9.

  Saturday, November 8

  BrokenGround

  Okay lads, yesterday was absolutely bonkers. I spent hours watching Max Best up close going about his normal daily business and, I mean, wow. It's a story and a half if you want it. But it's really a LOT of stuff about Chester and it's not even funny and it makes me sound like a Chester fan. Four months ago if someone else kept banging on about that lot I would have been absolutely livid. So, it's up to you if I should write it all out or what. Kinda don't mind if you vote no because I can't touch type lol.

  SummerhillBill

  I really would rather not read another long post about the goings-on at Jester. I vote no.

  BrokenGround

  Ah, yeah, I get that. I thought I should check the temperature. No worries, you're right.

  SummerhillBill

  BG, I'm not right, I'm joking. Don't worry about sounding like a Jester fan. As BW wrote when all this started, we're on the outside. You're on the inside, just about. I've enjoyed the whole story, even the bits that make Best look all right. Not sure about everyone else but if they don't like it, fuck 'em. Who among us will be in the trenches when the bombs start dropping? Not them. You.

  BrokenGround

  That's funny. Best said something like that yesterday. You're not him, are you?

  SummerhillBill

  If I was him, I wouldn't type in a Welsh accent, would I boyo?

  TopPoppy

  OMG best reply ever!

  Come on, BG, give us the scoop.

  BrokenGround

  Okay but it's going to be a long one.

  Stoop

  As Max Best said to the Slovakian goalkeeper.

  TopPoppy

  Can we mute the pervert for an hour?

  BrokenGround

  Okay so how it starts is Best has decided the hard part of his season is over and he's trained 3 R Welsh enough to start trying this new style of football (I'll call it Bestball even though he hates it) with his under 18s team. They had their first Youth Cup match of the season, played normal football, won 10-zip. His idea is that the Chelseas and Liverpools will watch tape of that and think what Chester are doing is good but basic. When the time is right, he'll surprise them.

  I'll say up front I think he's really good at his job, with caveats, but that he tends to overcomplicate things.

  Anyway, he gets it into his head that 3R might be interested in watching the kids go through what we went through and invites us to attend the first session with them. It's at Chester's gaff and we can meet the famous women's team, have a tour of the dump (his words, not mine!), and have a meal in the restaurant, his treat. He says the decor is not Michelin level but the food's mint. The whole unit is up for it, and the only question is can some of the lads get babysitters and all that.

  Stoop

  I know a website that specialises in babysitters.

  TopPoppy

  Not now!

  BrokenGround

  As it happens, yesterday afternoon I was getting my knees checked at my specialist in Liverpool.

  Actually, you know what? It's going to be easier if I say up front that my name's Dylan and I was wounded in action a few years ago and that's why I'm a bit of a wreck and I've got anger issues and all that.

  TopPoppy

  Fuck, man.

  BrokenGround

  I know. I'm just saying it up top so I don't have to explain it later and because Best wasn't calling me BrokenGround.

  So I'm in Liverpool and I think what am I supposed to do for three hours until the kids start training, you know? No point going all the way home to Wrex and then back up to Chester. So I go to Chester early and immediately regret it. Like, what can I do here that I couldn't have done in Liverpool?

  I decide to go to Chester's training ground because I know there's a caff and there are always games and training going on and yeah, okay, there are loads of fit birds.

  Stoop

  Why's he allowed to say it but I'm not?

  BrokenGround

  I'm there about 5 o'clock and I'm uncomfortable. The enemy within! I get a cup of tea and sit in the cabin that's been made into a bar. It turns out to be the restaurant, too. No airs and graces here and I'll try not to give too many compliments but that's really my speed, if you get me.

  There's a lovely woman working and she puts me at ease. There's a box of poppies on the counter but nowhere to pay.

  'Where's the money box?' I say, which makes me sound like a burglar. 'I mean, is it all contactless?'

  'We do both, love. Poppies are free, though. Take one if you want.'

  'Free?' I say, disappointed. The point of selling them is to raise money for the British Legion. If it's free, wearing one is an empty gesture.

  She doesn't understand why I'm unhappy but it's not her fault - she's wearing a poppy. I'm trying to learn that I can't fight every battle and there is no point chatting it out with this lady. When Best wanted a new pitch he didn't go to H about it. He went to the top. The top here is Best and he has weird opinions about wearing the poppy and he's never going to change his mind.

  The little couple of seconds where I got angry has killed the conversation but anyway I'm basically happy to be left alone. Don't know if you remember but there was a good thread in here about what to expect from Stevenage away and reading through that killed some time and I was just getting into it. Like, should we stick to a back three or does Davison's good form mean we've got to use full backs?

  'Dylan!'

  I look up. ‘Best.'

  He's come in looking for someone, I guess, and found me. 'What are you doing?'

  'I'm early for the thing.'

  He looks at his phone. 'It's seventeen hundred hours and the session is at nineteen hundred hours so you are two hundred hours early. That's really sloppy, mate.'

  I've already said how he gets all his military information from movies. This latest speech fits my hypothesis, but a couple of things he says later make me wonder. 'Better too early than too late.'

  'Yeah,' he says, distracted. 'Have you seen Henri? French chap. About this high. The hair of Timothée Chalamet, the dimples of Olivier Giroud, the rapacious claws of J.P. Morgan.'

  'No.'

  'Mmm,' he says. 'You're not going to sit there for two hours, are you?'

  'There isn't really enough time to - '

  'Why don't you make yourself useful?'

  'Like wash the dishes, or what?'

  'People are always trying to murder me. Come and be my bodyguard for a bit.'

  I can't quite tell if he's making up an excuse to have someone to talk to or if he's saving me from boredom. I would normally have said that I was all right and it was nice to have some downtime, something like that, but I thought about LALAC and went, fuck it. 'I can do that. What's the threat level?'

  'Omega,' he says. 'Wait, that's terrible. Midnight? Cut that. Just come to my office for now and if you hear any Scouse accents, do a kung fu stance.' He thinks of something. 'Can you do a one-inch punch?'

  'No.'

  He shakes his head. 'What do you even do all day?'

  We wander out past the all-weather pitch where a coach is laying out cones. Looks like any other drill to me, but seems these football guys can recognise the drill from the layouts.

  Best barely slows his stride. 'Jude. Close control?'

  The coach says, 'Yes, boss.'

  'Can we get some finishing at the end? Also, I'll chat to the boys after I talk to the parents.'

  Jude nods and gets on with his work. He pauses and looks around. He seems to be recalculating how the session will go, on the fly.

  Best faces his palms down and gestures in a wide circle. 'I was thinking of having my statue here. Fifty feet high, double thumbs pointing at my name and number. You can see it from Bristol.' He shakes his head. 'It'd be the first target in any war. Bomb that and you spread dismay, big time. No, I think it's best for morale if I stay humble.' He does a big sigh.

  His office is at the end of the row of cabins and it's nicer than most of the others. There is no desk. He sits in a tatty but cosy armchair with a footstool and pulls his MacBook onto his lap. There's a cheap camping chair and a bean bag for me to choose from. I want to do the bean bag but I'm worried about getting up. Also, if I'm his bodyguard, I should be relatively alert. You're probably all laughing at me but sometimes it's genuinely hard to know how serious he is. I sit in the camping chair and it's amazing how comfortable it is. 'Are you really worried about being attacked again?'

  'No, not really, but I've been pissing a lot of people off, haven't I?'

  'The population of Newcastle.'

  'Shit,' he says. 'I forgot about them. I was thinking about football scouts. This one guy looks like he knows how to throw a punch; I've even been back in the gym. Donnie Westwood thinks I could be a half-decent boxer, you know. That was a weird conversation. Oh,' he says. 'One good thing about having twenty army guys coming on a Friday is the women are training. They're all, like, famous now. If someone untoward turns up, go ahead and beat the shit out of them. I didn't say that, that wasn't me, you can't prove it. I think Alan Turner should be the next England manager. Man City have never cheated in the entire history of the sport! See? You can't prove I said anything. This whole thing is a deep fake.'

  'I'm not recording this,' I say.

  'Mmm,' he says. 'Okay.' He goes quiet. 'No seriously, if there's someone making the women feel uncomfortable and you want to disassemble their car into its component pieces or something like that, I mean, I'll say no don't do that really quite strongly.'

  'Are you expecting trouble with the women?'

  He smiles and points at me. 'Not tonight.' He opens his laptop. 'Hey, is it all right if I take calls and that sort of thing?'

  'Course, yeah. Pretend I'm not here.' I sip on my tea. 'Who are you playing tomorrow?'

  'AFC Wimbledon away.'

  'Does your electric bus go that far?'

  'Yeah. It's only the edges where it's dubious.'

  'So what do you do, like, the day before a match?'

  'Depends. Normally you've got an idea of your formation and nine or ten of the starting eleven. This week was a bit mad because everything got thrown out of whack by the Newcastle match, and we had the documentary, the Youth Cup, and Liverpool. I wanted to put out a weakened team tomorrow but we need to win, so.'

  'Why would you put out a weakened team?'

  'Because we went hard at the Prem teams. I know it's not their top players but they're still brilliant and I wanted to win both games. The idea is if you've got three big games in a week, you've got to choose which one to slack off. For Parky that'll be the cups. For me it's the league because if we lose or get a draw tomorrow, it's not a big deal. If we get an injury, that's a big deal. Looking at the fixtures, we will win 8 of the next 9 after tomorrow. If you think of a ten-match horizon, losing one is no big deal. We will shoot up the league, top six by Christmas. Only problem is people won't buy the bonds if we're near the bottom of the table so we have to get a move on.'

  'So you say okay let's win and that's it? You just win?'

  He smiles. 'It's not always that easy but we're almost at Wimbledon's level, so if I do one of my tricks on them, bosh. The thing is, that's a one-time scheme and it won't work again.'

  'What's the trick?'

  'You'll see. Or you won't. Just don't be surprised when we absolutely blitz them in the second half. Sometimes you have to suffer until half time to lull them into a false sense of security. Yeah, first half will be hot garbage.' He scrunches his eyes for a second. 'You've got Stevenage, right? You should bosh that. Parky makes it hard for himself.'

  'In what way?'

  'Stevenage are solid but you've got the firepower to absolutely blow them to smithereens. With your squad, I would go all-out attack and there isn't a chance in hell Stevenage would do anything other than a low block and hope to counter. If you go there defensive they can sucker you into a series of battles. Turn it into a slog.'

  'What are you going to do tomorrow? All-out attack?'

  'Nah, you don't get me that easy. Ah, there he is.'

  Henri Lyons, the striker, comes in. It looks like he's wearing two scarves but he can't have been. He has arranged it or them in such a way that you can see he's wearing a poppy. 'Hello,' he says, to me.

  'Hello.'

  'Max, I have the book I told you about.' He hands something over while I'm scanning Best to see if he's wearing a poppy and sadly I don't get a good look at the book. All I see is the word quest. 'Please do not read it in the bath.' He looks at me. 'Max treats books with contempt.'

  'I do not. Henri's mad that I turned the page once. You know, in the corner.'

  'To remember which page you're up to,' I say. 'Everyone does that.'

  Henri looks up, pained. 'Everyone does not do that. Do not say that everyone does that. Some of us are trying to live in a society.' He looks at me again. 'The entire spine was ruined. He had lain it flat many times. It was brutal; I nearly wept. Max's attitude to my books will feature in our Christmas happening.'

  Best isn't listening. He's scanning the back cover blurb. 'Is this the one with the cat?'

  'No, it's the one with the prison.'

  'Okay.' Best puts the book in a backpack he has down the side of the sofa. 'While you're here, you're not starting tomorrow.'

  'Oh.'

  'Yeah, I decided we need to win. To shift some bonds.'

  Henri nods. He seems pleased, which is mad because it sounds to me like Best has just called him shit. I go, 'You're happy he dropped you?'

  'Dropped? I am not dropped. I am to come off the bench and star.'

  'When did he tell you that?'

  'Just now. Did you not hear? May I know your name?'

  'Dylan. I'm from 3 R Welsh.'

  'Oh, I see. Formidable.' He leans back against one of the ceiling-high panes of glass. The next question is not aimed at me. 'How is our transfer business going?'

  'Good,' says Best.

  'And the bonds?'

  'Quite good. Do you know anyone called Aurélie?'

  Henri squints. 'Yes.'

  'Relative?'

  'Mother.'

  'Ah. Problem?'

  'For?'

  'Me.'

  Henri shakes his head. 'No.'

  'For Chester?'

  'No.'

  'For you?'

  Henri smiles. 'Of course.'

  Best thinks and does a big shrug. 'Okay.'

  Best's vibe is like, that's the end of the conversation. But Henri's not done. 'May I make a request?'

  'Yes.'

  The Frenchman takes his time finding the right words. 'When you sell the lads, don't reduce the bond.'

  Best closes his laptop and shuts his eyes. He leans back like he's trying to sleep, but he's only trying to understand. 'Don't... reduce the bond...'

  'I have tried to explain this to you before and will do so again, perhaps with Brooke and MD by my side. Perhaps with Dylan if he is the one who can make the breakthrough.'

  I don't like being brought into it, but it seems like he means well. Best goes, 'You're talking about my frugality.'

  'I am. The interest rate is so manageable even MD is comfortable with it. Of course he would happily pay less but he doesn't fully appreciate your talent, even now. Leave the fans' money in the stand, let them pay it off through season tickets, and reinvest what you earn from transfers into the squad. Turn the flywheel, Max. It is time to speed up.'

  'You think I shouldn't build new showers?'

  'Of course you should, these are irredeemable, but I won't be here next season so I care very little about the showers at Bumpers Bank.'

  'You won't be here?' I blurt out.

  Henri eyes me. 'Max says I am to leave and cash myself up for a season or two, at which point he will find me some menial task in one of his enterprises.'

  'Oh.' With friends like Best, who needs enemies?

  'All I am saying, Max, is prioritise the squad this summer. Give yourself an easier time next year. You can make it very, very easy for yourself and as you know, when you are winning twice a week, the money will flow. For once, start the season at a sprint. The new stand will be making money for the club for fifty years. You do not need to pay off the debt in three.'

  Best watches his friend, and twists his lips around. 'You're the second person in two days to say something of the sort. Emma's dad wants me to buy a Lotus Seven and whisk her off on adventures. He wants me to break out of my poverty mindset.'

  'It is easy to tell you what to do,' says Henri. 'Easier than to be you, I think. That is why I only speak about the bond. As I say, let the fans build their stadium and repay the interest. You build the squad. That is what they want from you and that is the force multiplier on this project. Good, I have spoken. I follow you regardless, as you know, but perhaps I can judge this risk better than you.'

  Henri opens the door and is ready to just leave. Just like that!

  Best goes, 'You okay?'

  Henri goes, 'Yes, actually. It's a good moment. You?'

  Best does a small head shake. 'It has been all kinds of mad.'

  'You are with the children tonight?' Henri looks at me. 'When Max needs to be centred, we encourage him to spend time with the Knights or the children. It is his grounding. He is my role model; the more he gives, the more he gets. Now I must away for I have to evict a bad tenant from one of my properties. Adieu!'

  We watch him leave. Best says, 'He's joking. He wants you to put that on social media so he can act hurt and get all French about it.'

  I go, 'Do you have a poverty mindset?'

  'Of course I do.'

  'That's why you were in a shit car.'

  He glares at me. 'The Duchess was not a shit car.'

  'People shouldn't tell you how to spend your money, though. That's not on.'

  'I didn't mind it from Emma's dad because it's like, that family's pretty loaded and he wants his daughter to be happy. She's not a pampered princess but she's used to having nice experiences. Loads of holidays and posh restaurants. They're the sort of people who buy Taylor Swift and Oasis tickets and don't even notice the price, do you know what I mean? For them it's do you want to go, yes or no. And look, he's not saying I can't marry her because I've got a shit car and no house. I mean, I'm the one having dinner with Donnie Wormwood and stuff like that. I've got things money can't buy and he's not trying to put me down. He's kind of just saying can you at least book a hotel with hot water? Yesterday he did something so I don't have to worry about money so much and now I'm a bit off centre, like, mentally.' He scratches his head. 'I'm making myself sound like a right cheapskate. I got used to a small, simple life, right, and then when I started making money I was like okay, put ten grand away in case mum needs something. A couple of weeks of seeing that ten grand in the bank I was like that is nowhere near enough, is it? Twenty? Still no. So that number's been going up and up and I never feel safe and I never will. Emma's dad has done an intervention and broke the pattern. I need to readjust. It's not easy.'

  'What about him?' I nod towards the door, where Henri's scent lingers.

  'He's talking about the club's money. I run the club like my own account. Ha! That sounds shady. Are you recording this?'

  'No.'

  'Some podcasters would love to hear me talk like that. I mean I run it like it's my money. This woman I know is buying a house. Huge house. Big mortgage. Let's say it's a thousand pounds a week. No clue what the real number is, you get me, it's just a thousand is easy to work with. Her dad pays half up front, now her mortgage is five hundred a week. That's what I want to do for the stadium. The club's mortgage - the fans' mortgage, in the end - can go lower if I chip in. Instead of buying a new left back, I reduce the mortgage.'

  'Makes sense to me.'

  'Right. But Henri says I should buy a new left back because I'm amazing at finding players. Put out a winning team, get promoted, get prize money, and sell those players for a huge profit.'

  'That... makes a lot of sense, too.'

  Best frowns. 'Yes. I think it's one of those things where both ways are right but with the first one I can sleep well at night.'

  'You're running a football club. You need to be able to sleep at night. Got to look after yourself.'

  Best agrees with me to his core and it shows. 'Right? That's what people don't get. I'm under enough strain as it is. And what if I die? Does Chester die, too? I don't want that. But...' He gets up and looks around. I sit up in case there's trouble. 'Thing is,' he says. 'Remember you were all 'oh Best you're shit you're getting sacked' and I was like 'no I'm crushing this season bro' and you were like 'what really?' and I said 'yeah watch me score from 70 yards against some chumps.''

  I laugh. 'You didn't say the last part.'

  'I was complaining that next season - when we will be in League One, remember - will be the same as this one. Start slow, pick up speed. So yeah, what if I wait another year to build a proper changing room? What if I don't put solar panels on the gym right away? Do you know what I mean? What if I fucking go for it on the pitch and just slap from day one?' He rubs his temples and it's like he's talking to himself. 'League One ceiling is about 110. Keep the main squad together we'll be over 90. Get as much TV money as MD will give me. Stand takes us to about 50K a week... Foquita's worth another twenty, or a mill for signings. What about training caps? When we leave BoshCard what will our score be? It's a big risk not to do the showers, at least.'

  He lapses into silence. I have no idea what he's saying but guys, it's amazing! He's running a football club right before my eyes! I try to get him to explain some of it without making it seem like that's what I'm doing because if I go straight at it, he'll shut down. 'Is this to do with what Henri said about selling players?'

  'Yeah,' he goes, with a sigh. 'Spring clean for the May queen. We're pretty likely to sell three guys. The trick is do I replace them and do I spend money replacing them?'

  'How could you... not spend...?'

  He has a tactics whiteboard on the wall and he goes to it and moves blue magnets around. 'Four-four-two.' He whips away the left-back and right-mid. 'I sell my backup goalie. Fine, who cares?' He touches the goalie magnet. 'Er, everyone cares if you don't have a replacement when this guy gets injured. So I buy a new backup and hope he's better than what I've got. If I spend exactly what I get for the current one, it's not going to move the needle much. If I spend more money, okay we've upgraded, but do I want the club's scarce resources sitting in a backup goalie? No, unless the first choice gets injured, and then my backup goalie is the best investment I ever made.'

  'We had terrible luck with goalies and injuries.'

  Best's eyes widen. 'I know. I watch Welcome to Wrexham, Dylan. Dislocations, concussions, broken jaws, five goals conceded here, five goals there. If I was a goalie, I wouldn't go to Wrexham. No offence.'

  'None taken. For once.'

  He puts a left back on the board. 'I sell my left-back. No problem, I've got two hotshots coming up.' He takes it off again. 'Very talented but very raw. If I play them every week I'll lose points, guaranteed.'

  'Change the formation,' I say.

  'Ah! Good. If we want to hide the fact we don't have an oven-ready left back we can do 3-5-2 or 3-4-3. Yeah, I like both of those but not as much as I like having complete tactical flexibility. And neither are amazing for DMs.' He plays with his magnets for a while but his hands move too fast for me to follow. He slows and obsesses over the ones at the sides. 'I'll get a good price for my winger but that leaves me with Pascal as my only proper wide player.'

  'How is he?'

  'He's coming along. I threw him in against Newcastle because I thought we might shock them with some quick breaks, but also because one of the hardest parts of a recovery is getting back on the pitch. The first tackle, you know? He was nervous, of course, but he survived and he's gonna be raring to go. With our November schedule there's no need to rush him so he's in Dean's hands and Pascal will have to put the work in like a normo. No, he's fine, and he's busy with his Spanish lessons - hubba hubba! - and his coaching badges and his physical work. I try to keep my injured players busy because they go tonto if they can't play.'

  'I bet.'

  'Thing is, we're very very light on the wings and that rules out most of our formations. We're also lacking in CAMs. Sandra loves 4-2-3-1 but the only options for that are me, Pascal, and Wibbers, and for different reasons we're not playing every minute of every match, right? So if I sell Jaws do I try to load up on CAMs? Maybe, but I use wide players more. And it makes no sense to play one up top when I'm going to have three of the best strikers in the division. I want...'

  Best seems to get stuck, like he doesn't know what he wants. He opens the door, walks out, closes it behind him, and wanders off. I'm perfectly comfortable where I am - it's quite cosy and I'm enjoying being in the space. I think I see him looking at a tree, and what's odd is that it's the only tree in the whole place.

  He comes back and sits cross-legged on his big chair. 'Do you play Soccer Supremo?'

  'Not really, no. I have the mobile version from years ago but it doesn't...'

  'What wins, a team of guys with high Pace or a team with high Decisions?'

  'Pace.'

  Best closes his eyes and has an internal debate. 'No. No, it's Decisions. If you can get a guy with both you're laughing, but that's a fifty million pound combo right there, isn't it? I have a weakness as a tactician in that I spend all my time thinking about what we do when we get the ball, but your Parky and most other managers are far more interested in the defensive side. What do you do when you don't have the ball? Tsch'. That’s a dismissive noise, like defending is beneath him. 'This is a mad sport, you know. In one game a player might be asked to make ten headers and take five shots but in the next the same player in the same position has to make four tackles and eight blocks. You need well-rounded players but you need specialists. You need on the ball skills but off the ball is important, too. It's low-scoring so mistakes are critical but if you base your philosophy on waiting for a mistake, your fans will be bored and your players, too. It's so dynamic with so many variables that unless you have a huge budget all you can do is get the best players possible and see what you can cook.' He rubs his hands through his hair and down his face. 'It's easy to imagine the perfect team. They're all six foot four, pass like Michael Carrick, dribble like Stanley Matthews, are as fast as Jaws, and so on and so on. But what can I realistically get? What if I had a couple of hundred million to put together a realistic dream team? I don’t even know what I want. Decisions, Passing, Technique, great. But you need some pace and you need some heading and you need and you need. Do you know what I mean?'

  'Yes. No.'

  Best slides his legs from under him and sits normally. 'The good news is, I genuinely have no money so my poverty mindset is justified. All I can do is get the most talent for the buck and... But... Okay! I don't need to go full opposite right away. I can line up a Jaws replacement right now.'

  I blink. 'You're going to do a transfer? Are you going to let me listen?'

  'Why not?' He looks up and to the right with a frown. In his head, he has answered his own question. He smirks. 'If for any reason you feel the need to tell this story in the next few weeks, would you promise not to use any of the names you hear? You'd be crushing some poor bloke's only chance at having a good career.'

  He knows! He knows I'm doing this and he doesn't care. 'Yes.'

  'Swear on Ryan Reynolds.'

  I laugh. 'I swear.'

  He gets on the phone. I have to put fake names because I did promise. 'Davido! Mad news. Captain Kirk wants to buy Jaws from me. Yeah, I know! No, I'm not calling to see if you're interested. No, I'm not trying to start an auction. Why would Jaws move to you? That's a step down and your shitty manager famously misuses every right midfielder he ever lays eyes on. Yes, that's what this is about. A replacement, yes. Look, you know I don't have any money because everything's being sucked into the black hole that is the stadium. You've got two right midfielders rotting away and I will take one off your hands. Yes, for a fee. Jesus Christ, what do you think? No, I haven't spoken to her. Because if you say you're not interested I'll go somewhere else. Honestly I don't care which one. I need a body who can play wide and you've got two. I can give you fifty grand and we can get the deal wrapped up next week.'

  I get my phone out to look up the names of the players Best is talking about. One was released by an academy and the other was on loan at Chester before. I don't believe Best when he says he doesn't care which one he gets.

  'You paid fifty for him, I know. And then you've let him rot. I should have started at thirty but you know I don't like... Come on. Come on!'

  Best is frustrated. Doesn't like the number he is hearing.

  'Davido, you get one shot at this. If you piss me off I'll go off in a huff and not talk to you for seven weeks. No, seven weeks. That's the standard punishment. Well how long would you suggest? That's not much of a punishment though, is it? Okay, listen. Charles was here before, he knows the area, knows the club, the fans liked him. In order to get some peace of mind and so that you can go to your fans and say you rinsed us and made a profit on this deal, I will give you seventy-five thousand pounds for a player who is nowhere near your first team and doesn't improve ours.'

  Best leans back. I think 75 is going to be his final offer, and sure enough...

  'Okay, no, I'm out. Don't worry, in two years when his contract expires and he has played 86 minutes of football for you, I'll be there to help him rebuild his shattered career. Don't worry, mate, it's only a young man's life. Bye.'

  He hangs up and shakes his head.

  I say, 'Good news, is it?'

  That makes him smile again. 'You're funny when you're not boiling with anger at every little thing.'

  'I could say the same about you.'

  'I take it personally, though. There are two wingers who moved to that club on my advice and they were delighted at the time but they haven't progressed. Either one would be smashing it here. I can't do a hundred, though. This is the mad thing, right, is that I want to help people but I have to be ruthless, too.'

  'Are they good players?'

  He looks around, trying to look guilty but the big smug grin shows what he really thinks. 'They're way better than Jaws! I think this is what Henri is trying to tell me. If I sell a player for 300 and I can buy a better one for 75... I mean, at some point the wages will start to absolutely dick me and the risk of a bum deal gets more and more, ah, impactful... but in principle I should be wheeling and dealing like this. I kinda thought I would be but then I had flat out zero money. How can I not have a poverty mindset when I've had to put this squad together on free transfers, promissory notes...' He's suddenly staring at the glass behind me. 'And guys I found on a beach.'

  I vaguely recognise the man who knocks on the glass and comes to open the door, but thanks to our resident pervert I totally know the woman who's with him. It's the Julia Roberts one! Eat Pray Lust, AKA Gemma. As before, the pictures don't do her justice and there's something crazy that happens. The boyfriend - Andrew Harrison, I soon find out - doesn't seem to know there are fucking SPARKS flying all over the place between Best and Gemma. It's honestly really super intense and I'm absolutely riveted by everything that they say to each other because it seems to be riddled with subtext and sexual energy.

  'Max,' says Gemma, very bossily. But she spots me and gets cold and professional. She's dressed as a lawyer. 'Hello.'

  'I'm Dylan,' I say, but it comes out weird.

  Gemma looks at Best for an explanation. He's looking straight and only just barely turning his head in her direction which, you know, for a woman like that must be really challenging. 'He's with me,' says Best. It makes no sense, it's not true, but it gets the blood pumping. I'm in the gang. I don't want to be in the gang, but now that I'm in the gang I'm proud to be in the gang. It's a tiny taste of what comes later.

  Gemma and Andrew are in the space with us and it's really not big enough for four. Also, neither wants to sit on the bean bag. I think Best wants it like this because he doesn't want people in there for too long. He doesn't mind me, though. I get another flush of that unwanted happiness.

  'Max, we need to sort this contract situation out.'

  'Gosh,' says Best, quite bored.

  Gemma grunts in frustration. (By the way: hot.) 'What do you want? Do you want us to beg?'

  Best grinds his teeth together and sort of rolls his head slightly. A lot of what he does is a performance, or he's hiding his real emotions, but this, whatever it is, is real. He looks at the tactics board while he counts to whatever number. Then he looks from me to Gemma. 'Dylan is a Wrexham fan. He doesn't give a shit about you, me, Andrew, or Chester. He does, though, have a pronounced sense of right and wrong, hates injustice, has good analytical skills. I nominate him as an independent judge.'

  Andrew says, 'Are you one of the army guys?'

  I don't know what Best has been saying so I feel awkward. 'Yeah.'

  He does this sort of admiring O face.

  Gemma is less impressed. 'Max, this is unprofessional.'

  'Pursuant to his Britannic Majesty's royal decree I nominate Dylan of the British actual army to arbitrate in our exchange of grievances.' He says this all dignified and solemn and I sit up straight.

  My reaction isn't because I'm moved by his words or anything noble like that. It's because I finally think I've got his sense of humour. He is a prick but he has chosen those words and that tone to get a rise out of Gemma and it works so hard she's actually left speechless. I want to go through all the things he's ever said to me that have made my blood boil but there's no time.

  Best leans forward like a California girl and says, 'Dylan, get this.'

  The switch in his tone from the super-formal fake legalese to this casual pyjama-party chat nearly makes my head explode.

  'I found Andrew and his brothers while I was recovering from my murder. There I was, on the island of Tenerife, trying to learn to walk again... and to trust again...' He glares at Andrew, which has the mad, upside-down effect of making Andrew smile. 'And I say, hey, Triplets, would you like to stop being fucking nobodies and come and play football for my club? And they said yes, yes please, Max, because otherwise we'll spend sixty years in a call centre selling unsuitable crypto products to elderly women.'

  Best cricks his neck. He's just getting started.

  'As you know, Dylan, from being a fan of moneybags Wrexham, Chester FC are fucking skint. They have a miracle worker in charge but they have no fucking money. Despite that, I gave a fuckton of Chester's resources to the Triplets because I see potential in them to have careers as players and all I ask in return is that Chester's investment in them is justified. I believe I can train Andrew into a really good player and sell him for loads and use that fucking money to give the same opportunities to all kinds of triplets that I find on all kinds of beaches.'

  Best is getting actually wound up now. Like, Gemma and Andrew can't say anything because he is on a roll and it seems like they can't find fault with any of the basic information.

  'Last summer I come back from Brazil. I haven't hit a home run in terms of talent ID but I've found enough guys to justify my carbon footprint and with those deals done, I know how much is left in my budget. I call Andrew in to offer him a pay rise but Gemma barges in and tells me I have to make Andrew Harrison one of the top earners at the club. I have to pay him more than Magnus, who is absolutely indispensable, more than Youngster, who I wouldn't sell for five million, and more than Henri Lyons, who scores all our goals!'

  I look at Andrew and he's deeply unhappy. He's unhappy because he agrees with Best. Gemma is angry and she's trying to control herself. It's mad but I try to play peacemaker, and I start by putting the other side of the argument across. 'So you froze him out of the team.'

  'Nope,' says Best, sliding back onto the chair, relaxed. 'They did that.'

  Gemma is the one grinding her teeth now. 'It was a bargaining position.'

  'How did that work out for you?' Max Best is SUCH a prick.

  Gemma inhales. She's way more impressive than Best, and I don't mean her looks. In her position, I'd be looking for weapons. 'What do you want?'

  Best's eyes widen and he lets his hands fall out, palms up. Like, are you serious? 'I want Andrew to sign a long-term contract so that I can use the resources of Chester Football Club to train him up! Like I said on day one!'

  'That's what I want,' says Andrew, quietly.

  'Training a footballer is expensive,' says Best, as though he hasn't heard. I think he has heard but he has decided to make this speech regardless. 'Coaches, pitches, physios, floodlights, fucking delicious meals twice a day, travel, transport, legal advice, insurance, a billion fucking things. For a club with no money, that's a lot of money. If you want to go to Bradford and get paid, go to Bradford and get paid. Teach me a fucking lesson for trying to make you a valuable asset. You don't want to suffer and sacrifice like the rest of us? You want to skip directly to Go and collect two hundred pounds? Be my guest. But if you aren't willing to let this club cover its costs on you, you get nothing. This isn't Andrew Harrison FC. This isn't Gemma's Boyfriend FC. This is Chester FC and I need money to pay for Jojo and Jude and dentists and Jonny Planter and little disabled girls who love football and dream of playing for England. How can it be that I make more money from a 12-year-old that I found in a park than a grown man who I invested two years of elite coaching into? Explain that to me. That's what I want, Gemma. I want an explanation for why you don't want to be part of something bigger than yourself. I want an explanation for how the most selfish man in Manchester is the least selfish man in this room.'

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Wow.

  Fucking Max Best launching truth bombs towards his own unit.

  When a bomb goes off, there's this time where there's no movement and the only sound is that ringing noise they do in movies. Trust me, I know.

  There's no movement in that room. Best's phone is ringing but he shuts it off.

  Gemma opens her mouth and I find myself leaning forward to hear what she says because it's going to be epic.

  But Andrew reaches out and touches her lightly on the arm. She stops. He looks at Best. 'Do you want me gone?'

  'I want to finish what I started.'

  'I want that, too.'

  'There's no money,' says Best.

  Gemma narrows her eyes. 'You're selling three players. You'll have budget.'

  'There's this guy called Foquita,' says Best, and I try and fail to make the sound mean anything. Fajita?

  'You've budgeted for him,' says Gemma. 'These sales are new.'

  'Three out, four in,' says Best.

  'Four?' says Andrew.

  'I thought you'd be leaving so I'm talking to a club about a replacement,' says Best, and I'm more than ninety percent sure he's lying because he's just told me his plans. This is a mad whirlwind and I love it! 'Money's gone. If life's about money may I recommend Wrexham?'

  Andrew and Gemma look at each other and I see the exact moment Andrew's heart breaks. They've gone to war with Best but there's only going to be one winner there. Andrew's shoulders slump and I find myself watching his fingers. They're twitching like he's already got them wrapped around the door handle. That's it! His career at Chester is over.

  What comes over me? No fucking clue, but I decide it's up to me to sort this out. This is a minor lover's tiff - not sure how literally - and these people all want to be together. One or more is too stubborn to say that.

  As Best said, I'm not part of it. I'm independent. I can say things they are too prideful to say, and with me there's no sexual tension getting in the way. At least I hope not. 'Best. Do you want Andrew to stay?'

  'Yes.'

  'Andrew, do you want to stay?'

  'Yes.'

  I get confused then because it can't be that simple and these clowns can't be that stupid. Can they? I try to work it out. I look at Best. 'You'd give him a long-term contract but with no increase.'

  'I suppose I could find a little bit down a sofa. But the real money comes later.'

  'What - ' says Gemma, but I have this feeling that, smart and beautiful as she is, she's not helping. As politely as possible, I put my hand up to stop her.

  I say, 'What does real money mean?'

  Best turns to the tactics board and moves the right midfielder into the centre and back again. 'Chester pay him call centre cash. He grinds for two years. We sell him. He skips lobster money, goes straight to Gemma money.'

  'Gemma money,' I say. 'What's that in pounds and pence?'

  'They know.'

  Gemma's shaking her head. 'Gemma isn't on Gemma money.'

  'And neither is Andrew. And he won't ever be unless he commits. The only way up is me. I am Andrew's staircase to heaven.'

  Gemma's fire gets more intense, I'm awestruck and terrified, and then it dies down. 'Nutcase, more like.' Amazingly, she looks at me for help. What’s the next move? I jerk my head away and she understands what I'm saying. She steps to me, offers a hand, pulls me up, and says in a ladylike tone, 'Would you escort me to the bar?' She opens the door, we go through, and she puts her arm around mine.

  As we go, I look back and see the two men in the same pose, looking awkward. Best says something and Andrew laughs and goes to the camping chair.

  TopPoppy

  Fuck! Why is it always so intense?

  BrokenGround

  That was only the first ten minutes!

  I need to take a break. My wrists are killing me.

  Stoop

  Mine too.

  TopPoppy

  Log off, pervert!

  BrokenGround

  Okay I'm back. Where was I? Ah, yeah, Best is talking to Andrew.

  'Thank you for that,' says Gemma, once we're out of sight of the shed.

  'Um,' I say, because there are more people milling about and they are looking over wondering why such a beautiful woman is with me. I tell myself I don't give a shit what they think. 'Your boyfriend was good against Newcastle. He's a grafter and he didn't seem overawed by the occasion. Best wouldn't have let him go, not really.'

  'He would. He's incredibly stubborn. He's impossible.'

  'He's not,' I say. 'Sorry to be, er, personal but I think you went at it head on and that's not how you work him.'

  'No?'

  'You've got to go at an angle. Get him talking about something else then link it back to what you really want to talk about.' She's giving me a strange look. We're just outside the bar. 'He was doing this weird football with us. We call it Bestball. He wouldn't explain anything we were doing if we straight-up asked, but we learned that if you talked about the big match on TV last night you could get him talking about offside traps and then say 'is that why we play a high line?' It doesn't always work but it's much better.'

  She gives me a different sort of strange look. I'm not used to being this close to women who look like movie stars, lads. 'What were you doing in his office?'

  'Just waiting until seven. Passing the time.'

  'Huh. Do you mind that we interrupted?'

  'No.'

  'Good. Okay, well, are you going to buy me a drink or what?'

  Lads, I got mad brave! 'You're on Gemma money. Why don't you buy me one?'

  She liked that, but she's one who likes to be in charge. 'Why don't you hold the door open for me like a gentleman?'

  Good point! I do just that, giving her a fancy bow as she goes past, and we get tea and coffee and chat and she's proper normal really. Not stuck up or anything. 'How did all this start anyway?'

  'Oh,' she says. 'It's like he said, he was dishing out contracts and we heard from some of the other lads they got tiny raises. Like a hundred here, two hundred there. But we're in League Two now so that can't be right. Where's the million pounds from TV? Max runs this place like he's all-powerful and he makes all the decisions without caring what people think. One day he's saying Andrew can't get a raise, the next he's buying stupid advertising boards for the pitch out there. Do you know what I mean? No-one pushes back because they want to be the next Sam Topps and get a good move. Aff and Carl got good moves, and Glenn. Most of the players grumble about the pay but get on with it because when Max says you get paid later, he's not talking out of his arse. Even MD doesn't push back. If Max says we need six goalkeepers, MD will let him as long as it's within budget. So I decided someone needed to stand up to him.'

  'He's Julius Caesar and you're Brutus.'

  Gemma points a finger at me and I stare at her nails and get turned on. 'Don't call me a brute, thank you very much.'

  'I meant - '

  'I'm teasing you.'

  'Oh.'

  'Well, he can be Julius Caesar with the other lads but not with Andrew. I want Andrew to be paid what he's worth today and tomorrow because I think he's brilliant.' She gets a wry look about her that goes great on those lips. 'I admit I may have miscalculated market sentiment.'

  'No bugger wanted him.'

  She laughs. 'Yeah. We had a bad time because Andrew wasn't getting on the pitch - they call it getting minutes. I hate that phrase; it's insipid. But if he's not getting minutes he's not improving and if he's not on the pitch he's not catching the eye. Andrew had a slump. It's hard being frozen out like that. I can't understand how Max can see one of his players suffer every day and not do anything about it.'

  'Oh,' I say.

  'What?'

  'It's just, I'm a Wrexham fan and we talk about Chester a lot on our Discord.'

  She frowns. 'Why?'

  'They're our rivals.' It sounds petty so I move on. 'We talked about that situation and we thought it was good.' She glares at me. 'Sorry, I mean, good management from Best. From the club's point of view. If you have a guy who wants too much money and you go nuclear on him, the other players fall into line. It happens in the army. They'll beast someone who's late so hard that no-one will be late again for three months. I know it isn't nice to think about but...'

  'He should do it with one of the others.'

  'Andrew's perfect, though, isn't he? He's close to Best but not a first team regular. It's shocking for the other players but doesn't weaken the team.'

  She takes an angry sip of coffee. 'You're all such boys. There were twenty ways to handle it better.'

  'I have no doubt that's true.'

  She looks down into her cup. 'It has been pretty horrible. When we meet up with the WAGs there's pity and fear. It could be their husband next, sort of thing. Probably loads of jokes about me.'

  'They're only jealous.'

  'The other players were great. Told him to keep his head down, keep working hard, and try again in January. And Max, to be fair, is pushing Noah hard, giving him first team minutes, extra coaching. Michael's doing well at Saltney. If you care about your brothers like Andrew does, it helps.' She puts her hands around her cup and eyes me. 'You're a Wrexham fan, are you? What do you think about that whole Ryan Reynolds thing?'

  We talk about that for a while and then Andrew comes in and sits with us. He's smiling. He smiles at me. 'There's the man of the hour! The man who saved my career!'

  'What did he say?' says Gemma.

  Andrew rocks his head back and laughs. 'All kinds of fucking mental things, as usual.'

  She pokes him. 'Tell me! Did you agree anything?'

  Andrew pinches his nose, still smiling, and launches into the tale. 'So you two left and he goes, right, let's sort this out. Start by telling Gemma I apologised.'

  She is gobsmacked. 'He apologised? Max?'

  'No,' laughs Andrew. 'He told me to tell you that. Then he got serious and he was, like, you've done just about enough to become a squad player for a National League team. You can go somewhere and get minutes but you'll never be a proper first team regular. You need to stay here and let me turn you into a Championship player. When you're getting ten grand a week you won't look back and be angry you were getting five hundred when you should have been getting seven.'

  'Ten grand a week?' I say. I know footballers get that kind of money, course I do. But this guy's bang average at best and he's sitting next to me in this crappy cabin.

  He nods. 'He said I'm gonna be 24 this season and if I pull my finger out I could be as good as Lee Contreras by the summer. I spend next season grinding up to League One quality, then he can start to think about selling me, or I do a season with Chester in the Championship. When I'm 26 or 27 he'll sell me for a million and I'll get five figures a week for a few years. We've talked about this before but that was when we were in non-league and I was just happy to be a footballer. Now it all seems a lot more real.'

  'Hang on,' I say, and even as I'm doing it I know I should stay quiet before they realise they're saying all this in front of a stranger. 'You think that Best can turn you into a player who gets ten grand a week?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you risked that to get a tiny pay raise?' Andrew looks away and Gemma glares at me. I've got nothing to lose, so I say, 'I can't believe you're making me say this, but I'm on Best's side!'

  Gemma's glare turns into an amused scoff. 'He can pay Andrew more now and more later. It's not that hard, Dylan. So what was his offer?'

  'Ah.' Andrew gets shifty. 'He said because I'd been quote a dick unquote and because he couldn't be seen to be backing down, he was only prepared to offer me five hundred a week and I had to sign a four-year contract and trust him.'

  I slammed my palm into the table causing all the crockery and cutlery to slam and crash. 'What!' I find myself curling my fists into balls. 'What a prick! Fuck!'

  Gemma's smiling at me again. I'm back in her good books. She isn't mad, and the reason becomes clear soon enough. 'What did you say?'

  'I said yes.'

  'No!' I cry. 'Mate! It's just one of his willy-waving moves. A fucking test.'

  Andrew smiles. 'I know.'

  'Oh.'

  'Yeah. I did some good acting in there, let me tell you. Said it was difficult. Said I was worried about losing face with Gems.' Gemma reaches out and takes his hand, shaking her head. They look into each other's eyes for a few seconds, forgetting I'm there. It's not the SPARKS but it's nice. They're a good couple. 'Yeah, made a bit of a meal of it but said I wanted to play for Chester and prove myself and the Newcastle match made me hungry and I was a team player and if I had to show that by signing a shit contract, I would.'

  'And he told you the real offer,' says Gemma.

  'Yeah. Said there's no money now, that's not a bargaining chip, but there should be some in January so I could go to 700. A grand next year, two K the year after. He would commit to that if I committed to staying long enough for me to get to my level. But he said he'd want to renegotiate every summer like he usually did and if I was patient and didn't bring fire-breathing dragons to the meetings, he could imagine things going better than that.' Gemma smiles at the dragons reference. 'But he said he's always going to put the club first and if he needs my pay raise to pay for a backup goalie or whatever, he's going to do it and I'll have to suck it up. Then he quoted some song lyrics, I think.'

  'What were they?'

  'I only remember stairway and heaven. All that glitters isn't gold, something like that. He said it meant that if I want to get where I want to go there are no shortcuts unless I marry a rich megababe.'

  'I'm not rich,' says Gemma.

  'But you are a - ' I start, before I shut my gob pretty darn quick.

  She gets a couple of red spots on her cheeks and Andrew squeezes her hand. 'Yes, she is.' I think they would have kissed if I hadn't been there, but they didn't want to make it awkward for me. 'I might start tomorrow, he said. He said to tell you to go easy on the rapprochement tonight. Not sure what he meant.'

  'Me neither,' says Gemma, but she's lying. Even I know what it means. Andrew can't be that dim, can he? Or maybe he knows and it's him laughing at us for not knowing that he knows. 'Do we need to go home and rest?'

  'No,' says Andrew. 'I'm more than ready to play. We can stay out.'

  I'm confused. 'Are you coming to the meal tonight?'

  'What? No. My brother is training later. They're all excited about the new thing they're going to do.'

  'Ohhhh,' I say. He's got a younger brother in Chester's youth teams. I knew that but sometimes it doesn't click together, you know? It explains why Andrew is there at that time and why Gemma came straight from work.

  Best comes in, frowning. 'Dylan, the fuck? You vanished.'

  'I've been in here.'

  'Why? Why? Come on, I need you.'

  I'm cosy and Gemma's so nice to look at. 'To do what?'

  'To protect me from those who wish me ill.' I hesitate, which gets him manic. 'Rather death than dishonour, yeah? Let's go, come on.' As I get to my feet, Best flits around the bar like a bumblebee, with mums and dads replacing flowers. He goes outside and almost everyone in the bar follows him.

  Outside, there are a bunch of other parents of the under-twelves and they gather around to listen. Best has a small plastic step that he stands on.

  'Ladies and gentlemen!' he calls out, and the last conversations die down. 'My name is Max and I work here.' Some chuckles. 'My favourite song is Stairway to Heaven by Heart.'

  'Led Zeppelin!' cry three dads and one mum.

  'No, I prefer the version by Heart. It is mint. The song's like a progression fantasy and their staging of it really brings that out. Mwah! Chef's kiss. One day I was like, gosh, what do these lyrics even mean? You look at them and they're all about hedgehogs and you're like whaaaat? So I called Joe Anka and he told me it was about someone who tries to buy her way into heaven but that ain't gonna work. There's a piper and he's trying to tell the woman the right way to go to get what she wants but she doesn't listen because she's all about that sweet, sweet gold.'

  I look around because even for Chester, this can't be normal. The fuck is he on about? Most people are listening carefully, though. I notice Andrew and Gemma have snuck up and joined us. He's got his arm around her waist and she's leaning into him. Life goals, man.

  'So you might have heard rumours that Simon Black is going to Liverpool.'

  They'd clearly been dreading the news. Their best player, gone! What did it mean for their kids? There are a bunch of quiet comments, raised eyebrows, folded arms. It's all dark and furtive.

  'Before I get into it, I want to say that I am not mad at Mr. Black or Simon and if things don't work out there they will be welcome back here. Chester are getting a compensation fee for all the training we've done and I have no complaints about that side of things. Based on what I'm about to say you might put two and two together and get five, so let me say it again, there is no beef between me and Mr. Black or Simon and there never will be. Unless he scores against us, the ungrateful little shhhhh.'

  This gets a few laughs and Best's relaxed smile is winning people over.

  'Dylan! Where's my man Dylan?'

  I don't like this development one little bit, but I push my way through the crowd until I'm next to Best.

  'Dylan's a Wrexham fan but ten minutes ago I put him and Andrew Harrison in a room together and now Andrew wants to sign a new contract.'

  This gets a spontaneous burst of applause! I can't help but grin as though it actually happened the way Best said.

  'Dylan doesn't have a dog in this race and he's more than happy to call a spade a spade.' Best shows me a photo on his phone. 'What's that?'

  'It's a spade,' I confirm, and there are laughs.

  'No, that's a shovel.' More laughs. 'Dylan. Imagine you've got a twelve-year-old boy who's good at football. Would you want him here or in Liverpool's academy?'

  Everyone's looking at me. I feel like I'm supposed to say here but that's not true, is it? 'Liverpool.'

  I'm braced for whistles or boos but there's nothing like that.

  'Nah, mate. Nah.' Best is proper shaking his head. 'I'm sorry but that's just not right. At worst we're level.'

  'You and Liverpool?' I say, with zero diplomacy.

  'Yeah.'

  'Level?'

  'Yeah. Right, let's look at it. First of all, what is it they've got that we haven't? Loads of fancy buildings and stuff. Yeah, great, mostly pointless. Those buildings are full of people moving commas around on graphics to announce the fifty-million pound striker they've just signed. The one who's always going to be picked ahead of all the Simon Blacks in Liverpool's system. They've got good coaches, so have we, they play good football, so do we. When it comes to what's important, we're as good or better.

  'Here there's a pathway to the first team. You want your kids to reach their potential and so do I, whether that's top of the Premier League or top of the Cymru. I think being the best you can be is a worthy goal and all levels of footy have dignity. At Liverpool, if you're not elite or they can't flog you for a few million, they're not interested. Simon has gone to a world where every year, eighty percent of his teammates will get cut.

  'You know what I should do? I should ask Josh Owens to come and talk to you and he can tell you what it's really like in an academy. It's horrible to hear him talk about it. Heartbreaking. I've tried to make this place the opposite of what goes on there. One reason I didn't fight harder for Simon to stay is that I got Liverpool to give us a big fee and because they gave a big fee they aren't going to cut him. I think he'll be there until he's 17 at least, unless the current guy gets sacked and his replacement wants a clearout.

  'So academies are awful and most of those lads are stressed to the max worrying and fretting and meanwhile all the Chester boys are training with the first team, on the bench in the FA Cup, playing in the Cheshire Cup. Look what we're doing with Benny, Tyson, Chas, Noah, Jamie. When your children are old enough to get minutes it's going to be harder because by then we will be in the Championship. That's why I've hired Ryan Jack as a dedicated loans manager. He'll make sure your boys get exposure to meaningful football so they can develop fast and have the longest possible career. It's all planned and it's all monitored and that's why I want to keep the groups small. Fewer players, more attention, maximum development, and once you're in you don't need to worry about being cut for football reasons.'

  Best looks up past the floodlights to the night sky. There are a couple of stars out.

  'You can't buy a stairway to heaven. The path to the top needs to be built one step at a time. There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going. It's a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice - more for you than your kids, right? - but even they sacrifice. Friendships fade, they bin off parties, they can't eat tasty junk.

  'No shortcuts. It's a long road, and a hard one, but if you see one of our youth team single-handedly destroying Newcastle's midfield and you think nah it's no good here...' Lots of laughs on that one. I catch a woman's eye in the crowd and smile as wide as she does. She looks familiar, but Best is talking again. 'Watch how we go in the Youth Cup. If we are drawn against Liverpool we will wipe them off the face of the planet. I'm serious - we will annihilate them. If they're incredibly lucky, if they bribe a ref, if we get three red cards in the first ten minutes, they might scrape past us.' I laugh some more. The guy's absolutely bonkers. 'But you can't say they're a better youth system if our youth teams are running rings around theirs. You can't, can you? Dylan, give me something.'

  'I mean,' I say, 'if you beat them... yeah, I'd be impressed. I might think about letting my kid come here.'

  'Oh how magnanimous of you!' laughs Best. 'He might think about letting his imaginary kid come here. Wow. Guys, think about this for a second. We ran Chelsea close last year.'

  'Wait what?' I blurt out, and people laugh at me, not unkindly.

  Best puts his hand on my shoulder. 'The Wrexham forums follow my adventures pretty closely, but not closely enough. Yes, Dylan, we slapped them up real good but fell short. This season we're one of the strongest teams in the Youth Cup. Normally when it's five-nil at half time I say okay lads, let's not run up the score, yeah? But this season I'm saying, go ape. Big wins sell mini-bonds, and maybe it's time to show what I already know - that Chester is one of the best youth set ups in the country and that your children are in the very best place for them.'

  That's a good place to end. The parents are happy and I reckon Best has achieved his aim of stopping them from thinking about moving their kids, for a while at least. But he suppresses a grin and I know he's about to say something he probably shouldn't say.

  'One more thing, maybe.' He pauses to rearrange his face because the grin keeps coming out. 'Dylan,' he says, and I back away. 'Stop that Welshman!' he cries, even though I haven't gone more than a few feet. 'Dylan, you promised to sing me a song.'

  Okay he thinks I'm going to sing 'Let's all laugh at Wrexham' here, in front of loads of Chester fans, in front of Eat Pray Love. I turn bright red and back away.

  'Dylaaaannnnn,' yells Best, in the style of someone from a movie. 'Ah, well, no song today but he's still a Chester legend.'

  My voice starts working. 'No, I'm bloody not.' I turn and walk away.

  Best says something to the parents, hops off the little step, and catches up with me. He pats me on the back. 'How did you know this was the next stop?'

  He rushes ahead, puts the step down in the centre circle, and with a blow of Jude's whistle, the kids run over and form a semicircle around him. I wander over, but keep my distance. I don't want to be his prop again. 'I only need the twelves,' says Best, and the bigger kids rush away to their half of the pitch. The little ones are interested but fidgety, the way boys that age are. 'Okay, this will be quick. I sold Simon Black to Liverpool,' he says.

  The kids are amazed. Most, anyway. A few look like they already knew.

  'What that means is our top goalscorer is gone and we need to change things up. We have to spread the goals around and that means we have to change how we play.'

  A kid with a Scouse accent says, 'Will you get us a new striker?'

  Best considers that. 'Yeah, eventually, but I'm actually quite happy with this. You were getting one-dimensional. Pass to Simon, goal. I mean, it's not much fun, is it?'

  'It was, actually,' says that kid.

  Best smiles. 'Fine, but this is a good chance to practise some other stuff. We're going to do a false nine.' The kids love this! They want to do the things they've seen on the telly - I know the feeling. 'And we'll do a false ten. And a false eleven.' The kids look confused. 'And we'll do a false twelve, too.'

  Now they're all rolling their eyes and flopping to the ground with their arms dangling. Like, how can you joke at a time like this? 'Max, what are we really gonna do?'

  'Yeah, false nine. Two wingers in one zone. All kinds of stuff. Some of it will work, some of it won't. It's all part of your development. You want to be flexible players, right? Smart players.' They do. 'Yeah so it's sad when a teammate leaves but I'll be much less busy in the next month and I reckon I'll find a few new lads to come and play with you. So this might be our only chance to really do some crazy stuff, do you know what I mean? How do you feel about doing some crazy stuff, Steven?'

  The Scouse kid smiles. 'Yeah, okay.'

  'Bosh!' says Best. He gets down from the step but gets straight up again. 'Hands up if you've heard of Led Zeppelin.' No-one puts their hand up. Best shrugs and gets down. Without a word, one of the kids takes the step from him and carries it to the side of the pitch. This place is manic, intense, silly, but there are routines, too and the kids are well-behaved.

  It's interesting. I would send my child here.

  SummerhillBill

  So that was him heading off a run on the bank?

  BrokenGround

  Sorry, I don't get your meaning.

  SummerhillBill

  In It's a Wonderful Life, there's a financial panic and all the customers run to the bank to take their money out. Jimmy Stewart gives a big speech to persuade them not to.

  BrokenGround

  Oh! I suppose it was like that, yes.

  BeardedWonderwall

  Just caught up on today's instalment. Wonderful as always, BG! There's about an hour before the teams are named for today's three o'clock kick offs. Did you get any more gossip about Chester's line up? It's going to be interesting to compare what Best told you with what actually happens.

  BrokenGround

  I think everything I heard is in the text already. The next part was with the women's team, and then it was the under eighteens. Oh, Dan Badford and William Roberts only did half the session, the light stuff, which I think means they'll play today.

  What I gathered is that Chester will start defensive and then flip it at half time, but it's possible Best was pranking me.

  BeardedWonderwall

  Do you think he was?

  BrokenGround

  Not really, to be honest. His vibe was: this is a nailed-on win.

  BeardedWonderwall

  I might put a cheeky tenner on it.

  BrokenGround

  Whoa whoa whoa don't be blaming me if it goes tits-up.

  BeardedWonderwall

  No, I won't.

  Stoop

  You said the next part was with the women?

  TopPoppy

  Oh my God how does this guy make everything sound creepy?

  BeardedWonderwall

  They're 7 to 2.

  TopPoppy

  I don't bet. What does that mean?

  BeardedWonderwall

  It means if I put fifty quid on them, I win 175 pounds.

  TopPoppy

  If they win.

  BeardedWonderwall

  BG promised us a win.

  BrokenGround

  I'm ignoring all this.

  Quick break and then the next part.

  Okay I'm back.

  TopPoppy

  Fuck, man, that was about half an hour! Don't you know we need our fix?

  BrokenGround

  After Best talks to the kids he says he wants to go for a walk so we do a couple of laps and talk about stuff. When I have the lay of the land and know we are maximum distance from Gemma, I ask Best if there was anything between them. He laughs and says, 'She wishes'. It doesn't feel right to mention the very obvious SPARKS so I let it drop.

  I ask if he could go back, would he change anything about the Andrew Harrison situation. He doesn't think too hard. 'Yeah, I'd do it better. It's not that easy, though, is it? Things happen. People piss me off, I piss people off. Trying to avoid that will drive you crazy, right? It's about what happens next. If you leave it for two or three days, it's done. I know I should go and talk to them but... I don't want to.' He says the last part childishly and he laughs at himself. He stays in this immature tone for the next part. 'Sorry I'm not perfect, Dylan. Sorry I fall short of perfection.'

  I don't know how to reply so there's a quiet moment before Best talks again.

  'I've got this guy managing West Didsbury - that's the club I don't own. He's amazing, great coach, great tactician. When I see some manager has been sacked I think wow, Jay could do a job there. But Jay's even younger than me and he's not a player. I get away with a lot of mistakes because I can fix it on the pitch, do you know what I mean? He should probably stay at West for a while. It's a good vibe and if he wants to get some of his mistakes out of the way it's a supportive culture and when he moves on he'll have more track record and more experience of cleaning up his own mess.' He slows down while he has a deep thought. 'No shortcuts,' he says. 'Ah, look, your mates are here.'

  One of our vans has come early. The first wave of reinforcements!

  3 R Welsh in the area.

  Best gets a call and leaves. I hang out with the lads for a while; I'll skip over that stuff because it's not interesting for the most part. We keep half an eye on whatever sessions are on the big pitch while we have a quick drink in the bar. Starting slow, mind. No-one wants a load of drunken Squaddies marauding. The Brig is around and he comes to talk to us. The rest of the unit arrive and the Brig, Zach, and Pascal give us a tour of the place.

  It is a dump. Special mention to the huge health and safety hazard in the corner that is supposed to one day turn into a gym. The Chester guys are proud of their gaff, though, so there's no ball-busting from us and like I said, I personally don't mind things being a bit rough-looking if it's good at heart.

  We're back by the main pitch where the women's team are gathering waiting for their turn to go on. It's around quarter to seven by now, I reckon.

  Well, we're not the best-looking bunch of lads, I don't think, but put twenty-five young women and twenty-five soldiers in close proximity and things get spicy. Angel gets the most attention but there are a few others who would break your heart, and there are five young Welsh girls and they're obviously the easiest to talk to.

  I've gone from being the only soldier and Best's buddy to being just another number and I feel like my feet are in concrete. I stand there, swaying awkwardly.

  I'm not sure why she does it but Gemma Harrison comes and slips her arm around mine again and it's like, back off ladies, he's mine! So now I'm getting all kinds of looks from the women and I don't mind it. Then Angel is in front of me and that's intense. She looks me up and down. 'Do you follow me on Instagram?'

  'What? No.'

  'Why not? Don't you like me?'

  My mouth's dry. Gemma says, 'Dylan's a Wrexham fan. He'd never follow you on Insta, not in a million years. Isn't that right?'

  I go, 'Er, I might. If she wants.'

  Best chooses that moment to appear - Gemma slips away, not sure if that's related - I think he looks pissed but when I look away and back, he's normal. 'Did I hear the word Instagram? Bonnie,' he calls, and she comes over. It's the woman who smiled at me while Best was doing his speech. She's in a white tracksuit with gold piping. I smile at her again but she doesn't look at me. 'Angel's on social media.'

  Bonnie's a big woman. She's as tall as me, broad shoulders, solid. I rack my brains trying to remember what position she plays but it's obvious. She grimaces. 'Ruth persuaded me to let it happen. Get the account live now, rack up followers as the documentary hits. It's being managed a hundred percent by Ruth, Brooke, and Emma.'

  'Emma?' says Best, stupefied.

  Angel says, 'She's, like, my agent?' Angel is gorgeous and she's very charismatic in the documentary but in person she's a bratty teenager. She's younger than she is and makes me feel older than I am. 'Emma's actually good on socials; she always stays on-trend.'

  Best squeezes his eyes shut. 'Angel... has accounts. She can't post yet. The b-girls are posting safe, generic, sponsor-friendly crap.' Bonnie nods. Best suddenly panics. 'Can she read the DMs she's getting?'

  'I'm right here,' says Angel.

  'No,' says Bonnie.

  'Thank fuck,' says Best.

  TopPoppy

  Stoop, that explains why she isn't writing back lol.

  BrokenGround

  I go, 'What's the problem?'

  Bonnie says, 'Who are you?'

  Best goes, 'He's the army.'

  Boom. I feel ten feet tall. My chest is on fire, heart's pumping jets of pride. Fucking Max Best shouldn't be able to do this to me.

  Bonnie's face softens. 'We've had problems with stalkers and crazy people.'

  'What? Fuck.'

  'Introducing Angel to a nationwide audience is a nightmare.'

  This is what Best was on about when he was talking about someone making the women feel uncomfortable. I have to fight to unlock my jaw and unclench my fists.

  Angel doesn't like that everyone is talking over her. 'I've got 20,000 followers on Insta and my TikTok dip dance has been viewed seventy thousand times.'

  Best thumbs his temples. 'Angel, may I speak to you over here for a moment please.'

  They go off and I'm left with Bonnie. 'Sorry if I said something wrong.'

  She looks surprised. 'When?'

  'You gave me the evil eye just before, when I asked what the problem with social media was.'

  She lets out a laugh and drops her head. 'I'm sorry. Darren, was it?'

  'Dylan.'

  'Dylan. I'm Bonnie.' We shake hands. 'I'm overprotective. I get crazy and of course, she provokes it.'

  'What?'

  'The male gaze,' she mutters. She looks at her sister talking to Best. Angel is standing with her hands behind her back like a naughty schoolgirl and, yeah, it's provocative.

  I wonder if Bonnie thinks Best is leering at her sister. 'What do you think they're talking about?'

  'Oh, that's obvious.'

  I take another look and all I see is a girl who always gets what she wants. With a word she can get what she came for. 'Er...'

  'He's telling her to use this attention to improve her game.'

  Okay I wasn't expecting that. 'Pardon me?'

  Bonnie sighs. 'People are discovering her now because of the documentary. All of us, I suppose.' She looks behind and it seems like all the women are showing Squaddies something on their phone. All the likes and retweets they’re getting, I reckon, and the funny comments. 3R is lapping it all up. 'Max is saying that if Angel works extra hard these eight weeks it'll make great content.'

  'Will it?'

  'Yeah. People love an athlete who grinds. And he wants to get her in the England team so he'll be saying if there's ever two months where Angel needs to double down on her football, it's actually now.'

  I watch and there's a moment where Angel visibly stops looking up at Best with a pouty face. She starts nodding, there’s agreement, and the pair return. 'Bonnie,' says Angel. 'When you're not in the drills, will you get some clips of me doing extra sprints after everyone else has stopped?'

  'No because I have no interest in making the team look bad. Sarah and Meghan train twice as hard as you.'

  'They do not! What the fuck, Bonnie?'

  Angel tuts, stretches her left foot up to her arse, then jogs away.

  I smile. 'You two are a good team.'

  'Me and Angel?'

  'You and Best. You got in her head.'

  For once Best doesn’t look pleased with himself. 'She's ambitious. That's great. You want that but I'm worried she wants to be famous more than she wants to play. She's easy to manage now but what about when she's got a million in the bank? Football's fucking hard and you have to want to get out of bed in the morning.'

  I say, 'It’s tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at five a.m. when you’ve been sleeping in silk pyjamas.'

  'Hear that, Bonnie? Dylan's got silk pyjamas. Talk about Gemma money. Wow.' Best clicks his fingers. 'Dylan, you should watch Bonnie on Sunday. You could learn a lot from her.'

  I get quiet. 'I can't.'

  'Because she plays for Chester? Fuck me, that crap is getting old.'

  'It's Remembrance Sunday, Best.'

  Bonnie sees I'm uncomfortable and steps in, but I'm not sure she makes it better. 'Where's your poppy, Max?'

  'It's on my other hoodie,' he says, looking around.

  'You only have one hoodie.'

  'Mmm,' he says. His phone rings and he wanders off.

  'He doesn't wear poppies,' I say. 'There was a fuss about it last year. He says it's because he had the Irish player who didn't want to wear one. I was mad he came to train us.'

  'You got over it.'

  'We talked about it in the unit. Okay he doesn't wear a poppy but he's hired a veteran and he chose to do his coaching badges with us. We decided to live and let live on that one.'

  Bonnie sees the kids are packing up and it's nearly their turn. Gemma is talking to Dani, the deaf girl, via an interpreter. 'How do you know Gemma?'

  'I just met her today.'

  'Max said you sorted out the issue with Andrew Harrison.'

  'Well, it wasn't much, to be honest.'

  Bonnie frowns. 'They've been beefing for months and you just sorted it out in one go?'

  I shrug. 'I barely did anything.'

  She frowns again. 'But he's going to sign a deal?'

  'Oh, yeah. As good as done, I think.'

  'What about Wednesday?'

  'Sorry, what?'

  'We're playing on Wednesday night in the Cheshire Cup. And I'll be starting.' It takes me a second to realise she's asking me to go and watch her play. That delay makes her add, quickly, 'We play in Wales, you know.'

  I smile and she smiles and I don't know lads but I think there might have been SPARKS.

  TopPoppy

  Holy shit I just punched the air!

  Get in, mate!

  BrokenGround

  I know. I was really happy all night, apart from the one time things went all kinds of wrong.

  I just realised I need to go shopping. Shit. I'll be back in under two hours, I promise.

  Stoop

  No! Don't cliff us like that.

  SummerhillBill

  I'm reading this on a coach just pulling up to Stevenage and I let out a huge groan. People think I'm a nutcase.

  BeardedWonderwall

  All the three o'clocks kicking off. Here we go. Riches here we come!

  BeardedWonderwall

  Shit.

  If ButteryCrumpets comes in with a score update and a lol I am going to beat him to death with his own keyboard.

  ButteryCrumpets

  lol

  Also: lol

  TaranMellt

  I'm a nervous wreck watching us try to break down Stevenage so I've been catching up with this. Amazing work, BrokenGround! I'm wondering about this Chester match. Two-nil down at half time and their odds have slipped to 10 to 1. Reckon that's worth a punt?

  BeardedWonderwall

  Don't do it. It's agony. Best is a fraud. I hate him.

  Hang on, did you say ten to one?

  Fuck it.

  I'm having some of that. Double or bust!

  BrokenGround

  Just back. What's been happening?

  Chester pulled a goal back. 2-1, Henri Lyons. Lads, that guy smells amazing.

  I'm gonna write the rest of the story and the speed I type it might be done before full time.

  Okay so I scored a date, maybe, I think, and I want to stay and watch the women train, but we were there to see the youth team learn Bestball.

  We go around the cabins, around Best's office, to the big grass pitch they've got there. It's an interesting design choice because the place is pretty open but if you want to see the first team you have to go around some buildings and you'll stick out like a sore thumb. I think the women normally play on the grass but Best has bagsied it for his special project and it's like Gemma says, unless his decisions are egregious no-one's going to stand up to him.

  All the lads from 3 R Welsh gather together in the middle of the pitch, watching from the sidelines. We're expecting to see the kids start with some one-twos or maybe one of the special piggy-in-the-middle drills. What actually happens is completely different and Best is just as surprised as we are.

  Let me try to paint the picture. We're on one side of the pitch like I said. Some of our 'Chester friends' are mixed in with us. I'm talking Pascal, Zach, the Brig.

  Across the other side are more first-teamers who are curious about what's going on. These include the big captain (Fierce), Andrew and Gemma, Jackie Reaper and Livia.

  There's also a guy in a sharp suit. He has the build of a boxer and he's got three huge black bin bags with him. I later learn he's the founder of Grindhog. He's worth millions! Maybe billions one day!

  This is a Big Event.

  Pascal's talking to Fatso. The German says, 'The boys have prepared a surprise for Max.'

  TopPoppy

  Oh, boy. This is not going to end well.

  BeardedWonderwall

  Ominous as fuck! How did you put this sense of dread into my head, Dylan?

  BrokenGround

  You've set me up perfectly to subvert expectations. Yes!!!

  What happened next was that the kids had different bibs on. Two teams and they started a match. Full Bestball!

  And it was amazing. They did one-twos, nutmegs, feints, and they kept doing that thing when one player passes, another guy runs over the ball, and a third guy gets it.

  'Staircase!' yelps Pascal, hopping around.

  'What?' says Fatso.

  'It's where you let the ball run between your legs. In Brazil they call it a staircase. The boys have been researching this.'

  'They're amazing,' says Fatso, and he's right. The ball's zipping around, the blobs are fluid and when the ball is turned over there's a counter-blob, which I've never seen before because until this very minute there has never been another team in the country playing Bestball. Now there are three!

  'Fuck they're good,' I say. Like, it's unsettling that these 17-year-olds are better than us but at the same time I've got a kinship with them because we're doing something rare and it's exciting to find someone who likes the same obscure band as you even if they've been to ten times as many gigs and know ten times as much about the band. Not sure if that works as a simile but you get the idea. 3 R Welsh are, to a man, fucking impressed.

  Pascal is fucking impressed.

  Everyone is fucking impressed.

  TopPoppy

  Now! Here we go! I feel it! It's coming!

  BrokenGround

  Max Best is deeply fucking unimpressed.

  TopPoppy

  Yeeeeesssssss I knew it!

  Yes!

  He do opposite!

  What did he do?

  BrokenGround

  He stands there radiating displeasure and the vibe grows and grows. The kids are running around having fun, showing off, but it gets to them. One by one they stop playing and then it reaches critical mass and the game dies.

  The ball rolls and comes to a stop.

  Best twists his neck like kung fu fighters do before they launch into a rumble, but then he remembers 3 R Welsh are in the area.

  I wonder what he would have done if we weren't there.

  One thing I feel safe in saying is a feature of the Max Best experience is that he'll use the props that are to hand.

  SummerhillBill

  Like Jackie Chan fights with ladders or umbrellas.

  BrokenGround

  Right. Probably?

  He waves the kids over. Up close they're all scrawny and half still have baby faces.

  'Sit,' he says, and they're shitting themselves. Some are, anyway. Some still think maybe Best is acting and he's going to praise them.

  It's a weird scene, though this is Chester so maybe I should stop typing that.

  But think about it. There's a semi-circle of kids at Best's feet. Behind them is us, a load of riflemen. And across the pitch wondering what the fuck is happening are like twenty Chester VIPs and instead of watching the future of football they're looking at Best's back. They don't know what to do until Livia grabs Jackie Reaper and pulls him across. The others follow.

  Best is shaking his head because even he thinks this is absurd.

  He closes his eyes and I feel him tune out everyone watching. Everyone except two. 'Dylan and Fatso, can you please come and stand here?'

  He wants us in front of the lads, but off to the side for now.

  'Thanks.'

  He scratches his forehead and thinks about what to say. The kids have steam coming off them in the cold evening air. The wind is whispering and the floodlights make the pitch look amazing.

  'Right. First thing is, you've done some homework. You've put in extra work because you're excited and the worst thing I could do for you now is to tell you off for doing that. If you put in the work, go the extra mile, you will have success in life. You will. The mistake you've made isn't doing extra to try to impress me. I'm not mad about that.'

  The kids who weren't worried before... are. He's not mad about that. But he's mad about something.

  'I have to be honest with you, though. I have to be because this is too important to pussyfoot around trying to spare your feelings.' He scratches his head again. 'What I just saw looked like twenty TikTok pricks doing random shit on a football pitch and then someone spliced it all together. The greatest crossover event in history and guess what? None of them were even in the same country!' He breathes out. 'That's what it looked like.'

  I've got to hand it to Fatso, he's getting pretty fearless these days. 'I thought it was good.'

  Best eyes him. 'It was faster than what you're used to. It was technically good. Sadly it was also dogshit.' He inhales and cricks his neck again. Instead of getting louder and bigger, he gets quieter and more emotional. 'All right, listen. You can't learn this from a screen. It's like learning to drive. You can read all the manuals you want but you only start learning the minute you sit in the driver's seat. Does that make sense?'

  He's not talking to me but I nod. 'That's right,' I say, surprised that I spoke.

  'My favourite song is Stairway to Heaven,' he says, and I wonder how that can work as a team talk if he always says the same thing. 'It's about a footballer who wanted to learn something insanely difficult in ten seconds without putting the work in. Actually, forget that. You know what this is like? You've been in a club and you were talking to a megababe and this rando turns up and says hey baby wanna see some magic? And he pulls the 7 of hearts out of her bra. And you've gone home - alone - and thought huh I'd better learn to do that. So you're in clubs trying to stick cards down bras and you're getting bounced out because you've got to spend thousands of hours learning to, like, wibble cards along your knuckles and make a deck spin around and all that stuff. You need to drop ten thousand packs of cards before you drop one bra. Do you get what I mean?'

  The image of these guys trying to use close-up magic to attract women is a masterstroke. A few lads get dug in the arms. Busted!

  'Here's why I wanted to start this with the army. Did you ever think why the army wants its soldiers doing football? I wouldn't want my army going round with broken legs all day but this army does want that. Why? Five reasons.'

  Here comes one of the bits where he knows more about the army than he lets on. The five things he says are straight off the desk of the joint commander, with Best's own spin on it, of course.

  'One, physical fitness. Almost everyone here will run ten times further if there's a ball involved. Two, mental resilience. You win, you lose, you get unfairly sent off. Your weirdo manager makes you do tedious drills for hour after hour. Three, leadership. Football needs different skills at different times and you need different leaders at different times. When you're under the cosh you look to Dylan.'

  FUCK, he's done me again. The kids are looking up at me, so's Livia, so's the founder of Grindhog. I'm eleven feet tall. I'm literally floating.

  'When you need a goal you get it to Fatso. Four, teamwork. Five, recruiting and retention. You stay in the army longer if you love playing footy for your unit, or if you've got the chance to win your league or you're in the tournament next May or whatever.

  'I thought Bestball was perfect for those five principles and for my mental image of what it's like to be in the army.' He calls it some other name, by the way, but it's dumb and meaningless so I'm sticking to Bestball. 'Positional play is all about the manager, all about abstract space. Bestball is about teamwork and real, human connections. Captain, what's the first thing I said to you back in our first game?'

  'You said, I'm Max Best and I hate the Welsh army.'

  There is uproar and even Best laughs. Big, easy smile, all the tension gone. He looks at me and jabs his thumb at the kid. The balls on this fucking prick.

  Captain has done his big joke and now it's back to business. 'You said, be a unit.'

  'Right. Unit. United. Well here's an actual unit. Here's what we're trying to get to, right? I broke the task down to the very smallest unit of football. The pass. Dylan passes to Fatso. Fatso passes back. We did that for hours. Ages and ages. I would have done it a lot more but I only get them a couple of hours a week. Now, what happens if you pass to Fatso for hours? One, you go crazy. Two, you learn that Fatso has a nice first touch on his right but not so much on his left. You try to hit his best side. If you make it easier for him you get the ball back quicker. Then we add a third player and a fourth and after fucking loads of repetition we learn that Hot Rod underhits his passes and Clitheroe overhits. We put the work in. Hours of this. Slowly building everything from the ground up.

  'Now we start to get to bigger groups, what we've been calling the blob. When you watch these guys play you can fucking see that they're a unit. You see their army training the way they look after each other. When they lose the ball there's almost no yelling or complaining, it's basically get back into position, sort things out. It's fantastic. The only problem is they play other army units so we can't exploit that advantage.'

  Best closes his eyes, smiles, shakes his head at the unfairness of it all.

  'But when they've got the ball, that's my training. You try to press them and they blob around. Dylan's at the back. He plays it to Fatso's good foot. If he takes a nice first touch the move goes on. If it's a bad touch you'll see everyone in the blob take a step back towards goal. I don't think they know they're doing it.'

  He's right. I've never noticed that.

  'It's an automatic response because subconsciously they know it's a moment of danger and they know that because we put the time in on those drills. Ditto when Hot Rod's on the ball - you'll see three guys take a step closer to him. The blob changes shape, see, depending on who has the ball and where.

  'That's part of the reason it's no good you watching some fucking team in Brazil for this. Do you get me? Even watching 3R doesn't teach you anything. If you're there thinking 'shit where would Dylan be right now?' you are fucked. Dylan's in his blob. We've got Captain, Bomber, Henk. We don't have Fatso, we have Dan. This blob will be much slippier.'

  Wibbers grabs Dan by the neck and shakes him around while the other lads laugh.

  'Okay and if 3R could cover their ears for a second...' Best does a stage whisper that everyone can hear. 'You guys are much better than them.' He checks we're not offended - I think that's what he was doing - and goes back to his normal voice. 'You'll be able to make the blob really small sometimes, or move much faster, or do double-bluffs with balls over the top, and, yes, you can do staircases.' He changes tone. 'I learned it as rivers, not staircases, but that's part of what I'm saying. We should start with a blank page, grind, work at it, see what emerges. It might look superficially similar to the examples you've been watching but the experience of how you do it will be quite different. If you don't know what anything's called, what anything's supposed to look like, you will create something new and unique. You'll have your own vocabulary, and you'll invent your own tools and techniques. It will all grow from the work and from the unique combinations of talents we have here. Nothing comes from nothing. We'll bake a universe from scratch.'

  Just then, when the message has been delivered loud and clear, his phone's screen flashes. The sound's off but he sees who it is, holds up a finger, and like seventy people watch him speak.

  'Yes? Top. Amazing. First thing Monday. Done. Yes. Yes, I'm still speaking to you. Bye.'

  He jumps and punches the air, then wraps his arms around me.

  'Don't just buy it, bosh it! Yes, mate!'

  He follows a triple air punch with him acting like he's been struck by lightning, arms wide, head back.

  All the lads are watching in absolute awe. What does it mean? Best looks at them and throws his hands up. 'What are you all down there for? Are you ready to do some fucking work or what?'

  They scramble to their feet and within seconds they're doing a drill unlike anything we've ever done. It’s the full pitch, two teams, but Best connects three sets of two players with the long elastic strips that goalies use. They're the only players allowed to move 'freely' - everyone else has to stay in assigned zones.

  It makes no sense. It's mad and chaotic. The boys are laughing, we're laughing, and Best is running around trying to get in the way of the elastic bands to make it even harder for the lads to play.

  The elastics come off and the playing area gets smaller. It's a big rondo drill with players who change sides depending on who has the ball - we never did anything that complicated. It's so fast I can barely keep up with the action.

  Five minutes of that, the teams get cut in half and so does the playing area. Five minutes later, it's smaller again. By the end, the lads are doing one-twos.

  He has done what 3 R Welsh did but in reverse. I'm no expert on anything but I do have unique knowledge of this Bestball stuff and to me what he did with that session was absolute genius. I'd like to think that if he'd done it with us that way, we'd have realised that all the skills we were training were needed for the previous drill, if you get me. We'd have been motivated to do the smaller, more boring drills because we'd have understood how everything linked together.

  Of course, he had to try it the most obvious way with us to get to that conclusion.

  Teulu

  And he heard what Pascal said.

  BrokenGround

  What do you mean?

  Teulu

  You remember when you were at Colliers and Parky was watching your drill. You gave it a cool name. Retreat or something.

  BrokenGround

  Run, You Worms.

  Teulu

  That's it! Pascal watched that and suggested an upgrade, didn't he? Start at the end point so the players know where to run back to. It sounds to me like Best took that idea and applied that to his whole session. I'm guessing he'll run every session in reverse like that until Pascal gives him an even better idea.

  BrokenGround

  That's interesting.

  TopPoppy

  So did he buy that player? The one you called Charles, who I know as Calabash Barkley?

  BrokenGround

  I think so because I was the only one in the room with him when he made the offer and that's why he celebrated with me.

  TopPoppy

  Why was the guy from Grindhog there?

  BrokenGround

  Oh, he was giving out gear to the youth team. They were buzzing. Three bin bags of swag and they were diving in pulling out what they liked. Best got pissed and said, 'Is this Chesterness?' After that it was a lot more civilised.

  BeardedWonderwall

  85th minute. Wimbledon 3 Chester 3. Stevenage 0 Wrex 0.

  My nerves are wrecked.

  I hate football.

  TopPoppy

  Was that the end, BG?

  BrokenGround

  We had the dinner and got boozed up. The food was as good as he promised and, I mean, free booze.

  Oh, I suppose there was one tiny thing. It's not even worth mentioning.

  Actually, maybe I will. It's only fair to Best.

  It's about the poppies. Best and the guy from Grindhog make themselves cosy behind the bar where there's a tiny bit of space. That's where they ate, I mean, and fair play to both of them for slumming it. They stayed for a couple of drinks, too. Alcohol-free for Best, your basic lager for the rich lad. He's having fun, I reckon, with footballers and Squaddies all around. He used to play and he's one of us really. Fits right in. Someone makes a joke about him making kits for 3R but Best goes, 'He can't. He's not allowed to reproduce military crests. You need a special licence.' And there it is again - how much does he know and why does he pretend he's clueless?

  Anyway, I promise it wasn't me but someone brings up the poppies. I think the box got knocked on the floor in all the mayhem of having twice as many people in the cabin as it was supposed to have. Actually it just came to me. It was Frampton, the goalie, who'd had a couple too many maybe. He wasn't nasty, just brought the mood down. He goes, 'Why don't you wear a poppy? It's not that you have to do it but you should do it.'

  Best shrugs the way he does and goes, 'What about people who don't want to? I support the army, mate. I know who'll be in the trenches when the bullets start flying. And I support veterans. I do things. But not everyone in this country wants to wear this particular symbol and for some reason that hits home with me. I don't think I want to be forced to wear a symbol, even a good one.'

  I put my hand on Frampton to shut the clown up. Best is having a good day and so am I, and the unit had agreed to live and let live. 'I'm all right with you not wearing a poppy, Max.' He gives me a funny look and it's just now that I realise it's the first time I haven't called him Best. 'I'm fine with it if that's your choice and I know you do your thing in your way but for us lads who are getting blown up on tours and all that - '

  He looks horrified. 'You got blown up?'

  I don't want to talk about it, obviously. 'Yeah but I'm just saying - '

  'You got blown up, did years of rehab... and went back into the army?'

  I look around. No-one's talking now. Only a couple of the older lads have heard about me. The IED, the firefight, the doctors saying I'd never walk again. The unbelievable ecstasy of being able to climb a flight of stairs. I swallow hard. 'They're my family, Max. It's my unit. It's all I've got.'

  It's all quiet.

  I wonder what Best is thinking, wonder if he feels the same about Chester as I do about 3R. Probably not, right? He's got his girlfriend. He's got... Has he got anything else?

  He reaches into the box and fixes a poppy to his hoodie. He looks at the Grindhog guy but he's already wearing one; he taps it.

  Frampton, the absolute shit, is still not happy and I want to smash an electric guitar over his skull. 'Aren't you going to pay for that?'

  Best isn't ruffled. He's still thinking about what I said about the unit being my family. 'The team pays,' he says.

  I go, 'Chester pays when someone takes a poppy?'

  'Not Chester. The first team. Out of our party fund.'

  Frampton goes, 'Oh,' sort of aggressive. But then he goes 'oh'. An appropriate oh, this time, from a human being who has very nearly killed the party.

  That girl Angel is about ten yards away in the mass of bodies. She uses the counter to pull herself up and goes, 'Dylan, will you talk about your experiences on my TikTok?' Someone - I think I know who - pulls her back down and there's some laughter from that area and then conversations break out all around the bar and the party's back in full swing again.

  TopPoppy

  Actually welled up a bit reading that last part.

  BeardedWonderwall

  Not me! I'm laughing my head off.

  Full time!

  Wimbledon 3 Chester 5. Stevenage 0 Wrexham 1.

  Three points and the Red Dragons stay top of the table while Dylan's best mate Max Best scores a late free kick to seal the win and DEFY THE BOOKIES! I'm up almost 700 quid from that!

  I love football and I love Dylan.

  BEST STORY EVER, mate!