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Tuesday, 3rd January, 2023

"Fanciful ornamentation in art and furniture originating in 18th century France."

"Pretentiousness."

"Six letters."

"Any crossings?"

"Yellow sauce served on desserts... custard... so six letters, third's a C."

"Rococo."

"Fits. And that gives us crypt going down. How do you know words like Rococo?"

"Agatha Christie books? Lil Nas lyrics? I don't know. Just one of those words you hear or read. I don't know what it means. Hang on, I'm getting a call." I pulled my phone out of a pocket and saw it was Mike Dean. I accepted the intrusion and said, so that MD would hear, "One of my employees." Longstaff put down the newspaper and pen and grabbed his laptop. If I knew him, he'd be researching Rococo. He did the crossword both as a challenge and to learn things. "MD!" I said, with a big smile, "What can I do for you?"

"You could come into work," he said.

I laughed. "What? Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. It's just sort of... implied that you would do so."

"That was a mistake on your part, wasn't it? We didn't agree on any metrics. Any key performance indicators. We didn't even agree how many hours a week I'd do. Do you know what Rococo is?"

"Yes. An example would be overly ornate cornicing."

"Great. Now save me a minute and tell me what cornicing is."

"I'll show you. In the office I made for you. Which I am standing in and you are not."

"Well, I was pretty busy yesterday doing a Superman impression down in Yorkshire. And I set my own hours, don't I? I'm having a chill morning. It's called work-life balance. You should try it."

Longstaff looked up from his laptop and shook his head at me. "Max."

Fine. I checked the time. "MD, I'm having breakfast with my mate. In Darlo. I was going to set off early, but what's the point? Most of my work will be in the evenings."

"I understand. You're right. I just thought you'd be excited to start."

"I am. But it's going to be a long day. I'm pacing myself. I'll be scouting till ten or eleven pm, then a long drive home. I need a house in Chester. Big mansion for five hundred quid a month. Know anything like that? My plan is, I'll leave Darlington about quarter past nine, miss the worst of the traffic. I'll be there before training ends."

"All right. Training. But come here first to talk about the budget. Then we'll meet Ian and talk about transfers and contracts. Plan what we can do in the transfer window and what we expect for the rest of the season. A lot of players are out of contract in the summer. We need to start discussing who we want to keep and tie them down."

"Hmm." Keeping players that the next manager - Jackie Reaper - would want, and binning everyone else without crushing morale... could be tricky.

"And I've got reporters who want to come meet the youngest DoF in Europe. What time will I tell them?"

"Eight thirty at Goals."

"Goals?"

"It's a five-a-side place near the stadium. You should come, too. Watch the magic happen."

"I'll tell the reporters. I don't know if they work nights. We'll probably have to slot them in during the day."

"Nope. Eight thirty. They can take it or leave it."

A pause. I counted five seconds. "Let me know when you're arriving."

"Is that a command? Are you trying to boss me around, MD? Are we starting our power struggle already?" Longstaff stiffened. He thought I was being serious and didn't want to hear me bicker.

"Max," said MD. "I'm hanging up. Please let me know when you'll arrive." My screen went black.

"Yeah, that's right," I said, with heat, jabbing my finger at the phone. "You BETTER back down!"

I grinned. Being my own boss was pretty fantastic. I'd woken up at five AM thinking I had to be insanely productive from the word Go. But why? Most of my weekday scouting would be in the evenings. So I went to a bakery and surprised Longstaff with some butties and two pains au chocolat. "Longstaff, why are half the lights still out? I thought you had a bumper Christmas?"

He looked up. "Yeah. We did. Thanks to you." He rummaged behind his counter and came up with an envelope. It was sealed. "This is for you. From a customer, here. I think I know what it says. Don't open it here. So, yeah. The lights are still off. But even being careful the bills are way up. If I kept things as normal, it'd be triple. It's murder."

"I wonder how much electricity a football club uses?" I mused.

"Seems like your job to find out."

"Shit. Yeah. I have to get on top of every little thing. Players first, I think. We've only got January to make changes. I urgently need to see the 18s. See if there's any talent there."

"Rococo is a style without rules," he said, looking at his screen. "What would Rococo football look like?"

"Leeds United under Bielsa. Loads of guys running around, seemingly at random."

Longstaff nodded, continued reading. "It's often asymmetric. The halves of the piece don't match." He showed me a photo of a cabinet with one big, curvy 'horn' and one small one.

"I know what asymmetric means. Stop cornicing me."

"I'm only reading this article. Halves don't match. That's interesting. You told me once you like symmetrical formations. You're a Director of Football, now. You get to choose the formation the club uses. Right? And every age group will play the same one."

"That's one way," I said. "But it's not the Max Best way."

"Oh," he said, with a chuckle. "So what's the Max Best way?"

I pointed my pain au chocolat at him. "You'll see it. Next season. You'll be my guest of honour at any match you choose." I tilted my head. "Except ones my girlfriend wants to go to. Or someone famous or cool."

"Who's an example of someone cool but not famous who would take precedence over me?"

I munched on my pastry. "The one guy who had the same IT problem as me and left a question on a forum, but then he came back three weeks later and said never mind, I fixed it, here's how."

"Fair enough. Can't argue with that. That guy's a ledge." He picked the newspaper back up and clicked his pen significantly. "Seriously, though. This is your dream job. Aren't you excited?"

I grinned. "Course I am. But I didn't get here by burning all my stamina in the first ten minutes of a game. Days like these are marathons. not sprints. Next clue. Hit me."

***

In the car on the way to Chester, I thought about what Longstaff had said. His question was good. Which formation did I want to see? Ian Evans would play 4-4-2 until the end of the season, and the next manager would have his own ideas. But I could decide what the rest of the teams played, from the reserves down to the under 12s.

The Copa Mundial thing hadn't seemed like preparation for being a club manager, but I was starting to realise that it was. National teams couldn't buy or sell players. They had to work with what they had. That meant lots of asymmetrical formations. A lot of make do and mend.

Meanwhile, the big 6   teams in England had enough money to buy multiple thirty-million pound players for every position, and when a new manager came in and switched to a new formation, they would simply buy more players for him. It was possible for a manager to have a philosophy. A style of playing that he would force onto his club. Philosophy first, players second.

Not me. At a tiny club with no resources, I'd have to cook with the ingredients that were in my pantry - plus whatever I could forage. If I couldn't find a dynamic left-back before the next season started, I'd probably play a formation that didn't need one. If I found two incredible left-backs, I'd obviously use a formation that leaned into their skills.

I scratched my chin. There I was again, thinking like a manager. It seemed like a curiosity of my role that I'd have to do just that - think like a manager - so that I could give the actual manager what he needed. But if he used the tools I gave him wrong, or we had a difference of opinion about a player's ability, there would be friction. Friction was, frankly, inevitable.

For now, though, I'd focus on bringing players to the club with high potential. Ideally, they wouldn't all play the same position, but there was no chance the first eleven players I found would perfectly fit my dream formation. No, I'd have to make compromises. Get asymmetrical. Break the rules.

Yeah. I'd have to get Rococo.

***

XP Balance: 476  7

Debt repaid: 259/3000

Playdar cost: 8000

***

The stadium was on the way to the training ground, so I went there first. I pulled into my parking space (they wanted to paint DoF on the ground but I insisted they write BEST), and went to meet MD. When he saw me, a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders and a gigawatt of nervous energy shot out in every direction. His vibe was weird. Very out of character.

"Max! Finally! Come in here, come on." He dragged me into a supply cupboard. "That was unreal. Scarborough. Five goals in twenty minutes! How did you do it? I can't believe what I saw. There's no-one that good who's ever played this level. Ever. And I've just watched Chester play five of the worst games in our history. We stink. I did a tour of one of our chemical plants, back in my old job, and the pong was beyond belief. What Chester are doing smells worse."

"Hmm," I said. Something was poking into my back.

"Max, let's get you in the team as a priority. If you play the rest of the season, I'll sack Ian Evans. Okay? Play like that, for Chester, get us out of trouble, get the vibes going, get the sponsors hyped, sell season tickets, I'll do anything you want. Holy shit. It was like watching da Vinci invent helicopters with his left hand while whipping up a quick masterpiece with his right. Holy shit. And the Scarborough MD told me you whipped the crowd up into a fervour he'd never seen before. I want it. I want it at the Deva, Max. Why are you looking at me like that?"

I glanced around the room. It was full of those stacks of paper that come wrapped up in other paper, which always feels cannibalistic to me. "First, a fact check. We only scored four when I was on the pitch."

"Oh!" he said, slapping himself on the forehead. "Only four! Only four he says."

"Okayyy... Mate, I don't want you to sack Evans. This season is dead. There's no chance of relegation. Not with Henri here. And no chance of promotion. Why would I play? What's the point? To get a broken leg? When Chester are playing I'll be out scouting. Do you hear me? I'm not available for selection right now. And by the way, the difference between the shit Evans is serving up and what the fans will get next season is so enormous that, narratively speaking, I see every dull moment now as a building block for even greater excitement later."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"So put all thoughts of sackings out of your mind. Our season is over. We've got six months to learn things. You can learn not to snort ALL the coke in one go. Save some for the weekend! Spectrum can learn what vertebrate means and whether he is one. Tyson can learn to count to two. And I," I said, with a slight grimace, "will learn to be kind and gentle and tolerant and will learn how to get on with a 6  5 million-year-old reptilian whose primary impulse is to keep things tight and score off corners. I've got six months to get good at dealing with people."

"But the money, Max! We need the money. With you causing havoc on the wing we'll have sponsors queuing up to give us money."

"This season?"

"No. We sold the slots for this season. I'm talking about next season."

"So you want me to run around being a dick, one of those dancing horses, risking my leg being snapped in half, to get the sponsors excited for next season? Mate. They'll be excited. Don't worry. They'll be excited by the players I find while Chester are playing football. Now, look. We're about to have a budget meeting and you're going to tell me we have no money, right? So we have to use what we have and not waste anything. Even Ian Evans. Every player I bring to the club needs to learn to shuffle and slide and to win duels. Evans can teach that better than most. Now let's get out of the storeroom and go and be grown-up businessmen."

***

He showed me my office. It was small and bare with no windows. It'd do for now. I didn't expect to be in there much. "I'm going to put up your favourite art," he said. I expected him to make a quip involving the word Rococo. "Lots of mirrors."

"Ha ha. Let's get numbering." I walked out of my office, then walked back in again. "We could fit a bed in here."

"You're not serious."

"There's a toilet right there. Showers downstairs. A gym. Didn't you always want to live in a football stadium?"

"No. No-one has ever wanted that. Anyway, you're not allowed." He checked my expression. "Shit. You've already decided. Just... don't get caught."

"Hmm," I said. The only evidence I was inside would be my car. I'd have to find somewhere to park it. Any night I slept in my office I'd have to wake up, go outside, and repark my car in my official slot. And in the evening, drive it away and sneak back in. Like a bad sitcom!

Pretty funny, but MD soon drained my good humour.

We went through the budget for Chester Football Club. It was grim reading. The club spent about a hundred thousand pounds a month. I asked MD to give me numbers in per week amounts, since that's how we thought about player contracts. "It's about 23,000 a week, with more than half going to player wages." He paused for effect. "This is after the cutbacks."

"What cutbacks?"

"Hundreds of small things. We've stopped heating the dressing rooms. Cold showers all the way. That doesn't make much of a dent but we have to turn off every tap, switch off every light. We canceled a tournament trip for the Knights to save 400 pounds. Every expense is questioned. Despite my best efforts, the club runs at a loss and every year we do a fundraiser to make up the shortfall. Last year we needed, and got, 85K. This year worries me. Have you seen what eggs cost? Who has spare cash? That's why I don't want you to rule out playing a few home games. Boost the mood. A little excitement would go a long way."

I nodded. The situation was much worse than I could have imagined. "I'll think about it. How's our credit?"

"Our credit? Um... yeah, it's okay. We undid a lot of damage from the collapse of Chester City. Mended a lot of fences. I don't want to add to the debt, Max. I told you that."

"I know. Can I bring in four first team squad players this window?"

"Four?" MD looked unhappy. "I don't know."

"If I find four Messis we can sign for 500 pounds a week, mate. Do you know what I mean? Two grand of extra pain. Can we push the boat?" His face showed the absolute agony that was taking place in his mind. Eldritch spreadsheets attacking him from all sides, cells turning blood red. I smiled. "I won't let the club go bust. Worst case scenario, we sell me to Liverpool for a million quid."

"Liverpool?"

"Yeah. First match I score ten own goals, they release me from my contract, I come back. Easy money."

He chuckled, half-heartedly, wrung his hands. "I don't know."

"All right, don't fuss. Let's see what I find out there. Now," I said, looking at the stream of numbers one last time, "What I'm seeing here is a club that can't afford a women's team."

"You'll need to fundraise for that. Not from the general fans, please. We'll need those donations to keep the club going. You'll need to, ah, persuade a rich person to part with her money."

"Her?"

"Slip of the tongue. I can put you in some rooms with some high net worth individuals. I've asked Inga to look into what's required for getting into a league next season. The quick answer is you need to play some matches and show you can compete. Show it's a serious project."

That sounded doable. Arrange friendlies against increasingly hard teams. Win the last one in front of a bumper crowd, get invited to join a real league. "In-built narrative. Cool. All right, I think I get the theme of the morning. Money's too tight to mention."

"What about Youngster?"

"Yeah. I need to go and see him at Alty, see how he's progressing. Ziggy, too. That'll be good info about how fast these guys off the street can progress once they're in the right environment. Ziggy's at a low-level club but he's got a top coach. Youngster is at a higher level club. His coaches might be worse, but he's got a much higher ceiling. There are so many variables. I really need to keep a close eye on them both. How they develop will teach me a lot."

MD smiled. I'd gone off on a big tangent. "I meant as a signing. You seem to think the world of him."

"He's going to be amazing. But he lives almost on Alty's doorstep. The only reasons to take him from there are if the setup there is bad, which I doubt, or if there's a chance he could get some first team minutes here. What are the chances of Evans putting a 17-year-old on the pitch?" I sighed. Evans was such a disaster. "We're not doing this again. The next manager will have to seriously commit to developing young players. At the start of the season we'll agree on targets for the hot prospects. Player X makes his debut by Christmas, is a regular sub by Feb, plays two halves in May. Something like that."

"Players don't progress in such a predictable way."

"Don't they?" I said. I'd know their exact rate of progression from tracking everyone's CA on a daily basis. "We need a system where what we want is in writing and if the managers are too chickenshit to put the kids on the pitch, they know they're getting fired. They might not get fired for losing, but they'll definitely get fired for blocking potential. If it's really Jackie Reaper you've got lined up, tell him I said that. Talking about blocking potential and not getting fired for losing... let's go see the big man."

***

We left the stadium and MD drove us to the business park where Chester FC's first team trained. Buying some land to build our own facility seemed a long way in the distance. Most players and fans would settle for having the hot water turned back on. I had to rein my dreams in. For now.

The normal workers were on holiday - there were a few cars in the car park, presumably employees of the credit card company who needed to be around to help international customers. We went through the building to the pitches around the back.

There I watched the end of the training session while Henri and Raffi grinned at me. I didn't grin back - I saw a lot of red in the squad’s player profiles. That was highly disturbing.

Training finished, and while the players went for a shower, the decision-makers went to the second floor. Evans had an office there overlooking the football pitches. I hadn't seen him since the Yellow Card party at Shona's. I expected a rough ride with lots of goading and provocation, but when we entered his office, I saw a man diminished. Where once he had been hewn from concrete, now he seemed dusty and cracked. A copy from a failed mould. The hair was as defiant as ever, the eyes as blue and sharp, but the snarl was timid. It carried as much threat to me as a charging hedgehog.

"Ian, you've met Max," said MD. "And Max, you know Vimsy." Vimsy was Evans's right-hand man. His assistant manager. Bit of a dick, but the kind of dick I could get on with.

"Yeah, yeah," said Evans. "Let's get on with it. We've got an appointment."

Thinking about various wisecracks I could make brought a twinkle to my eye, but it would be a long six months if I fell back into old habits on the first morning. I went to the flipchart and took a marker. I went to my awesome new Chester Squad screen. It showed me the first team squad and which positions they could play. It was basically a portal to lots of other cool stuff. I wrote the first three names. "Goalies. Robbo, Ben, Angles."

Combining data from the player profiles and what MD had told me about their wages, the goalie options looked like this:

Age

Wage

CA

PA

Robbie 'Robbo' Robson

GK

Ben Cavanagh

GK

Steve 'Angles' English

GK