10.

Congratulations

Friday, March 5

"We're heading for a cliff and I love it."

I did a couple of happy spins on my chair and decided the only way my life could be better would be to put my feet up on the table in front of me. It was the beautiful old table in the boardroom, though. Would that be disrespectful? I mean, yes, but I wanted to do it. Dilemmas, dilemmas. You can't spell dilemma without Emma. She wouldn't be impressed if I acted like a brat in this holiest of holy spaces. Maybe if I put a plastic bag on the table and put my feet on that?

Briggy popped an earbud out and said, "Sorry, Max, can you start again? I was listening to a voicemail."

"Oh? Give us the goss."

"No goss. It's that system person."

"Ugh," I said, annoyed. This weirdo was some kind of benign nutjob, one of those people who watches a celebrity and thinks they have a relationship. His name - he claimed - was Pradeep, and it had started absolutely ages ago when he had emailed me saying he knew my system, a message I had deleted without thinking. Something about it must have stuck in my head because when the messages kept coming, it had made me pause. It finally clicked that Old Nick had called the curse a 'system'. If this guy knew about curses, though, why was he emailing me? At some point he had graduated to sending texts, and he had even worked out that I had social media accounts in the name of Cliff Daps and sent some messages there, but I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with it. That's what Briggys were for. "I'm glad you're intercepting this crap now. What does he even want?"

"No clue. Don't engage with oddballs. It's impressive how this guy keeps getting through my filters and redirects but yeah, I'm not engaging."

"Don't put yourself down," I said.

She gave me a blank look while she parsed my joke. "Was that funny?"

"More clever than funny, I suppose. In summary, we think this guy is harmless."

Briggy looked across the table at the Brig. "Seems to be."

That's what I needed to hear, and I liked that Briggy had discussed it with a more experienced colleague. My mood rating went back to serene. Serener than Williams, as I had started to say. "Okay. You asked me to go back to the beginning. I can't because I hadn't started so you didn't miss anything."

Briggy looked from me to the flipchart behind me, which was blank. "You said something about a cliff."

"Mmm," I said, in the affirmative. It was far too easy to slip into jargon. Would everyone else at the table know what I meant by cliff?

I did a visual lap, starting on my right. MD, Chester's managing director. Briggy, my personal assistant and bodyguard. Peter Bauer, dreamy centre-back and defensive coach. Colin Beckton, deadly goalscorer, attacking coach. The Brig, former bodyguard, currently head of performance and our black ops guy. We hadn't done much black ops recently, which was disappointing. No, it was good that we were keeping on the straight and narrow. Boring, but good. Sandra Lane, my co-manager and mother to my godson. Did that make her my godwife? Brooke Star, daughter of a half-billionaire, our head of marketing, operations, and all kinds of things. There was a Ryan Jack-shaped hole next to Brooke - he was in the medical room downstairs getting some treatment on a minor knock. Finally Joe, our Club Secretary, who was looking happy and relaxed.

Five of the eight probably understood exactly which cliff I was referring to, but three almost certainly didn't, so a quick refresher was in order. I got to my feet and grabbed a marker pen. Just before I started scribbling, I turned back to the room with a big grin on my face. "Isn't writing on a blank piece of paper just the most wonderful thing?"

MD said, "Is it better than scoring a game-winning penalty to send us to Wembley?"

"Er, yes. Nothing beats this. I could sketch the next Mona Lisa. I could write the most famous song of all time. We could play a game of Hangman." Actually, that sounded good. I drew five short lines.

"Cliff," said Brooke, before I had even turned around.

"Holy shit," I said, writing one letter of that word above each line. "Remind me never to play Hangman against you for money." I tapped the marker against my lips while I thought about how to explain this to Briggy. "I think it all boils down to the TV money."

"It does," said MD, who was following my thought process at light speed.

I said, "The Premier League has one of the best TV deals in the world. No, that's crazy talk. It's the best football deal, bar none. The next three tiers pool their negotiating power and they get a decent deal. The EFL, which governs those divisions, spread the money so that it's 80% for the Championship, and I think 12% League One, 8% League Two. Something like that. As you know, clubs get promoted and relegated so there's a degree to which the top four leagues are like a lava lamp, with what seems to be lots of mobility. But if you go down you still get some money from the league you just left. It's called a parachute payment and it gives you a big advantage and you should be able to bounce back."

Joe said, "They should call it trampoline payments."

He was surprised when Briggy laughed, and so was I. He hadn't been joking. I said, "If you stay in one division for a while, actually, that extra money you've had really kicks in and if you're halfway smart, you can dig in your heels and stick around in that league."

Sandra said, "Fortunately, most clubs aren't even close to halfway smart."

"Agreed," I said. "But if you've got two dumb clubs competing, better to be dumb and rich." I sketched an X and Y axis and drew one rectangle that rose half an inch. "This is the TV money in League Two." The next bar rose an inch. "League One." The next, five inches. "Championship." I left a pause so that Briggy could think about the implications. "If you go from League Two to League One, you can cope pretty easily because the difference isn't that big. It's like you're walking up a hill. But the gap from League One to the Championship..."

"Is like a cliff," said Briggy, nodding.

"Right."

"And to the Prem?"

I laughed and drew a bar that went off the top of the page. "Everyone knows about the cliff underneath the Premier League. The clubs that get promoted get relegated straight away. It's a huge problem for the sport. But there's a sneaky cliff here, too, between League One and the Championship."

"Where we're going."

"Where we might be going," said MD.

"Where we are ten thousand percent going," I said. "That's a hundred percent times a hundred percent." I eyed Sandra. "Lots of maths teachers in our dressing room." She smiled, but I didn't want to spend the morning explaining our private jokes to the others so I quickly moved on. "Everyone has heard me bang on and on about needing a consolidation season next year. It's not that I want one, but that we need one."

"Because of the cliff," said the Brig. He had learned lots about football since joining Chester, but there was always so much more to learn. "The cliff you are excited about."

"Humans can climb cliffs," I said, sitting. I very nearly put my feet straight on the table, which admittedly would have suited my complacent mood. I settled for putting my hands behind my head and leaning back, like a business bro from the 80s. I considered the cracked and yellowing ceiling tiles, decided there were better places to point my eyes, and checked out Brooke. She looked as sharp and businesslike as ever but had somehow morphed her old look, which had been intimidating, to a more casual one that better suited life in the north-west. My gaze slipped away from her and onto the Harry McNally terrace behind. Not quite as stunning, no, but I never got tired of looking at it. "The purpose of this meeting," I said, slapping the table in top business leader fashion, "is to get an overview of the budget we will have to work with next year, and for me to discuss strategy with you."

Briggy said, "When you say discuss, you mean you tell us and then we do this again in a week but you've got a completely different strategy?"

I laughed. "Look, honestly that's part of why I wanted to get together. I know I get manias and only want to talk about one thing for weeks on end but right now I'm in such a serene mood I can discuss - yes, discuss - my ideas and you'll know that even if I'm short-term hankering for one particular thing, there's actually a long-term plan that makes sense and you can, like, navigate according to the big map."

Briggy turned to her right. "No offence to anyone, but why are Peter and Colin here?"

"None taken," said Colin.

"Some taken," said Peter.

I said, "Not anytime soon, I hope, but it would be ace if they got management jobs one day. Other clubs don't do it like this but, er, part of the job's about negotiating the budget, the intersection between the business side of the club and the football side, knowing where to prioritise your limited resources, shit like that. Also, they have good ideas, so they can help me."

Briggy nodded. "Cool."

"Was that a sarcastic cool, or...?"

"Real one."

"Cool." I tapped the table a few times while I got my mental ducks in a row. I stood again and went to the flipchart. "Key numbers from this season that we're in. Projected income of 6 million pounds. Er, that excludes transfers. We're not talking about transfers today." I wrote a big 6. "I've had a playing staff budget of around 60,000 a week." I wrote 60,000. "MD, Brooke, how are we doing compared to your projections?"

They looked at each other. MD gave Brooke the floor. "Mike leans towards the conservative," she said to Briggy. "So we're ahead of 'em. It helps that we win most weeks, that we have had more home matches because of the cup runs, and the final at Wembley will put us far over the top."

"On the other hand," said MD, "Max has been, ah, allocating some of the excess to luxury hotels in Plymouth, trips to Glamorgan - not a complaint, Max! The golf course there is sensational - and buying much-needed items for Bumpers Bank such as, ah..." He pretended to check his notes. "Topiary in the shape of a T-Rex."

"I got a discount on that," I said.

"I'm sure it will look fantastic," said MD. "And I'm sure it will pay for itself tenfold. But in short, even with those unexpected expenses we are far ahead of projections. With the ticket sales for the cup final plus the surplus from your transfer dealings, you have a war chest of one point five million."

"Bosh," I said, and wrote 1.5m on the board. I stared at it for a while before adding 'war chest' in brackets. War chest was a more fun way of saying 'money available to the manager to buy new players'. The papers would write, Max Best has been handed a 1.5 million pound war chest. Not a single fan would read that story and think, God, I hope he uses some of that money to buy ornamental hedges. "That's why they're not football managers," I thought to myself, but judging by everyone's reaction I had actually said it out loud.

MD wasn't finished whining about the various little miscellaneous costs I was generating. "Ahem," he said. "We also need to reserve some of our cash to pay the fine we got for fielding a weakened team against Mansfield."

"Excuse me, what?" I said, as though this was new information. The EFL had fined the club ten thousand pounds and warned us not to do it again. The problem for the EFL was that in the Max Best dictionary, you can't spell 'warning' without 'war'. "But that makes no sense. We drew against Mansfield. Are the EFL fining them for putting out an equally shit team?"

MD did an exaggerated sigh that was very possibly not as fake as it looked. "No, Max, because they put out their best team and we didn't. The rules state that we must retain four players from match to match and there are guidelines as to what constitutes a valid line up. As you know," he added, wearily.

"I find it very confusing," I said, "because I'm the manager of this club - soz, co-manager - and I alone - soz, co-alone - decide what my team will be and the authorities can, and I believe this is the legal term, suck it."

MD said, "You don't need to grandstand. We're all Chester fans here."

I went around the room, left to right, and pointed at people. "Sec Joe, Chester. Brooke, I'm guessing Dallas Cowboys?" She made a vom face. "Sandra. Man City." I made a vom face. "The Brig. I mean, Aldershot or 3 R Welsh, take your pick. Colin, um... Charlton? West Ham? Peter, Bayern Munich. Briggy... I'd guess the Norwegian women's national team." She eyed me, amused, but I thought she blushed a tiny bit. "MD, Chester." I tried to remember why I had said all that and failed. "Anyway," I said. "How can it be a weakened team when I picked the same one again?"

MD tutted and scrunched up his face. "We got to the cup final and everyone was happy. Beyond happy. We get the notification of the fine from the EFL and what is your reaction? You take us down to Wycombe and put out the exact same starting eleven as the one that got us fined." Peter suppressed a snigger. "Please don't encourage him!" said MD. "And Sandra, come on. You must have had opinions."

"All I know," she said, loyally, "is that we got a wonderful point away from home. And I'm with Max. If that starting eleven is so weak, why can't anyone beat it? I won't accept a fine unless Mansfield and Wycombe get one, too."

The Wycombe result was actually even more sensational than the one I had witnessed in the Gnu bar in Norway. That day, the sides had been quite even. Mansfield had CA 90 and we'd had CA 85.4. We'd also had the best player on the pitch, Gabby, who had scored the equaliser. It wasn't really a shock that we got something out of that game.

But Wycombe were owned by one of the richest men in the world, and they had an average CA of 108 plus home advantage. Our eleven, which again included the undercooked Tomzilla, Nasa, Adam, and Chas, had improved to CA 86.7. Miles off the level, but Wycombe's manager was congenitally terrified of going a goal behind and as a result of his caution, his teams almost never scored in the first half. I had also used the EFL fine as motivation for the lads. I had pasted the notice of the fine onto our dressing room door and yelled, 'The people who run this league don't think you're good enough to be in it!' I had whipped up the lads into a frenzy and they had responded. Still, my reserves keeping a clean sheet by half time was a genuinely impressive achievement.

While I was keen to tweak the EFL's nose by naming the same team that had got me into trouble, I wasn't a complete idiot. Our bench against Wycombe was packed with key players, and I sent some of them on at half time. The match finished nil nil and I was delighted. First, because it was a massive fuck you to the EFL, and second, because I was toying with Portsmouth, by then confirmed as our opponents in the cup final. I was comfortable with them getting closer to us in the league so that their fans would buy tickets to Wembley.

That was some 5D chess, except Portsmouth had lost, so instead of cutting the gap to only two points, they had fallen six points behind.

"Brooke," I said, returning to my chair. I knew the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I didn't understand the answer and wanted to get into it. "How did Portsmouth's cup final tickets sell after that?"

She didn't need to check any charts. "They spiked."

"That's crazy, right? I thought that if they got closer to us in the league they would rush to buy cup final tickets, because, like, they could do a league and cup double. But when they fell further behind in the league, they sold more tickets."

Colin had a theory. "The Vans Trophy is all they can win. The fans want to be there for that."

"Huh," I said, letting my arm droop to the side while I rubbed my fingers together. "Could be. Doesn't quite click in my head but it could be that."

Brooke shrugged. "Fandom can't be predicted. I saw the posts of a few Portsmouth influencers after their disappointing result. They said just that - they were disappointed - but that they were Pompey Til They Die and they made a big show of buying their cup final tickets. A show of defiance, if you will."

Secretary Joe got a cheeky look about him. "One of those binfluencers showed the entire process including his home address and credit card details. Bank account got emptied within minutes. Not his finest hour."

The tale briefly transported me back to my days working in the call centre of a bank. "He'll struggle to get that back. My old company would have returned a token amount as a goodwill gesture but basically told him he was a plonker. There would have been an internal meeting and one of the managers would have laughed and said, 'the most expensive thing is education'. Er, MD, Brooke, that reminds me. Can you do the financial planning presentation again? We've got more kids with disposable income who weren't here last time."

MD made a note. "Have you been buying more shares, Max?"

"Um, no. I thought I was about to go six million pounds into debt, didn't I? The shares thing got put on the backburner but I'll start again now. Actually, that's part of what I want to talk about. I don't think I wasted that trip to Scandinavia, exactly, but any benefits are incredibly intangible. Briggy, can you think of anything good that came out of that trip? For any of us?"

Poker face level 9000. "No, Max, it was a bust and a waste."

I waited to make sure she was finished listing body parts. "Hmm. I'm sure we'll circle back round to it but what I really want is everyone's opinions on how best to use our money and my time. I thought I would be using the rest of this season to visit, I don't know, France, Spain... Ireland maybe. But there's not much point scouting abroad, it seems, so what's the best use of my time? That's for later, though. Let's fill this page." I stood again and tapped the flipchart. "Projections for next season. We are one hundred percent going to rebuild the away end. Brooke, can you remind us of the timings?"

She nodded. "May first, final match of the season, we're at home to Portsmouth. Lap of honour with all the trophies. Hold on, I had a note about that." She flipped through some folders and held up a page. "Brooke, we need our own celebration podium because we're not going to pose with the trophy in front of the official EFL one because they're dicks and they need to know that if you start a war, I'll fucking finish it. Signed Max."

MD slumped; Secretary Joe turned ashen. I shook my head. "Can you stick to the topic, please?"

She smiled, sweetly. "Sure, hon. May second, we start demolishing the south stand. Two weeks later, we're laying the foundations. Two more weeks later, the shell is already up. Max, I do love these modular buildings of yours! They fly up like Amish barns. June, July, August, it's the heating, electrics, internal works. The plan is to work from one side, doin' the bathrooms, concessions, seats, turnstiles, so that we can open one-quarter of the stand sometime in August. Half-done by the end of August would be a stretch goal but it's going to be exactly the same as the McNally and we know what we're doing. The full stand should be open by the end of September, with the sky boxes to follow."

Sandra was making notes. "How many matches will it be, ah, partially open for?"

"We had six matches last August," said Brooke. "Should be the same next season, I assume."

I piped up. "Ah, no. We won't be in the Vans Trophy."

She made a note. "Of course. That's dim of me. But it could be that three are played here. If we can get a thousand seats ready, that's actually an increase on the current capacity."

Sandra stuck her pen in her mouth. "That's a useful way of thinking about it. And when it's done, the stadium will be..."

"11,400," said Brooke. "7,400 home; 4,000 away."

Joe scratched his head. "That's a strange ratio, I must say."

"It's only for one season," I said. "Okay, now for the good bit. How much are we going to make from ticket sales?"

Again, Brooke didn't need to refer to her notes. She gave MD the tiniest eyebrow raise. "On the not-to-be-discussed basis that the average price for a ticket for home fans is 20 pounds per match, and for away fans 25 pounds... Assuming the home seats are completely sold out and we sell on average 3,000 to away fans, we project income of 5.1 million."

"Fuck," I said, smiling. "That's mint."

"We need to hold 400K back to pay for the mini-bonds," said MD.

"Yeah yeah yeah," I said, writing 5.1 and gazing upon it like it was a holy scripture. "Over five million in ticket sales. Absolute bosh. That will rise, right, if we go deep into cups."

"We would go straight into the Third Round of the FA Cup," said MD. "So that's two fewer matches."

"Question," said Briggy. "Why can't we discuss ticket prices?"

Brooke eyed MD again. He said, "Because if we want to talk about increasing the prices, we have to find ourselves a new men's first team manager."

Briggy pointed to Sandra. "Done. Can I have a finder's fee?"

MD smiled. "And a new director of football, chief scout, and star player."

Briggy laughed. "So you just let him blackmail you?"

"Yep," said MD.

Briggy shrugged. "Fair enough."

I tapped the number. "Five point one million. That's loads. We could squeeze and get this to 5.5 or some shit but we would drive some fans away, price kids out, stop old people coming, cause harm, cause distress, harm the club in the long term. It's not an option and it's not right. Also, it's not necessary. There are other ways to make money. Brooke?"

She looked at the flipchart and said, "Retail, merch, catering. Big increase there. We aim to hit two million."

My eyebrows flew up. "Hey! That's what I'm talking about. That's triple last year's projection, right?"

"Ish," she said. "We didn't project for you to grab the stadium microphone before the Bolton match and declare that anyone who kept their phones in their pockets could get a beer for a pound."

"That was Magnus's idea. He feels our fans would be more present if they weren't filming themselves for the entire match. And he was right, wasn't he? They cranked up the noise. Two-nil, Christian header, Dazza header, Wibbers rampant, every ticket sold, songs for days. You think there's a chance we might stumble in the run-in? Think again. If in doubt, unleash the cheap beer!" I had named the same lineup as in the semi-final, but with Andrew Harrison instead of me. I was using Playdar twice a day almost every day and while I was getting great results I still needed to upgrade it, which meant maximising my XP income, which meant playing only when needed. I brought my attention back to the topic. "Okay but two million is ace. That includes what we get from Grindhog, right?"

"Yes. We could get more if we put the shirt prices up. Just a reminder," she said, sweetly.

We had low margins on replica kit sales for the same reasons I wanted to keep ticket prices low - I wanted to grow the fanbase, not bleed it dry. I tutted and filled my cheeks before letting the air out, slowly. "I have a marketing idea," I said.

"Go on."

"We can wear next season's new away kit at the cup final."

Brooke's eyes lit up, just for a second. It might be fanciful but I swore I saw actual dollar signs there. The look passed, replaced by a hint of a grin. "That would be... profitable."

Yeah, it would. The designs Grindhog had sent were gorgeous. Yellow with blue details, really tasteful, an absolute banger. If we won the cup final wearing that shirt, we could sell thirty thousand in a week. "Grindhog might want to get production started, maybe. It's a great kit that's going to be an instant classic. They'd be stupid to make under 50,000."

"That many?" said Joe.

"It's a two-year cycle," I reminded him. Most football clubs changed all their kits every season, knowing that kids would pester their parents for the latest ones. A two-year cycle meant a kit would be the latest one for longer, which would take the pressure off low-income families. I wrote the number 2.0 and nodded, satisfied. "Okay, next."

Brooke said, "Pitch rental income, a slight increase to three fiddy."

"Megabosh!" I said, as I wrote 0.35m. That was a very satisfying number to watch grow; that money was flowing into the club directly because of me. We had laid down all-weather pitches at Bumpers Bank and around the region and the projects were generating cashflow. "I want to keep expanding our portfolio but I'm open to the idea we might have better things to spend the money on."

Brooke said, "Ryan has a project you might wanna hear about. A soccer centre in Liverpool is switching to padel and Ryan thinks there's an opportunity in that."

"Interesting," I said. It was easy to see how a switch to padel, the trendy racquet sport, could make more money for a business than having one big football pitch. What it created for Chester was an opportunity. Instant demand for our product. Buy some land, put down a great new pitch, be the only local option for schools and amateur football teams, profit.

Briggy said, "If there's more money in padel why don't you get into that?"

"There are rules about how much money a football club can spend on player wages. Those rules might be the only ones we never break - " I tried not to smile as MD slumped, theatrically - "but it's good practice to keep them in mind. If we bought a cake shop in Scotland we couldn't count it towards our figures, but if we buy a football pitch in Liverpool..."

Briggy nodded a few times. "Stick to the football, Best."

I laughed. That wasn't how that phrase was normally used. "Right. One day we'll have a hotel near the stadium and that will count, but if we bought another one in the city centre, that wouldn't."

"I think I more or less get it."

"I've got one more number for the flipchart, Max," said Brooke, looking for something in her folders. "Commercial income. Sponsorships. What was the number again? I can't quite remember."

I laughed and threw the marker up, catching it as it dropped. "Oh, man. I've never seen you this smug. Is it loads? Is it massive?"

Briggy was enjoying Brooke's performance. "Before we hear the new number, what was the old one?"

"This season's sponsorships totalled one point seven million," said MD. "Max is extremely business savvy in one respect - he wants us to keep our sponsorship deals short-term, so confident is he that we will be in a higher league next time around."

I said, "Brooke?"

"Yeah, can't remember exactly," she said, still fidgeting with folders and sheets. "I think it was three... No, four. Wait... five? That would be staggering. Can't be five. Ah, here it is. Five point one million."

"Wow," I said, taking a step back. "Whut? Are you...? Hang on." I pinched my nose. "I got us to a cup final. I sold players for a mad profit. And... you've still made more money than me?"

"It's not a competition," she said. She added, "Fortunately for you."

I laughed and clapped my hands together. "Five point one million in sponsorships?" I wrote it down and noticed that I had already written those digits. "We're getting the same from, like, five companies as we'll get from every ticket we sell in 23 matches? This is mad. This is next-level, Brooke. Give yourself a pay rise."

Colin said, "How does that compare to other teams in the Championship?"

I pointed at him. "Great question. Pertinent."

Brooke said, "It depends who is promoted with us, but there could be four or five clubs with lower commercial income."

I said, mainly to Briggy, "If that sounds shit, it's not. It takes time to build those partnerships and don't forget we were in non-league ten minutes ago. Plus we have no free sky boxes to offer for match day hospitality, so sponsorships are one category in which we should definitely be bottom of the list. Brooke has hit a home run." I realised I wasn't being diplomatic; I turned to MD with my palms facing him. "And MD and anyone else involved."

He smiled. "You can safely credit Brooke, Max."

Brooke said, "For the avoidance of doubt, these numbers are for a Championship season. I know we're, ah, ten thousand percent certain to go up, but the new deals are concomitant on us actually doing that. And the marketing team will need more access to players."

I shrugged. "That's what the new media centre is for. The lads won't mind pimping themselves out if they get big pay rises. About that..." I said, doing some maths. "5.1 plus 5.1 plus 2 plus 0.35... I get eight hundred."

Joe said, "12.55."

"Oooh," I said. "That's a sexy number. Twelve million quid in projected turnover. How much of that do I get, MD?"

"Half."

"Oh!" That was a nice surprise. MD had an Ambition score of only 4 and he had always been conservative with my budget. 50% was actually ambitious considering that Chester was a fan-owned club and while we could ask the fans for a couple of hundred thousand pounds, a cash injection in the millions was out of the question. I wondered how much work Brooke had done to convince MD to push the boat out. "So... call it 6.3 million..."

"6.2," said MD.

"6.3 million," I repeated, while I got my phone out.

Brooke knew what I was looking for. "121,000 a week for the playing staff. Double what you have now."

Colin had another pertinent question. "How does that compare to the rest of the Championship?"

"It doesn't," I said. "The cliff, remember? We'll be the poorest team by miles. It doesn't bother me this time because the ambition isn't to win the league, it's to avoid falling off the side of this mountain."

Summer Holiday

"Pardon me," said the Brig, who was eyeing the flipchart like it was a squaddie who hadn't tidied his bunk. "But there is no mention there of the money from the broadcasters."

MD said, "Max likes to keep it separate at this stage, because most clubs put any extra revenue they get straight into player wages and then it is gone forever. It's eleven million." He said that part to me, and I wrote a big 11 and circled it. Back to the Brig, he said, "That's an extra 200,000 a week in player wages, if that's how Max wishes to allocate the money. If he used everything, we would not be the team paying the lowest wages."

"We need five mill for the new stand."

"I would be happy to wait a season to see if we really need it."

"We really need it." MD spread his hands as if to say, 'if you say so'. I said, "MD's right to point out that to some extent we're choosing to be poor this coming season, but the other clubs can waste all their money because they've got big stadiums, good training grounds, loads of equipment. We're still accumulating. We do the away end this summer, that's a lock. 11 million minus 5 equals 6. Six plus 1.5 makes the war chest 7.5 million."

I wrote those numbers and drew some arrows and wrote 7.5 as the new war chest number.

"I kind of had four million mentally allocated to a certain player but that's not happening. So what do we do with this big war chest? There are a couple of top young talents I want to buy and they won't be cheap, and I'm in the market for two, maybe three women's players who can boss it in WSL 2, but we'll still have loads of money left."

"Tell us about those players," said Peter. "The men, I mean."

"English guys, young enough to play in next season's Youth Cup. One's a left-winger and he's going to be Prem quality. He won't come cheap. The second is also Prem level, but less spectacular. His club don't know what they've got." I paced around. "What I'm thinking, right, is that the men's squad is actually pretty good, so we keep it simple. I use my budget to give everyone a pay rise and that's my summer homework done."

Sandra hadn't heard this. "You're thinking of keeping the entire group?"

"We could."

The CA levels in the Championship went from CA 111 to 140. We were nearly touching the lower end of the scale and most of our squad had plenty of room to grow. We would improve to 120 quickly enough and would be moving towards 130 by the end of the season.

"I wanted to add a couple of players who had top top top ceilings. Thinking ahead, you know."

MD knew who I meant. "The Norwegian striker you wanted to use as a right back."

"Yeah. I know you think the position switch thing is mad but if we added him we would have seven players who would get into any team in the world. Our future would start to get really spicy, you know. I see him as a player who would help us climb the next cliff, the one after this. But it's okay. We have to find a different angle of ascent, is all."

I thought about the players we did have and focused on the ones who could hit their ceilings next season. Sticky getting to 122 wouldn't be a problem for me - in a Prem season he would be our third-choice goalie. If he was happy to stay at the club long-term, I would be delighted. If he wanted to leave to get a few years of being a first-choice goalie, that was cool, too. As long as he came back as a coach when he was done playing. A decision would have to be made about three of the Exit Trial kids - Rainman (the goalie), Omari (a good League One midfielder), and Tom Westwood, a muscular mosquito of a striker currently destroying teams all over Wales.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But there was one part of the squad my mind kept returning to. "The interesting area is centre back. Fitzroy is enjoying himself and another year with us will do him good. He's only 25. Then there's Christian."

The club captain was only ten points away from his maximum of 120.

"I'd sell Christian if a decent offer came in, but only because time's running out for him to get paid. The average wage in the Champ is something like ten thousand a week. If Christian can get anywhere close to that, we have to let him go. Everyone else will actually be financially better off staying another season because a year with us in the Champ will be amazing for their careers. But yeah in talent terms we're already good enough to avoid falling off the side of the cliff and once we get our balance, we can start running again."

I walked a little faster.

"We can survive on the money we generate ourselves and use the TV money to keep building things we need. That feels right to me. So let's think about this. We're not going to win the FA Cup or the AOK Cup. We might as well go hard at those matches but realistically we're not going to have many matches in either competition, and as you said, MD, we're skipping to the Third Round of the FA Cup so it's conceivable we'll only get one match next time out. Same in the AOK. So next year's basically going to be 46 league games plus the Cheshire Seniors. It's kinda liberating. Fewer matches to prepare for. Not as many hours spent watching clips. I'll play enough to make sure we stay up and all that, but I'll have time to do my last UEFA coaching badge and I'll have a good go at the Youth Cup with the new batch of kids."

Briggy said, "If you've got next season planned out, what do you want us to discuss?"

I did a couple of spins on the chair. "The big things are on track." I counted three items on my fingers. "Training, stadium, the playing squad." I showed the first finger. "Training. Phase one of Bumpers will be done in the next few months. Saltney's getting built, too, so there's nothing in the realm of training that makes me think, shit, we urgently need to spend a million quid on that."

Second finger. "The stadium. We'll get a new stand, so that's good progress."

Third finger. "The squad. Every male player will get a decent pay rise. Not as much as they would like, but if one or two want to leave to get more money elsewhere, we can cope. The women's squad will get beefed up, big time, and it will go fully professional, which will be sort of expensive but not really. Even after building a new stand, buying a couple of hotshots for our youth team, and sorting the women out, we'll have five or six million lying around. Okay I might need to dip into some of that to give some extra pay rises, that's possible, but we will have cash sloshing around.

"Two questions. One, what's the best use for our spare money and two, what's the best use of my time now, in the summer, and next season while we're lounging around between matches? Joe, hit me."

"More admin staff, new computers, an in-house lawyer. For your time, more fan engagement."

I made notes. "Awesome feedback. Brooke?"

"We could always use more money for marketing."

I pointed the pen in her direction. "Your idea to buy that billboard was a masterstroke. For thirty thousand pounds we got countless articles, social media shares, loads of chat. If there are more ideas like that, we can finance them."

"I have lots of ideas. Expanding our fan zones and creating one for the away fans. I know you think it's the Americanization of footy but..."

Fan zones were basically big tents outside a stand where you could get to the stadium early, eat, drink, be merry. We had experimented with two. A rowdy one for the McNally, and a family-friendly one for the main stand.

"I've changed my mind," I said. "I love fan zones now. The idea of them is a bit icky but letting our fans have a say in what goes on in there makes all the difference. It makes it more authentic, right? They choose the beer, the food, the music. The kids love the Chester Zoo exhibit and everyone loves the penalty kick challenge. We can go harder at all that for sure. It's definitely worth spending some money on the fan experience."

"If we're talking about you having more free time next season, a visit to the Chester Chatters would be great. Fans always feed back to me that they loved it when you were on Seals Live with Boggy, if we can ever do that again. Oh, and can we expand the dentist? We promised him more equipment."

I made notes. "When we build the West stand we'll put a huge clinic in there. That will be a while, though... Yeah, we'll give him some budget for gear and he can choose what he wants. People love that we've got a club dentist, don't they? I'm glad we got that started. Sandra?"

"Sticky wants another goalkeeping coach, we need more general coaches, and given how hard the Championship is going to be, you should appoint a women's team manager."

I nodded. "Yep. Since there's no point going on foreign trips, I plan to barge into some classes where people are doing their coaching badges. Might find the next Jay Cope or Llewellyn. It's not easy to add to our group when the existing standards are so high. But noted."

"As for your time, I've noticed a huge difference in the mood since you started joining in first team training every day."

That surprised me, because our Morale had been pretty steady for a long time, tracking up step by step as it became clear the season was going to end gloriously. "Really? It looks the same to me."

She looked at Colin and Peter. "I think there's more... unity."

Colin nodded. "Yep, I feel it, too."

Sandra said, "Of course you might need to go and do something from time to time, everyone understands that. But as much as possible, it would be great if you trained with us."

Peter smiled as he said, "And it would be great if we thought it was because you liked playing with us, not just because you want to do Relationism."

MD leaned forward. "Sorry, what do you mean by that, Peter?"

Peter said, "We have been doing a lot of Relationism training recently. A lot."

MD frowned. "But we rarely do it in matches. Just for a few minutes here and there."

"Two things," I said. "First, now that I've decided that the squad is pretty much, you know, set in stone, it makes sense to focus on Relationism because one of the things that makes it more effective is when the players have been together for a long time. Second, we don't have to use it in matches to get the benefit of training it. It actually hits the spots I most care about - technique, decision-making, team work. We've gone back to doing that thing where we play a Relationist match and then break it down into its component parts until it's fully atomised. If we then rebuilt it from that point up, you could easily build it into a modern positional play game."

MD looked blank for a few seconds. "Did you say... atomised?"

Peter explained. "Start with a dog. The dog is Relationism. If you look at it under a microscope you can get all the way to the DNA. Recombine that DNA and you make a cat."

MD looked startled. "I understand everything completely and we don't need to discuss it further." He cleared his throat. "My suggestion would be two-fold. One, if we are promoted we need to think about setting up a proper academy."

I shook my head. "I want to stay out of the academy system as much as possible. They're constantly poaching each other's players and it's just a stressful environment."

"Okay, then can we document and formalise our processes? You started on that but got side-tracked."

"Absolutely fair," I said, making a note and underlining it three times.

"And the second thing is similar but with our scouting setup. We should expand and professionalise that."

Briggy said, "Who's that scout I see sometimes?"

"Fleur," said MD.

"And what does she do?"

MD looked to see if I wanted to answer; I was fine leaving it to him. He said, "She does opposition analysis. For example, she has been to see Barnsley, who we are playing tomorrow and she has sent in a report. I love reading them. I'm not sure how useful..." He looked at Sandra and the coaches.

"They're very useful," said Colin. "Fleur knows the game and she's concise."

MD agreed that brevity was optimal. "She also follows leads we get from Max's network of informants. Those are scouts and coaches around the country - and beyond, now - who like what we do here."

"And who take bribes," I said.

MD winced. "If one of these good people spots a talented player who we try to sign, the informant gets, ah... I don't know what they get." MD looked behind him as if the Football Association might be watching.

I said, "There's nothing illegal about leaving a couple of hundred quid in cash in a lockbox in a side street in Crewe, Mike. It might be really fucking weird but it's not against the law." I made another note. "I don't think I want more scouts yet. In the end, I have to give every new signing the eyeball, so more scouts wouldn't actually help. Could be time to get a proper data nerd but so far I've never met one I could really work with. Spectrum would be perfect, but he's too valuable running the youth system."

I continued asking for ideas. The Brig wanted to get a full-time nutritionist, upgraded GPS sports vests, and to hire a couple of post-match recovery specialists. Colin was intrigued by VR headsets, which were becoming more widely used at other clubs to improve decision-making. Peter told me he could provide me with a very long list of ideas but that I would grow to resent him. I assured him that was not possible.

I skipped over Briggy because she wasn't a subject matter expert, but she spoke up anyway. Staring at her phone, she said, "Max, weird news. Oh, hang on, let me enjoy this." She did some extraordinary things with her face as she tried to hide her feelings, but the moment was over so fast I wondered if it had been some kind of fever dream. With a completely earnest expression, she said, "So that I understand this meeting, we are more or less in agreement that the Scandinavian trip was a bust and the current squad is sufficient so we're discussing how to spend five to six million pounds effectively. Is that about right?"

"Yeah, basically."

"Okay, cool. Cool cool cool. I'll let you guys continue with that while I go and welcome the visitor who has just arrived at Bumpers."

I instinctively looked in the direction of our training ground, though of course I couldn't see anything because there was a large stand in the way. "What? Who?"

"Jojo says it's a tall, blonde Scandinavian by the name of Hagen."

For once, I was absolutely speechless. "I'm speechless," I said.

Briggy had enjoyed her little moment and now allowed herself to get excited. "He's here, Max! He must want to sign for Chester. You can a-fjord him etcetera etcetera. Are you coming or what?"

"Um..." I glanced around. Bumpers was a wreck. The boardroom was old but resonated with English footballing history. From here we had a view of the immaculate pitch and the fascinating new stand. Surely this was the place to be. And what young man wouldn't be gobsmacked by Brooke Star? And how about being in a room with Peter Bauer, grandson to one of the most famous players in the sport's history? "Bring the lad here," I said. Briggy rushed off. I grinned, hard. Helge Hagen! "Joe," I said, smiling. "Got any blank contracts in your office?"

***

Gee Whizz It's You

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. "Come in," I said.

Briggy pushed it open and stepped inside. Her eyebrows shot up, taking in the scene. The boardroom was almost as she had left it, but now there were trophies everywhere you looked. We had raided the trophy cabinet to make a better first impression on this new superstar.

Then it was my turn to be surprised.

It wasn't Helge at all.

"Max," said Briggy. "This is Ringo." I got to my feet and went over, slightly confused. Briggy said, "Helge's father."

"Oh," I said.

The guy looked like his son - shocking - but was two inches shorter. He wore black-framed, square glasses and spoke in a surprisingly soft voice that combined all sorts of regional English accents, with the slightest hint of Scots mixed in. Despite his soft-spoken manner, he gave off Terminator vibes. He must have been an intimidating player. "Max Best, very nice to meet you. I see that I have interrupted you while polishing your trophies."

"Polishing? No, mate. Counting. Every time we look, there's another one. Where do they all come from?"

He didn't laugh, but was polite as I did all the introductions. I said something cool about everyone. Ringo's gaze lingered on Brooke - proving he wasn't a robot sent from the future to kill me - and he seemed low-key excited to meet Peter, but he was most interested in Sandra and her achievements. She found out that he was a 'business development manager' in the oil industry.

When the small talk was done, I realised I had no clue what was happening. If Helge wanted to come to Chester, why hadn't he come to Chester? If Helge didn't want to come to Chester, why had his dad come to Chester?

"Um," I said, like a top international business leader. I leaned closer to Ringo and said, in a stage whisper. "What are we doing?"

He replied in kind, hinting that he maybe had a hidden sense of humour. "What do you mean?"

"Should I be doing a sales pitch or what? Because if you're here to beat me up, I delegate that kind of thing."

"I watched the Vans Trophy semi-final. You were running around crashing into people. At times I wondered if you were playing rugby."

I pointed to Sandra. "She told me to do it."

Ringo's face softened a little. "When I played, we called that getting stuck in. It surprised me. You don't look like the sort of player who would get stuck in." There didn't seem to be anything to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut. He gave me an unfathomable look. "I have been angry with you."

I nodded and while trying to stay perfectly still, used the corner of my mouth to say, "Briggy, did you bring the taser?"

Ringo shook his head. "A few weeks ago, I got back from a business trip and heard a crazy story. A football club manager from England had got stuck in to my son in training, followed him home, and tried to convince him to join his football club. As a defender. Most bothersome," he said, which I made a mental note of. Great phrase! I had to start using that one. "Nothing seemed to come, so I thought no more of it."

Ringo took a couple of steps to his left so he could pick something up. It was one of my Manager of the Month awards. He put it down, along with both palms, which he spread flat on the boardroom table.

"But Helge is unhappy. You filled his head with notions, and now when he misses a shot, he looks forlornly towards the left back and thinks, I should be there. He mopes. He fills our home with sighs. Every time he does this, his mother glares at me. Now the trainer has seen enough. Helge is out of the first eleven. Our carefully-constructed career plan is crumbling around us. And you are to blame."

I thought about saying 'you're welcome' but I wasn't sure how well that would be received. "Soz," I said, with complete and utter sincerity. "I promise I won't do it again."

Peter turned away, covering his mouth.

Ringo sighed and pushed himself upright. I noted that Briggy, who hadn't moved an inch, was somehow two yards closer to us. Witchcraft! I blinked when I realised that the Brig had done the same thing to my left. Ringo wasn't paying attention to the wider group. He eyed me and extended a finger. "You're not getting a Christmas card from me."

"Harsh but fair. I accept the verdict of the court."

He was quiet, looking around at the people, the trophies. His eyes rested on the flipchart. "Please tell me those numbers are in billions."

"Trillions," I assured him.

He went internal for a while, but when he came out of his mini-trance, he was staring at the Harry McNally stand. "I really like that. I like that a lot."

"Isn't it mint?"

"It is mint." He made a shrugging gesture with his hands. Something like 'fuck it'. "I can't bear to see my son unhappy. Please begin the sales pitch for his life as a defender."

What's the best way to climb a cliff? On the back of a gigantic Norwegian, probably. I didn't start the sales pitch; I was too busy grinning.

Ringo cracked. He got a teeny tiny little micro-twitch around the corners of his lips, but then he tried to squash it down. "If I don't like what I hear, of course I will go back and tell my son to work even harder."

I gestured towards all the cups and vases. "If Helge joins us, we'll bury this table in silverware. We'll prompt a worldwide shortage of metal. Like, if civilization collapsed, in a hundred years some scavengers would find this room and they'd think it must have been the world's central bank, so full of riches was it."

"Max," mumbled Sandra, to guide me away from my apocalyptic ramblings and back to what was important.

"Helge will learn, he'll play, he'll get rich, and he'll have a smile on his face more days than not. But I don't want to start a sales pitch without saying what it means. It means if you want this, Helge has to start training at full back, today. Don't worry about thingy. Briggy?"

"Rúnar," she said.

I clicked my fingers. "Of course. I think Rúnar knows Helge's not a striker. He'd like the club to get the full transfer fee but I'll pay that fee. But only if Helge gets..." I counted on my fingers. "The rest of March, April, May, June. Might as well give him July, right? He'll learn more playing in the Eliteserien than in our pre-season friendlies."

Ringo said, "He has to switch today?"

"Well, no, I don't mean... Like, it's your son. If you need time to think it through, yeah, we can wait, but he should switch as soon as poss. And..." I pointed to the flipchart. "That's our budget for next season. We were just about to spend it all, so there's some element of, like, haste."

Sandra said, "Max is incredibly enthusiastic about Helge. I rarely hear him talk about players with such gusto. If we have to wait, we'll wait."

Ringo seemed delighted in his low-key way. Parents loved it when you complimented their kids, right? Or even just talked about them. I tested the theory. "Sandra's little boy, Jamie, is going to be a baller. Based on his personality so far, we think he's going to be a dribbly winger."

Sandra flushed with pleasure. "He doesn't dribble nearly as much as Max says. Anyway, with his energy, we know he's going to be a box-to-box midfielder."

I felt I had a grip on the situation now. I had to make Chester seem like a place you would send your kid. Where to start? Easy. Ringo's career had been ended by injury and that was a major topic for him. "I'm taking Ringo down to the medical rooms. Everyone's invited, or you can disperse and we'll reconvene this meeting after I have signed an eighty-million pound full back for four million pounds."

Ringo seemed to like that framing. MD looked at his watch. "I have a hard out, so I'll leave you to it. Ringo, I do hope we meet again."

The Norwegian pushed his glasses and said, "When I do something, I do it to the best of my ability. I was hoping to get a sense of the staff, the training ground, and to attend the match tomorrow. If that isn't too pushy."

Sandra smiled. "I always disliked pushy parents until I became one. Now I think it's the only way to be."

MD said, "Ringo, why don't you travel with Brooke and I, and sit with us in the director's box? Barnsley isn't all that far."

"Bosh," I said, punching the air. "I love it when a plan comes together."

"What?" said Briggy. "You didn't plan this."

"Didn't I?" I wondered, insufferably.

"No. You were about to buy a football pitch in Liverpool to comply with a rule you don't intend to break. Remember when I complained about you pivoting from strategy to strategy? This is what I meant!"

Sandra looked at Colin and Peter. "Boss, we'll be in the Sin Bin looking at tape of Barnsley, if you want to pop in."

I nodded. "Kay." Her leaving was slightly surprising. She must have known that she was getting on well with Ringo, but maybe she thought he needed to see how serious we were about football.

Brooke, Joe, and the Brig went back to work, leaving Briggy and I to give Ringo the tour.

***

It's All Over

"This is the medical room here at the Deva," I said, as we pushed through the double doors. Livia was giving Ryan Jack a leg massage. "We're in here until the new block is ready. It's not that bad working in a football stadium, is it Livia?"

"It's great," she said, focusing on her task. "Fewer interruptions over here."

"Oof," I said, as though I had been punched in the gut. "That's told me." We walked around the space. "It's pretty standard, as you can see, Ringo, but where we stand out is in our approach to pre-injuries. Liv, where's the chart?"

She straightened and went into a side office. She gave me a folder, gave Ringo a smile. He smiled back, the smooth bastard. "I apologise for the intrusion."

"That's fine," she said. "Ryan's being a big baby. There's nothing wrong with him."

"I'm half-dead," mumbled Ryan from halfway inside a treatment table. Livia went back to finish the massage.

I opened the folder and flicked through. "Some of this is private, so... Here we go. This is a summary of how many injuries we've had this season, how severe each one was, how we compare to other clubs in the division. And... here's the same chart for the last few seasons."

"What's that spike?" said Ringo, apparently understanding the chart instantly.

I nodded towards Ryan. "That's his ACL. I didn't want to start with the worst one," I said, shaking my head.

Briggy said, "I love it when a plan comes together."

I tutted. "Look, Ringo, we're crazy here about prolonging the careers of our players. We got a new club doctor recently and we all sat together and chatted about how we do things because it's kind of hard to articulate what we do. She listened and repeated it back to us. We aim to maximise the number of days in a player's career. That's the primary goal, put succinctly. That means we look at a little calf injury or a tiny hamstring tear and we say, does this guy have a longer career if he plays on Saturday? The answer's always no, obviously, and sometimes you just need players to play, right, but there can't be a single match that's so important that a human being - and a financial asset - is out of action for a year." My fingers swept over the chart. "We get injuries. We get soft tissue injuries, same as everyone. We get ACLs, same as everyone."

Briggy said, "We get battered by the riot police, same as everyone."

"Helpful comment," I said, but I didn't mind being bantered by her. Her general attitude made me seem less like a dictator, while she had not-so-subtly reminded Ringo that I had recently been chosen to manage a megaclub. "What's clear, though, is that we're looking after our players to the very best of our ability, and when players do get injured, that's where I think we're number one in the entire world. We have one official scout and some number of unofficial ones: our injured players. If you're injured I don't want you at home feeling sorry for yourself. I want you going to watch, like, Wigan Athletic because we're playing them soon. Tell us what to expect. Tell us how you'd play that game."

Ringo was into all this, I could tell. "Keep everyone involved."

"Yeah. And keep their spirits up. If you're in a wheelchair for a couple of weeks, you can still play darts."

"Can you?"

"Sure. We lower the board. You can still have social contact, is what I'm saying. And most importantly, you can still go to Nando's."

"I have heard about Nando's. Never been."

I got a big smile. "Let's do that tonight! That'll seal the deal! Actually, no, we should wait until Helge's here."

Ringo took a few steps towards the treatment table. I wasn't sure if he was having flashbacks to his devastating injury or whether he was taking the opportunity to get an eyeful of Livia. The first one, it seemed, because he said, "May I ask about Ryan's injury?"

"He's not injured," I said. "His problem runs much, much deeper."

"What's that?"

I sat on one of the stools and pushed myself next to Ryan. I gave him a sad little shake. "He's old."

Ryan shook for a while, even when Livia paused the massage. He breathed out, noisily. "It's funny coz it's true."

I sort of forgot what my mission was and could only think about Ryan. "He must have been a sensational player in his day. I wish I'd seen him." Ryan's PA was 151. Premier League quality.

"You over-rate me," he said.

"I don't think so. I think you were absolute bosh."

"Game changed. Got too fast."

"I don't believe that. It's a mental sport, isn't it? I'm fast but against Plymouth I was cracking up. No good having a team of sprinters who don't know when to put their foot on the ball and calm things down. The first yard of pace is in the brain, as the old saying goes." I was thinking about his PA because I wondered what his maximum CA had been. If I had to guess based entirely on his Wikipedia page, maybe he had got to 125. When he first arrived at Chester, he was CA 60 and I knew for a fact it was easier to regain lost CA than to acquire it for the first time. Even though he was in his mid-thirties, our progress up the leagues and the fact I had given him plenty of rest meant Ryan's CA crept higher. He'd hit some kind of barrier but it had been steady there for a while, fluctuating between 76 and 77.

In The Vale, when everyone else's numbers were turning green, Ryan's went red. It dropped to 75, and in the week since, it had dipped even further.

I knew what this was. He was heading towards the cliff. I had heard about it, and I'd even seen it happen once, when I was young.

It had happened to the 8-time Premier League winner, Man United defender Gary Neville, in a match against West Brom, back in the days when United trained at a place called The Cliff. From one match to the next it looked like all the energy in his legs had simply vanished. Neville was subbed off that day; the papers called his performance shambolic.

I didn't want to put Ryan through that, and I didn't want him to get injured. But there was no indication he was more liable to get hurt than any other time in his career, and I wanted him to keep training with us. He was a fantastic role model to our younger players - our older ones, too, actually.

I gave him another shake. "You've still got a part to play in this story, bro." I got up. "And I want to hear about this idea of yours. It seems like something we should do."

That made him push himself up so he could look at me. He smiled; it was like an entire decade fell off him. "Really? It'd mean a lot, boss, to the kids in the area. I grew up there, so, it's sentimental, like. But it's good business, too! I got it all worked out. Ran the numbers past Brooke."

I smiled and gently pushed him flat. "Men your age aren't meant to bend like that." I laughed. "We'll talk when you're less greasy." I gasped and pointed from Ringo to Ryan. "You two have something in common!"

The Norwegian said, "We both think you were not punished enough as a child?"

"You're both in oil!"

Ringo gave me what I thought I was a death stare until his chest convulsed, just a little. Laughing on the inside! Better than nothing.

***

Daddy's Home

The tour continued with a quick circuit around Bumpers Bank. Builders were hard at work throwing up the second tranche of our buildings, which was pleasing in an abstract sense but in reality the noise and dust annoyed me; I kept the time we spent there short.

I felt things were going well, and got even more confident when we hopped in my Mini and drove to Saltney Town. Again, it was another building site, even more extensive.

"This is a new ten million-pound project," I said. "Little stadium, dorms, training pitches, gyms, all sorts of cool stuff. It has been designed to complement Bumpers, so Helge will have access to a fuller range of equipment than we could fit into our plot. We have areas that are specifically-designed for intensive one-to-one coaching sessions. That's a huge value-add. Plus obviously there are more pitches, 25-metre swimming pool, mini spa, and two huge games rooms. Snooker, pool, darts, table tennis, PlayStations, arcade machines, bean bags, all the hits. There will always be someone hanging out, right, always someone you can talk to. Your son isn't gonna come here and be lonely." I paused. "Unless he wants to. He seems like someone who would want to just go home and be on his own a couple of days a week."

Ringo's eyes swept around the area, taking in the diggers, dump trucks, guys with circular saws. In the middle of the entire mess was a football pitch, now with a high net around it so it could still be used. "I don't know what he wants. He has to find that out for himself." He got thoughtful. "And housing?"

I shrugged. "I've just bought some flats. There are three available. I could save one for him so he doesn't need to think about that."

Briggy nudged me. "You'd lose four months of rent."

"Huh." That would be two grand in the bin. I eyed Ringo. "If I hold a flat for four months at enormous personal expense... do I get a Christmas card?"

He laughed that time. "Yes, sure. Can I see the flats?"

***

Move It

We went to The Best Chestern Hotel and Ringo explored the vacant one-bedroom flat. He approved, more or less. It was a small flat in a great location. What more could a young footballer want?

More space, maybe. "There are a couple of two-beds, too, but they're double the price."

"Ah," said Ringo. "A good opportunity to discuss salary."

I put my hands behind my head and nodded. "Honestly, I only got my budget today. You came in during our meeting. I've got to be careful because if I pay Helge loads, I've got seven players who would go, well, yeah, obviously I want at least as much as him. And they'd be justified. Hang on a sec."

I got my phone out and divided 121,000 - my budget - by 25, the number of players in a normal squad. That came to a little under 5,000. Obviously I had more than 25 players, but some would get loaned out and those clubs would cover the wages. Five thousand a week for Helge? It was too low. Too low for that to be my starting offer; I didn't want to annoy his dad, but if I went much higher I would find myself in deep shit.

I rubbed my forehead in a kind of despair - that well-known negotiating tactic - and said, "I feel good offering six thousand a week."

"A week?" said Ringo.

For a second I thought he was saying his son should get six thousand a day, but Briggy was faster on the uptake. "British football wages are calculated by the week," she explained. "It's a holdover from the working-class origins of the sport. White-collar workers were paid monthly or yearly, blue-collar ones weekly or daily."

Ringo said, "Thank you."

I was on my phone. "312,000 pounds a year. Shit, that's a lot of money, isn't it? He's only 18. He'll only spend it on fast cars."

"He's saving to build a home, remember."

"Ah, yes! A house called Stormbreaker! Striding around his bedroom, naked, defying the gods. Yeah, it won't come cheap. Well, this is only the starting point. We have given our players pay rises every year I've been here."

Ringo seemed disappointed in me, which was a good negotiation tactic. "The average for a Championship player is half a million pounds per year." He was saying he wanted ten grand a week, which was mental but also a relief. We had established a top boundary.

"Helge's far from being a mid-level Championship player. I'm paying for potential. He might only start half our matches next season." I smiled and got twinkly. "Even I won't be getting ten grand a week. If Helge can go ninety minutes without me nutmegging him, then we can talk about him being paid on the same level as the club's top players." I pointed to myself as I said the last part.

"You have your wage structure," said Ringo. "But I do not much care how Helge sits within it. I compare your offer to that of FC Kaiserslautern, for example."

"Yeah but their offer is not comparable. Whatever the number is, he'll be miserable. You'll regret that choice every day until he's free. Okay but look, this will bite me on the arse I'm sure but I'll go to 7,000." I lifted my phone and tapped. "364,000 a year. Seriously, that's over the odds. That puts me right in the shit in terms of keeping the other players happy."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You don't look very sorry," I said, sourly.

"Now let us discuss the fee for his agent."

"That's you, isn't it?"

"That's me. The fee is four hundred thousand pounds."

I stared at him for literally ages. "Okay, you know what? Keep your Christmas card."

***

Devil Woman

A few hours later, I went back to Bumpers to oversee training for the women's team. Our big FA Cup tie was imminent. On Sunday we would play Brighton in the Quarter Final, with Bench Boost!

Elin and Jude were in charge of the coaching, leaving me to ruminate on how annoying life was. I had come to terms with the fact that we wouldn't be signing Helge, only for the prospect to be dangled in front of me in the most outrageous way. But a four hundred thousand pound agent fee bordered on obscene.

With a weekly wage of 7K, a four-year contract, and the four million quid transfer fee, I would be putting the club on the hook for nearly six million quid. And using a precious ESC slot. That was a lot of eggs for one basket. The signing would accelerate everyone else's demands, which would make me have to dip into the war chest to boost some wages, but there wouldn't be a war chest because I would have spent it all on Helge!

I had said I would think about it, but so far had done very little of that because Ringo's demands left me nauseous. Queasy.

Reluctantly, I got a notepad out and wrote everyone's current wage, then started a new column in which I wrote the minimum I thought they would accept. If I could get a few people to 7,000 I would be able to avoid a full-scale rebellion.

I started, of course, by writing the number 8,000 next to one particular name, to represent the new wages of our beloved leader. He deserved a bump, right?

I raced through without trying to overthink everything and ended up giving 7,000 to Youngster, Wibbers, Dazza, and Gabby. Peter got 6. Colin, Zach, Christian, 5. There were some 4s, some 3s. Gemma would probably fight me about Andrew Harrison's 3, but if Ryan retired, as seemed likely, and if we sold Tom Westwood, which was probably the best thing for the player, I could give good but not bank-breaking pay rises and even with Helge, the total came to 106,000.

I peered at my numbers. Even with some glaring mistakes like only giving Magnus an extra thousand a week, it seemed like keeping this squad together on the budget I had been assigned was very, very possible. I might not even need to dip into the war chest.

That couldn't be right, could it?

What was I missing?

I couldn't see anything so I gave Magnus a rise. Then changed my 8,000 to 10,000. You know, just in case I wanted to sign someone in January for 10 grand a week. I knew from playing Soccer Supremo that the best way to get a club's board to accept a new pay structure was to sneak it in by stealth, and the way to do that was to give your best player regular pay rises. I wasn't sure if that worked in the new versions of the game, but the principle seemed sound. If the board would pay me ten grand a week, they would pay someone else that much, too. In case this isn't clear, I needed to be paid loads for the good of the club.

I sensed danger and asked myself why, tracing it back to the fact that I had told Ringo that even I wouldn't be earning ten grand a week. I crossed that number out and wrote 9,900. Heh.

During a break in training, Meghan nudged Charlotte in the ribs. The midfielder came over. "Boss."

"Charlotte."

"Er, quick question, no big deal. I've got someone who wants to rent one of the big flats at Best Chestern."

"Hmm," I said, because the flats were way down my priority list right then. "Don't care. You're in charge. You get paid more if you fill the flats, so... Sort of, get on with that."

"Right but you told me to try to fill it with players and staff so I'm doing that."

I looked towards Meghan, who turned away and pretended to be doing some stretches. "Go on."

"Yeah, Megs and Youngster want to move in together."

"Whut? I mean... Does Youngster know he wants to do that?"

Charlotte laughed. "Max, come on. Meghan isn't controlling him or whatever. He's not a pushover."

"Well... I mean, sure. Hang on. Youngster's at Henri's digs. No no no. I'm not getting involved in that."

"They're going to move somewhere, boss, so Henri isn't losing out. Your flat's nicer and cheaper than what else they can get."

"Yeah but you know Henri. He's sensitive. Youngster can live somewhere small. He's never home, anyway, is he?"

Charlotte looked frustrated. "Could you please talk to Henri?"

"God, no, that would be a disaster. I'm sick of negotiating. I just want to smack some balls into the net from long range."

"Oh? You're playing tomorrow?"

"Last twenty mins, I think. Need to work out some of the frustration that inexplicably built up today. I was doing so well! I was serene!" Charlotte seemed vaguely unhappy, so I turned my colossal intellect to the problem. "Okay, let's think about this. I do want the Youngster slash Meghan baby production line up and running asap."

"Max," complained Charlotte.

"What? Think about what kind of hybrid defender midfielders you'd get." I shook my head in wonderment. "Their agent will be absolutely drenched with cash." I clapped my hands. "Okay, here's what we do. You go to Henri and ask his permission to ask me for permission. No, scratch that. No need to lie. You tell him we had this chat and you say I would rather have Youngster live in a box under a bridge than annoy my friend. He'll like that. And say the thing about the superbabies, too. He'll like that. He might say something about how it is Meghan who is creating football. Yeah, bosh. See how you get on with that." I opened my notepad again. "Okay get back to work. I need to do some maths."

"A hundred times a hundred is ten thousand, if that helps."

"It does, thanks. Bye."

***

The Young Ones

Saturday, March 6

Match 36 of 46: Barnsley versus Chester

At Bumpers Bank, preparations were underway. We would ride Sealbiscuit to South Yorkshire with high Morale, few fitness worries, and a full week until the Wigan match. Normally that would have meant picking our best eleven and that's what we had trained towards, but the expected presence of Ringo in the stands changed my approach. At breakfast with the key coaching staff, I explained the new starting eleven. Sandra was happy to go along with my proposal, since the match was part of a sales pitch that could lead to us acquiring an elite player.

Peter Bauer had questions. "So just to check, you've agreed a transfer fee, agent fee, player wages. The only remaining question is if Helge wants to change position and move to England."

"Yeah so he'll be asking himself if he wants to live somewhere damp or in Spain or whatever. He'll be looking at the score because every win takes us way closer to promotion. Like, his dream is to sleep a few inches above the North Sea so I don't think he's worried about the weather. It's not just him, though. We need to persuade his dad that we can look after his kid. He likes our staff, he loves you three, and he likes the energy. All the construction, the moving forward. He's in some big company but I think he'd love to do a start-up. Okay so we don't know what's going to make his mind up today, if anything, but we can be smart, right? He mentioned me running around smashing into people as something not completely attractive. Okay, so I'll play, and I'll be serener than Williams, as the famous saying goes."

"Stop trying to make that happen," said Peter.

"And we want Helge to come as a full back so we should use full backs. I do actually want to win today so we'll use Magnus at right back. He's great, obviously, we know that, but he doesn't pop to people in the stands, does he? If you're Ringo you'll think your son can do it better. He'll be more impressed by Cole at left back, but that's perfect because MD and Brooke will tell him all about the Exit Trials, how the Brig and I take these rejected kids and invest in them until their careers are sorted."

Peter nodded. "Clever."

"Okay so if I'm going to play, what else can we squeeze out of the game? I want to play with Joel, Gabby, and Fitz. Build up those connections. Top. What about tactics? Barnsley do 4-1-4-1 so let's copy them and do it better. We need left and right mids. What would impress Ringo? Let's put Adam on the left, Bark on the right, and Joel and I will coach them through the game."

Colin liked it. "You're making it easy to imagine you doing the same with his son. While winning the game, while getting to know your new players."

"Yeah," I said. "Funny to call them new when two joined in the summer and the season's nearly over. Oh, and no Relationism today in case he thinks it's weird."

Peter said, "What are the probabilities?"

He meant, are we going to win? Barnsley had an average CA of 106. Ours would be 104.7, excluding me. If I was CA 130, our levels would be about the same. "They've got home advantage, we've got higher morale. But we'll change Adam at half time and get a big jump. Barnsley can't do anything like that. They'll only get weaker through the game. Yeah," I said, slurping a smoothie. "We'll bosh it."

"Why are Barnsley called 'the Tykes'?"

I didn't know. "Um, Sandra?"

"I think a tyke is someone who's a bit impish, good at their job, combative, rebellious."

Peter leaned back, smiling. "Sounds like someone I know."

***

Singing the Blues

The latest blog post from News of the Blues, the leading news and views platform for all things Chester FC.

Seals Strike Tykes As Saintlike Max Backs His Young Pack

Wembley-bound. Champions-elect. Racing away with League One. Phrases I never thought I would need to type about Chester FC, but here we are.

From the very first whistle, the win was never in doubt. Barnsley are a good team full of vibrant, talented young players, but they couldn't lay a glove on us. We didn't press at all in their half, but when they crossed the halfway line we swarmed them, stole the ball, and passed them to death.

Much will be written about the positive performances from Best's Babes - Cole Adams, Adam Summerhays, and Calabash 'Bark' Barkley - but my eye was drawn to one of the most dominant midfield performances ever seen in a Chester shirt.

The triangle of Max Best, Joel Reid, and Champions League star Youngster has to be the greatest central trio in the club's history. Is it the best ever in England's third tier? That might be a stretch. It might not.

With midfield under his complete control and playing with none of the fury and ill-temper of the semi-final, Best turned the first half into a glorified training session while he coached Bark and Summerhays. Every five minutes Best eschewed the short passes that were keeping the home team struggling to maintain their shape as he burst through the lines, thrillingly, so fast his team mates couldn't keep up. He thrashed shots on goal. One just wide. One crashing against the crossbar - what a noise! - and the third pawed behind for a corner.

Best grinned before taking it - I am convinced he intended to shoot, but perhaps the news that Portsmouth had scored filtered through because he aimed for the six-yard box instead. Zach Green caused a nuisance, Cole Adams distracted a centre back, Fitzroy Hall was in amongst it, but it was Gabriel who leaped highest to nod home. He is making a habit of scoring such goals.

After that, it was almost painful to watch as Best conducted the midfield, toying with the Tykes. Luckily for them, he was primarily focused on bringing young Summerhays into the game. The boy seems to have been the catalyst for the feud between Best and the EFL. It's unfortunate for the player and an unwelcome distraction for the club, but most Chester fans I have spoken to are on Best's side. The lad Summerhays is raw, they say, but he needs experience. How can he get experience if he isn't allowed on the pitch? How can some suits who never played the game claim to know Chester's needs better than our own manager?

In the second half, Best summoned Peter Bauer and Wibbers to put the final nail in Barnsley's coffin, with Wibbers scoring a scruffy tap-in. That was the cue for more changes, with Thomazella, Nasa, and Omari Naysmith getting valuable minutes.

Elsewhere in the country, Portsmouth let their lead slip, meaning Chester are 8 points clear at the top of League One with ten games to go. Will Best chase 100 points? He seems unmotivated by such achievements; his focus is on silverware. Expect another EFL fine for the Oxford match. Why? It's four days before Wembley. Best has probably already booked a luxury spa for his key players to spend the days before the final, sleeping on beds made purely of cotton wool.

It is very strange to write about a season that is going so well. One has such a strong feeling that nothing can derail us and nothing can go wrong. Come on, you Wembley-bound Seals!

***

Listen to Cliff!

Sunday, March 7

Early in the morning, I drove to Bumpers to have breakfast with the women's team before we headed down to Brighton for the FA Cup Quarter Final - by far the biggest game in our history.

I wasn't confident, exactly, but I was broadly optimistic. We didn't have much in the way of injuries, we had been improving, and I had been investing a lot of Secret Sandra training points into Meredith Ann. She wasn't a match winner at this level yet, but I hoped she would show enough flashes of brilliance to look good on the documentary.

I joined the back of the queue, and smiled at Pippa Hoole, a 35-year-old midfielder. She was showing signs of approaching the cliff...

Stupid cliffs!

The kitchen staff were hard at work, as always, and had the radio on. There was a crooner blaring out some garbage. "Who's that?" I said.

"Cliff Richard," said one of the older cooks.

"Who's that?" I said.

She shook her head at my ignorance. "Big star from before you were born. I love him, and it's Sunday morning. Good, clean, Christian music, Max."

I picked up a plate and peered at it. "I'd prefer clean crockery to clean music."

"Oi, cheeky," said the cook. "I'm not one of your wingers you can complain about."

"Hear that, Kisi? Chef's rinsing you."

Kisi put her hand over her mouth. "Chef!"

The cook waved a plastic spatula around. "I would never rinse you, Kisi, you're a lovely girl."

"Never rinse these plates, either," I said, before pumping my fist. "Goal de Max Best! Gol gol gooooool!"

Cook looked up and found some patience. "Do you want a different plate?"

"Of course not," I said, sweetly. "This one's pristine. I'll have a full Norwegian, please."

"What's that?"

"Full English but it's ten times the price."

Kisi made a noise. "Oooh, Max got rinsed on that Haaland regen!"

I smiled. "I did, actually."

"You don't look too mad about it."

"I'm fuming," I said, as I sat on one of the little benches, turning sideways so I could put my feet up.

Kisi tutted. "What have we told you about Maxspreading?"

I rapped my knuckles on the table, getting the attention of everyone nearby. "Everyone bring the volume down about 80%, please. Cook and I want to enjoy our tunes."

***

As I ate, I got a text message.

Ringo Hagen: Max, I had a great time with you and your team. I write to inform you that Kaiserslautern have increased their total compensation offer.

I shook my head, smiling at the audacity of the guy. He was going to try to squeeze me dry!

I remembered something I had researched because of my trip to Denmark. I had heard the word 'Danegeld' a few times and when I finally read up about it, I discovered it was a sort of Mafia-style protection money, but you gave it to Vikings instead of Sicilians. There was a Rudyard Kipling poem warning the reader about giving in to extortion. It seemed apt when dealing with agents.

If once you have paid him the Dane-geld

You never get rid of the Dane.

Good advice, Rudders!

Me: Okay, I understand. Helge will love Germany. It's a lovely place with a beautiful language. Auf wiedersehen!

I put my phone away with a shake of my head. Beyond annoying!

It vibrated almost immediately.

Unknown number: Good morning, Mr. Best. This is Pradeep. I know your system. I know your secret. I think we should work together, if you understand me correctly. I will see you very soon.

Was the guy trying to fucking blackmail me?

I was reeling from that when my phone pinged again.

Livia: Sorry to bother you, Max, but I thought you should know that one of our players has had a positive result in a urine test.

The cook came over with a fresh cup of tea for me. Sweet of her. "Here you go, Max." She turned her head towards the radio and raised her brows. "So, what do you think? Are you enjoying your Cliff?"

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