10.

  TV show glossary: Bottle episode. An episode set in a single location, usually with a reduced cast. Bottle episodes are normally used to save money but are sometimes employed for audacious artistic reasons. Cough bottle cough.

  ***

  Sunday, November 30

  XP balance: 23,566

  Base Cost of Relationism: 29,211

  Cost After 10% Discount: 26,290

  Analysis: Sooooonnnnnnn

  Mini-bonds sold: 3.05 million

  Target: 5 million

  Analysis: Tin-pot little non-league club lol get back in your crevice

  ***

  I got to Morton's, the big wine shop near the city centre, a few minutes before it closed. Just enough time to grab a bottle, pay, and leave. Home in time for the start of the second half of Wrexham versus Blackpool, the final televised match of this year's FA Cup second round. Wrexham were the big name, of course, while Blackpool and the FA Cup went together like chicken and chips.

  I had extra incentive to watch; we had drawn Blackpool in the first knockout round of the Vans Trophy. They were a mid-table League One side so I would have to use Bench Boost on them. There was far too much of that going on these days.

  I heard the trill of the door behind me. Someone coming or going? I needed to hurry up.

  Morton's was overwhelming. Wine everywhere, which I know is the point of a wine shop but there were as many different bottles on shelves or artfully displayed on oak barrels as I had midfielders in my mental database of players.

  Henri had told me once I should think of a bottle of wine as being alive. Chemical processes were happening within. The quality of the wine was changing, the value of the product was fluctuating, some needed to be drunk now, some later. Some went well with cheese, some with pizza, some worked well in a good, old-fashioned 4-4-2. Eleven green bottles, hanging on the wall, and if one green bottle should accidentally be sold to Walsall...

  "Is there anything I can help you with?"

  It was a guy around thirty and his expression made me wonder how long I'd been standing there motionless. The music that had been playing had stopped and now there was only a low electrical hum and, in a nearby room, a screen was tuned to the Wrexham match. Sounded like it was still the first half; maybe there had been a long stoppage. "I need a bath wine."

  "What's a bath wine?"

  "A wine you drink in the bath."

  He smiled and looked around. The implication was: any will do. An older guy had just finished with a customer and was reversing the sign on the door. From my point of view it now read 'open', which sent me into a brain freeze. "You're Max Best, right?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Look, I know you don't like to be bothered in public but we're both big Chester fans. Dad," he called, and the older guy came over with a slight smile on his lips. "Dad, I was going to offer Max Best the deluxe private shopping experience."

  "Oh, right," said the dad.

  "What does that entail?" I asked.

  "You know," said the guy, whose name badge said Steve. "We lock out all the plebs and let the celebrity browse in peace."

  "Keep out the great unwashed," said the older guy. Name badge: Mike.

  "How often do you do this?" I asked.

  They looked at each other and babbled incoherently. "Do we count...?" "There was that actress..." "Remember Christmas?" "Ah, but was that really Stormzy?" Finally, Mike said, "This is the first time."

  I smiled. "Sure, yes, okay. It won't be much of an experience for either of us, though. I'll only need a minute."

  "Take your time," said Mike. "It's amazing what you've done for this city."

  He went to lock the door and switched off a couple of lights to deter randos from approaching the big storefront. Steve backed away to give me a chance to settle into the wine buying mindset.

  The first area was a couple of tables of books about wine and some gift ideas. I breezed past.

  The next section hit me like a slap in the face. In among the selection of wine (with monks, nuns, or crosses on the label) was some unexpected religious tat - bookmarks with golden frills, copies of the Bible, posters of Jesus squashing red grapes. The name of the section was: Catholic Wine.

  "The hell?" I mumbled, and Steve came closer. Since I'd started it, I felt I had to talk to him. "I'm guessing you Mortons are big Catholics. Why do you open on Sundays? Not that I'm complaining, it's ace."

  Steve said, "We'd be Church of England, I reckon, but weddings and funerals only. No, this is marketing. Catholics love a glass of wine, Mr. Best, and if you have this stuff for sale it absolves them of guilt and they buy more."

  "First of all, call me Max. Second, you're joking."

  "I'm not."

  "He's not," called the dad from across the way. Incredible hearing, that guy.

  There was an ornament for sale, one of those thin metal plates you can hang up in your kitchen. This one read:

  Love is that liquour sweet and most divine,

  Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.

  I couldn't tell if it was romantic or creepy or what so I left it where it was and pulled out a religious bookmark. "Isaiah 63," I read. "Who is this coming... with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength?" I nodded. "Okay for once I wasn't covered in blood but that sounds like me after the Wimbledon match."

  Steve's face lit up. "Five-three away! Amazing second-half comeback!"

  "Yeah," I said, remembering how annoying that match had been. To get us shooting up the league I'd had to risk using my best players for the third time in a week and I'd had to waste Bench Boost. Not the right match to use it in, but I had no choice because at that point we still hadn't hit halfway in bond sales. "It was end-to-end madness until I slipped that free kick under the wall. They didn't have a draught excluder." Those are the players who lie flat on the floor behind a defensive wall. When the kick is about to be taken, the players in the wall jump, which makes it harder to score over the wall but leaves a juicy gap under it. The draught excluder fixes the problem. "Then a minute later when we got another free kick they used a draught excluder which meant they were a man short at the back post, I clipped it to Christian, he boshed it, rebound, craziness, ends up being given as an own goal."

  "Back of the net," said Steve, as though he was seven years old.

  "There's this photo of me leaving the pitch at the end and I look all epic. Like this verse. Robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength. The only thing is, though, that's not how I was feeling."

  "No?"

  "No. Even with my best moves, that match could have gone either way. Wimbledon battered us for parts of the game. I don't walk off the pitch after a win thinking wow let's forget the sixty minutes where we were dogshit. Fans can do that but, yeah, I was thinking about all the work we needed to do on the training pitch. And what I was going to have for dinner. Oh, that reminds me. I'm having beef tonight."

  "Right," he said, briefly confused because he was still thinking about football. "So you want a bottle of red, I expect."

  "Yeah," I said, looking back at the bookmark. I looked up again. "Nice bit of beef, fresh veggies, glass of red. It's not that indulgent, is it?"

  "No."

  "But we got a nice cut and I thought, okay, nice wine." I paused and contemplated for quite a long time. "I don't know."

  Steve opened his mouth to reply, but shut it again.

  "I don't know if I want to connect beef and wine. It's already quite a strong link in my head. Do you want beef? Yes. You can't have wine. Okay, then I don't want beef. When I have pizza I want wine. When I have cheese after six p.m. I want wine. That's not healthy, is it? I need to be careful. My grandmother hit the sauce really hard and I think that demon is in me. I had it last winter. Got pretty plastered because I was sad and bored."

  "You're not bored now, though?" said Steve, hopefully. "Cup runs, fundraising, new stadiums."

  "It's pretty boring sometimes, Steve. Newport County away. Four-one-four-one, keep things tight, goal from a set piece, switch to 5-3-2 defensive. It's the right thing to do, it's professional, it's boring." I skimmed the bookmark again. The verse seemed to be about God crushing his enemies like grapes. "I trampled them in my anger and trod them down in my wrath; their blood spattered my garments, and I stained all my clothing. See that's what I want to do. That's epic. Blocking Newport's passing lanes and man-marking their full-backs is the opposite of that. It's like asking the grapes to crush themselves." I sighed. "Do you sell a lot of these?"

  "No, Max."

  I chuckled. "You sell more wine, though. Catholic wine. You guys are naughty. I love it."

  The next section was British wines. Skipped right past that.

  "Okay, French," I mused.

  "Henri Lyons comes," said Steve.

  "Does he give you shit about the selection?"

  "No, he's very nice. Knows a lot but he's not a snob. He's learning about Portuguese wines from us. When you recommend a wine and he likes it, that's a good feeling. While we're here, let me find a Bordeaux I remember he raved about... He gave it four Henris. Four's his maximum."

  Steve ran his finger along the shelves but I picked up a bottle. "Okay, this one, Steve. Look. See the font? That font makes me think mmm yes I'll enjoy this. There's a little picture of a horse. Horses are expensive - except in Ireland, never understood that - so it makes me feel like a real boy. And it's got a badge. See the badge? 95 points."

  "Do you know what competition that is from?"

  "No but I only buy wines with badges and trophies."

  He smiled uncertainly. "It's a good wine you're holding. Good year."

  "Good year," I said, slowly, remembering an advertising campaign Nike had run in the olden days. "1966 was a good year for English football; Eric Cantona was born."

  "And England won the World Cup."

  "That's the joke!" shouted his dad.

  "Oh, right," said Steve. "You're a Manchester United fan."

  "I was," I said. "It's just a business now. Big cash machine."

  "Dad was thinking about buying some bonds but it's such a big commitment and so much could go wrong. And what if you leave? What if United sack their manager again and they ask you?"

  "I'll say no," I said, touching the badge on the wine. "It's embossed, Steve. Feel that."

  Mike shuffled closer. "You'd say no to Manchester United?"

  I made a gesture that encompassed - in my mind - the city, most of the county and quite a chunk of north Wales. "I'm not done here."

  Mike said, "Would you buy these bonds?"

  "Me personally? If I were you? Yeah. It's free money. Sales are chugging along but it looks like I might have to sell players to make up the shortfall. That's frustrating because I was just starting to convince myself to let loose. Ah, well, when the stand's built it'll all be worth it. Loads of clubs had to cut their cloth while their stadium was being built. Arsenal, Spurs. It's life on hard mode, okay, but it's not harder than fighting my demons."

  I put the wine back on the shelf, paused, then picked it right back up again.

  "I'm probably not going to buy any myself because people don't like it when I mix my finances with the club's, and I do understand that. Also, I was talking to Ruth. She's a former board member and an agent. She got the women's team started. I asked why she wasn't piling in and she said: diversification. She warned me about it, too. It's not just that all my money's tied up in football, I'm paid by a football club, too. I have four thousand and one pounds in shares but everything else is football. For now it makes sense that I turn the flywheel but at some point I need to balance my portfolio. People buy wine like an investment, don't they? Is any of this going to be worth big wonga one day?"

  One of the great frustrations of being a football insider was that virtually everyone I met only wanted to talk about one thing. Mike said, "I'm in a chat group with some friends and we were talking about the bonds. One mate said he wouldn't buy any because our underlying numbers are bad and we concede too many early goals."

  "I think those statements might be contradictory," I said, vaguely. I was trying to focus on the wine. The 95 bottle felt good in my hand. The weight was as good as the font. I realised from their faces that I would have to explain. I put the wine back on the shelf. "Think back to last Saturday. We're at home to Colchester and they're pretty weak." United had an average CA of 71. We played 4-4-2 diamond with an average of 77. That 77 was exciting; it was high considering we had a few squad players in the eleven. Wibbers was the top of the diamond, Andrew Harrison celebrated his new contract with a hard-running midfield role, and Cole Adams started at left back. "They get an early goal. I'm delighted."

  "What?"

  "Okay, delighted is too strong, but this is what we do. We sucker the oppo into playing their way."

  Mike said, "Playing our way, you mean."

  "No, playing their way. Let's take a typical example. A goal kick early in the match. Sticky places the ball, Zach and Christian drop to be level with him. The other team can't go into the penalty box until the ball's kicked so we get a safe pass and we can start to build through the thirds. You've seen that, right? It's called 'playing out from the back.' Every team in the Premier League does that. Most Championship teams. Maybe two-thirds of League One and League Two teams do it.

  "We do it and Colchester think, oh! We know this. They have a set response: they push their defensive line up to half way, squeeze us while the forwards work their socks off pressing us. If they turn over the ball they have it close to our goal with our defenders spread out and that's deadly.

  "Now you're probably thinking, I trust Zach on the ball but not so much Christian Fierce and definitely not Sticky. You're thinking Max Best must be a fucking idiot to ask his players to do that. And I agree. Which is why we only do that for ten minutes. For the next 35 we go long but we drop Zach short every goal kick. It looks like we're thinking about playing out from the back, right? It's 'false playing out from the back.' It's fake.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "But Colchester get an early goal by forcing us into a mistake. After that, they're like the hunter who saw a rabbit run into a tree. They're sitting by the tree waiting for the next rabbit to kill himself. They don't seem to realise we're going long, or maybe they tell themselves we're buckling under their pressure.

  "So think about what the pitch looks like. Their slow defenders are on the half way line. Our fast attackers are also there. We go long, Dazza wins a header, now we've got Sharky or Wibbers practically one-on-one with the keeper. We get two or three incredible chances like that but they tend to fall to our least developed players, which is one of the times the whole underlying numbers thing doesn't paint much of a picture. The chances aren't as good as the data suggests because of who the chances are falling to.

  "Okay but I don't really care about particular data points - it's my job to balance the overall risk and reward. When I'm watching matches like Colchester I love our balance and I can't believe the other managers are happy with what's happening but they are. They are! Or they don't understand the meta game I'm playing with them. Who knows?

  "Most managers don’t react to my early strategies until half time. Some don’t react at all! The ones that do have data guys they listen to so I spend a lot of time devising routines to fool data guys. Like against Colchester I was sure they told the manager that we were playing long ball so the first five minutes of the second half I went short again so that the manager would lose faith in his analyst."

  Steve's eyes had been getting wider as I spoke. "Wow."

  "Yeah," I said. "I'm not playing the same sport as most of these guys. I'm not sure if I've improved or if League Two is only a slight step above the National League. Some of the managers are good but half are doing things they aren’t comfortable with. Imagine if Ian Evans got a League Two job now. If it's the end of the season, ten games to go, he can do whatever he wants. But very few owners are going to hire him after seventeen games and say please play achingly dull, defensive football. Ian would have to try playing out from the back for at least five games, right, if that was a condition of him being hired. So you've got a bunch of managers doing things they aren't comfortable with and don't believe in. Another bunch believe in it and can coach it but don’t have the players to do it; they do it anyway."

  Mike was frowning. "You'd think they would be more pragmatic."

  "I know. But 17 of the 24 managers do it. Playing out from the back is just football now. That's what the sport looks like and you won’t be sacked for following the herd. You’ll be sacked for losing but not because of how you lost." I looked at the rows of bottles again. "Your chat room friend can look at the numbers all he wants but I'm telling you Colchester got battered. Trampled in anger. No, that's not right, there was no anger. Mostly sadness. It was boring and the Wormwoods are big Colchester fans. I like them."

  I ambled around the corner to the large Italian section.

  "How about this?" said Steve. "It's got a badge."

  "Primitivo," I said, pulling a face. "I want to be fancy, mate. I want the opposite of primitive."

  He smiled. "It's named because the grape ripens earlier. It's like the Chester youth team of grapes!"

  I pointed at him. "That... was amazing salesmanship. I like Primitivo now. Let me have a look." I took the bottle. "Only 94 points on the badge. Tusk tusk. Good font. I like how minimal it is. It's letting the label breathe, isn't it? Black and gold. Mysterious squiggle for a logo. Yes, this is an attractive bottle of wine."

  "It'll go well with your beef," said Steve. "Celebrate your Youth Cup win."

  "Ah," I said, frowning. "Yes." Earlier in the week we had gone down to play Charlton Athletic's under eighteens in their gaff. The Charlton Academy was highly-regarded, having produced six England players and plenty for Charlton's first team and this current crop was top of the league they played in.

  I had worried I would need to use Bench Boost to assure our progress but the Charlton team that warmed up had an average CA of 25. There were some talented lads but they were nowhere near as battle-hardened as my lot. I'd been artificially fermenting my children - I'm extremely comfortable with this sentence - and in our now-customary 4-3-3 their average CA was over 40. Over 40! They had absolutely bossed the match from start to finish, with CA 67 William B. Roberts running rampant. We hadn't done any Relationism in the match but training was going well. The lads were motivated and almost all were coming in for extra skills sessions. A lot of PA limits were being reached.

  The stronger the wine, the bigger the headache. At the end of the season I would have quite a few problems. What to do with Tyson, Benny, Lucas Friend and the like? They could grow no more; they needed to leave the club and to play first-team football. I couldn't tell them yet because I needed them to dream they had a future. I needed them to think they were Chateau Lafite because if they won the Youth Cup, in a way, they would be.

  The draw for the third round had been made before I set off to the wine shop; we got West Ham United away. A big Premier League academy? That could very easily be the end of our Youth Cup run. If that happened, I would be able to send the boys out on loan in January and start to place them at suitable clubs for next season. I felt we would beat West Ham, though. I still had my Bench Boost for the Youth Cup, and the match would be played just before Christmas. My gift to the people of Chester - a remarkable win.

  I needed to win every match in December. One of our December games was going to be the first Chester match in the life of Sandra's baby. If I had my way, that baby's first words were going to be, 'He's done what?!'

  "The thing about celebrating is," I said, smiling and holding the bottle carefully like it was a tiny, fragile creature. "If you win the league you get champagne and spray it around and you're allowed to go and get wasted. If you nearly beat Newcastle the manager's first instinct is to yell go and have a couple of pints. The reward for doing good things is alcohol. When we win I want a drink. If we lose I want a drink, too, but that's a different topic. I'm thinking about these mental links again. Beef? Wine. Win? Wine. And me being me, I can't have one glass. If the bottle's open I'm going to finish it, which means I almost never bring booze home with me. But I want to have a nice evening with my girlfriend. She'll cook and we'll eat and have a glass each and her feet will get hot and she'll take her socks off and she'll get really giddy and laugh at anything and then fall asleep. I'll take the rest of the bottle to the bath with me and have a lovely old time thinking up posters for the billboard and thinking about players to buy and all sorts."

  "That sounds pretty good," said Steve.

  "Yeah. That's why I'm here. Emma likes a glass of red but she can have one and then stop, especially when she's got work in the morning. She would pop a thing in the bottle and leave it there for weeks."

  "You can't?"

  "No. If it's open, it's not lasting past midnight. I'd buy a small bottle but they never sell the good stuff in the small ones. I could buy this and pour half out as soon as I open it but that's demented. Or I could not buy anything but why should Emma have tap water with her nice dinner because I don't have a handle on myself?"

  I looked at the badge again. 94 points. The other one had 95.

  "It's because her dad bought my mum a house," I mused. I sensed the men exchange a glance but I didn't care. This was wine shop therapy, potentially the best therapy there was. "I don't have that one big overwhelming thing to worry about so I've sunk a level deeper and there's all kinds of shit going on." I took a deep breath. "I think I'll buy a bottle. For Emma. Wait, that's me lying to myself again, isn't it?"

  I shook my head and moved to the next section. The sign here said: Other Europe.

  I pointed to a bottle called Steinbock. "Didn't he write a book?"

  "I think that was Steinbeck," said Mike.

  "Is German stuff good?" I wondered.

  "Can be," said Steve. "Personally I think they do whites better than reds. And maybe their coaches are better than their wines, eh?"

  I turned away from the selection long enough to raise an eyebrow at him. There was a strong rumour going round that we were trying to sign an amazing German coach, though mercifully the name hadn't leaked. I'd wanted him to start early but it hadn't been easy to get a work permit. "If you're fishing for a name, you'll have to wait ages and ages." I checked the time. "By which I mean about fourteen hours. He starts tomorrow morning." The new coach would only get one day alongside Sandra before she went on leave. I hoped it would be enough and I hoped the coach would live up to his billing.

  Mike was a few yards to the right. "Do you like Cabernet Sauvignon? I'd say that was a good bath wine. We've got some great Californians here."

  I stepped that way but got distracted. "What's this?"

  It was a large piece of card with a photo of a hot smiling woman in a university mortar board, a QR code, and the intriguing text: Women's Wine Academy.

  "The wine industry in this country is very male-dominated, Max," said Steve. "This is a course to encourage women to get involved. Wine tasting skills, how to pair with cheese, prepares you for a qualification if you want to do that. Anyone who goes to this academy is going to buy more of the sort of wine we offer, plus they'd make good employees here. It's hard to find staff who are passionate about the product. Anyone who shows interest in this course, well, that's the start of the interview as far as I'm concerned."

  I laughed. "So someone says ooh I might try that and you say brilliant, also, do you want a job?"

  Mike smiled. "There may be intermediate steps."

  "Have a daughter instead of a son," I suggested. "Or one of each. Call them Red and White. Bosh."

  Steve said, "That's what he did! My sister doesn't like wine though. Not interested in the family business and she's gone off doing her own thing. She's in Denmark now. As far from decent wine as you can get."

  "What's her name?"

  "Rose," he said, keeping a straight face for all of three seconds. "No, it's Helen. We have a running joke about who is the cursed child, me or her."

  I was moving towards Mike but stopped dead. "Cursed child?"

  "Er, just a phrase, Max."

  The words untethered me slightly so I brought my attention back to the wine school poster. "Our women are on a tear."

  "I've been watching the documentary," said Steve. "So good."

  "I always liked Jackie Reaper," said Mike. "Got a great vibe about him. He comes across great on that show. Really happy to see him doing well. Er, he is doing well, isn't he?"

  "He is," I said. The sounds of football had gone, replaced by chat. Half time in the televised match. "He has stepped things up recently. Not sure if there's any particular reason but..." Jackie's profile numbers hadn't changed since the pre-season update but I got the impression he was operating at a higher level. It was possible the pain in his knee had gone. It was also possible, though unlikely, that I was imagining the whole thing and Jackie was simply being Jackie. "He likes 3-5-2, uses a back four sometimes to spread minutes around the squad. It's all good but I don't need to be there so I've been using my Sundays travelling around, scouting teams in the divisions above us so I can make good signings next summer. I wasn't there for Norton Stockton, Llandudno, or Hashtag United and those were routine wins. Jackie sent me a text saying I should go today, to the Stockport County game. Said he had cooked something up he thought I might like."

  I took a couple of steps towards the New World section.

  "So I turn up and Stockport are fine. About the same level as the teams we've been beating three, four, five-nil. Nothing interesting there, but we've got something fun going on. We're doing a 3-4-3 variant. Two of the strikers have been dropped to be CAMs, so it's 3-4-2-1, the formation the new Man United manager likes to use. Jackie's back on the cutting edge! Our forwards are Sarah Greene, Dani, and Angel, and that's a mouth-watering combination. We're too good, too fast, too creative, too clinical, it's absolutely amazing. Some of the interplay is stunning and Stockport fall into full panic almost immediately and we pick them off. Five-nil but it was even more dominant than that. So good."

  The average CA of the starting eleven was up to 57.2 - miles ahead of the rest of the league. And while I needed to find a new starting goalie for next season and maybe a tough-tackling midfielder to replace Pippa, I'd had an incredible November scouting Chester's schools. The talent hoover was at maximum suction.

  "They're through to the third round of the Women's FA Cup. Bristol City away. Bristol are in the Championship so that might be the end of the run but I don't think Sarah Greene is going to be overawed. We've got a chance." Chester teams in the third round of the FA Cup getting drawn against high level opponents. The boys. The women. Copy paste. As with the cup draws, the bottles in front of me were strangely uniform. Like book covers, they tended to fall into certain patterns and once you saw them you couldn't unsee them. The only thing I had to cling onto was the number on the badge. Was there a 96 somewhere? "What's a wine for a 3-4-3 fan?"

  Mike closed his eyes. "Light colour, rounded texture, fruity finish. How about this one?" He lifted a bottle but I was distracted again.

  "What's this?" There was a whole section of American-themed tat. Fridge magnets, CDs, small, square books with amusing titles.

  Steve said, "We get loads of American tourists, Max. They come in worried we're English and uptight and we're going to be posh snobs. They see this, they relax, they get the wallets out."

  "Do they exclusively buy American wine?"

  "Course they do. This one's pretty much the best-seller in the whole shop." He pointed to a bottle called 'You Had Me at Merlot'.

  I picked up a CD case. "Battle Hymn of the Republic. Name rings a bell."

  "Max!" said Mike, laughing. "That's your Man United song."

  "Is it? Which one?"

  "Glory Glory Man United."

  "Oooohhh!" I said, nodding. "Got it. But why's it in a wine shop?"

  Mike had a half-decent singing voice and treated me to a verse:

  "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

  His truth is marching on."

  I nodded and mumbled part of the chorus as sung on the terraces of Old Trafford. "When the reds go marching on! On! On!"

  "That's it," smiled Mike.

  "I didn't know that was American."

  "It's the Battle Hymn of the Republic. We're a monarchy."

  I bit my lip. I was pretty stupid sometimes, but there was so much information in the world. How could one person possibly know everything? "The grapes of wrath, okay. I get it. So your customers buy a Freedom Wine, a CD, then they go to Currys to buy a CD player."

  Mike shook his head; my joke made him feel old. "Some people still have them."

  I twinkled at him. "Kay." I left the New World section and found myself looking at white wines and rosés. That wasn't what I was in the mood for so I went back to the start and looked at the 95 wine again. 95 in wine terms was like a PA 190 player, wasn't it? But you wouldn't know until you took the cork out if it actually tasted good. "We're signing the best young striker in the world in January. Just in case that affects your decision."

  "Decision?" said Mike.

  "To buy bonds. This kid's chosen us because we improve players and we'll get a million in profit when we sell him in summer. It's not just marquee signings where we're cashing in. This Jan we're selling three players and I've replaced one already. Remember Bark? We had him on loan and he's coming back. So much potential, that kid. I've been looking at goalies with Sticky. The problem is, he rates all of them. He's like the Brig with kids, thinks they can all do well. We'll find one we both agree on by the turn of the year and the squad will be looking scary. I mean, we're so talented. It's absolutely crazy how good we are. I think part of being bored now is being bored by next season. If we can keep the squad together it's going to be relentless winning. Couple of epic tussles in the cups, sure, but mostly month after month of routine wins. We'll probably smash 100 points."

  "100 points?" said Mike. "Win League Two?"

  "What?" I said, louder than was polite, but it was just so shocking to me that he'd said that. "League One, Mike! League One! We'll trample it like grapes."

  Mike eyed his son. "Of course, that would be wonderful. We're more of a cup team, though, aren't we?"

  "We're whatever I want. Next season I might flip things round and do a run at the league and take it easy in the cups. That's the way my mind is working right now because Bradford, Carlisle, Cambridge, Mansfield, they got a big head start on us. We're undefeated in, like, fourteen games if you include Newcastle, which I do, and we're moving up the league but not really moving closer to those teams, if you get me. I don't know, I love cups but I wonder if it's the right thing for the club. I think this is one of those things where I suddenly have enough time to worry about second-level problems. Is it really good for Chester if I go hard at the cups? We've put a lot of effort in for not all that much reward, really. If we're being brutally honest."

  Okay, the Newcastle shop window had led to bids for half a dozen players, and selling Ben, Eddie, and Sharky was good business. But we hadn't even got any prize money for the Newcastle defeat, and the shared gate receipts, since the tie had been played in our tiny stadium, were trivial.

  Steve said, "It depends who we get in the third round of the FA Cup, doesn't it?"

  The day before, we had beaten Walsall, away, in the second round.

  You might remember we beat them 3-2 in the league at home. They had a good young team but a shaky goalie. They had replaced him for the cup tie with an older vintage but lost a point in CA in the process. That gave them an average of 79 - about the same as us - so I couldn't be sure of beating them and ended up deciding to use Bench Boost. Better to get to the third round having used my joker than to take a big swing and end up with nothing.

  The squad was in great shape on the morning of the match. Morale had been steadily rising over the course of our unbeaten run, climbing from its lowest point of 3.9 (out of 7) to a much happier 5.2.

  Players were popping in CA all over the place. Andrew Harrison, with the ink on his new 3 plus 1 contract still drying, had gone bonkers, finally getting a move on. He was up to CA 63. Pascal's recovery was going well and he was on 79. Beth's Miracle Man story had brought him to the attention of Grindhog. Sponsorship incoming! Sharky, even though (or because) he had agreed a move to Crawley, was flying. Sticky had caught up with Ben.

  It always pleased me when someone's first digit clicked up to the next number, and there were two examples of that in the first team squad. Zach's recent run of green saw him shoot up to CA 80. Sunday Sowumni moved to 40, which was still miles off being useful but did seem to have happened quite fast. In a more bittersweet moment, little Benny hit 40, too, but that would be his last ever pop. He had hit his ceiling. Some grapes are used to make vinegar.

  Mike said, "You did strange tactics again. No-one understands what you do."

  "What I do?" I said. "I could say the same thing about the other managers. It's like they're not even trying half the time. But yesterday was pretty simple. Walsall like a three-five-two, boss midfield, frantic pressing. I wanted to do the last twenty in a 4-2-3-1 with me, Wibbers, and Pascal behind Dazza. So there's four subs. Obviously Magnus starts. Do you risk starting Youngster on the bench? You could, but you might as well name him in the eleven and have a spare sub. I asked TJ if he minded me using Sharky and he said he was my player but if I could leave him out that would be great."

  Steve said, "Why?"

  His dad said, "So he won't be cup tied. You can only play for one club in the FA Cup per season."

  "I know, I meant... Never mind."

  I continued. "Start 5-3-2, keep things tight. Tom Westwood lines up as a striker but he's doing a defensive role. Him and Andrew Harrison run for days, it's a stodgy game, Walsall don't have a second gear, we do. Boom. Two-nil, into the third round we go. See who we get. Probably Fleetwood again. Ugh. Maybe I'll buy two bottles. No, Max, come on, don't even talk like that. You're programming yourself."

  I cleared my head and tried to think of something positive.

  How about Bark and Foquita being available for the FA Cup third round?

  How about the rapturous reception to the documentary?

  How about spikes of mini-bonds flying off the shelves every Sunday night and every time the men's team jumped up the table? We were tenth and would probably win our next five league matches without much hassle.

  How about 3 R Welsh beating E Company 8 in a titanic, ding-dong battle? And Dylan trying to act cool when he was clearly over the moon.

  How about my mum's new house - my mum's new house! - being made ready for her, Anna, and Solly to live in?

  How about Emma's mum going through the photos I'd found in my cousin's attic and making it her mission to find the right sofa, the right telephone, the right shitty watercolours to make the bungalow mimic the house in which mum had spent most of her life?

  I smiled. How about living with Emma and having a nice dinner with free-range beef and organic veggies and a nice - yes! A nice bottle of wine. Why the actual fuck not?

  Time to distil my quest for the perfect wine to its essence. I turned to the Mortons and asked the only truly pertinent question. "Have you got any bottles with a 96 badge?"

  Steve chuckled. "Max, you know football. We know wine. Take that first one you liked the look of. That'll go great. It's the perfect wine to drink in the bath."

  "Done," I said. "Sold!" I carried the bottle to the till and Mike wrapped it up in a nice piece of paper and slipped it into a fancy carrying bag. "Bonus," I said, admiring the bag, but Mike wasn't looking at me.

  Steve had gone to the next room and returned with a laptop. He forced his dad to look at the screen. The dad's eyes popped open and my first impulse was that the name of our special coach had leaked. "Max," said Steve, his voice hushed. "We got United in the third round."

  I knew that. The Youth Team were away to West Ham United. "Yeah. Not sure if they'll play it in the London Stadium. Probably not, right, because there will only be a few hundred people there. Massive stadium though. That'd be good experience for the kids. It's what, sixty thousand capacity?"

  Steve's forehead creased while one side of his mouth curled up in a smile. The overall effect was of someone who was in a state of alarmed happy disbelief. He turned the laptop around to show me that the FA Cup third round draw was taking place. "Max, no. United. Manchester United. Third round of the FA Cup! A seventy-six thousand sell-out! A million pounds for the club. We're going to play Manchester United at Old Trafford!"