HBWnovel 5.13 - One Club Mentality
5.13 - One Club Mentality
13.
Sunday, April 23
WSL2 Match 22 of 22: Chester versus Wolves
The morning had started so well.
Over five thousand fans had come to the Deva to see our decisive, hopefully triumphant, final league game of the season. If we got a better result at home against Wolves than Birmingham got away to Southampton, we would win the league. We could finish the day as a WSL side!
Huge flags had been waved, songs had been sung, the mood was overwhelmingly positive.
Ever since kickoff, the mood had been dropping.
One of my goals as a director of football had always been to establish a 'one-club mentality' around Bumpers Bank, at the Deva, and online. The men's and women's teams would share a canteen, training pitches, the gym, equipment, our set pieces specialist, the social media accounts, even Sealbiscuit. The women would cheer the men, the men would support the women, most of our marketing would feature a mix of players.
I believed the united culture brought lots of benefits. Meredith Ann competing with Wallace Wells in free kick training was one example. Because she trained at the same location as the men's players, Meredith had a pool of training partners twice as wide to pick from, while some of the boys found they were more motivated to do extra training when a girl invited them. Gosh. Whodathunkit?
Another benefit was when players were injured and did parts of their rehab together. Double the encouragement, double the empathy. And there were hundreds of tiny moments that I didn't see where players shared tips and tricks, driving standards higher, driving both teams to new heights.
There were downsides. One obvious one to the last person in the UK who remembered the pandemic - that's how I felt, sometimes - was that if there was a bug going around, it could fuck up two teams, not just one.
When I'd thought that, I had been worrying about viruses and bacteria. I hadn't expected a different kind of contagion to spread.
The women had caught the yips from the men, who very possibly had caught them from the women the week before. Permacrisis! Jay was pacing around the technical area making tiny tweaks and trying to radiate calm. He was undermining the effect by yelling, "Calm! Calm!! Calm!!!"
Livia was next to me on the bench. "Liv, is the yips a real medical condition?"
"The what?"
"The yips."
She eyed me. "Are you being racist right now?"
I laughed. "The fuck? No! It's when athletes suddenly can't do basic tasks. Like golfers can't putt all of a sudden."
Livia gestured to the pitch. "Or Sarah Greene can't play a forward pass. That's called the yips, is it? I've never heard the term. I've heard of dartitis. That's when brilliant darts players just can't hit the target."
"Is it psychological, do you think?"
Livia shrugged. "Performance anxiety is real. Overthinking. In darts, sometimes the dartitis guys really have muscle spasms. Are you letting them play shit again like you did with the men yesterday?"
"No, I was fine with that because I wanted the home team booed off at half time. This is very much unwanted." I rubbed my hair. "It's frustrating to see them play this shit because if they just did the basics right we would at least be making Wolves work hard and that would pay off at the end." I put my hands in my pockets and tried to look relaxed. If ‘the yips’ was a psychological phenomenon, we wouldn't fix it by yelling and screaming and making the women more stressed. Yelling and screaming would help me, though. "They've worked so hard to get to this point and this is the performance they come up with. It's crazy."
"Is this better or worse than what the men did?"
I stuck my lip out. "Great question. I think this is worse because of how the women have trained this week."
"How have they trained?"
"Barely at all."
In the week since we crushed title rivals Birmingham, only a handful of the women had improved on the training ground. The older players had popped - Femi, Victoria Rose, Kit Hodges. The very youngest squad players had improved - Amy Shone, Jenni Fairbrother, Devi Payed. But the bulk of the squad were frozen.
Frozen like deer in headlights.
And in front of me, passes were going astray, crosses were being hit straight out of play. Even Meredith was hitting free kicks straight into the wall.
I leaned forward, faced the artificial grass under my feet, and rubbed my head hard. "I should have known this was coming. Maybe I could have got Alex to give everyone emergency therapy."
"Why don't you change something?"
"What, sub eight outfield players? Change the formation? This is our basic formation. This is our go-to. It should be comforting to set up like this. All they have to do is take a touch and move the ball to the next space. We've done it thousands of times. They can do it in their sleep." I let out a slow-motion grunt that was very satisfying, then sat back and tried not to let the frustration show. "In the end, any structural failure of the team lies at the feet of the director of football."
"Structural?"
"It's the nerves. This game means too much, the stakes are too high, they're all the way in their heads." I rubbed my chin. "Dani, Kisi, Sarah, Saffron, Meredith, it's as talented as any team in Europe, probably, but it's young. In a game like this, any manager in the world would want older heads out there. If we had a Haley type character in central midfield, we'd smash this. I'd love to get a Ryan Jack for the women, but I'll probably end up signing the closest thing I can get to another Sarah Greene. The problem is structural. I'm responsible for this. I'm not going to yell at them... I don't think."
But then again, I thought, as Meghan tried to spark us into life with a Hollywood pass that sailed miles over Dani's head, was it really my fault?
Wolves had an average CA of 72.
Our starting eleven had been disrupted by an illness to Charlotte, who was on the bench very much hoping not to be needed. With Mari Hughes slipping into her midfield berth, our average was 104.3.
We were 32 points better. An entire division better.
Even with the yips, we should have hit a few birdies, a few double tops. What about the upcoming Cheshire Cup final? I needed to win that to get a trophy on the board, because winning at least one trophy got us an attendance boost the following season. I wasn't totally sure if winning the women's Cheshire Cup helped with the men's attendances and vice versa, so the only way to be sure was to win them both.
"If they play like this on Wednesday there will be hell to pay."
Livia turned to her right, because a groan had come from the Harry McNally stand. "Is that Birmingham?" she wondered. "Have they scored?"
I had the Live Scores in my head. We needed Brum to lose or draw, but they had just taken the lead. "It sounded like it, yeah."
Livia swore. "Good time to take the lead, isn't it? Just before half time."
"Not sure," I said, slowly. "It could go either way, to be honest. The absolute best time to score in that situation would be just after half time. You've spent the break coiling yourself up like a spring, bang, you get the goal you need, but you've still got all that kinetic energy and you go get a second, third, and it's party time. What do they do now? The manager might tell them to keep attacking but the players will be thinking nah, let's defend. Hold onto this lead. One-nil and we win the league. That's a mismatch that could derail them, big time."
Livia stood and paced around. "I can't hack this. The tension's too much." She pointed at me. "You'd better have an amazing team talk ready!"
"Livia," I said, in a sad voice. "I've saved my best speech of the whole year for today."
***
"All right, shut the fuck up." I had gone to the manager's room to fetch the backpack I had been carrying to the women's matches for months. It was my equivalent of one of those things that said, 'in case of emergency, break glass'. In case of emergency, unzip the big pocket.
The dressing room fell quiet. The tension grew. Most of the women were waiting for me to give them the hairdryer treatment after one of the worst halves of football they had played all season. Sophie, the producer of Chesterness, was beside herself with anticipation, and was tracking my every move while the other cameraman fought to get the best reaction shots from the wider group. I placed the backpack on a table, unzipped one of the pockets, then made eye contact with the players. With Meghan, with Sarah, with Dani. 5 out of 10, 5 out of 10, 5 out of 10. Shocking.
"Kit, can you come to the front, please?"
Kit Hodges was 24 and because she had played in the WSL before, she was actually our second most experienced player, behind England international Haley. Kit got pre-match butterflies, same as everyone, but had learned to overcome them. That hadn't helped us today because we hadn't been able to create chances for her, so she was on 6 out of 10. She clomped to the front and looked up at me. "Here?"
"Everyone move so you can see Kit," I growled, which increased the tension by another ten percent.
Why the hell do we need to be able to see her?
With women standing up on benches, leaning around their mates, just generally gawping at her, Kit herself looked more nervous than at the start of the match. Jay Cope (co-manager), Jill (team manager), and Livia (physio) glanced at each other, worried.
I reached into the backpack and pulled out a blue-and-white Chester kit and a retractable tape measure. I extended the metal tape a couple of feet and balanced it on Kit's head. I made a mental note of the measurement, let the metal spin back into its housing, and faced the front.
"This is a Chester home kit. Women's cut. Size L. I put it in the machine and it's about a medium now. Kit, look at the label here. It says L, right?"
She took the tag in her fingers. "Yeah. L."
I nodded, let my energy darken, and eyed Kit. "Could you pop your boots off, real quick?"
Kit licked her lips, glanced around, but then bent and did what I asked. When she straightened, I waited a couple of seconds before I extended the tape measure and put it on top of her head again. From her new, slightly lower position, Kit had to angle her neck even more to look up at me.
The air was thicker than a Liverpool fan in a puffer jacket swimming in custard.
I retracted the tape, counted to five, then said, "My favourite movie is Honey, I Shrunk the Kits."
After half a beat, Angel, Charlotte, and Livia fell into hysterics.
The second wave came a fraction of a second later with a third close behind. Dani honked like a goose. A security guard popped his head into the room to check if anyone had been hurt in the explosion. I gave Kit a sideways hug and a little nudge that meant she could go back to her spot.
As Kit was putting the first boot back on, and as the laughter was just dying down, Amy Shone said, loud, "I don't get it," which set off another wave.
Livia, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, said, "Max, you're fucking crazy."
Crazy like a guy who just scored a plus one squad-wide Morale boost. "Yeah, I know. Okay, listen, ladies. You don't need me to tell you that first half was horrible. You know I have no patience with lazy players and guys who don't put the team first but I have a lot of patience for players who play bad because they care too much, because they want it too much. It's definitely a skill to calibrate your personal intensity and I know that one way or another, this match is going to be really useful for your growth as players. I heard an interesting phrase the other day from one of the coaches: you win or you learn. But as you might be able to tell, I'm super confident the second half will be better. Even with us playing at 70%, Wolves haven't been able to lay a glove on us, have they? We just need to breathe and to get back into our patterns."
I took a couple of steps forward.
"Sarah Greene. Best player in the league. Are you enjoying yourself today?"
She gave me a rueful almost-smile. "Not much, no."
"Your head is everywhere. It's in the WSL, it's at the Birmingham match, it's in a playoff, it's at the post-match blowout I've heard you ladies have booked. Am I right?"
"I'm also in a shop buying dozens of Chester home kits, women's cut, to shrink in the wash to make a stupid joke at the end of the season." She got good laughs for that one.
"I didn't shrink a kit," I said, amazed that she would think that. "I took a tag off one of my hoodies and sewed it in."
"Oh!" said Sarah. "That's a better way."
Angel said, "You can sew?"
I thought about lying. "I can supervise someone else who's good at sewing."
Angel turned to Charlotte; they smiled at each other. "Emma," said Angel.
Charlotte said, "He'd ask Jojo."
"I got the Brig to do it. He said he wasn't an expert but that he could do a so-so job and everyone laughed. Not sure why." I turned back to Sarah. "When I saw you play the first time in that sports hall in Platt Lane, you were being turned into a soulless footballing robot by that awful, awful woman. What was her name? I can't remember and there's no way to find out. What I saw in you was a brilliant all-rounder who could do the tiki-taka passing, the positional play, you could do the thing where you're a cog in the machine, but you were also a brilliant dribbler, a risk-taker, an individualist. It caused me actual physical pain to think you would be stifled in the Man City system, that you'd lose that part of who you are.
"The most fun I saw you have in a City shirt was just before that horrible journalist girl - what was her name? - tried to kick you out of the game. You went on a mazy dribble, unstoppable, balanced, beautiful, and crashed a shot against the post. That came after however many minutes of passing them to death. Every pass you played, they had to reposition themselves. They got tired. When they were tired, your instinct was to stick the knife in. Your coach didn't want that, which was fair enough because she was trying to teach you the system, not win the game. That was long-term thinking and this club is reaping the rewards.
"Take the Man City short passing, add the Chester combinations and space invasions, and that'll get Wolves physically tired. On top of that, give me the Sarah Greene magic to get them mentally drained. Dribbles, long shots, chips, through balls - give them a new problem every minute. What I want, Sarah, is for you to have fun, because if you have fun, we'll win this game easily."
Meghan said, "What about me? I want to have fun."
I mock-exploded. "You're a defender! Defenders aren't allowed to enjoy themselves! Hit another 40-yard pass and I'll sub you off. What the fuck!" Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Devi Patel, who was on the subs bench, showing something on her phone to Amy Shone, who wasn't. Many football managers in my situation tried to keep the scores from the other match hidden from their players, but I didn't see the point. "Birmingham are winning, but it's only one-nil. Did you hear the groan from our fans when the news filtered through?" Half the women nodded. "Imagine what it's like down in Southampton right now.
"They're in the away dressing room and everything's going their way. They go out for the second half and they're playing and they hear from their fans that Chester have scored. Oh-oh! They hear that Chester have scored again. Oh-oh! Every goal we score, they're gonna be thinking about how Chester are the better team, how they're in a false position, how they're gonna fuck it up. Their legs feel heavy. Every missed pass makes them doubt themselves. Every time Southampton attack, there's panic. Okay? The situation is actually set up nicely for us.
"Right. Jay's gonna talk tactics, and then we're gonna go out for the second half, nice and calm, relaxed, smiling, and we're gonna turn up the heat until Wolves can't take it any more. All right?" I reached into my backpack and took out some printouts. I moved along the nearest bench handing them out one by one.
"What's this?" said Femi.
"Feedback form," I said. "How satisfied are you with my management today? Please rate my half-time speech out of ten."
Femi turned her page over. "There is only one box. The number 10."
I grinned. "No point wasting ink on options you won't choose, right?"
***
The second half started poorly. So poorly that I got proper worried, to the point I had to work hard to keep myself on the bench and not go running around the touchline screaming, shouting, venting. I was right to wait, to be patient, to let it happen, because we got a few passes going, Sarah burst past a defender, drew a free kick, and Meredith forced the goalie into a great save.
The yips were banished; we dominated.
Femi scored the first from a corner. Great cross, powerful header. The captain leading by example. I loved it, and so did the fans. They got noisy again, got behind the team in a big way.
Sarah smashed the second from the edge of the box, though a better goalie might have saved it.
After that, with the win more or less in the bag, the songs from the Chester fans came less often - we had done our job, and now the fate of the title would be decided on the south coast. A good chunk of our fans watched the Southampton vs Brum match on their phones or listened on the radio.
While thoughts were drifting elsewhere, I experimented with a new tactic that I was mentally calling a 'clusterfuck'. Being able to move two players at once was awesome and I had done some interesting things with the men's team, but overnight I had wondered if I wasn't missing a trick.
Sure, I could move Magnus to the bottom-right of the tactics board and move Pascal to the top-left. I could tweak Cheb while rezoning Youngster. But what if I moved Meredith, Saffron, and Kit Hodges into the same zone?
I tried it, and the results were interesting. The three players formed a mini Relationism blob at the top of the pitch, and as the trio combined with quick one-touch passes and dummies, a cluster of defenders was drawn towards it. That briefly left a little more space for Dani and Kisi on the wings, but Wolves reorganised.
I reset the tactics and tried something similar, moving Meredith Ann and Kisi onto Sarah Greene's slot. This time, the moment of panic in the Wolves line lasted longer and it took them a couple of minutes to reorganise. I reset the tactics and had a long think about this concept. For years, I had wanted a hybrid of Relationism and positional play. Could this be it? Form a blob on the right side of defence so we could progress the ball past the initial press, move upfield in the relatively easy zone around the halfway line, then form another blob on one of the wings to create an instant overload.
I thought about Helge. Sometimes we moved him up the pitch and fired big diags at him. What if I created a clusterfuck of Helge, Cole, and Gabby? Three big, tall lads. Ping the ball into that zone and we were bound to win headers.
What about defending? I could use clusterfucks to drop three players into one part of the pitch. Three DMs. Three right backs. Where there was danger, I could blow it up.
An intriguing set of ideas for me to develop in the coming months, but perhaps not so much in the final games of the season, when so much was at stake.
"Angel," I said. She came over. "Do you want to play?"
"Of course I do."
"Same deal as last week. You replace Saffron, cause havoc, see what happens. No need to sacrifice yourself for the team this time, but do make good choices. I want another goal, please, so I can give Devi some minutes at the end."
"Devi?" Angel eyed the 15-year-old right mid. "I thought she was on the bench to learn what it's like."
"It's tradition," I said. "Last game of the season, if you can, you let your fans see a prospect."
Angel turned away. "Right."
***
As I requested, the ladies had been upping the tempo throughout the second half, and the introduction of another lethal striker tipped the match into a rolling assault on the Wolves goal.
Sarah Greene's match rating hit 9, despite her poor first half, but the numbers were good across the board. Only Haley still had a rating of 6, but that was because we were suffocating Wolves when they had the ball, and they didn't have the technical quality to get into our final third. With no real work to do, Haley couldn't improve her match rating.
Kit scored the third, and a minute later, Angel scored the fourth.
I swapped Welsh girls onto the pitch, and with ten minutes to go, sent Devi Payed on. CA 42, PA 149. Her position was MR, which was quite limited, but she was so talented it surely wouldn't matter in the long run.
Devi was enthusiastic and keen to impress, but for most of the others it was a case of waiting for the final whistle and the score from the other match.
The ref blew for time. 4-0 - we had done our part. The live feed of the other match went up on the big screens and we huddled together to watch the dying moments. If Birmingham won, they won the league. If they didn't, we did.
It was still 1-0 to Birmingham, but Southampton were pressing.
Jay said, "If Saints equalise, we'll have to send them a hamper."
"If they equalise, we'll go straight to the WSL. I'll send them fifty hampers!"
For two minutes, Chester fans were the world's most passionate Southampton fans. I grabbed Jay as a cross was sent in, and released him when the ball was cleared. He grabbed me as it was crossed back from the other side. Haley yelped as Brum's normally unflappable goalie flapped at the ball and punched nothing. Half our squad fell to their knees, hands on heads, as the ball was fired across the six-yard box and three different Saints players slid along the grass hoping to get the decisive touch.
We let out a despairing wail as the screen showed a close-up of the referee checking her watch, but she didn't blow for full time. Saints won the ball from Brum's throw-in, pushed forward, and got a corner.
"Go on, Samantha!" yelled Haley, as the broadcaster showed Southampton's goalie running forward to attack the corner kick.
The corner was whipped in. Chaos!
Legs everywhere, defenders trying to hack it away, one goalie trying to score, one trying to boot the ball clear. Pinball, mayhem, then the ball was hoofed into orbit.
Cut to the referee, pointing two handed, whistle in mouth, then the Birmingham City players running around, arms flailing, back teeth sparkling. In the centre circle at the Deva, the scene was inverted. No movement, no smiles, and Angel burst into tears.
I let the ladies have a couple of minutes to process what had happened and to shake hands with the Wolves players, then I sent them on the customary end-of-season lap of honour, to thank the fans for their support over the last year. The vast majority of the fans stuck around until the players got to their section.
Slowly, the appreciative crowd dispersed and our players started the long, weary trudge to the dressing rooms. I stopped at DigiWorld's interviewer to do a quick to-camera piece in which I congratulated Birmingham City, the WSL2 winners for the 2027/2028 season.
***
There was no music in the dressing room, no chat, no life. Just a lot of thousand-yard stares and some red eyes.
"All right," I said, as I gathered my thoughts. "I've got a few things to say. You won't like all of it. First thing, how did it feel to walk around the stadium empty handed? Waving at our fans, your friends, your family, trying to look positive, but with no trophy, no medals?"
"Not good," said Kisi.
"Shit," said Meghan.
"On Tuesday," I said, "it's the men's Cheshire Cup final against Crewe. We're going to go hard at it. It'll be basically the same team who were cheated by the ref at Ipswich, which is a team that's obviously much, much stronger than it needs to be. We're gonna lift that trophy and we're gonna parade it around the Deva next Saturday. You have your cup final on Wednesday night. You constantly have people telling you that the Cheshire Cup isn't important and it's natural that over time you'd start to believe that.
"So let me help you understand who it is you need to be listening to when it comes to what's important around here. Win it and you'll join the men on our end-of-season lap of honour in front of a packed, excited, noisy Deva Stadium. One club, two teams, two trophies. Lose the final and you won't be there. It's that simple. Does anyone have a question about that?"
I watched Meghan go through a mental loop starting with 'that's not fair' and ending with 'so we just have to win it'.
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"Some of you might be thinking that I'm being harsh, but that's because you've forgotten what we're doing here. The ambition of the club is to have the best women's team in the world. The good vibes and the positive atmosphere is in place to support a culture of excellence and winning. I don't want good vibes because I'm a hippy. I'm a greedy fucking bastard and I want all those trophies. We should win trophies every season. I want to make videos every summer hammering the same joke that the trophy cabinet isn't big enough. It's the one joke I never get tired of repeating.
"The best team in the world. That's the ambition, and you'd be amazed to know how close we are to being that. But two unacceptable things happened this week. One, training was shit. You know how insane I am about the seriousness of training. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you forgot. Maybe you think I'm distracted, maybe you think I've lost my touch." I paused. "Maybe you forgot I've got a massive pile of cash and I can afford to break the world transfer record in the position you play.
"I'm going to be saintly and rise above it this one time because of the situation and the tension but if you think there are moments in the season where I’ll tolerate shit training, you’re fucking crazy. Is it okay if one of you is struggling mentally, physically, if the magic isn't quite there? Of course it is. This isn't a Victorian carpet factory. You're never going to have your best day every day. But 15 players training that shit for a whole week? Next time that happens, there had better be an invasion of lizards or a sinkhole.
"Then there was the dogshit first half today. At home. In front of our fans! Nah, mate, nah. I expect every single one of you, except Haley, Femi, VR, and Kit, to have a long, hard look at yourself. Why did that happen? We've got resources. We've got elite coaches around every corner, we've got a sports psychologist. Be proactive. Take responsibility. I've used my Honey I Shrunk the Kits joke. I don't have a backup."
I took a swig of water.
"The best team in the world. That's the goal. The best team in the world would generate its own solutions to problems on the fly and not wait until half time to get an external fix. That's a long-term challenge. The best team in the world wins when it isn't playing well."
I started to move around the dressing room.
"Listen to this next part very carefully. Today, we did win. We did! I know it doesn't feel like it, but we did. In the first half, as crap as it was, we didn't let Wolves even get anywhere near our goal. That's a good sign. And we clicked back into gear in the second half. I've seen plenty of shocking performances that lasted 90 minutes. Our worst of the season was just a half. That's a good sign."
I slipped my phone out of my pocket and brought up a random page while reading from the screens in my head.
"Your record in WSL2 is played 22, won 19, drawn 3, lost none. Lost none! You are undefeated in the league this season. A week ago, you needed to win two matches and to win them in a way that would put pressure on Birmingham. We did it as perfectly as if I could have scripted it. Even with the stress caused by Brum going man-to-man and us getting frustrated by that, and then you crapping the bed because the target was so close, you still managed to win 3-0 and 4-0 to close the season. You went further than any Chester senior team has gone in the cups. You have served up the hands-down, unequivocally best season in the history of Chester Women. You are the best team Chester have ever had. I'm going to take an educated guess that you are the best team England's second tier has ever seen."
I jabbed my thumb towards the South.
"They say the league table never lies. Birmingham are a good team and they're worthy winners. If I was in their dressing room I'd be going spare, jumping around, pumping the music, unable to believe my luck. They know we're better but they sealed the deal and that's what it's all about. Good for them, but they're history now. Today's their day in the sun. Cool."
I stopped walking to make eye contact with a few players.
"We can still make it to the WSL. We've earned the right to play in a battle royale against Charlton. There might never be another playoff match in women's football. If there is, it might be decades in the future. We're going to be part of something unique.
"But from now until the final whistle on Wednesday night, I don't want to hear the word playoff from any of you, because if you're talking about the playoff it means you're thinking about the playoff and why are you thinking about the playoff when we've got a cup final to win? We're playing Macclesfield in their place. I want that trophy, ladies. Wednesday night, cup final, that's where your thoughts need to be."
My speech hadn't been great for Morale, but it needed to be said. If they couldn't motivate themselves to win a cup against sixth-tier opponents, they didn't have a future at my club.
"Quick word about training tomorrow. I'll be keeping an eye on your fitness levels and your sharpness and if there's a mismatch between what I expect and what I see, you'll do a blood test. If we find any alcohol in your blood streams, you will be handed a two-week fine and you won't play for this club again. If you have any parties booked tonight, I suggest you cancel them. The next two weeks are the biggest of your lives.
"Finally, cup finals and playoffs often come down to penalties. Practise." I went to the front and zipped up my backpack. I slung it over my shoulder. "So in summary: great season; two more games to win; have you got that tier one mentality... or do you want to do all this again next time round?"
***
Tuesday, April 25
Cheshire Senior Cup Final - Chester versus Crewe
I spent Monday morning training, made myself available to Brooke and her marketing team in the afternoon, then worked on bringing the Slovakian lads to Chester. Later, I drove north with Brooke and Zach to watch a Middlesbrough home game from a VIP box. Dazza hit the post twice, which was probably for the best because three Chester employees leaping to their feet in celebration might have been a bad look.
Tuesday was more of the same, training and responding to media requests, but Tuesday evening, well, that was going to be our first trophy of the season.
After three dogmeat first halves in a row, I was going to make sure there wasn't a fourth. An early goal would settle the final and send a message to the entire club about what was expected.
I named the exact same lineup that started against Ipswich, which was a bit of a shame for the players who had helped us get to the final but we really, really needed the attendance boost - the club would soon have a massive new stand to fill.
4-1-4-1.
Owen in goal.
Cole, Fitz, Magnus, Helge.
Vini as the DM.
Me, Dan, Andrew, Bark.
Colin as the striker.
Average CA, 125.8, excluding me. Crewe's maximum, if they used their absolute best team, was 80.
So far this season, I had scored 7 goals and made 13 assists. Those were rubbish numbers. The Sentinel couldn't get me on those. In my mind, I was allowed to score another two goals. One tonight, one in the playoff semi-final. I reckoned I could get away with 5 or 6 assists, though ideally I wouldn't need to push that to the limit.
***
Match report from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.
Author: D.Cox
Total Football Totals Railwaymen; Max's Cruyff Turn Puts Alex In a Spin
'There is a dangerous intoxication in knowing unmistakably that you possess an ability which is superior to that of all others.'
The scene was set. The ball white, the pitch green, the Seals blue, the Alex red, the McNally orange. Thousands in high-vis vests, in for a quid, cheap pints and burgers. The sights and smells of a football match, the pageantry of a cup final. Max Best unsmiling, dead-eyed, bristling with murderous intent. The lineup is incredibly strong.
Chester FC kick off, aiming to win their 5th Cheshire Cup in a row.
Pass, pass, pass.
It's slow. Is this going to be another ponderous start?
Pass, pass.
The ball reaches Max Best on the left wing. He wall-passes it back whence it came, then drifts infield.
Pass pass pass. Pass pass pass. The ball picks up speed like a train, left and right, up and down. There's an early involvement for every outfield player. Best shapes to hit a long pass but spins and gives Owen Elmham a touch. It's like a training ground exercise in which every player must touch the ball before you can score a point.
Max picks up the tempo. Pa-pa-pass.
There's something odd. Chester decided to shoot towards the Harry McNally terrace in the first half. The custom is to shoot towards your fans in the second half.50 seconds in and Crewe have not touched the ball. A striker moves to harry Best, who evades like a fly dodging a lazy swipe from a dozing cat. Best enters the final third. He looks for the option left and right as he glides forward, then there's an alarming burst of acceleration that takes him past three defenders and into the penalty area...
Where he is felled.
Penalty kick. 50 seconds, 25 passes, 100 percent possession.
The media centre is abuzz. This is Holland versus West Germany! This is the 1974 World Cup final!
If Best is the Johan Cruyff - who else could be? - then who will be the Neeskens and take the penalty?
Yeah, that's Max Best, too.
He places the ball, glares at it, clenches his jaw, and hits the most perfect penno, fired with extreme violence towards an area the size of a postage stamp approximately three-eights of an inch away from the join of post and crossbar.
We learned why Best wanted to shoot towards the McNally in the first half - to yell at its inhabitants. Specifically, the rest of the men's team, and the women's squad.
This might be a good juncture to say that Crewe played well, all things considered.
Two minutes after scoring, Best went on a rampaging run down the left wing and crossed for Colin Beckton, who put it just wide.
No matter. Best did it again, slaloming past player after player, cutting into the penalty area, and while Crewe rushed to cover Beckton, Best clipped a pass to Calabash Barkley, who had a relatively simple finish. 2-0. The McNally was in raptures, but their team was still only getting warmed up.
Half a minute later, Best and his players formed a sort of defensive swarm on the right, smothered Crewe's left midfielder, made the ball pop out, and attacked in a sort of Bestball blob down that side. Best cut out of the group to smash a left-footed shot at goal, which fizzed just over the crossbar.
Next came another dribble, another desperate tackle. Best clipped the free kick onto the head of Helge Hagen. 3-0. No 'interesting' refereeing decisions on this one!
Then, taking the ball from the toes of Vincent Addo, Best scanned the pitch and pinged a 40-yard pass, all along the ground, that curved gently into the path of Beckton. The striker rolled back the years, taking the ball into the box and firing past the keeper.
4-0. One goal for Max Best, and three assists. 14 minutes had passed. A journalist from Crewe said it wasn't fair that Best was playing in this match. I replied by saying, if that's true, it would never be fair for him to play. My erstwhile colleague conceded the point.
With the match as good as won, Best made four changes. On went Owen Travis (the goalkeeper who had played the previous rounds), Max Murray (a 16-year-old Chester-born left back), Future (a 16-year-old Chester-born centre back slash defensive midfielder), and Chas Fungrieve (an 18-year-old Chester-born striker who scored the 5th goal near the end and boy, was he delighted).
Best stayed on the pitch for the entire 90, shepherding his young players through the game, coaching them. When Crewe made a raft of changes at half time, Best used his final sub to introduce Ben Wood, a 16-year-old Chester-born midfielder.
You can say a lot of things about Max Best, but you can't say he doesn't take this competition seriously and you can't say he doesn't get what its true purpose is - to develop football and footballers in this county.
Final score: Chester 5, Crewe 1.
Five in a row for Chester, but this time, their celebrations were muted. The first team's season is ending but is far from finished, and the same could be said for the under 18s. This had the air of one item on a checklist being ticked off.
And something tells me there is more to come, because unlike the cocky Dutch, Chester teams play Total Football for more than one minute at a time.
***
Wednesday, April 26XP balance: 2,220Time was running out for me to buy the monthly perk, the one that would allow me to cap our Aggression at 10 for a quarter of an hour. I could afford it, but buying it would only delay me buying the final perk in the tactics tree. If I kept a laser-focus on my goal, complete tactical flexibility was very much on the horizon, and I would be able to experiment with it the way I was experimenting with Deformation 2.
Imagine being able to move any player anywhere...
Think of the clusterfucks I could create...
I decided to skip the monthly perk. If it came back in the future, I would probably buy it, but the timing wasn't right.
The Cheshire Cup was on display in the canteen. It symbolised many things, but near the top of the list was that it guaranteed us a 10% attendance boost for the following season. The Deva would be sold out for every men's game, and the women's attendances would continue to rise. That meant money for the club, new generations of fans, and a great atmosphere. And when the new stand opened, we would get record crowds. Number goes up, up, up, until one day the club would reach a size that meant we wouldn't need to rely on supernatural gimmicks.
While the women's team stayed behind after training to practise penalties, the kitchen staff made me an exotic smoothie, which I took to the Sin Bin. The coaches were watching video from sixth-tier Macclesfield Women, but it wasn't long before I tuned out of the discussion. While I wanted to be professional, there really was no point to the exercise. Macc had done well to get to the final but we were miles better in every respect. If our women approached the game with any sort of intensity, any sort of quality, we would win easily. If they played like they had in the first half against Wolves...
***
On-the-whistle match report from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.
Author: D.Cox
Do You Want Prize With That? Chester Feast On Big Macc with a McFlurry of Goals
Copy. Paste.
In the last week we have seen Chester Women copy Chester Men by performing abominably in a nerve-wracked first half. Now we have seen Chester Women copy Chester Men in pasting lower-league opposition to win the Cheshire Cup.
Chester went to Macclesfield with a powerful starting eleven that comprised most of our key players. Haley Goodhew were rested, as was Femi, Victoria Rose, and Kit Hodges. It didn't matter - as had happened the night before, we thundered out of the blocks and attacked relentlessly for the first half of the first half. There were spectacular performances all round, though at the break Max Best made a beeline for Meghan, who apparently caught his eye even in a match where the attacking players had more to do.
With the score 4-0 at half time, Jay Cope sent on four 'ones for the future', all from Chester. When the score hit 5-0, Jay replaced our second-choice goalie, Queenie, with sixteen-year-old third-choice Babs.
It shows how united the club is that most of the men's squad was in attendance, and that even players who are about to depart, such as Christian Fierce, Zach Green, and Wallace Wells, made the trip.
The two minor trophies are in the bag.
Now both teams must turn their attention to the biggest prize of all - promotion to the top tier. Just one team getting there would be a truly remarkable feat. Five promotions in a row? Unprecedented. Astonishing. Impossible.
But as Chester regularly prove, impossible is a state of mind.
I know one thing: they can't both do it.
They can't.
But then again... this is Copy Paste FC.
Could we?
***
Thursday, April 27
I trained in the morning, did media work in the afternoon, and in the evening, carried out a military-style operation to complete the signing of Marek Masarik.
We did it in Wales, secretly, in the small media centre at The Legends. We put up a board with the Chester logo and sponsors, and I posed with Marek for the traditional 'signing the contract' photos. Job done, we stood, stretched, and smiled as Sticky, our goalkeeping coach, rubbed his hands gleefully. Marek was old but he was premium. The normally gruff Yorkshireman slapped Marek on the back. "Welcome to the Number One Club!"
Marek's brows knitted slightly. "Chester is the best club?"
Sticky shook his head. "In Max's fever dream, sure, but it's not what I mean. Goalies are the number one, yes? You, me, Owen, Rainman, Banksy, Haley, whoever else Max dregs up. We're the Number One Club. We look after each other."
"Yes, is good," said Marek. "And Haley, yes, England international. Very good. I like how she commands the box, talks to the defence, makes them feel safe. Not many women are good goalkeepers. People call me dinosaur but sorry, that's how I feel. But Haley is different. She's perfect. I like to work with her. Max says we have one-club mentality."
I rested a hand on his shoulder. "You know the phrase, 'goalkeepers are crazy'?" I put my other hand on Sticky's shoulder. "This lot put the mental into one-club mentality. You'll fit right in."
Marek scoffed. "I am crazy? What about you?" He turned to his new coach. "You see him check my pen? Which way? Which way is the pen?"
Sticky eyed me. "What?"
I explained. "I was making sure we didn't do a Portsmouth."
"What?"
I sighed and showed them the infamous photo of Ebou Adams 'signing' his Portsmouth contract while holding his pen upside down. Marek thought it was hilarious, so I also showed him a clip of the same player doing one of the most jaw-dropping open goal misses in the history of the sport.
When he stopped demanding that I replay the clip, I got right into his eyeline.
"Marek, bro. Remember. Don't tell anyone about this until Chester's season is over. I don't want distractions, okay? When we lose the semi-final or final, we will let our fans be sad for a couple of days, then we will announce this and use the photos. They will be happy."
"And Leo?"
"Maybe a couple of days after you. Maybe a week. I will only sign a few players I think. Big quality, but not many players. The summer will be long for the fans, so no hurry to say everything in one time, yes?"
"Yes."
I smiled and hugged him. He had wanted a twelve grand a week pay bump if Chester won the playoffs and got to the Prem. I had very nearly said 'make it a million a week coz it ain't gonna happen', but I had just about stayed professional and negotiated him down to an extra ten. It was funny, really. It was like he was asking to be paid in Monopoly money. While his CA had slowly dipped from lack of playing time, Marek was top-quality. I knew he had been at least CA 155 in his career, which meant we could get him back to those levels pretty fast. "This is gonna be great. We've got top coaches and a good medical team. I think we can lift you back up and extend your career. You've made a good choice, Marek."
"Yes," he said, flatly. "I know. Now show me video again. How he miss the goal? I cannot understand."
Marek Masarik, GK, 37, CA 141, PA 165. Wages £20,000 a week (Championship), £30,000 (Prem).
DEAL DONE!
***
Friday, April 28
Leo Los, the Slovakian Messi, nudged closer to becoming a Chester FC player. His club were rinsing me to the tune of 6 million English pounds. Leo himself had agreed to receive 22,000 in the Championship but wanted 32,000 if Chester were in the Prem next season.
"Sure, bro, sure."
DEAL ALMOST DONE!
***
Saturday, April 29
EFL Championship Match 46 of 46: Chester versus Preston North End
When I tell you that Preston had a terrible away record, their overall form was poor, and they had nothing to play for on the last day of the season, you're probably thinking 'oh my God, something terrible's going to happen!'
Which, yeah, football do be like that sometimes.
But more often than not, the better team wins. More often than not, all things being equal, the team who wants it more does win.
We were the better team. (138.3 versus 128.)
We wanted it more.
We also had higher Morale and better haircuts.
Literally the only thing going for Preston was that they were using a formation I had very little experience of: 3-1-4-2.
Their setup was interesting, in that it had wing backs plus a defensive midfielder. 3-4-3 variants suited my best eleven, but I preferred to play Youngster as a DM if poss. He'd had a decent but not outstanding season playing mostly as a central midfielder, and he had moved to CA 140 this week - a very, very serious number! - but he hadn't looked quite so exceptional as he had in previous campaigns. One day, I needed to find a way to put him in his best position on a more permanent basis.
Perhaps Preston's 3-1-4-2 would prove to be an innovation that I brought to my bosom?
Nah. It wasn't good. We battered them.
8'Alloula moves ahead.
He exchanges passes with Gabriel.
Alloula will get to the byline and cross...
He cuts back on his left foot.
He tees it up perfectly for Gabriel...
Blocked!
Roberts pounces...
Saved!
The ball is loose...
Bochum bundles it home!
A dream start for Chester!11'Roberts dips his shoulder, makes space for himself 30 yards from goal.
He looks up, picks his spot, and lets fly.
The ball goes like a rocket. The keeper is scrambling. He's in trouble!
But the ball passes safely over the crossbar. The keeper breathes a sigh of relief.
Roberts is applauded by three-quarters of the ground. What a shot!13'Preston are passing the ball around nicely. Chester seem content to let the defenders keep the ball.
Preston play to their number 6. Suddenly three Chester players rush towards him!
The 6 hasn't spotted the danger. He tries to turn...
Roberts wins the ball.
Bochum takes over. He gives the ball to Gabriel.
Gabriel nudges it to Roberts, who rolls the ball under his foot back to the Brazilian.
Another very short pass, this time to Bochum.
Bochum clips the ball over the defence...
Roberts controls beautifully! He picks his spot...
But he's fouled before he can shoot!
Penalty kick.14'Roberts to take the penalty...
GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!
Hard into the corner. No chance for the keeper!
Chester have taken complete control of this match. They look to have booked a spot in the playoffs!***
After we went 2-0 up, I did a few more experiments with clusterfucks. Letting Preston get casual on the ball and then dropping a clusterbomb onto their DM worked spectacularly well but that was the surprise element, wasn't it? It wouldn't work again and again.
I tried moving Wibbers and Cheb onto the same spot as Youngster, and that was interesting. What worked even better was moving Magnus to right back, inverting him into central midfield, leaving Cheb where he was on the right, and dropping Wibbers onto the spot Magnus was taking up. Using a hotkey to make Wibbers move from CAM to CM while Magnus was automatically moving from right back to the same CM spot was strange but Preston didn't know who to track. They had plenty of midfielders but we always had a numerical advantage and they couldn't press us.
I spent four minutes trying not to cackle. These options were fun! I felt there were all kinds of crazy exploits I would find, and it was fine to squash my players together because we trained Relationism.
We were all smiles on the benches. Physio Dean was joking with Vikki and one of the physio squad. Livia wasn't here; she had called in sick. Dan Badford was coaching Adam B. Roberts, who was one of our subs. I had told his older brother that if we were far enough ahead near the end, Adam would get on the pitch and they'd be able to play together.
In the stands, the party was well underway. The way the other matches were going, even if Preston got two goals, a point would be enough to get us into the playoffs.
I gave Sandra a hug and left her in charge, then went to the dugout and mentally watched the action from the other games. Ipswich and Wolves were battling for the title, which looked like it would be decided on goal difference. Wolves were 2-0 up against Luton, which put us in 4th.
Coventry and West Brom were battling for the final playoff spot, but Wrexham had an outside chance of sneaking in. What a story that would be! In a way, that could work well for us. The world's attention would be on Crystal Palace versus Wrexham in the semi-finals. Who would care about Chester versus Luton? No-one. And that would be fine by me.
The really big game, though, was Tranmere. They were currently nil-nil, one place above the relegation zone. A draw would probably be enough for them. Probably.
Come on, Jackie! 4-4-2 first half, grind them down, 3-5-2 switch, play with pace and confidence. Fearless football. Come on, Jack!
***
51'Lamarre to take the corner.
He whips it towards the near post. Flicked on by Green.
Gabriel competes for the ball.
It lands at the feet of Bauer. He stabs it towards goal...
And it's in!
It was scrappy but he doesn't care one little bit. Look at his face. Just look at his face!***
There's no room for sentiment in football. No room, that is, unless you're 3-0 up against a team who are on the beach with ten minutes to play. I made four subs, sending on Christian, Fitzroy, and Andrew Harrison, three of the players for whom this would be their final league match as a Chester player. (Zach, Cheb, and Joel were already on the pitch.) I made a big show of forgetting something, then summoned Adam Roberts - Wibbers rolled his eyes at me, but he was beaming.
The Robertses! Playing together in the Championship! I could only imagine the party in their house.
And that was the really strange thing - we were about to finish fourth in the Championship, the best result in the history of the club by far, we were about to do our end-of-season lap of honour, but this wasn't the end of the season.
The real test was yet to come. Away to Luton, one more home game here. Then, all being well, Wembley heartache.
"Max," said Dean, coming to my side as I watched Wibbers give his younger brother some tactical advice. Adam looked so stern and so serious it made me smile. "Max," said Dean, bumping me. "Look."
He showed me his phone. I tapped play on a video taken at Prenton Park, in the VIP boxes. Diggy Doggy and Bigg Dogg were jumping around, and who was between them, just as elated? Livia Stranton, Chester employee.
I laughed. "Amazing." I went to the Live Scores screen and saw that Tranmere had scored a couple of minutes ago, when I had been busy messing about with Adam Roberts.
"Are we going to fine her?" said Dean.
"Watching a Jackie Reaper defensive borefest is punishment enough," I said. "Oh."
"What?"
Tranmere had just scored a second goal. "Nothing. Just thought I saw Elvis." I gave him his phone back. "Thanks. If there's any more like that, I'd love to see it."
***
With five minutes left to go, I sent Ian Swan onto the pitch.
There's no room for sentiment in football.
***
Full time whistles started to blow around the country.
Ipswich Town pipped Wolves to the Championship title. The referee who had cheated us also cheated Wolves. Could that have been the ref's angle? The Brig had told me I needed to be patient. "The truth will out," he had said. The hell kind of phrase was that?
Newport County had already won the National League, and with Tranmere safe, I had earned a cool one million pounds in consultancy fees. Not bad!
The clubs I didn't own had done rather well. West Didsbury and Chorlton AFC won the National League North - their first match at The Wall Stadium would be in tier five. Tempsford had crushed their league, of course. A first title for Vimsy. Saltney Town and College 1975 had won, too. Two more shots at the Champions League, coming right up.
Our match finished, Luton was over, so the first five places in the Championship were set in stone. There was an incredulous roar from the McNally end. I looked up - the big screen was showing the scores from the matches involving the other three teams, plus a live table. Wrexham had just scored, and that had moved them up into 6th. The Chester fans couldn't believe it. To be honest, I could barely believe it. What the hell were West Brom and Coventry playing at?
I shook my head, knowing that this moment would be in Wrexham's documentary, milked for all it was worth.
"Max," said Dean. He was holding his phone up.
I pressed play on a video and saw Jackie Reaper being held aloft by his players, carried around in triumph, his head bobbing up and down like a beach ball on an ocean wave.
I replayed it, smiling hard, until I heard another weird noise from the fans. Our players were talking to the guys from Preston, mostly all smiles, but there was a disturbance around Andrew Harrison. I tensed up, ready to spring into action if needed, but I had misread the situation. He was the centre of attention not because of any aggro, but because the club he was about to join, Stoke City, had been relegated.
Ouch.
My first thought was deep sympathy. My second was: he'll boss League One. My third was for my own personal safety. "Briggy," I said, waving her over. I looked left and right, then said, "Keep Gemma away from me."
"For how long?"
"Twelve months, I reckon."
"Understood."
***
I joined in the lap of honour, but it was a strange one. We had the Cheshire Cup trophies, there were plenty of individual awards for players to show off, and both the men's and women's teams had recorded their highest-ever finishes. But neither season was finished; the playoffs loomed large.
And even the farewells were lacking in true emotion. Christian Fierce was leaving, but he would be back in two weeks!
It was still worth doing the lap of honour, though. First, it was tradition. Second, it wouldn't be the same set of fans. Season tickets didn't cover the playoffs - league rules - so for some people, this was the last chance to see these players.
Sandra saw me looking thoughtful. "You okay, boss?"
"Yeah. Hey, do you think the playoffs are part of the league? I mean, season tickets don't include the playoffs. If you look at top scorer stats, they don't include playoffs. I mean, is it a separate competition?"
"No, it's an extension of the league."
"Hmm." I thought I agreed with her, but I was hoping that the imps had set up the curse so that playoffs were a separate competition. That way, I would get to use Bench Boost again. For the men, that would seem to virtually guarantee we would beat Luton over two legs. For the women, it would make a tense one-off match much less stressful. "It's strange, isn't it? Nice to have this moment with the fans, everyone's buzzing, it's like the last day of school. Did you used to sign everyone's shirts and cry and all that?"
"Yeah. I can't imagine you crying on the last day of school, Max."
"Well, okay, yeah, I didn't. But I got why everyone else was upset. Some of those people, most in fact, you'll never see again. It's sad. But this is like the last day of school except we've got our final exams for, like, three more weeks."
Sandra's eyebrows rose in amusement. "Final exam in front of 90,000 people, a hundred million people watching around the world, a hundred million quid on the line." She turned to her right, then looked at me. "If you want emotion, there it is."
I stood on tiptoes and saw that Angel was in tears. "Hmm," I said. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need Angel for the playoff, but it was highly likely she would have a major role, doubly so if I really did have access to Bench Boost.
I brushed the people consoling Angel out of the way, and gently pulled her towards the centre circle, away from the procession.
"What's up?" I said.
She wiped her eyes and tried to get a grip. "Nothing. Just sad to be leaving. It's mad that I've played here for the last time. This is my home. It's mad. It's like when you cry on the last day of school but I never even liked school. It's so mad."
"Yeah, that's a mad thought," I agreed.
We watched the two first teams as they went past the corner flag that separated the McNally from what would soon be the PetPride. The men and women were in harmony. Dean was showing everyone the Livia and Jackie videos like a proud father. Wibbers was holding onto his brother, who might have preferred to walk alongside one of the women. "It's top," said Angel.
"Thanks," I said.
She gave me a weird look, then said, quietly, "Can I stay?"
"It's too late. The papers are signed. The deal's done. Anyway, this will be great for you. Italy. Pasta, sun, pastel-coloured buildings. Fashion, perfume, opportunity. You'll love it."
Angel swallowed. Swallowing her pride? "It's just that I've really bought into that one-club mentality you've been talking about."
I shrugged. "Lots of clubs try to integrate their teams. Arsenal. Lyon."
"I don't mean that," she said, almost too quiet to hear. She looked at the grass by her feet. "I mean the one-club mentality where you stay at one club forever because it's the best one."
Can a heart harden and soften at the same time? I took a breath. "When you come back to visit in a couple of years, you'll find that Bumpers looks different. You'll see that the women have their own gym, their own training pitches, their own team bus. The situation with you and Emiliano has shown me that the one-club mentality has its limits and that if I try to get too utopian with this place, I'll only be sowing the seeds of the destruction of two great sides. From this summer, the men and women will become more distinct. We'll lose some of the upside of togetherness but we'll eliminate some of the downside, too. We'll be just another football club. I wanted to do something special, but we're not special."
I left what I hoped was a sympathetic pause, because while what I was saying was true, it had to be hard to hear that you had wrecked a club's culture. I tried to put a little more warmth in my voice.
"If it wasn't you, it would have been someone else. Christ, in a different scenario, it could have been me." I watched as the lap of honour reached the halfway line. There was a clutch of Ghanaians, colourful, smiling. I focused on Angel for perhaps the last pep talk I would ever give her. I tried to make it a good one. "You've got one game left for Chester. You might score the goal that sends us to the top tier and you'll cement your legacy and be remembered as a legend. Give this club one more week, your best week, and you'll create memories for all these people who loved you and supported you. And then you'll move on to your new life, and you'll be happy."
To show how happy the thought made her, Angel once more burst into tears.