15.
Something touched my face.
I was in the world's most advanced sleep pod, maintained at the perfect temperature, white noise lulling me into a state of drooly bliss, self-learning gels cradling my head and neck while a sultry Peruvian voice whispered, 'All is well, you sleep now.'
Something touched my face. "Max."
This voice was Geordie. Voice of an angel. The Angel of the North. North by North-West. West in peace. "Just ten more minutes," I muttered, meaning ten more hours.
Emma touched my temple and dragged her finger down to my cheek. I opened my eyes. There she was, mah wife, muh queen, my my my Delilah. She smiled. "It's time to eat, babes."
"Crimbo din-dins?"
She replied in a posh voice. "Christmas dinner." Back in her normal tone, she said, "We've got guests. Come on, up you get."
I sat up and examined the sleep pod. It turned out to be a grey sofa in the living room at the Weaver residence. To my right, there was activity around the dining table, and beyond it, in the kitchen, the fan in the oven was whirring. That was the white noise, so what was the self-learning gel? I stared in horror. Surely not? I lifted a black-and-white Newcastle United cushion. It had a Max Best-shaped indentation and was warm.
And the sultry Peruvian voice? Better not to think about that one too much.
I stayed in place for half a minute, trying to summon the desire and the energy to stand. I had fallen asleep on the sofa and, according to the curse clock, I'd been there for three or four hours. To my left, the big Christmas tree, presents, torn wrapping paper, cards, a couple of phones. The Weavers had moved to a continental Christmas, celebrating on the 24th so that I could spend the 25th with my mum. (We were going to the care home this year, the second without Anna. I was hoping they had replenished their stock of elderly mystical foreigners so mum could get a new friend.)
Sebastian Weaver came over, jolly, smiling. "Good kip?"
"Yeah. No. God, I could have slept forever. This is an amazing sofa. Hard but soft, incredible."
"That's years of your wife jumping up and down on it, doing gymnastics, driving us crazy."
I patted the thing. "That's the secret, is it? Life pro tip, enhance your sofa game by getting a kid to bounce on it."
"Kid? She still does it!" He grinned and looked very happy with himself. "You hungry?"
Absolutely not. The thought of eating made me feel deeply queasy. "Is it time?"
"Yeah."
"Can you help me up?" I extended my left arm.
He hesitated. "Are you joking?"
"No." He grabbed me by the wrist and leaned back. I pushed as he pulled and it all went smoothly, until I had to stand on my own steam. "Argh, shit." I held my knees. "No, it's fine, just had a wobble."
Another dude came over, looking sun-kissed and worried. He held out his arms. "All good, lads? Anything I can do?"
I tried to smile. "I'm just wrecked." I bent my knees slightly, leaned forward, back, twisted. "Haven't felt like this since my Darlington days. You know when you say you want players to leave it all out on the pitch? This is what it looks like. Condition 1%. I'll be all right. I'll just make old man noises when moving my joints, if that's okay."
"Course it is," said Seb. "Nothing better than a lusty grunt when standing or bending or reaching for the remote control. Max, this is John. John's Nicole's husband. Nicole's an old friend of Rachel." As Seb spoke, I reached out to shake the new guy's hand. Seb continued, "We were thick as thieves back in the day, but they emigrated to Australia."
My jaw dropped. "To?"
Emma was coming over to check on me. She said, "Don't worry, John. He's just amazed anyone would go there. He thinks that every time you open a kitchen cupboard, a hundred jellyfish tumble out."
John was in his late 50s, early 60s, and had the vibe of being intelligent, solid, dependable. He had a Geordie accent. "No jellyfish in the cupboards, just all the tat Nicole buys. Garlic presses, peelers, tins of this, cans of that, oil bottle nozzles."
I said, "Soz what?"
He demonstrated with his hands. "Glass bottle, put your olive oil or your veggie oil - "
"Or your vegemite oil," said Emma.
"Or your vegemite oil," agreed John. "And it's got a special nozzle, no-drip, so you don't have to worry about the liquid spilling everywhere. You know how with a normal bottle you screw the lid back on and it's always oily and it's on your hands, gets everywhere? This thing solves the problem."
"That sounds amazing," I said.
"It is, but when Nicole ordered one, what she didn't know was that she was ordering one box... of twenty-four! They're bloody everywhere!"
His wife was carrying something from the kitchen area to the dining table. She looked up and smiled. "Are you still going on about the nozzles?"
Rachel Weaver placed a silver bowl onto the dining table, rubbed her hands on her apron, and said, "Now that Sleeping Beauty is up and about, let's eat."
***
I left my phone on the sofa and hobbled to the bathroom to wash my face - Condition plus one - and went at an unhurried pace back through the downstairs layout. It was a beautiful house, extended and remodelled with a rare combination of money and taste. I wanted the new-look Chester men's squad to be like this. It should look great, feel premium, with not a drop of cash wasted.
"Babes, stop admiring the light switches and get over here, I'm starving."
I shuffled to the table and took my place. John said, "Well, he's a footballer so it's normal he's interested in fixtures."
I chuckled and would have offered him a high five, but he was immediately to my right and the angles were wrong, so I did it verbally. "That's great. Love that."
Nicole was sitting opposite him, and was helping to dish salads out at our end of the table. She was the same age as Rachel, late fifties, and had a simple, classy elegance to how she dressed, spoke, and moved. "Is it normal that you're so exhausted after a match?"
"No," I said. "This is an extreme case. It was intense as a player, intense as a manager, and I didn't sleep."
"Aww," she said. "Not at all?"
Emma said, "He's always strung out after a big game."
John said, "And it's the after-effects of the party, I expect."
"Party?" I said.
"After the win. First away win, off the bottom of the table. Very annoying for us Geordies but we wouldn't begrudge you enjoying yourselves."
I shook my head. "Dancing in the dressing room, clowning around, pumping some music, twenty minutes. But then I'm turning the volume down, switching to sort of easy listening bangers. Still upbeat, still fun, but it's like, lads, start to unwind, let's fuck off out of here so you can spend some time with your family, we've got a game in three days. It's Leeds United, the team below us, and we've got to win."
Nicole was puzzled. "So you don't even get to enjoy it?"
"It's about managing that enjoyment. Take one big swig of that booze, taste it, feel the bubbles, then pour the rest down the sink." Emma gave me a sharp look. "I didn't drink anything! It's just a turn of phrase." I eyed Nicole. "We've got three games in seven days. We won't enjoy this one if we lose those three, do you know what I mean, so we can't get blasted. Got to keep a lid on the fun, but that's the job. Civilians think it's all about kicking the ball good but what's hardest is postponing your normal life for twenty years. If you can get your head around the costs and the sacrifices, you're on the right track."
John said, "Ah, but it's all worth it though."
My train of thought froze, like a movie that had been put on pause. Was it all worth it? The question was too heavy to lift just then, so I pretended I hadn't heard it.
I continued. "Anyway, we still get those moments, these moments, Christmas with family, opening the presents, but maybe we do it on the 24th or the 26th and maybe we have to compress opening the presents and building a snowman into an hour because we've got to hit the gym, but you had that time and you've got to learn to appreciate the moments when you get them. And you hope to find someone drop-dead gorgeous who is patient with you, and hope her parents are cool and if you randomly fall asleep on their sofa, they don't hold it against you."
Sebastian was going round pouring white wine. "Max? Can we tempt you this year?"
"Absolutely, think I've earned a bit of alk, but I'll wait for the red, if that's all right."
"Course."
Emma seemed delighted with the idea. "I'll do that too!"
The conversation turned to Australian wines. Apparently there was a radical, maverick new brand that didn't have a kangaroo on the label, which was provoking utter astonishment and disquiet. I was more than happy for the opportunity to shut up and focus on eating my salad. Crisp veggies, nice bit of dressing, wash it down with locally-sourced organic aqua minerale (tap water).
Condition 5.
***
The salads were removed and we pulled some Christmas crackers. I won a red paper crown, which I placed on my head and kept there for the entire dinner. In the wreckage of the cracker was a joke, which, as per tradition, I read aloud. "You know you're getting old when you go to an auction and people start bidding on you."
This brought chuckles from Seb, Rachel, Nicole, and John, while Emma and I stared at each other thinking 'why are they laughing, that's shit'. Seb said, "You've got an auction coming up, haven't you? Month-long transfer window. Watch out you don't sell yourself."
"No-one can afford me," I said, which made everyone laugh. Everyone except Emma, who knew I wasn't joking. "I'll be fending off bids for Wibbers." After scoring his seventh goal in the Prem, another three clubs had appeared in his curse profile, making a grand total of 12 clubs across Europe who were interested in buying him. "And Cheb, Gabby, the usual. I won't mention which North-East-based club laughably thinks they have a shot at getting Youngster."
"Talking of food chains," said Sebastian, holding his knife and fork straight up, gripping the handles like a little boy, "here comes the main event!"
Christmas dinner was arriving.
Turkey, roast beef and mint sauce - yisssssss, mate - mash, little roast potatoes, gravy, peas, carrots, sprouts. Condition 10! Lashings of red wine. Condition 20!
I tucked in, and the next time I spoke was to wonder why sprouts had such a bad rap.
Sebastian explained that 'Big Sprout' had responded to criticism of their product by tweaking its taste over time, and now everyone loved sprouts. He also suggested that we had this exact conversation every year. "I look forward to it, in fact. It's a new family tradition. 9 a.m., open the presents. 4 p.m. serve sprouts. Five past four, tell Max about the history of sprouts."
From the sofa, my phone pinged, noisily. "Shit, I think I've turned the volume up instead of down. Sorry." It pinged again, three times. "Maaate," I said, as I launched into the long and drawn-out process of getting up.
"Stay put, babes." Emma dabbed her lips with a napkin and went to the living room. "Do you want it? Or will I turn the sound off?"
"Off, thanks. No phones at the table. I am politeness made flesh."
Emma was looking at the screen, where the latest notification would be showing. "It's about Bark."
"Fuck. Er, okay, sorry everyone, I need to..."
As Emma came back to the dining area, Rachel said, "It's fine, it's no problem. This is your busiest time of the year, we know that. What's happening with Bark?"
Nicole said, "Who is Bark?"
Rachel said, "He's a player. Lovely boy. Max found him at Darlington, back when he and Emma were courting." Courting. What a word. "He was the agency's first client, wasn't he, Max?"
"Yep. He's actually the baseline for new talent. If you want to be picked up by REM, you need to be as good as Bark. Unless," I added, dryly, "you're a bad boy with good abs who sensible women look at and think, phwoar, but also, I could change him."
Emma placed the phone on the table, stood next to me, and adjusted my party hat. She said, "Max is weirdly jealous of reality TV stars. Those and Australians."
John said, "What about Australian reality TV stars?"
I dropped my knife and fork. "What?" I pulled a face like I was imagining fresh new horrors. "They... They can't. It's..." I shuddered.
Emma wrapped her arms around me. "Silly Max." She kissed me on the temple. "What's happening with Bark?"
I read the latest messages and was relieved to find it was good news for once. "It's a done deal. Birmingham want to announce it tomorrow morning." I replied to Ruth with a thumbs up, then put the phone down. "Brum fans are extremely gobby and if results aren't going well, like now, they let management know. This will be a Christmas morning surprise for them. They will be thinking - oh, time for my flawless Brummie accent. Taykun a player from a Premier Leeeeague club? That Bark feller started in Chester's win against Nooooocassull but he wants to come to us because we're massif."
Emma looked up at the ceiling. "Flawless, babes. It's uncanny. It's like you were born in Walsall." She took her wine glass with her to the kitchen, where she sliced more turkey or something.
"My point is that in the morning, Brum fans will be tweeting the phrase 'food chain' and feeling good about themselves."
Sebastian, who owned a football club and considered himself an industry insider, sniffed and said, "What's the fee?"
Emma came back to the table with a small plate of meat and a lot more wine than a second ago. I smiled. Did she have her own private bottle over there? "I let Birmingham beat me down to 3.9 million. They've got a tough guy negotiator who was crazily stoked to change the 4 at the front to a 3. He probably threw a party because of it; people are so strange. The price is... yeah, it's fair. It suits both parties and it's all profit. We paid 75,000 for him, like, five years ago."
Nicole's eyebrows rose. "That's impressive."
I rubbed my mouth. "Yeah. And it's quite repeatable. We could sell two or three Barks every season and pay for whole academy running costs, and Bumpers, too. It's a good model."
Rachel said, "What about Bark? Is it good for him?"
"Yeah, really good. He'll play every week, establish himself as a Championship player. Birmingham is a huge club, sleeping giant, they're very ambitious. He was on Premier League money with us so he's not getting a massive pay rise." Ruth had negotiated a three-grand-a-week bump that would take him to 12,000. That was over 600K a year. "If he stays healthy for the next two years he'll play loads and his next contract will be... maybe not double what he's getting now but close. He's got his head screwed on, he's tucking money away, he's got a bright future. I'm really pleased for him. Really pleased."
Emma got up and was hugging me again. "Aw, babes."
"What? I'm fine."
"You're emotional."
I smile-frowned at her. "I'm not. I wasn't. I was just thinking how much excitement there would be in his house today, tomorrow, whenever they're all getting together."
"I'm gonna miss him."
"We all are but he's going to Birmingham, not planet Sigma 9."
John sipped his wine and said, "I know which one I'd prefer." That got a good laugh, so, emboldened, he turned slightly towards me. "Let's talk about the elephant in the room."
As she sat down again, Emma looked left and right, eyes wide. One of her weirdo jokes.
John said, "We came over to catch up with old friends, visit family, and watch the mighty Toon slap down a jumped-up little upstart."
"John," complained Nicole.
"Yeah," I said. "Soz about that."
He grinned. "So do you have an assist bonus but not a goal bonus?"
"What do you mean?"
"You set up three goals but didn't score."
"To be fair," I said, spreading my hands, smiling, "I tried. But no, we don't really do incentive-based contracts at Chester. My theory is, why do you need to be incentivised to score a goal? Or to win? If you don't want to win, get in the bin. Wow. Someone write that down, that's gold." I sipped on wine. I was feeling it mingle with the turkey to create a vortex of contentedness. "I'm talking to some agents now, ones I don't know that well, and they're insisting on those kinds of clauses for their players. I'll probably go along with it this time, since I don't plan to keep them that long and don't have the energy to insist. It's just one too many battles at the moment."
John looked amazed. "Really? It looked harmonious to me."
"Did it?"
He took his phone out and went to his photos folder. Like most old people, he took 800 snaps of the same thing and kept every one. He swiped past dozens of photos of the sun setting over Newcastle, past pics of food, pints, pubs, friends, and kept going until he found a video of Chester's post-match celebrations. After the final whistle, I had told the players to go to the fans, then summoned all the physios and coaches, too. John said, "Here. Your everyday, common-or-garden variety first-ever-away-win celebrations. Then you say a few words and everyone forms up into rows. They line up, take a bow, lap up the cheers, reluctantly move aside for the next lot. What's the order?"
I barely remembered this happening. "So it's physios, then coaches, then goalies. Bit of a commotion when Sticky double-dipped because he's a coach and a goalie. Then Peter's like, do the coaches again because I should have been in that one. All very silly. Defenders, midfielders - so much double-dipping - forwards, then me and Sandra. I just wanted to say I'm not a dictator, this is a team, everyone chips in. People laugh at this sort of thing but there's a reason Oscar speeches are lists of people to thank. You can't do it on your own. Yeah, I steer the ship but these guys, er, do the oars and the sails and make sure I've got enough papaya smoothies and all that."
Nicole said, "Are you a dictator? I've never met a dictator before."
"You've met Sebastian," I said, and the man in question took the joke in the nature it was intended. "But yeah, that's the meme that's going round."
Emma explained. "Max is the dictator and his followers are his dick-ciples."
That was a surprise to me. "I heard Maxolytes."
Rachel said, "I heard cultists. Though, uh, spelled a little different."
Nicole covered her mouth, then said, "What brought this on?"
"Just my megalomaniacal tendencies," I said. "No biggie. It got worse this week because the top two people at the club quit. They quit four days before Christmas, just before the most glorious moment in our history, rather than work with me another minute."
"No," said Nicole, checking Rachel's face to see if I was joking.
I drained my wine; Seb refilled it immediately. Condition 50%. "Yeah," I said. "Bit of a shock. I don't feel like I'm worse than when they met me but maybe I'm not better enough. On the pitch, we just had the best week ever. I can only focus on one thing at a time. Recently I've been focused on the football - " and my perks, "- and maybe I went too deep into the numbers and lost the personal touch, lost sight of how I was affecting people, took my eye off that ball for one day too many.
"I do slightly resent the implication that I have to be perfect, that people demand perfection from me." I rubbed my temples, hard, because I felt I was on the edge of a massive rant. This wasn't the place for that, and the time for that was never. "Anyway, it's part of the reason I got no sleep. I was, like, trying to process it all. It's not a nice feeling to realise - " I shut my gob, shoved some food in there.
Emma said, "Max is feeling sorry for himself. He says the population of Chester is a hundred thousand and they're all dead happy, and the population of Newcastle is three hundred thousand and they're all gutted, so he brings pain and joy at a ratio of three to one and doesn't the world let him know it."
"Aww," said Nicole.
"Poor bunny," said Sebastian, and his insincerity made me laugh. Condition 55.
"Why did they quit?" said John.
I said, "On their resignation forms under 'reason for quitting', they both wrote, lack of moral fibre."
"Max," complained Emma, genuinely annoyed.
"Okay, okay," I said, holding my palms up. "MD quit because I kept putting him in uncomfortable positions and because he's sick of dealing with a manchild. Brooke ditto, plus loads more."
"Like what?" said John.
I shrugged. "Probably fifty reasons."
"Tell us one," he said, but after a sharp look from his wife, he said, "or not. It's just so fascinating."
"One is that I put so many restrictions on how she could operate. To a large extent, she saw those as a challenge. The easiest money in sports is from gambling companies, crypto, climate criminals. If you're not a massive club it's hard to get a deal with, like, Nvidia or Kellogg's or some kind of respectable brand. And the most money you can make on pre-season tours is to travel really far - the States, Australia, Korea. And I'm like, that's bonkers, that doesn't prepare us for the season. The players will be exhausted and we'll pick up injuries. And post-season tours, are you serious? With any other manager, Brooke could have snapped her fingers and made an extra thirty million quid a season."
"That much?" said Rachel.
"Yeah. Having principles costs the club thirty million a season and that's why I'm fine with being a dictator because if one single other person has more of a say than me, we would do all that crap and more. I'm sure it frustrated her but she understood where I was coming from when it came to that and things like that. But part of her remit was to get the people of Chester energised about the club. If someone was sort of a Chester fan but was embarrassed to admit it so they said they followed Liverpool, we've got them back. These days, those guys are ten times more likely to say they're Chester fans, a hundred times more likely to go to the Deva than Anfield. Kids in the area are 80% Chester fans. Brooke did so, so, so much work.
"Of course it was based on what we did on the pitch, the wins, the excitement, the skills, me turning up at schools, at Sunday League games, at five-a-sides, the documentary, but she did all the follow-ups. The segmentations, the email campaigns, the targeted social media ads, everything. Tons and tons of work, so when I go to war against a section of the fan base, that's absolutely infuriating. Two steps forward, one step back, always self-inflicted. And when - Look, we could talk for hours and not get to the end of Brooke and MD's complaints. I'm happy to admit that I completely botched the whole thing and the only surprise is they didn't quit sooner."
"Not completely botched," said Emma. "The message you posted was classy."
Rachel turned her head. "Message?" She hadn't been online, since she had spent most of the day herding sprouts. Emma produced her phone, tapped, and handed it to her mum. Rachel read it out. "We don't do statues at Chester but if we did, there would be one for Mike Dean. That simple. As for Brooke Star, I'm a good football manager but without her we would currently be in League One, maximum, we wouldn't own the stadium, wouldn't have expanded it, and would still be training out of portable cabins. Every sporting organisation in the world should be jostling for position trying to secure her services from the summer."
Seb nodded. "That's class, Max. Good lad."
"It's not class, it's the least they deserve. Hey, can we stop talking about me? I'm not that interesting. I've got a few things to work through and I intend to give them serious consideration when I have time. I'm gonna take a break from football soon."
There was an unexpected look of hope in Emma's eyes. "A break from football? When?"
"2032," I said, which made Emma slump, good-naturedly. As my wife guzzled wine, I said, "So Nicole, let's talk about you. What's it like being so gorgeous?"
***
That got me off the hook for a while, and while I was clearing my plate I checked the curse's news feed - nothing particularly interesting - and dipped into the perk shop. There were two new things available for me to buy. LIT India's purchase of Income Tax FC had gone through, which meant that I could add that club's men's first team to the curse. The point of Income Tax FC was that it would be run entirely via advice from DOVE, so adding the club to my squad lists would be 'cheating'. But if they had the next Messi, I wanted to know about it!
There was also a brand new perk, one I had asked for. It was called Hybridism and would cost 9,000 XP. Nowhere near as expensive as Relationism had been, but that made sense because it wasn't anything new, exactly, just a fusion of two ways to play the sport.
I wanted it, of course, but it was down the queue. I was determined to get another upgrade for Pascal before buying the Facilities perk, and for that reason I had even postponed the purchase of an X-ray machine. I had told Bones, the club doctor, and Physio Dean that with all the turmoil at the top of the club, I needed a tiny bit more time to get to grips with the club's finances and so on. Both had gone, "Yeah, sure, course."
I'd like to say I felt bad for lying to them... but I didn't. I would get the perk, then the X-ray machine would arrive, and I would see exactly how much it moved the needle. I wouldn't be a player for much longer, and my managerial career would be, what, two extra years? But being a director of football, working one day a week to keep things ticking over... that could go on for decades. No fucking way was I giving up the opportunity to know what the curse considered important. And in the meantime, if anyone broke a bone, they could go to the same clinic as I did and meet the same sexy doctor I did. Where's the harm in that?!
"Hey," I said. "Is it all right if I walk around the garden for a bit? I need to move."
"Of course, pet," said Rachel. "Do you need anything?"
"Um..." I said, hesitating. Everyone stared. What does the mad dictator want now? What brutally selfish demand will he place on the group? In a smaller voice than I intended, I said, "Can I have a cup of tea?"
Sebastian laughed loud. "Wash that red down with a bit of Yorkshire black. Man after my own heart! I'll make it, lad, you go stretch your legs."
***
I shuffled around. The shuffle turned into a potter, which turned into an amble, which turned into a walk. Condition 60!
Emma came to the door. "Babes - " she started, but her mum called her back.
Just me, my phone, the curse, and a wonderland of a garden. Texts on the lawn, voice notes under the pergola, emails 'neath a willow. Check the curse for transfer news and manager goss while doing some swinging exercises.
Last night, while walking around the hotel's empty, silent corridors, I had made a couple of decisions, not just the one about the X-ray machine. If I squinted, Chester had vast funds, so Kit, Pascal, and a couple of decoys would fly out to Gibraltar to do 'warm weather training' in my friend Mateo's new training campus. That would be cover for me giving them PA boosts, but it would also be interesting to see if those winter breaks really had an impact - I would be able to measure that on the decoys.
Good scam, and sending their players to warmer climes was the sort of thing rich clubs did routinely. If it went well, I would industrialise the process next season, although because I wasn't a dictator I would allow the women's team to choose if they wanted to go or not. I could imagine many would want to stay home and be with their families. The men would do as they were fucking told. 'Oh boo hoo I have to go on a luxury holiday boo hoo.' Shut up, you knobs.
What else had I done? I stopped swinging and got my phone out.
I found an email I had sent to Jonny Planter saying his grass disease robot thingy would be arriving early. Not too early. After I got the new perk, of course, but still, months before schedule.
I found a chat with Foquita, who had sent me a photo of his plane tickets. He and Camila would spend Christmas with family, then join us well in time for the first match of the new year.
Foquita was locked in. Willi Tillmann was locked in. Two instant upgrades to our first team.
Condition 70.
As I watched, a notification popped up from Dylan.
Came to Bumpers to do my rehab. Look what I saw in the car park! Do you know about this?
There was a car-sized gift in my parking space. It was wrapped and had a massive ribbon around it.
Me: I think I know what that is.
Dylan: Doesn't look very Italian.
Me: It's not Italian. It's Chinese.
I was 99.99% sure it was an entry-level car from CFC, the Chinese electric vehicle brand, which meant they were unbothered by the recent media storm, which meant they wanted to go ahead with sponsoring the new Main Stand, and which meant that I personally would be in line to earn 900,000 quid. I didn't need the cash right now, so maybe I would try to get paid in India. 900 grand would probably let me run Income Tax FC for three years, right?
The car itself was worth about 14,000, but what it represented was worth so much more. Not every sponsor was fleeing. I wasn't completely toxic. Everything was going to be okay.
Condition 75. Nah, make it 77.
I continued my loop of the garden, then shivered. I had arrived at the gloomy end of the Weavers' garden, the part that didn't get much sun. It was the only place that didn't feel welcoming, and it reminded me that through the night, amidst all the positive thoughts came plenty of dark ones. Thoughts of betrayal, enemies, the unfairness of so many things. One rule for Daily Mail readers, one rule for everyone else. How easily the bitterness came!
In one dark period, probably around 3 a.m., I found myself plotting against Soccer Supremo. If they binned me off, as seemed likely, I would set up a games division and use DOVE to power a rival. Our data was better, our models were light years ahead of anyone's, and it would be easy to tack a game onto the top. In year one, we would astonish the industry. In year two, we would eliminate the competition. It would be a piece of piss.
I had got to the stage where I was designing the logo, the cover, trying to think of names. Tactics Tycoon? Deva Dictator?
Then I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.
Soccer Supremo had given me joy, helped me through some dark and lonely times. I could no more kill it than I could blast MD or Brooke in public.
So I had posted on Chester's accounts.
It isn't nice being dropped by a sponsor, but let's be honest, I would promote Soccer Supremo for free. Even though they had me as Tactics 7 in one version. I mean, what? 7 million, mate. While I'm at it, Pascal Bochum is Off the Ball 20.
Pleased with that, I did another one.
Since it seems Regress get to choose who the Wales manager is, let me bow out of the role with some dignity. It was a great honour to be a national team manager, and it was a genuine pleasure to work with that group. We won't get the chance to break the win-streak record together, but I wish the players, the coaches, the physios, and everyone at The Vale all the very best. And a special mention to Ed Heath - I'm sorry I nutmegged you so many times, Heathy. I think you're brilliant and a credit to your country. I hope the next manager also builds the team around you; thanks for the memories.
Beautiful. Just the right amount of nostalgia, rose-tinted glasses, a reminder that under me, Wales won every match. And a not-so-subtle fuck you to Regress. For the next two years, every time Wales lost - or failed to win! - Regress would get the blame. Lolz!
The next international break was at the end of March, and if Chester got to the FA Cup final, there would be eleven matches after that. Did I want to be in charge of two meaningless international friendlies around that time? Er, no. With this message, I had given myself a break from the job while turning the fury of every Welshman towards the political party that had forced me out. Every kid in Wales would be asking their parents, Hang on, why don't we have a generational talent as manager? Wait, sorry, explain that to me again... Oh. So I'll never vote for those guys. Ever.
Heh.
"Don't come after me, you stupid fucks." Sebastian had snuck up within earshot; he coughed slightly. I smiled far too wide. "Just rehearsing the half-time team talk against Leeds."
"You're banned," he said, handing over a steaming hot cup of tea, keeping one for himself. Condition 80!
"Ooh, lovely," I said, grasping it, moving away from the dark zone. "Banned? Good point. I'll save it for next year. The whole thing's gonna be in iambic pentameter. You know, for when we've got five in midfield."
He didn't believe I was rehearsing a team talk - because he wasn't an idiot - but he let it drop. "I thought you would come in hot today. All the jokes, the jabs, the rapier thrusts of Mancunian wit. You had Tobias Berger on toast, Berger's had his chips, Leeds are the strongest team in the league because they're holding everyone else up. Did you hear the latest Premier League joke? Newcastle. And so on and so forth."
I sipped the tea. "Yeah, that was the plan. I'm kind of... not feeling it. There's everything that went on in Chester, for a start. Best week in the club's history is also the worst week. Everything comes at a cost. Beat Newcastle, lose friends. I don't have any banter in me. Plus Newcastle were great. I was up all night going over my many and varied grievances but I kept thinking about that pass from Johnson.
"It's like, it's so simple. Take the Chester guys off the screen and he's passing from here to the patio door, but God, it was beautiful. If that was the goal that beat us, you'd think, yeah, fine. That pass, that magic, that's what got me hooked on this sport. You see things, you learn the patterns, you think you've nailed it, then someone blows your mind like that. For most people it's goals, it's wins, but for me it was always those passes. A Newcastle player did the best thing in the whole match, so how can I banter that?"
"I thought we had you when we scored that one. You looked beat. What happened?"
I shook my head. "We looked beat, Tom Cruise looks tall in movies, Foucault's Pendulum looks like a book you'd want to read, but it's all just a trick of the mind, isn't it? We looked beat until the ball was rolling and then we were right back in the zone."
"So what happened?"
"Your guy went too negative, let us be the protagonists. Here, check this out." I got my phone out and went to the DOVE app. I brought up a new graphic we had introduced. "This is the heat map of the match, action areas, you've seen this stuff before, but we've overlaid this white line, see? Horizontal line, simply shows the average positions of the players. Animated over the 90 minutes, yeah? When Chester are on top, our players are pushing forward, so the line's above halfway. Here's the first hour." I let the graph play out. The height of the white line fluctuated, but generally was below halfway.
"We're winning," said Sebastian.
"Yep. Here's the end."
The line fell and fell and fell. "Holy shit," he said. "That's... That's a sackable offence!"
I smiled. One of the new guys we'd hired in India had suggested adding this visualisation. Apparently it had taken them ten minutes to add it, and it was really cool. As Seb had just proved, it was more visceral than the momentum charts. Those bastards are coming into our territory! "Dropping back and defending can work. We haven't got a full toolkit, but we're not the Chester team that started the season.
"Yes, our guys are still getting used to this level, but me, Wibbers, Gabby, Pascal, that's decent quality and that's a lot of variety. Height, power, speed, guile, combos. You can't just sit back and hope we can't get through, because even if you shut us four down, Cheb will get free on the right, Peter Bauer will come up, and then you saw Lewis timed his move to perfection. We kept upping the ante and your boy Berger responded by going deeper. He's good, he's fine, he got laughed at when he said he won the first hour of the match but that was true. In the end, he didn't want it as much as I needed it. I couldn't leave that stadium without three points. I couldn't."
Seb sipped his tea. We paused on the lawn near the patio doors. "I hate being out-fought like that. Out-thought is one thing, out-fought is another. It goes against the grain. Rubs me up the wrong way."
"It's gonna be interesting when we play you again because you won't score three wonder goals but Berger will tweak his plan. You'll buy players in January but so will we. It could be interesting."
"Another 4-3?"
"Why not? It was fun, wasn't it?"
He scoffed. "For you."
Nicole and John joined us, gripping mugs but otherwise not acknowledging the cold. John said, "Think you can stay up, Max?"
"I did some calculations last night and I think we'll get 38 points."
The men winced, so Nicole said, "Is that good or bad?"
Seb said, "It's both. It's a knife-edge, 50-50 whether you'll survive or go down."
John said, "Mind you, start of the season, if you'd asked any Chester fan if they'd take those odds, they'd have bitten your hand off. Those odds are miraculous. Max is literally a miracle worker."
While holding the mug in my right hand, I stretched my left arm wide. "See? That's why I need acolytes!"
Rachel came to the door. "In yers come!"
"Dessert," said Seb, his eyes ablaze. "Love Christmas!"
***
We retook our seats, pulled some Christmas crackers, told the crappy jokes inside - John Liner would have loved them - and loaded up on mango ice cream and other delicacies. The combination of turkey, a heavy meal, wine, and sugar seemed guarantee to knock me out if I went back to the the sleep pod. The sofa was already calling me. Condition 85.
"Max was just saying he's a miracle worker," said Nicole. "He got John more worked up yesterday than I've seen him in years. Since we were in a lift with Anna Kournikova."
Sebastian dropped his cutlery and gripped the edge of the table. "You were in a lift with Anna Kournikova?"
Emma rolled her eyes. "Oh my God."
Rachel drank some wine, topped it up, did the same with John. Everyone else's glass was full - they had been extremely attentive in topping us up. Great hosts! But she couldn't give me more because the bottle was empty. She half-stood to go and get the next one, but something made her pause. "Oh," she said, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out her phone and tapped on the screen. "Huh."
"What?" said Emma.
Rachel read the message twice. "Seems that Bethany Alban has quit her job at the Daily Mail."
"Oh, amazing!" said Emma. "That's overdue, but..."
Rachel said, "Maybe she's gonna make a go of it with her independent thing. Her website and her new podcast. Have you listened to that one, Max?"
"Yeah, it's awful. Sorry to be judgemental but they're so pleased with themselves. Not Beth - she's actually the best one. She keeps it simple, talks sense. The men are just showing off to their mates. Well, when I watched such-and-such a match in such-and-such a stadium in 1995, it reminded me of this obscure philosopher. It's beyond parody."
"Oh no. Will Bethany be all right?"
"I'm sure she'll land on her feet," I said, dismissively, as I took a thick wafer thing and loaded a corner with ice cream.
"Max," said Emma, in a snappy tone. "Can you quit it?"
"Quit what?"
"Grudges. Battles. Scrapping."
My Condition score was rising, but so was the heat in my voice. Only from 1 to 2, but still. "Let's see where she goes next before we start glazing her."
"It's obvious Bethany has quit because she can't work at the Mail any longer because they keep attacking you. Try to be nice."
I glanced at Emma's mum to see if she found this outburst as weird as I did. She felt my eyes on her and went to get the next bottle of wine. For some reason, that got my spider senses tingling. "Yeaaaah," I said, non-committal, as I looked from one woman to the other.
Emma sensed she had gone too hard, so she rolled back her tone and said, "I just worry about you sometimes. You've still never explained about Murray."
"Murray Burnett," said Sebastian. "Defender on loan from Everton. Max is sending him back even though he has paid for the whole season. Nobody quite knows why."
"He's not on board, that's all. It's not his fight. Emma thinks I'm being mean to him in some way but I'm not. We made him a better player and did nothing to hurt him. It's fine. It's like all the stuff that happens. You can't change it but you can move on from it."
Emma was getting frustrated for some reason. "But the team can't understand it. You can't point to anything he's actually done. How is anyone supposed to know where they stand? It's capricious."
"It isn't capricious." I spoke to Nicole as if she were an independent judge. "If I binned off everyone who didn't like me, who didn't rate me, yeah, that would be a character flaw. But I don't.
"Imagine a line with little markings along it. On the left, minus 100 points, that's I hate Max. Zero is in the middle. Max, who's that? On the right, the Maxolytes. I don't need my players to be on the right. I don't even need them to be in the middle. Leo Los is quite far to the left. He's not sure about me, not sure about Chester, not sure he has made the right decision in coming. It's actually really annoying because we're the best thing that's ever happened to him. I've kept an eye on where he's at but he's never strayed over, like, minus 80 or whatever. That's the point where the negativity gets too much, where I can smell it on people.
"So Leo, he's low-key pissed me off but I have treated him just like every other player. I can't accept criticism on this point, I just can't. At the final whistle yesterday, when I brought everyone to the fans, all those people, every one, were all minus 80 or better and that's part of why we won. When you have guys way over on the left, they drag everyone down. I crossed minus 80 on MD's readings and Brooke's readings and Murray crossed it on mine. It's many things - it's a shame, it's a waste, it's something hard to explain - but it's not capricious. My job is to beat Newcastle, not put Murray in the team when I think it's going to hurt us. When I know it's going to hurt us."
Slightly annoyed, I drained my wine. I needed a little more, so I grabbed Emma's glass. Her mum was opening the next bottle, although something about what I just said made her pause, wide-eyed. Had I shouted? I glanced to the right - John and Sebastian were chill.
Emma said, slowly, carefully, "I just worry about all these beeves and you falling out with everyone. I know you're under a lot of pressure and you're doing your best but MD, Brooke, Murray, Bethany, there's a long list and the new names feel like they're coming faster and from all sides. It worries me how easily it happens and how it's getting worse." She swallowed and got quiet. "I don't want..." She fell into complete silence.
I blew air from my cheeks. I had ruined Chester and now somehow I was ruining Christmas. Amazing. I tried to smile, tried to speak in a reassuring voice. "This season has been very stressful. The job is hard, way harder than it looks. There's a reason Prem managers look like husks. But the worst is over. I'm not doing Wales, I'll have fewer sponsor things, I don't need to think about Gibraltar or Newport or West or Tempsford for the rest of the season. It's just Chester.
"Nineteen Prem matches and the FA Cup. Clean, simple, manageable. I will have more time to spend with everyone at Bumpers, get back to being a man manager, not just a guy who has the world's best spreadsheet. More time spent with people, around people, talking to people. It will be better. Babes," I said, earnestly, "it will be better. Maxy Two-Thumbs promise. If I fall out with another person this season I will give you a billion pounds.
"Chester FC will get my complete attention, no distractions. Almost no distractions," I added, thinking that maybe there would be two or three small, tiny side quests, like setting up a political party and winning three seats at the summer general election, but that was Chester FC business, wasn't it? It was for my bridge. "Let me rephrase the whole thing. It's gonna be Chester, Chester, Chester to the exclusion of everything else. Okay?"
I smiled and took a big gulp of Emma's wine.
I nearly choked. Full-body convulsions, liquid spraying everywhere, real Hollywood horror movie stuff. Okay, maybe not, but we'll ham it up when we make the prestige TV series.
"The fuck?" I said, after I stopped coughing. John had pressed a napkin into my free hand, while Nicole was mopping up a bit of wine I had spat out or spilled.
Wine?
That wasn't wine.
I sniffed the glass, took a tiny sip, let the stuff slosh around my mouth, glanced from Emma to her mum. "This is Ribena. It's blackcurrant cordial. Syrup plus water. That's..." For a mad moment, I wondered if Max Best the miracle worker had turned wine into water. Had I been ordering comedy perks so I could do pranks? Great idea, but no. I thought back over the meal. When people were topping up the drinks, Emma's glass had always been full, and she had brought it with her whenever she left the table. She had poured her first glass down the sink and had been filling it from some other source. She was drinking Ribena because...
The walls closed in. The temperature in the room went up ten degrees. My jaw dropped clean off my head and smashed through the dining table.
Emma got a manic, worried, goofy smile. "So, funny thing..." She shrugged her shoulders, lifted her hands either side of her head, and said, "I'm pergununt."
...
Thanks for your support!
Appendix on Monday! Some bonus stuff while I recharge, but I know the first chapter of the next book so I might try to write that soon while the temperatures are down and have some of my break when it's hot again.
NEWS: When doing the final edits, I had an amazing brainwave. I think it might be a good time to make a change in the series title. Max isn't the Soccer Supremo any more - I reserve the right to put him back - and I just thought of an AWESOME new name. I'm going to think about it but don't be surprised if the next 7 books come under a different title... My wife heard it and said, "Oh, no," so you can imagine how great the new name is. I'M STOKED.