat-earth society."

  "Boss," he croaked.

  "Just shush so I can get through this. To everyone else, all the information you're about to receive has been independently verified by, er, top, top people." I clicked my neck left and right. "Let's fucking go!" I took a few steps to my left to my backpack and pulled out a very strange object that was about the length of my hand.

  Zach stood and did his hair-pulling routine again. "Urgh," he said.

  I smiled sweetly at him. "Zach, if you behave, you can keep this."

  "Really?" he said.

  "Yeah, I knew you'd like it so I bought two." I got the second one out.

  "But - "

  "Shush please." I handed one to Jackie Reaper, who was the nearest person to me on the left. He enjoyed coming to these big speeches even if these days he didn't say much. Then I handed the other to Alex on the right. "Take a look, pass them round." The energy in the room spiked. Having a tangible object people could hold and study was great and a smack in the gob for anyone who said the megashrimp theme had been too abstract.

  "What is it?" said Brooke, turning it around. She had asked Zach, but her cheeks turned very fractionally red. "Sorry."

  "It's a clay tablet," I said. "Four point eight inches long. The words and pictures you're looking at were carved into that clay two thousand nine hundred years ago in Mesopotamia, which you all know as the location of an Agatha Christie murder. Also, it's Iraq."

  "Is it the first ever football match programme?" said Pascal, apparently in earnest.

  I laughed, not harshly. "That would be fun, wouldn't it? Babylon Villa versus Sumeria City, expected formations on the front, line ups on the back. No, this is something a lot more basic. A lot more astonishing, I think. Let's take a look at it." Spectrum clicked to the next slide. "On the back there's loads of writing. It's a big part of the tablet's story, obviously, but not that interesting to us." Next slide. "On the front at the top, more writing. The story of how the world was made, apparently, but what we're interested in today - two of us, anyway - are the pictures." Spectrum clicked and we got a close-up of the lines and scratches that made up the bulk of the image. He clicked again to highlight two concentric circles. "Check out these circles. See the text that wraps round? It says 'Bitter River'. See these triangles? They're mountains. What are we looking at?"

  Christian said, "You already said. It's Iraq."

  "It's a what of Iraq?"

  "A map?"

  I nodded, getting myself worked up. "This little clay tablet is the oldest map of the world in the world. It's in the British Museum and it's one of the big boy exhibits. I watched an 18-minute video about this fucking ancient clay tablet that was more interesting and gripping than anything I've seen on Netflix in years, but not better than The Traitors. Spectrum, show the next one." He clicked and all the elements of the map were highlighted. "When you first look at the picture it seems like a whole lot of nothing, right? But look! That rectangle is the city of Babylon. That's the Euphrates river. These little circles are cities. It's a map, lads!

  "This is the kind of thing that gets my blood pumping. Yes, it's quite good scoring last-minute winners and dribbling fifty yards at high-speed while defenders try to take you out and you hear the slap of every seat in the stadium because people are standing up to get a better view of your magnificence. But I really love this stuff. The oldest map of the world. It makes me think wow, once upon a time there was a guy who drew the first map of any sort, ever. That's a wild thought. Imagine someone says hey where's the nearest Tesco and you get a stick and draw some squiggles in the soil. Follow the river, turn right at the house of the woman who's trying to invent the wheel. The guy looks at you like you're crazy. What are those squiggles? That's the river. That's the river? Heh. I don't know, maybe it's just me but I like daydreaming about that kind of thing.

  "What are maps, anyway? They show you where you can go, obviously, but this particular map was also a warning. This circle was the whole world for these Mesopotamians. The mountains represent distant magical lands, which sounds fun to us because we've grown up watching Harry Potter, but for those guys it was scary. The guy who drew this map was saying 'don't leave home; there be dragons'. Okay so it's a guide and it's a warning.

  "Spectrum? Okay so you see the tablet was damaged but it's clear there used to be eight triangles representing eight mountains, AKA eight exotic ways to get yourself killed. Only three triangles survived the ravages of time, but the boffins who study this stuff were able to work out quite a lot about what it all represented and they could make some pretty good guesses about what was missing, but then they hit a wall."

  I left a pause so unexpected that the mood in the room shifted.

  "Hit a wall. That's a phrase we use in sports, isn't it? Yes, the Lees, Banksy, Alex, Sunday, this is a football club, I didn't forget.

  "We hit a wall against Slovakia, didn't we lads? We didn't have a map to get us through that challenge, did we? Ah! I see a few of you are starting to see where this is going. But hang on, because this tablet is really worth a bit more of your time.

  "You see, the writing is called - holy shit I'm going to butcher this - cuneiform. And the guy at the British museum who's in charge of this tablet is nuts about that language. He was giving a lecture once and there was a woman listening who thought, huh, I am now also obsessed with it. She got a job helping at the museum. One of her tasks was to look in these millions of boxes of stones and rubble looking for anything with this writing on. She found an interesting piece and took it to the mad professor and he thought, as she did, that it looked a lot like the other triangles on this tablet. So they opened the display case of this priceless object and the professor said gosh look this would fit perfectly, wouldn't it? And just out of curiosity he sort of popped it down and the tablet swallowed it up. It fit so well they couldn't get it back out! It was a fourth mountain after God knows how many years. A piece of the puzzle! A piece of the map! Now you might think okay cool story bro but there's no treasure at the end, is there? I prefer The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. And normally I'd agree with you, but what they found was that this mountain was called, in our language, Mount Ararat."

  Youngster half-shot to his feet. "Ararat?"

  "Yep. What does that name mean to you?"

  He looked around the room, awestruck, trying to convey his sense of wonder. "It is where Noah built the ark."

  Spectrum clicked to show a drawing of Noah's ark with lots of animals leaving it, two by two.

  I went to retrieve the nearest tablet replica and admired it. "A treasure map after all! The tablet describes the location of the ark. If you lived in Babylon and you were brave enough to ignore the fact that you would die if you left home, you could go and see that famous old ship... if you took your map with you." I tucked the tablet replica under my arm and walked around as though deep in thought. "Where do we want to go, where don't we want to go? It's my job to carve some maps, isn't it? The map of this season, for a start. I have some pretty clear ideas about where this club should go, what the team will achieve, and how you should develop as players. If you think this metaphor is overly stretched, check this out."

  The next graphic was a series of concentric circles that looked like a radar. It was divided into 12 segments in three colours. Blue was labeled 'attacking', red was 'defending', and green was 'possession'.

  "You've all seen these, right?" I said. Almost everyone nodded, but Brooke seemed daunted by the flood of information - her eyes were darting around the graphic trying to find something to latch onto, a key that would explain the rest. "It's called a radar chart; it's a quick way to visualise a player's strengths and weaknesses. This one segment here shows this particular player's ability to carry the ball forward. The closer it gets to the outside edge, the better. This one is shots, this is assists, pass completion, headers won, and so on and so on. From this chart, you can see at a glance this particular guy is amazing with the ball, causes a lot of threat, but doesn't defend well. In fact, he's dogshit. Er, Spectrum, who is this?"

  "It's Wibbers, Max."

  There was rather a lot of laughter and a lot of teasing of Wibbers who was torn between rising above it and being annoyed. I tutted at Spectrum and looked up at the ceiling. "Come on, man. I said don't use our players to avoid the very scenario that just happened."

  "When I was doing the slides I got sucked into learning about cuneiform, boss. It's really interesting! Sorry."

  I shook it off. "Okay, it was a point I was going to bring up later but let's do it now. I've been artificially keeping William's defensive skills down so that he could focus on being a fucking world-class goal machine, but we're going to have a talk soon and we're going to see what kind of map he wants to draw, because in a way this particular map defines who he is. It tells me and his next managers where he can go, where he can't. You get that? We have some amount of choice in where we want to go as players, which mountains we want to explore."

  I held the replica up next to the radar chart. One was twenty times bigger than the other.

  "Do you all get why I saw this map of the world and saw a radar chart?" It wasn't universal, but there was a fair amount of nodding. "All right, let's bring this, ah, full circle." Spectrum clicked to the next slide, which was one we'd seen before - the one that showed the locations of places in ancient Iraq. He clicked again and it was the same image but we'd changed the text. "This is our world. Instead of Babylon, we've got the Deva stadium. Instead of this swamp we've got Bumpers Bank. Christ, I hope that's not an omen. Instead of Assyria we've got Wrexham. Not sure if that works or not but it probably does, right? Cities always hated their neighbours. Okay but instead of the Euphrates river, the source of all life in the area, I've written culture.

  "Our culture is the most important part of our map. Whatever we do, wherever we go, we have to keep that in the centre of our world. If we turn on each other, if we exclude talented players or staff, if we go back to the old ways, we are fucked. Culture is funda-fucking-mental and you will drive me mental if you work against the culture and I will drive you out of the club if I even suspect you're thinking of considering maybe hypothetically doing some light bullying or voicing problematic opinions on your socials.

  "We're going to have a day on social media use, by the way. Until then, stick to posting photos of your breakfast.

  "After culture, the next most important thing is training. We're going to sit with each of you and talk about your personal development. Spectrum is putting together these radar maps for everyone. You'll say if you agree with the chart and how you think your skills should develop and I'll tell you the exact opposite but in a way that makes you think it was your idea all along." This got some smiles. "No, but really, we're going to do that. It'll help make sure you're getting the most out of training.

  "Most of you know my thoughts on training. New guys, you can talk to the old guard to find out more, but in short, you're not paid to play, you're paid to train. If there's a two-week slot in December where you probably won't play, I'll tell you. That's not the cue for you to throw a tantrum, that's the cue for you to pick up your map and train like hell building up your mountains. Do you get me? A two-week break in December to work on your skills? If you think that's a punishment, don't leave this room without booking an appointment with Alex. I'm deadly serious.

  "Okay, you need to think about your personal development, your personal career maps, but the team has an incomplete map, too, and so does the club. So do I. For example, as you know we're testing out 5-3-2 as a way to get solid against teams that might crush us. Working on a cautious, defensive way of playing isn't fun for me but that's the point of this tablet, isn't it? It doesn't just show your comfort zone, it shows you places you might not want to go. I'm on my own journey and I've got to get way, way better in all my mountains.

  "What about the club as a whole? I think it's pretty clear. We're going full speed towards the mountains and we're going up into strange, scary new territory. MD can wear his sackcloth and ashes and wave a stick at us saying turn back, turn back! But it won't stop us." The man in question shook his head with a wry smile. I held up my tablet. "I've got a map, mate. It'll be fine.

  "That said, the map has got pieces missing. A big topic this season, a big topic for you and for the club is money. We ain't got none. But look at the edge of our world; we're surrounded by money. Mountains of money. The closer we get to the edge of our map, the closer to the top, the more money will rain down on us." I beamed. "Holy shit, this is even better than the megashrimp thing. Zach, are you enjoying yourself?"

  He mimed zipping his mouth and that got some laughs.

  "New guys, contrary to how it might seem, I'm not a complete idiot. I know I can't keep talented players unless I can get our wages somewhere close to market rates. I have to balance a lot of needs." I pointed to the 'Bitter Sea' that encircled ancient Iraq. "We need a boat to cross the sea. I have to build the boat as well as pay the sailors, do you get me? I also need some enchanted swords, healing potions, and seasickness tablets for Magnus, from what I heard about boot camp.

  "But this isn't like a normal club. When we have problems, we have the power to fucking fix them.

  "I see the map of our season in different ways. One way is as a spreadsheet with all our fixtures typed in. That's a very clinical way of organising our thoughts, isn't it? What about something more like one of those radar graphs? One segment is the league, one's the AOK Cup, one's the Vans Trophy, one's the Cheshire Cup, one's the FA Cup. Make sense?

  "MD has agreed to a new and I think pretty unique distribution model. Other clubs pay bonuses as you progress in cups, but I think ours is a lot more immediate and motivational. The club and the men's first team squad will share any cup prize money we earn 50:50. I've talked to Christian and come up with a distribution formula that's quite fair. Every player shares from the pot, but you earn a little more if you're in a matchday squad. You can talk to him if you want to know more, but the way to benefit most isn't to score a hat trick in one round but to ensure that we progress as far as possible in as many cups as possible.

  "To that end, I can say that I think it's important to attack the cups as hard as we can. If the club gets half a million in prize money, every first team squadder is going to get around ten grand. I don't think there are too many people in this room who would turn their noses up at ten grand.

  "I've done calculations and projections and I think prioritising the cups will cost us a few points in the league. We'll also lose a few points because I'll be cycling youth team players into the first team as much as I can possibly get away with, especially until January."

  "Why?" said Lee Hudson, who didn't know about my ambition to win the Youth Cup.

  "Because that's what we do here - we develop players. Going hard at the FA Youth Cup is part of my journey. If you don't understand it, that's fine, we're looking at different maps.

  "What I think is going to happen is that we're going to have some frustrating weekends. Things might get a bit scrappy in the league for a while, but new guys, the rest of us have been doing this for three years. We know it works and when we get on a roll it'll be hard to stop us. It's three points for a win so we can lose a few matches and still be top of the table. Here's a wild thought. We could lose 16 matches and finish on 90 points. You get me? That's an extreme example but that's why we go for wins and that's why I'm not going to smash up the dressing room when we lose. League Two has three automatic promotion places. Three! And one club goes up through the playoffs.

  "Will we be one of the four teams promoted? Absolutely. That is absolutely nailed on. We will go for the league title, sure, but right now our map goes off in five paths and I say we run down all of them as fast as we can. When we hit a wall in one, like we probably will against Bolton, we pick ourselves up and go even harder at the others, and somewhere we'll have a big Ted Lasso motivational sign but it won't say anything soft and sappy, it'll be a hard number with a pound sterling sign in front of it. Money, lads! Money and glory. Money, glory, and big love from the fans.

  "I said this last year and was right in a big way. This will be a winning season. We will win a lot of football matches. Some will be easy, some will need luck, and some will seem impossible..." I traced a line on the tablet from Babylon to Noah's Ark. "But we will find a way."

  ***

  Saturday, August 9

  Back in the big time. Back in football league, just like the old days.

  Actually, not just like the old days. We had changed our away day routine - we would now depart an hour earlier than we would normally have done. Brooke had teased our socials that something special was going on if anyone wanted to come by the Deva stadium in the morning.

  Quite a few people were intrigued enough to stop by and what they saw was the first ride of our swanky new electric team bus.

  It was all-white with the Chester FC crest towards the rear. Absolutely gorgeous on the outside, swanky on the inside. It moved quietly, humming with power like a wizard's staff. Six players got a morale boost as soon as they stepped onboard, which validated the expenditure, in my opinion.

  "Max!" called out Gary, who was still working for the local newspaper. I went towards him, since it had been made clear by MD that while there was no board I needed to talk to the fans more. That seemed fair enough. MD had also stressed that I couldn't skip every pre- and post-match interview, especially with the TV companies; they would punish us financially if I didn't show up. Gary pointed his phone at me. "Tell us about this new bus!"

  "It's electric, very nice seats, USB chargers and whatnot - we'll let you have a look inside if you want but we have to set off on time. The idea is we can charge the battery on our solar panels, so it's, you know, efficient. We have to leave a bit earlier so we can charge it up when we get to the away ground, but I think in a few years all teams will be doing this and clubs will adapt. What else? I wanted to give it a cool name like Red October because then I could say 'engage the silent drive' instead of 'begin driving', but that was voted down. Then I wanted to give it a Roman name, like the Deva stadium, and I was looking at famous Roman horses but they don't trip off the tongue, most of them. That idea turned into us looking at general horse names, right, and I was thinking it should be something Chester related if possible. It really didn't take long to find the perfect name. The team bus is called... drum roll please... Sealbiscuit."

  "After the famous American horse?"

  "Yeah. I'm pretty sure Seabiscuit was white with a Chester FC badge on its arse, so that tracks."

  "Can you give us any information about the new home kit?"

  "Gary, we did all this. We send you media packs and stuff. Learn to open PDFs, man."

  "I'm asking when you'll get more stock."

  "What?"

  "It's sold out, Max! You can't get one anywhere."

  "They made enough for two years of sales."

  "Apparently not."

  "This is news to me, Gary. Let me ask around. It can't be sold out after a week, come on. There are probably loads in a van or whatever, but I'll ask my peeps. Hey, let's get you on board Sealbiscuit real quick so you can get a feel for it but then we've got to go."

  "What are you going to do with all the extra time in Fleetwood?"

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  "I'm experimenting with different motivational strategies this year."

  "Can you tell me more?"

  "Um... only if it goes well. If it bombs, I'm not telling you."

  "I hope it goes well, then!"

  ***

  Match 1 of 46: Fleetwood Town versus Chester FC

  I had spent a few hours alone and with Sandra watching footage of Fleetwood and they seemed extremely wedded to their 3-1-4-2 formation. I had most of their likely first eleven in my database so I knew more or less what to expect, and what I expected was pain. An away match to one of the best teams in the division, one that had come down from League One and would have an average CA in the region of 90. (I was close; they were actually CA 91.)

  They could pass the ball around pretty well, and they had some technical forwards. They also had some cavemen types who would win headers and hurt us on set pieces. In short, they could come at us from different angles and I worried enough about getting spanked that I bought 5-3-2 for 4,532 XP. As usual, the formation I bought was instantly replaced in the perk shop, this time by 3-4-2-1, which sounded like 3-4-3 with two of the strikers pulled into CAM slots. Now that sounded much more like it! It was 5,000 XP, though, and I needed to play with my new toy before buying another one.

  5-3-2 featured a flat back five, three central midfielders, and two strikers.

  The idea was that we would give up the wings, with our full backs doing their best to stop Fleetwood, nicknamed 'The Mac', from getting quality crosses in. When crosses did come in, we would have three centre backs, so chances were one of our lads would be in pole position to win the header. Also, having so many bodies back would make it hard for Fleetwood's clever players to find space. No space, no disgrace.

  In front of the back line, our three CMs would scrap and make the game bitty, while having two strong strikers would give us an out ball. If the strikers could hold the ball up, it would give our defence a chance to move away from our penalty box and catch their breath, and if the strikers could go one better and win a free kick in a dangerous position, we might even nab a goal.

  I'd decided to put Sticky in net for the league games, with Ben starting cup ties. Despite what I'd said in the Maxterplan about our priorities for the season, Ben knew he had been demoted. He didn't throw a tantrum but coming so soon after missing out on the Slovakia experience, his morale collapsed. I could only hope he sorted his head out before Tuesday because we were due to play Bolton Wanderers - a Championship team - and I wasn't sure I would pick a goalie in such a mood.

  Sticky was tall and would help on crosses and set pieces. He was not good with the ball at his feet but we didn't ask him to be - most teams in League Two used their goalie as an extra passing option, but the goalies weren't technical enough to actually play the role so it was pretty stupid. I was using Sticky as more or less a traditional shot-stopper. It prevented us from doing certain moves, but unlike most managers I worked with what I had.

  Our back five - God, what a horrible phrase - was Eddie, Christian, Zach, Magnus, and Lee H.

  The midfielders were Youngster - I would slide him back to DM for even more protection - plus Ryan Jack and Lee C.

  Henri and Dazza were the strikers.

  That gave us an average CA of 69.8, which was feeble but I couldn't fret too much about it. We would improve quickly!

  Our level versus that of the opposition made me decide against naming any of the youth team on the bench, except for those who were in the first team squad. No Tyson, no Chas. But the bench was very, very pleasing, and not only because I had seven guys to choose from and was allowed to use five.

  Ben, a backup goalie better than the starter.

  Josh Owens as cover for left back, plus an option for left-mid if I wanted to change formation. Dan Badford as a midfield schemer. Wibbers and Pascal in case there was a chance to put some pressure on Fleetwood. Tom Westwood as a perfect player for a scenario where we didn't have much possession - I was sorely tempted to use him from the start.

  And there was me. I felt light on my feet, agile, streamlined.

  Yeah, Fleetwood would probably dominate, probably win, and probably win by a few goals, but if they were slack or stupid we had a few weapons. Getting a win was on our map, even if it was not exactly a quick and easy journey.

  "Christian, I'm gonna rouse the troops now."

  He nodded and tapped Zach on the arm. They moved around the dressing room getting everyone's attention. Because we were so early we had loosened the rules on bringing phones and iPads into the space and they were listening to music or watching TikToks - with headphones, otherwise it would have been unbearable.

  I got a notebook and peered at it as though I'd written loads of notes, which I hadn't. "Okay. New season, new motivational methods. This is one I learned from, er," I flipped back and forth a few pages. "Oh, yeah. Literally every other manager ever since Babylonian times." I handed Sandra her notebook back and went on a single lap of the dressing room. "Personally, I like to motivate you by telling you that you are good at this sport and that we have a mint plan and maybe I give you some unifying theme or image to think about, but we've had enough of that this week."

  "Not me, boss," said Zach. "I'm ready for more."

  "Yeah? Cool, but we're like a convoy. We move at the speed of our slowest ship. Don't we, Lee C?"

  "What?" he said, which got some sniggers. He got the implication and smiled. "I bought a map, boss, after your speech."

  "Oh?" I said, interested. "A map of where? Mesopotamia?"

  "No, it's a map of where in England people say bread roll, bap, bun, or muffin."

  The laughter did a lot for the mood. Lee Contreras, you beautiful idiot! "That's great, Lee. Very useful." I was ready to start, but the tone was all wrong. We needed to be calm and serious to better absorb what was about to happen. "Okay let's all count to ten because the next part isn't funny." I left a pause and fussed with my socks. The new Grindhog ones had a very slight tendency to slip down my legs - when the others went out for their final warm ups I would get some tape or something. "Guys, you know I believe in you, but that opinion isn't universal. I'm going to play you an extract from the Pyramid Schemers podcast. Before the season starts, they predict where they think each team will finish, from last place, 24th, to first. They think the top three will be Fleetwood, Cambridge, and Mansfield. We're going to listen to what they say about you, okay?"

  I had connected my phone to the speakers already, so I opened my podcast app - not the default iPhone one, I'm not a savage - and pressed play.

  ***

  Extract from Pyramid Schemers, the original and best podcast dedicated to the 72 teams in tiers 2-4.

  Rocky: And that's why we're predicting that Newport County will finish twenty-first.

  Mike: Moving on to the club we have in twentieth place... it's the new boys. It's Chester. The Seals.

  Rocky: The Blues.

  Mike: The Blue Seals. We disagreed on this one, didn't we?

  Rocky: We did. I am a little more optimistic than you. What have you got against Chester, Mike?

  Mike: Nothing, as you know. Big fan of Chester, great to see them back in the football league. I do have one or two doubts, though.

  Rocky: Let's hear 'em.

  Mike: So we don't pretend to be experts in the National League.

  Rocky: That's true, we don't.

  Mike: But they scraped their way to the title and their record against the top six teams was poor. Congratulations on the win, of course, but if you're scraping by like that in the National League, to compete in League Two you're gonna need a good transfer window, and I don't think they've had that. What we know of the squad, of the key players, is not encouraging.

  Rocky: I like the goalkeeper.

  Mike: Steve Icke? He was a player with a lot of promise but we saw him drop down the leagues. If we were being uncharitable we might say National League was his level.

  Rocky: That's so harsh.

  Mike: I know but we can only call it as we see it, right? Who else do we know? Eddie Moore, the left-back, didn't pull up any trees at Sutton and I heard they were surprised to get a fee for him. Christian Fierce - we know a lot of League Two sides looked at him but none took it any further. Zach Green couldn't get a game for Wrexham at this level. Lee Hudson completes a back line of players not wanted by League Two sides - couldn't get a game for Barrow. That is a back four that would worry me if I were a Chester fan.

  Rocky: Not if you had one of the stars of the under 20 World Cup patrolling in front of them.

  Mike: Youngster.

  Rocky: Remember the name.

  Mike: Youngster.

  Rocky: Yes. You said that.

  Mike: I thought you said repeat the name. Can Chester keep him, though? I don't know if they can keep a player that good, if he'll want to play with - all due respect - players who aren't on his level.

  Rocky: We've seen Ryan Jack and Lee Contreras do well in the football league.

  Mike: You're really positioning me to be the naysayer on this one, aren't you? Ryan Jack, great player, amazing player... ten years ago. Lee Contreras couldn't get in a poor Tranmere team. I mean...

  Rocky: Contreras played his best football when Max Best was at Tranmere.

  Mike: Now that is something I definitely agree with. For a month he looked quality, but he couldn't sustain it. Chester will need that partnership looking good again because I don't see a lot of quality in that midfield.

  Rocky: We've seen Pascal Bochum in cup matches.

  Mike: He's lively, innee? Fast. Clever. I can see him doing some damage. Wes Hayward, not so much. Wayward. But at least they've got a brilliant striker who did really well for Reading. Oh, wait.

  Rocky: If that's a pop at Henri Lyons, I'm gonna defend him slightly. Reading were a complete mess then.

  Mike: His goalscoring record in the National League was fine. Just fine. We saw what a good League Two striker does when he plays in that league, and that good striker was called Marcus Wainwright. I think Lyons overtook him in goals scored near the end of the season, which is great except Wainwright had been sold five months earlier.

  Rocky: What do you think about Darren Smith?

  Mike: I think he's a big lump who doesn't score goals. I think he might fluke one in if you put a perfect cross on his head.

  ***

  I pressed pause and checked the faces of the squad. It seemed to me that this kind of thing was high-risk. Slagging the players off before a big game! But it wasn't me saying that most of my squad weren't up to the level, it was two nerds who had never played the sport. Football managers often posted critical newspaper headlines or tweets in the dressing room to rile their players up.

  Henri swore loudly in French. "Max, I want to shove it up their arse!"

  "Go for it," I said. "Just don't get sent off or they'll be the ones laughing."

  His eyes blazed at the image, but he nodded.

  Sticky was fuming. He was absolutely pissed at his portrayal, but he was able to think clearly. "Max. If they think we're so shit, why don't they have us in last place?"

  I didn't like that question. "Er, they think there are a few teams worse than us, is all."

  Sticky got to his feet and growled in a way that was almost frightening. "Play the rest."

  "It's an hour-long podcast, Steve."

  "Press play. I want to hear the rest."

  I glanced at Sandra, who gave me a tiny shrug. "Er," I said. "Have we got time? I don't think we've got time."

  "We've got time," said Vimsy, who wasn't quite on my wavelength. I really didn't want to play the rest. If the first part of the podcast's analysis of our squad could be used as motivation, as spite fuel, the rest was... well, it was cringe.

  ***

  Rocky: What do you think about Darren Smith?

  Mike: I think he's a big lump who doesn't score goals. I think he might fluke one in if you put a perfect cross on his head.

  Rocky: You're talking about a team with Max Best on the wing. Max Best taking set pieces.

  Mike: That's true. Smith could have decent numbers by the end of the season. And who knows? Maybe he's better than he looks. It wouldn't be hard. So why have we got Chester as high as they are? Why don't we have them going straight back down?

  Rocky: We've said it - Max Best. He was unbelievable at Tranmere. He has this habit now of coming on for the last twenty minutes of games but there's no way he won't score enough goals and create enough mayhem for Chester to get enough points to avoid the drop.

  Mike: As a player he is far, far too good for the level. What about him as a manager?

  Rocky: There I'm torn. He didn't get any wins from his five at Grimsby and I think that while it's clever the way he adapts his formations and tactics on a game by game basis, in the end you do want a manager with a defined style.

  Mike: I've heard from a lot of insiders who say he's the real deal, that he's just as good as he thinks he is.

  Rocky: Which would be worrying for the rest of the league... in a different club.

  Mike: Right. So he adds twenty points as a manager, thirty points as a player. Chester are safe before they've kicked a ball!

  Rocky: What's annoying is that's probably true. But still, he's working with the lowest budget in the league. You can't defy financial gravity. I think he'll get them safe this season and move onto bigger and better things next year. So long, thanks for the memories.

  Mike: Would you have him at Oxford?

  Rocky: [Pause.] Yes.

  Mike: In nineteenth place, another northern team with a budget a long way south of the others... Accrington Stanley.

  ***

  I shook my head as I pressed pause. That had been a disaster. Last time I'd stopped the recording, the lads were ready to go and smash bricks with their skulls. Now the mood had shifted.

  Uh-oh.

  "So, er," I said, but Sticky took over.

  "You heard the pricks," he boomed, bending slightly to look his team mates in the eye. "We're shit, the boss is great. Is that right? We've got seventy minutes to prove 'em wrong. Get your arses out there!"

  Christian yelled something, as did Zach and Lee C, and the dressing room filled with shouts before it emptied.

  When the first eleven were gone, I turned to Sandra. "What do you think?"

  "Not sure," she said. "I think they were motivated enough beforehand, don't you? First game of the season, first game in the EFL. We didn't need the podcast today. Maybe do that in the third match."

  "Yeah but you can't use the pre-season predictions before the third match, can you? It's now or never."

  Sandra thought about it. "I think I liked it, overall. It was getting my blood boiling somehow."

  "It's because what they were saying was true and that's how we're perceived on the outside and that's a shock because in here we think positively of everyone. I read a lot of autobiographies of former players and so much of their motivation is them hearing a negative opinion and saying fuck you, I'll prove you wrong."

  "I'm more interested in the players who didn't get named. Magnus. William. Tom, Dan, Josh. They're not even worth a slagging-off. That could be just as effective."

  "Wow," I said, because I hadn't even thought of that. "I'm actually a genius."

  ***

  The Highbury Stadium, definitely in the top three most famous stadiums of that name, is located on the coast between Blackpool and Morecambe, where we had lost pre-season friendlies.

  The main stand was awesome, with its sleek curving roof, though the rest of the stadium was pretty functional. 831 Chester fans had travelled up to witness a big piece of the club's history and they were in the mood to sing, sing, sing. I went over to the Percy Ronson Stand before kick off and let them serenade me.

  I had to talk to the TV people before the match but instead of answering their questions I quite reasonably pointed out that as player-manager I needed to warm up with my players and Sandra should be allowed to do the pre-match interviews. The interviewer seemed sympathetic to that point of view and since it was a unique situation it seemed that as long as I was in the matchday squad I would be spared one of the more tedious duties in football.

  Sadly, that was the only win I got, because when the match finally kicked off, Fleetwood did a number on us. Our lads stuck to the plan very well. Eddie and Lee H worked hard to prevent crosses, the centre backs won headers, Youngster mopped up. But it was one-way traffic and The Cod Army had far too much power and craft for us.

  Quite early in the half I realised it would be a miracle if we got anything from the match, so I experimented with the 5-3-2 setup. I'd already moved Youngster back one slot but there were countless little tweaks to test. I created a hot key that would switch Zach, my best passer from deep, from short passes to long balls. I felt that if I could mix things up we could take teams by surprise. It might have worked if we had more control of midfield, but we didn't. We didn't have control anywhere. Nor did my use of the With Ball and Without Ball screens achieve a great deal. Most of our match ratings settled on 6, with Youngster on 7 and Dazza on 5.

  Still, it was all instructive and interesting, in a dispassionate sort of way. From the moment the second goal went in, the Fleetwood fans turned from cheering their team to jeering us. They sang 'League Two? You're having a laugh!' They sang 'Fuck off back to Wales'. They sang 'two-nil in your cup final!'

  Their dugout, with a mediocre former player ruling the roost, was pretty classless on the whole, but in fairness I'd be classless too if the most famous news story about me started with the words 'Disgraced Scottish Midfielder'.

  To the great disappointment of Vimsy, I decided there was no point getting stuck in, getting involved, because at two-nil down it was hard to see us finding our way back into the match. We had too many players who were thirty, thirty-five points behind their rivals. Too many parts of our tablet had chipped off. It was enough for today that we were battling, that we were together.

  "What do you think?" said Sandra.

  "About what?"

  "About half-time. Your speech."

  "Oh. I've got nothing. Do you see a way back?"

  "Yes. You let the boys settle down, catch their breath, then you say 'my favourite band is called Fleetwood Maps' and you riff on that."

  I smiled but my heart wasn't in it. "This game's dead. We're done. Write it off, use five subs, get minutes in legs. Slap them at the Deva."

  "Mmm," she said, non-committal.

  I did my usual routine - checking match ratings, Condition scores, looking at possible injuries. That was all fine but the fire Beth had promised would return when the season resumed just wasn't there. Maybe it had gone. Like, proper gone.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yeah," I said, and it was true. I was all right. I was healthy and had a high income and was good at the main part of my job. On Tuesday night I would use Triple Captain and Bench Boost against Bolton Wanderers - why not? - and with that boost I would conceivably be good enough as a player to do something very, very naughty. "It's weird we have more chance against a Championship side than one from League Two."

  "Do we, though?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Bolton will watch this and think we're shit. If they put out one reserve too many we'll fucking go for the jugular and see what happens. Fleetwood are this division's Slovakia. A slightly thinner brick wall we keep crashing against." I sighed. "Starting the season with the hardest possible match is brutal. Don't do this to us again, Mr. Fixture Computer."

  "Is it really a computer?"

  "I think so. I'll ask when I go to the first EFL meeting."

  "Mmm," she said again, like it was her fucking catchphrase.

  "What?"

  "Nothing," she said. She looked over the pitch. "We'll stay like this, will we? 5-3-2. You'll come on for the last twenty, run around a bit."

  "Ugh. Can't be bothered. It's just an injury risk, innit?"

  Sandra bit her thumb nail. "Mmm. The fans would like it, though. Maybe you can do a nutmeg or some mid-match tekkers. Give them something to talk about on the drive home. Come on, Max. Bit of showboating for the fans. They've waited fifteen years for this."

  I found myself nodding. "Yeah. I'll do some megs and one minor madness but I'm not going in for tackles. Yeah, okay."

  ***

  At half-time I was calm and technocratic. I tapped the magnets and gave out some pieces of advice. The usual things, like noticing that the number 20 preferred passing to the 9 than the 10. Zach could be on his toes for that.

  I was telling Dazza that he was getting dragged too far from Henri and was moving his magnet around when I stopped talking. I had a weird moment in a soundless bubble. I stepped back from the tactics board deeply, deeply confused.

  "How long has that been there?" I said.

  "What?" said the Brig, worried. Worried for my safety, worried for my sanity.

  "It's because I wanted to move Youngster," I said, slowly. "I didn't see it. How can I miss something so basic? What?"

  I stepped forward and reset the formation to 5-3-2. Then I slid one of the three centre-backs to the DM slot and fixed the gaps between the two remaining ones, just like the curse did.

  "Henri," I said. "What do you think?"

  He squinted. "4-1-3-2?"

  "Yeah. Do you like it?"

  "It's still very narrow, but yes, I prefer it to 5-3-2. Though, of course," he added, sensing I was in a strange mood, "it is rational to use that formation today."

  I adjusted one of the magnets because it was a hair's breadth out of place - I stepped back and threw my hands up like I'd been shocked.

  "What, sir? What happened?"

  I turned, slowly, with my hands up at first. I slunk to the side of the board so that I was facing everyone but could still move the magnets. "This was my favourite formation in Champion Manager." That's why it hadn't jumped out at me! "I ran this for years. Carlisle United, champions of Europe. That was based on this." I stared at the formation. As Henri had said, it was too narrow. Not a Max Best formation at all. But you'd get width if you had fast, attacking full backs with great stamina... If you had Alphonso Davies on the left and Roddy Jones on the right... And - yes, it was coming back to me - you needed goals from midfield. Ryan Jack and Lee Contreras were not my dream goalscoring CMs but I knew there was a way to tweak this formation to get them into the box. "A-ha," I said, chuckling to myself. "We're doing this. Magnus, go to CM."

  "Yes, boss."

  Sandra tilted her head and looked at the board - she wasn't impressed, I could tell. "You don't think we'll get overrun in defence?"

  "No," I said. I tapped the board a few times. "This is overpowered. Oh! And this is how we get Pascal on. Mate, make sure you're warmed up, yeah? I'm not sure when. I need to take a look at it but I think I want late runs into the box, see if you can get on the ends of things."

  "Yes, boss."

  I faced the board with my eyes closed, running through the implications. More parity in midfield meant fewer attacks coming at us. Josh would give us more threat on the left than Eddie, but only fractionally and he was still so raw. It was good Sandra had made me use him against Slovakia, though. Josh was supposed to be a wing-back, meaning he wanted to play further forward than Eddie or Cole. It was easy to imagine tweaking this 4-1-3-2 to suit him. And having three CMs meant I could sub on for one of those guys and give myself a free role. It wouldn't matter so much if I went a-roaming if I was one of three.

  "Boss?" It was Wibbers. "Did you just find an old map?"

  I beamed at him. "Ha! I don't know. Maybe! Come on, lads. Go and get a grip of this match. Let's see if there's treasure at the end of this one."

  "Or if it's dragons," said Sticky, morbidly.

  ***

  Okay so Fleetwood took their foot off the gas while we added a few tenths to our match ratings, but the start of the second half was really gratifying. We looked way better, and as I'd thought, having the extra midfielder did more to stop attacks than the fifth defender.

  There was still something of a chasm between the elevens, though, and the big chances that were created were created by the home team.

  "It's better, isn't it?"

  "Yes," said Sandra. "This suits us better. I think..."

  "What?"

  "I think it suits you better. You don't like playing five at the back. You'd play four at the back and three defensive midfielders, but not five at the back."

  "Er, I think I did that once. We had two men sent off. Three DMs, yeah. Huh. I don't think it even occurred to me that day to put five at the back."

  Sandra nodded. "We take our lead from you. If you don't believe in something, it won't work. It was worth doing it to get to a formation you do like."

  "Do you prefer this to 4-1-4-1?" I said. Sandra really wasn't keen on that one.

  She stuck her tongue out. "They're about equal. Do we want to play up the wings or through the middle? We, er..."

  "Go on."

  "We're a bit short on reliable wingers and midfielders who thrive in tight spaces. I wish we had discussed 4-1-3-2 before we signed who we signed."

  I nodded. That would obviously have been better but I couldn't see that it would have changed anything. Maybe we wouldn't have gone for Lee C. "5-3-2 will let us give minutes to Sowunmi. That's good. And I think Wibbers will do well as one of the three midfielders behind the strikers."

  Sandra brightened up. "That's true. I'd like to see that."

  I was always worried about putting young players on in matches we were losing. So far it hadn't blown up in my face but everyone said there was a risk of it messing with their heads. Just because we had a sports psychologist didn't mean I needed to go round creating problems. "Not today, I reckon. I think we'll give Tom a run out. Him, Pascal, me and that's that."

  "Okay."

  ***

  With 70 minutes on the clock, the match was going pretty much as it had been. The Chester fans were singing and banging on the back of the stand almost non-stop. It was the party they had been longing for and the scoreline was almost irrelevant. Whether I could afford to lose five or six matches in a row, this one was almost a free hit.

  The Fleetwood fans were enjoying themselves and their team's performance. Fleetwood's manager was being a buffoon on the touchline. He looked like the sort who would trip a player as he raced down the line.

  "Who will we bring off?" said Sandra, interrupting my thoughts so abruptly I shook my head like a dog.

  "Oh. What do you think?"

  "Dazza and Ryan."

  "Agreed."

  "Now?"

  "Sure."

  Dazza had run around a lot and tried to affect the game. Against players his own age, his physicality was a huge advantage, but the Fleetwood centre backs were older, just as physical, and a lot more streetwise. Tom Westwood was worse than Dazza in almost every way, but he had been training with us and in his brief career he had played against a lot of hard bastards. Tom very quickly showed that I was onto something when I'd thought about naming him in the starting lineup - this kind of match, where we needed the strikers to do a lot of donkey work, a lot of thankless running, was perfect for him. His CA was way lower than Dazza's, but if I gave him minutes he would start to catch up.

  "Give Tom some praise," I said.

  "Do it yourself," said Sandra, giving me a tiny push towards the fourth official. "Magnus is tired. Now remember, you promised me one nutmeg and one tekkers."

  I sighed and looked up at a floodlight. I just didn't feel like it. "Fine," I said.

  ***

  There was still no fire in my belly and no ice in my veins but as I was announced to the fans, the away mob went bonkers, soon settling into a rolling rendition of 'Max Best's blue-and-white army'. It perked me up, put a spring in my step, which allied to my general physical well-being made me feel like a baby gazelle.

  I bounced and boinged around the pitch, following the ball, helping my mates out, one-touching it to someone's feet, flicking it over someone's head before collecting on the other side, doing pointless tricks in the middle of nowhere.

  The Chester fans lapped it up and they started yelling Olé when I played simple passes. One Fleetwood player, a prick called John Allen, didn't like that and he booted me up the arse.

  I got up and laughed in his face, which I'm prepared to admit could be construed as mildly annoying. He asked me if I would like to go home in a fucking ambulance, which I'm sorry to say made me laugh even harder. I had the chance to send the free kick into the box but I told Pascal to pass the ball short to me and when he did, I dribbled straight at John Allen, did a couple of stepovers, and nutmegged the shit out of him.

  I passed to Henri and ran for the return, but he was isolated. Had there been an option to his left - some kind of hard-working Irishman with high stamina, perhaps - he might have been able to keep the move alive, but he didn't.

  I shrugged off my disappointment in record time. It was always tough when you injected forward momentum into a move and someone else ruined it, but my general lack of belly fire was useful in that regard. It was my fault that Aff wasn't there, and my fault that there was no left-mid of any kind.

  As Fleetwood rushed forward, after the referee turned around, John Allen smashed into me. A proper forearm smash to the jawline. I just about saw it coming and got my arm in the way to lessen the blow but it still sent me crashing to the turf. Henri saw it and went mental. The Chester fan party turned vicious. One word from me and they would have stormed the main stand.

  I waited on the turf, propping myself up with my elbows, until the ref let Physio Dean come to look at me.

  "Have I lost any teef?" I said, as he looked in my mouth.

  "No. There's some blood though. Hold still."

  John Allen came over. "Not so funny now, is it?"

  "Max!" complained Henri. "I want to end him."

  I did something I normally hated doing on a football pitch - I spat. It came out pretty red. I grabbed some water, swigged, and spat again. "Why? He's nothing. He's nobody." I swigged on the water as I started to lift myself from the turf.

  The ref turned up. "You good to go, Best?"

  "I'm good to go whenever the fuck I'm good to go," I said, staring at him. "I just got elbowed in the face, as you'll see on TV again and again, and you did nothing. You bottled it. You get a zero in my match report. Do not add insult to injury by making me hurry. Are we fucking clear?"

  "Don't talk to me like that."

  "Why? What are you gonna do? Elbow me in the face? Join the fucking queue."

  I turned to Dean but found that he had gone. He was being led away by Henri, who was whispering in his ear. I still had the water bottle so I dropkicked it in the general direction of our dugout.

  I heard the home fans roar with approval while the away fans got one step closer to rioting. Why? Behind me, the ref was holding a yellow card over his head. Aimed at me.

  Yellow card for getting elbowed in the face. Guy doing the elbowing gets away scot-free.

  Yeah. Tell you what, mate. I felt a bit of the old fire in the belly. Not an awful lot of the ice in the veins.

  I pottered around for a minute feeling my jaw, spitting what might have been flecks of blood. And muttering. Chuntering. Getting myself worked up.

  The ball was fizzed to John Allen and I saw my chance. I sprinted at him and he laid the ball off - just as I knew he would. I got to the ball just as it reached its intended target, one of the centre-backs. I shoulder-barged the defender and as I fell away, I dragged the ball to the right. Slightly too far behind, but I dragged it again, and was just bringing it under my spell when I realised I was about to get clattered from behind, and this one would really hurt.

  So I drag-rolled the ball backwards and to the right before jumping slightly. Allen caught me but not enough to make me lose balance. I landed and suddenly everything was aligned - as the Fleetwood players got in each other's way, I pushed the ball forward and to the right and hit it hard and low from thirty-five yards out.

  For the first few yards, the ball was hidden behind a defender, but the goalie still had time to get across and save it. Or so you'd think. Though he dived, it was like he got shorter when he did so. I found the bottom-right corner but I needn't have been so accurate. This wasn't the Slovakian national team goalie; this was a League Two journeyman who had nothing to do for eighty minutes except take very slow goal kicks.

  Two-one!

  Chester FC had scored its first fourth tier goal in fifteen years and the fans took the phrase limbs to new levels. Normally when you say limbs it means people jumping for joy, throwing their hands up, but I swear I saw some fucking legs in that seething mass of bodies. Guys doing handstands.

  It was a nice moment, I guess, one I might enjoy in retrospect, but right then and there I wanted my teammates to come and celebrate with me. We hugged and kissed and bumped each other in the normal fashion, but very, very close to John Allen. There was footage of me trying to include him in the celebrations but I'm pretty sure that was a deepfake. That dubious footage was followed by real video of what the TV company called 'a mass brawl' but they really do go looking for narratives, sometimes. There was nothing in it.

  By the time the match finally resumed I hadn't quite calmed down, by which I mean I had worked myself into a fucking whirlwind of hate and skill and put on an eight-minute show that drew the word 'breathtaking' from the commentator, from Sandra, and on the next episode of the Pyramid Schemers podcast.

  I pinged long passes, I dribbled, I played one-touch, I fired a shot just over, I slapped a volley just wide. John Allen kept trying to give me verbals, kept trying to kick me, but my fury had long since risen to new levels, leaving him as one of the slugs it was my mission to destroy.

  With me running riot, the rest of the team suddenly clicked. Zach fired a pass to Lee C, who touched it first time back to Pascal. He had a nice angle for a pass to Tom, who touched it to Henri and spun away for the return.

  It never came. A Fleetwood defender, safe in the knowledge that the ref only booked players for being smacked in the gob, wrestled Henri to the ground before he could send the return pass.

  We got the free kick but - it almost made me laugh, which would have broken the spell - Henri got a yellow card for getting in the defender's face. The defender was not carded.

  The free kick though, was in a dream position. Whether you prefer the early Fleetwood Mac line up or the one that released Rumours, you can't deny that having a free kick twenty-five yards out, five yards to the left of the centre of the goal, is Max Best territory.

  John Allen took up the only position for which he was truly suited on a football pitch - what professionals call 'the slug'. Perhaps you have seen this. The goalkeeper assembles a wall of three or four men. They are supposed to jump as the ball is kicked in order to make it even harder for the ball to get past them. The act of jumping leaves a gap under their feet, though, which free-kick maestros of the past learned to exploit. Thus 'the slug' was born. It wriggles to the ground and lies there, prone and useless, simply to block one potential route to goal.

  I closed my eyes and sketched a map. I could smash the ball wide and bend it into the far post, but the goalie was stood to that side. Even if I hit it hard, he'd be favourite, especially now that he had let a goal in and was wide awake.

  I could Beckham the ball up and over the wall, with enough curl so that even if the goalie danced across to my left and jumped, he wouldn't be able to get a hand to it. For bonus points, I would aim between the heads of two of the wall - ideally the two with the lowest Bravery scores. They were the guys least likely to throw their heads at the ball, after all.

  That last option wasn't available to me, since the two in the key position were cavemen from the warrior class.

  By the time the ref had finished fussing over everything, I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do. He blew his whistle and I tried to make eye contact with the goalie - sometimes that helped. He would only look at the ball, though, so there was no advantage there.

  There was something about the way he was doing little tippy-toed moves that made me think he wanted to rush across goal and make a spectacular flying save. So I thought: okay, bubs. Let's see how you get on.

  I took a step back, and two slow steps forward. That was a big old neon sign that said I was going to clip the ball slow and accurate over the wall. The goalie took three tiny, quick steps in that direction... and I slapped the ball to where the keeper had been. With a bit of extra leg speed, the shot went fast, up and down, but it was the element of surprise that did it. For the second time in the match the goalie did an inept, hunched dive that made him look like a rank amateur.

  Two-all!

  I took a few steps in the direction of John Allen, just to check if he had seen it from his position as the slug, but I found myself being bundled away by Henri, Zach, Christian, Lee C, Lee H - the whole fucking team. I found myself in front of eight hundred and thirty-one bouncing Chester fans, over eight hundred of whom seemed to be trying to make their own heads explode by screaming.

  I cupped my hand to my ear. I can't hear you.

  I'm told the resulting roar could be heard from Bradford.

  ***

  At the final whistle, which came too early for me to finish what John Allen had started, I gave a Maxy Two-Thumbs to the away fans, then walked off the pitch ignoring everyone, especially Fleetwood's manager and the referee. I grabbed Dean and took him to the dressing room. My jaw was really starting to hurt so I wrote a text that I showed him but didn't actually send.

  I want the stuff.

  Dean rolled his eyes. "No, Max. Come on. We talked about that."

  Not in the mood. Give me the stuff.

  One good thing about owning a dentist was having access to all kinds of pharmaceuticals that normal people would struggle to get hold of. Dean looked up, sighed, but nodded. He went to his personal kit bag, looked around furtively, and rummaged in one of the side pockets.

  ***

  "Max Best, your first ever match in League Two."

  I shook my head.

  "No? Right, Grimsby."

  I did a rolling-forward hand gesture. Keep going.

  "Okay, and Tranmere, yes. But your first as the manager of Chester."

  I did an okay gesture. Correct!

  "Two-all. Do you think that's a fair reflection on the course of the match?"

  I shrugged.

  "It's traditional to talk, Max, in these interviews."

  I shook my head and pointed to my mouth. Can't. I mimed elbowing someone, then mimed being elbowed.

  "Sorry, what are you doing?"

  I rolled my eyes and took a tablet computer from Dean, who was watching me with a nervous, sweaty sheen on his forehead. I tapped the screen. One incredible thing about being in League Two with every match televised was that footage was easy to come by. I had the incident where Allen had hit me - I let it play out.

  "You got elbowed?"

  I gave him the kind of look Dani Smith-Smithe gave me when I said something stupid. I backed it up by replaying the incident.

  "And you can't talk?"

  I shook my head, and mimed showing a yellow card.

  "Yellow card? You got a yellow card, but John Allen didn't."

  I nodded, making a stupid laughing sound.

  "Er, Max, I think I should let you go and get some treatment, perhaps. Congratulations on your two goals and a hard-earned point for your team."

  I held the tablet up with it paused on the exact moment John Allen's elbow crashed into my face. The most perfect part was that the name 'Allen' was clearly visible on his shirt. I knew this next scene would be the one that was used as the thumbnail, the one shared on social media. My face, the image on the tablet. I smiled at my interviewer. Upon opening my lips, the viewers could see blood all over my teeth, in every crevice, every nook and cranny. It was absolutely disgusting.

  "Er, Max Best, Chester's two-goal hero. Thank you very much."

  ***

  Back in the dressing room, Dean gave me a toothbrush and I carefully set about brushing my teeth in front of one of the sinks.

  "What the hell is this?" cried Sticky, as he led a throng of players inside. "Are you still bleeding? Dean!"

  "He's not bleeding," said Dean, folding his arms. He shook his head a few more times, but then unfolded his arms and laughed. "It's red dye. Disclosing tablets from the dentist. You use them to find plaque so you can clean your teeth better or, you know, show your patients they're not cleaning their teeth well."

  Sticky was astonished. "So Max doesn't clean his teeth?"

  I laughed so hard I nearly choked on some red dye. I spat out a mouthful. "Don't make me laugh, Steve. It really does hurt. The fucker got me good. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew he got me. Know what I mean? If he doesn't get a ban, let's just say I'll bring it up at the next EFL meeting."

  Sticky marvelled at me for a moment while I got back to brushing my teeth. The dye was weirdly persistent. Sticky mused. "Seems like the nerds were right."

  "They're not right," I said. "You're mint. You kept us in the game so a sub could run at tired legs. That's the plan." I washed the brush under the tap and got back to scrubbing. "Team," I added, as an afterthought, but it came out more like 'eem'.

  Sticky was unusually talkative. "Does today's match fit the map theme or do we go on impulse, full-bore, when we feel like it?"

  Henri, exhausted but happy, slapped Sticky on the back. "It fits the theme. We have a mapmaker; Fleetwood don't. If they did, they would know not to mess with Chesters. Their map would have an arrow pointing to us and it would say 'do not wake the dragon'."

  "I'm not a dragon," I said, but my mouth was sore and full of fluid.

  "What?" said Sticky. A few people came closer to hear better. Vimsy, the Brig, Sandra, Magnus.

  "I woh a wa-on!" I said.

  Vimsy pointed, as energetic as he ever got. "I want Rhiannon! He wants Rhiannon. Who's in charge of the music? Come on, hurry up! We never get any good tunes around here! Five at the back, keep it tight first twenty, score from a set piece, running battles, nick a point and blast some Stevie Nicks. Finally, a day I can enjoy from start to finish. Ah! It makes sitting through history lessons worth it. Yes, lads! Come on! You know the words! Come on! Will you ever win? Yes! At Bolton on Tuesday."