Player Manager 13

  Unluckily for some, Max Best's projects are gathering steam. Chester FC's men's team have shrugged off a difficult start in League Two (England's fourth tier) and have won admirers and new fans for their cup exploits. A money-spinning trip to Old Trafford awaits in the FA Cup Third Round. The women's team are crushing all that comes before them. The men's under eighteens are through to the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup, having demolished Premier League opponents in a 4-0 drubbing that included ten ecstatic minutes of Max's new way of playing football - Relationism, AKA Bestball.

  Meanwhile, the other teams in the Max Best Universe - College 1975 (Gibraltar), Saltney Town (Wales' second tier), West Didsbury and Chorlton (the English eighth tier) - are either first or second in their leagues.

  ***

  "Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." Voltaire.

  ***

  1 - The Cam Before the Storm

  1.

  Tuesday, December 23, 2025

  Sometimes I fantasise.

  Thus starts the chorus of the song that most sounds like Manchester at night, Made of Stone by The Stone Roses. 40 miles to the west of my home, on streets both cold and lonely, a solitary taxi pushed through dirty sleet heading towards God knew where and I, Max Best, Manchester's greatest export since atomic theory, computers, or the very concept of league football (proposed in the Royal Hotel on 17 April, 1888) was fantasising.

  I was fantasising that we could win the league. We were only 17 points behind Bradford City and they had played two games more than us. If we won our games in hand and beat them in a couple of weeks, it would be Devon Loch all over again. Bradford had been playing well but had been incredibly lucky on half a dozen occasions. Their luck would run out.

  I was fantasising that we could beat Manchester United. They were talented but mentally weak. We could hurt them and if we did their fans might turn on an expensively-assembled collection of underperformers. With 5,000 away fans cheering Chester on and 70,000 home fans booing their players, who knew what was possible? Dream it, dare it, do it.

  I was fantasising that we could buy two or three amazing players in the coming January transfer window. We were already able to attract talent like Foquita, a Potential Ability (PA) 190 Peruvian. If we could sign someone who would one day challenge for the mantle of the best striker in the world, why couldn't I sign a left-midfielder who could create goals and defend? Maybe I could have my cake and eat it by signing a genius midfielder and getting my dream defender, Peter Bauer, for free.

  "Max," said Emma, gently shaking my wrist. "Don't fall asleep."

  "I wasn't," I said.

  "You were," she said.

  "I wasn't," I said.

  "You were," said the driver. "Are you all right, Mr. Best?"

  "Er, yeah," I said, and looked out of the window. It was all black roads with a few mounds of mud-splattered snow here and there. Ice-cold water dribbling towards metal grids reflected yellow street lights. I heard music, saw burning cars. In my head canon, Made of Stone was about a drug dealer launching himself off a motorway, crashing and burning. Bad money dies, it goes. No. Bad money comes to the Premier League through various shitty owners and I claw huge chunks of it away. Bad money lives. I steal from the rich to give to the poor. I'm Robin Hood. I'm the Sheriff of Slappingham. Emma poked me in the side. "Mate," I complained.

  "It's Henri's big night, babes."

  I wriggled myself upright and rubbed my face hard. "Yes yes yes. I'm awake." I glanced at Emma. She was looking straight ahead, thousand-yard stare, pulling at a strand of blonde hair. She didn't know what to do about me. "Babes, I'm mad for it. It's all good. We'll have a great time. I promise not to be mental or fall asleep in a corner."

  "I wouldn't mind that at all. Just don't do it in the taxi. Not while the meter's running, anyway."

  The driver laughed. "Thrifty as well as beautiful. Some men have all the luck." He leaned forward as he slowed the car. "I think it's that one."

  Emma looked out of her window and tutted. "The fuck, Henri?"

  We drove past a wall and into a car park. Somewhere deep in my subconscious I was aware of Emma paying the driver. My attention was drawn to four circular safety signs that were next to each other on what looked like a massive garage door. Two were yellow, two were red. My brain tried to lock onto them and swap them round so that they would line up, match, and pop.

  And when they popped -

  I gasped the way people in movies do when they want to show they've woken from a nightmare. The driver's back stiffened.

  Emma had left the car, so I clambered out of my side and was stunned by the intensity of the cold. On autopilot, I shut the door and the taxi rolled ahead and began to turn back the way we'd come, looking for another fare. Grinding. Number goes up.

  I didn't move right away. We had been deposited in the car park of what seemed to be a disused industrial estate. Low buildings, sinister chimneys, brick, aggressive anti-vandal defences, a very familiar vibe. What was it? It definitely fit the urban hellscape of my mood. This would have fit right into the Manchester of the late-eighties of my imagination. Urban decay. Another unloved piece of real estate falling into slow disrepair, so hideous, so harshly concreted that even nature didn't want to reclaim it. Got it! It was familiar because this could have been the setting of a video game, a level in a multiplayer shooter. Someone would be behind that chimney ready to headshot me. That window there would be perfect for lobbing a grenade through. Danger lurked around every -

  Someone grabbed me and I freaked all the way out. "Argh!"

  "Max!" cried Emma from twenty yards away. She might have rushed towards me but she was wearing 60s Go-go boots and wasn't used to the heels.

  A six foot tall man had snuck up to me but now he was holding his hands up, palms facing me. He had a very calm, serious face. His hair was short, black, and slightly curly. "Lo siento," he said.

  I checked my heart wasn't about to explode - it was, but I bravely chose to ignore that tiny fly in my medical ointment - and threw my arms around the guy. "Foquita!" I cried as I slapped him three times on the back. I put my hands on his shoulders and gave him the admiration his player profile deserved, looking from eye to eye, drinking it all in. This was Foquita, all right. Joy bubbled out of my flappy Manc gob. "Oh my God you're actually here I'm actually the best manager in the world holy shit."

  It was fascinating how unremarkable he was. He had the slightly sloping nose I associated with Romans, a nice smile, smaller-than-average ears, but he didn't look like a guy who would be world-famous, who might one day transfer from Bayern Munich to Real Madrid for a hundred million Euro. He gave me a tiny smile and said something in Spanish.

  I hugged him again. "I don't understand but you are the mint sauce on my roast beef."

  To my right came footsteps and a delightful, extremely feminine laugh. Foquita's girlfriend, who I'd only ever seen on Instagram, came closer, and I realised I didn't know her name. A rose, by any other name, would look as fucking unbelievable. She was in gloves and a thick, warm coat but she wasn't wearing any kind of hat and that foregrounded the long, black hair, black eyes, sweeping eyebrows, wide, Gemma-style lips.

  I had instructed William B. Roberts, my teenage prodigy, not to fall for her.

  That was going to be a difficult task for all of us.

  "I hate to be uncivilised," she said, in a lightly-accented voice that came with a free shoulder massage, "but can we do the introductions inside? It is, as you say, bloody freezing out here."

  Emma laughed. "Why are you out here?"

  The girlfriend smiled. "We don't understand where the entrance is. There is a door but someone has put up a sign in front."

  "What does it say?" said Emma.

  "This is not the entrance."

  Emma and I smiled at each other. "That's it," she said. "Lead the way."

  I slapped Foquita on the back one more time. My palm on his back made a meaty thumping noise. It sounded like a million pounds in transfer profit. It sounded like 70,000 Mancunians falling silent. It sounded like goals.

  ***

  Inside was a coat station manned and womanned by a pair of black-clad people wearing those fancy Venetian masquerade eye masks. They started by taking Emma's coat. She was in a fun 60s outfit with big round earrings plus a headband and white boots. Foquita and I were wearing suits.

  One of Emma's best and worst qualities was the way she was interested in everyone she ever met. I loved that she was kind to the fumbling teenage waiters who couldn't believe they had to pour wine for the hottest woman they'd ever seen. I hated that she talked to the randos next to us on a plane or in a restaurant. I loved that she was learning the names of the stewards who had the thankless task of keeping us safe at the Deva.

  Emma chatted to the greeters while Foquita and I got our bearings. All we could see was a long corridor with a table blocking part of the way, but there was the sound of chat and laughter. Somewhere inside was the men's team, the women, the backroom staff. Strictly no wives and girlfriends - in the olden times these football club Christmas parties were the stuff of debauched legend. The men had a match in three days so we couldn't go mental, but the women could get tipsy and the admin staff were allowed - encouraged, since we were living vicariously through them - to get fucking bombed.

  "What's the plan for the evening?" Emma asked the workers. "What's the theme?"

  "Sorry, miss. Can't tell you. We're not even allowed to tell His Highness."

  "Is that Max?"

  "Yes, miss. We're to call him His Highness even if he asks us to stop."

  Emma smiled. "Henri's a ledge."

  Foquita's girlfriend peeled her gloves off, handed them across the little counter, and slipped out of her big coat.

  My jaw dropped open and in true sitcom style I closed it in the split second before my girlfriend looked at me.

  Miss Foquita was wearing a tight silver number that swept up and down her curves. The fabric cried out to be touched. It had a kind of rippling effect and was bunched up into ruffles around one side. There were no straps so her shoulders were bare and she put on some long silver earrings that her partner had been carrying for her. Her stilettos were thin with near-invisible straps, making it look like she was floating barefoot across a beach rather than trudging around some crappy building in the outskirts of Chester. I was wearing - no false modesty this time - the actual best suit in Chester yet I felt massively underdressed.

  "Please proceed to the sorting brat," said the female worker. I got the feeling the dude had said it to everyone else but the vision in the silver dress had twisted his tongue.

  We walked along the corridor to the table. Another waiter-type had walky-run towards it when we'd entered. My guess was that he had been serving drinks in the room where all the noise was coming from and had been summoned when we'd arrived.

  "Dude," I asked him. "It sounds like the party has been going on for ages. Was I given a later starting time than everyone else?"

  "I'm not allowed to say, Your Highness," said the guy. I think he winked but his eye mask made it unclear. "Please choose a mask."

  I looked down and ran my hand across the table. It was covered in a thick and expensive fabric like you get on a church altar. There were half a dozen eye masks to choose from and there was space for many more. Either these were the dregs or they'd been placed specially for the four of us.

  Miss Foquita said to the guy, "Would you excuse us for a moment?"

  He looked to his right. "I can just go, I think. I'm supposed to make you choose an eye mask but you're the last guests so, I mean... Yeah, I can go." He scooted off.

  Miss Foquita picked up an eye mask and said, "My name is Caramel. I'm Foquita's partner."

  "Caramel," I said. It was an amazing name but somehow I wasn't in the mood for it. Hard to explain.

  There was a mirror where you could look at yourself in the various eye masks. Caramel stood in front of it and said, "Miss Emma."

  Ems was poring over the options like it was the most important decision of her life but she glanced up and understood she was to look into the mirror.

  Caramel gave her the one she had picked up. "This suits you best."

  It did. With one accessory, Emma turned into a mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a mod mini dress. No-one at the ball would know who she was. A princess, of course, but from where? She pouted at herself. "I'm the Queen of Chester. Fetch me an alcoholic beverage!"

  Caramel fussed with Emma's hair where the eye mask had disrupted it, which I found incredibly easy to watch. "Miss Emma, may I make a request?"

  "Course, love, what are you thinking?"

  Caramel put her arm around Foquita's waist and leaned her head on his shoulder. "I've been in England with this lump for two weeks. He's wonderful, of course he is, but I seek a different energy."

  "He doesn't understand what we're saying?"

  "He only understands English when it comes to fútbol." The way she said the word fucking melted me.

  "Fútbol?" said Foquita, perking up. It was less effective when he said it, strangely.

  "Come with us," said Ems, who seemed to know exactly what Caramel was talking about. "All the girls are inside. The players and Brooke, anyway. We're great fun!"

  "I have no doubt about it but I have always sought out masculine energy. My partner is very stable, very serious, he makes me feel safe. But after two weeks of safety I have cravings for danger."

  "Danger?"

  "Surprise, flights of fancy, moments of genius. And I have preguntitas."

  I thought I had been following, more or less, and even understood that the last word meant 'questions', but then Emma blew my mind by saying, "Yeah, you can borrow him." What did that have to do with anything?

  Caramel spoke Spanish to her man. He picked an eye mask at random and put it on. More instructions followed and when Emma made a crook in her arm, Foquita and my girlfriend wandered off down the corridor. I watched with very few mental processes activated as they turned to the right and vanished. "What's going on?" I said, eventually.

  "Choose a mask," said Caramel.

  I looked down at my options and knew that if I wore one, so would she. "No. I prefer you as you are."

  "I could say the same."

  "You have questions?"

  "They can wait. Come. Let's walk."

  She grabbed my arm as we walked down the corridor. There were some artworks to my left, but not to my right. Not unless you counted Caramel. I stopped and turned towards her. "Your name isn't Caramel."

  "I'm a model; my real name is too common. Caramel is memorable."

  "Caramel is delicious." We kept our eye contact going and I kept waiting for the sparks to fly. Maybe they did. Maybe I was too tired to feel them. "What's your real name, please?"

  "Camila."

  "May I call you that?"

  "If you prefer to."

  "I do."

  We walked on until we got to the end of the corridor. There was another corridor going off to the right but before that was an entrance to a large, square room. A stage had been set up at the front, there were chairs and tables stacked at the sides, and in the middle was everyone from Chester Football Club, milling around, drinking the hardest drinks their schedule would allow, chatting, laughing. I couldn't see Henri.

  "What is this, Meester Max?"

  Holy fucking shit, her voice tickled my very spinal cord. "This is our Christmas party. In the past, teams used to go out and binge drink. That's not compatible with winning but players need a break, especially if they don't get a winter break. We need a way to let our hair down, let off steam. This is a mad, Frenchified version of what other clubs do. Bit less alcohol, bit more warrior-poet. I suppose it's hard to imagine but while the rest of the country is with their kids and family, we're training."

  "Training?"

  "We'll be training on Christmas day."

  "That's loco." Another word pronounced in a way that completely bypassed my defences.

  "I know. But it's a public service. On Boxing Day, people will come to watch us. Huge crowd, party atmosphere. If you're in the crowd it's amazing. They don't really think about what we've sacrificed, but that's okay. We're well paid." I smiled. "I am, anyway. Not everyone there will agree that they are." I pulled her away from the doorway. "Sorry, I can't go in yet."

  "Ees okay."

  "Why's your English so good?"

  "I'm a model." She seemed to think that was enough explanation. "Is that you? It is you. I have seen this before."

  I followed her gaze and we moved as one, with her still holding me, towards the other side of the wall. I was there in black and white along with five other photos. They were all taken at the same match. I looked to the left, to the right, and my neck started to tingle. "Henri," I said. "He's up to something."

  "Is he?"

  "Yes! Look!"

  "I'm looking."

  "This way," I said, coaxing her back towards the entrance. When we got there I pointed to the first two pieces of 'art'. "Yes! I knew it! It's a timeline! What's he playing at?"

  Camila held onto me tighter, leant into me, and smiled. "Explain it to me." The words felt familiar. It was amazing, given how fucking sexy this woman was, how at peace she was making me feel.

  "Explain what?"

  "Everything."

  ***

  One of Henri's minions hurried along the corridor to ask if we wanted a drink. Camila said no and I dittoed it.

  "Yes, Your Highness," the woman said, before scooting off.

  "Ees funny," said Camila. "They are respectful but it feels disrespectful."

  I nodded. "That's the culture of these events. I'm not sure how to explain it. Once a year you're allowed to make fun of your boss. It's not quite anything goes, but they have a lot of leeway if they want to have a joke at my expense."

  Her eyes got wide. "I understand. Once a year you have a sense of humour."

  I laughed. "I think I score highly on that metric. I know I'm not perfect and I do things that can be seen as funny. These events, though, they can get savage. If you've got thin skin and can't take your players doing a pantomime where you're the wicked witch, you're not going to last long in the game. Oh, and don't log onto social media after you've lost to York City. Henri has a great sense of where the line is and the unwritten rule goes something like, if people laugh, you can't complain. I don't know. The rules are really subtle. I could tell you five things that would seriously piss me off tonight but Henri's so clever that if he wants to poke me in a specific way he'll set it up so that I have to take it and won't be able to get mad at him."

  "I want to meet this Henri."

  "Yeah, you do. What was it you wanted? Flights of fancy? That's him. Ask him to tell you about Silk! That was the last Christmas thing he planned." I closed my eyes, just for a second, and had a tiny moment of panic that I had fallen asleep for, like, three minutes. "Um... Okay so what I think we're dealing with here is a reverse timeline."

  "Oh," said Camila, looking to her right where the art stretched down the corridor. "Tell me more."

  I indicated the two framed images in front of us. The first was simply the most recent league table. It had Bradford City at the top. "Bradford, played 23, first in the league, 52 points. Seventh, the mighty Chester FC. Played 21, 35 points."

  "That's a big gap."

  "Well, yes and no. We play them soon. Beat them, win the games in hand, bosh."

  "Bosh," she repeated, and my pleasure receptors ran amok.

  "I'm confident we'll catch them. The problem is Mansfield, Carlisle, Cambridge. They've all got huge budgets and it's possible one of them will go on a run that matches us. Do you know what I mean? We can have a legendary five months but if one of these pricks has a very good five months, they might pip us to the post."

  "You have a huge budget," she said, which was incredibly charming in its innocence. That was the moment I realised she knew fuck all about football. "You bought Foquita."

  I gave her a disappointingly chaste squeeze. "I am..." No metaphors came quickly to mind, but I was staring at a string of framed photos. "I'm Leonardo da Vinci's apprentice. I'm the second-best artist of all time but no-one knows my name so no-one buys my paintings. My opponents are guys who just paint red squares, spray canvases at random like they're putting mustard on a hotdog, or draw things they found in their kitchen cupboard."

  She looked up at me. "Rothko, Pollock... Warhol?"

  Amazing. In my own mind, the second one was Hockney, but I recognised she'd given the right answer. "I'd love you on my pub quiz team."

  "Pub quiz? Do you do that?"

  "No," I sighed. "I can't go in Chester, I'm too big a star now. I need to go further afield where no-one gives a shit who I am, but that limits who's going to come with me. Half the fun of a pub quiz is having the same team and playing the same teams. If you're always second but one week you win, that's amazing." I crunched my eyes closed. "Those days are gone for me. I can go to a pub in Manchester and be incognito, but I can't go every Monday night with Henri, Sticky, and Joe Anka." Her big round eyes asked a question. "Joe used to play for us. Music guy. You need a music guy. I only know the songs that go whoo."

  "Meester Max, do I need to worry?"

  "About what? My inability to name the members of Take That?"

  "About Foquita being paid."

  She seemed to be serious, so I gave her another squeeze. "No. We're poor but we have a budget and we stick to it. It's true that most English football clubs lose money..." I trailed off because the news had only come through that morning that the EFL, the body which ran the English leagues from the second to fourth tier, had scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the case of Reading FC. For the millionth time Reading hadn't paid their players, in addition to not paying staff and the tax man. "Our fans get mad at us when we don't spend loads, when my boss is too careful. I say we can win on a tight budget. I would like a little more money," I laughed, "but things are coming together. We will play Manchester United soon and that will give us a million pounds."

  "A million pounds? One match?"

  "Yes. When are you going back to Peru?"

  "In a couple of days. Tomorrow to London, then home."

  Even though she was right next to me, leaning against me, warming me, I felt a mad pang of loss. The human brain is not fit for purpose. "When you're gone, I'm going to take care of your boyfriend." I nodded towards the many and varied voices. "We all are. This is Chester; we're a family." My eyes felt heavy again. "His agent is amazing but I don't think even he realises how perfect this is. We'll fix his stats, improve him, and if he can hack the north of England no-one in Europe will doubt his professionalism."

  "Fix his stats?"

  "His stats are dogshit," I said. "8 goals in 25 games is not a suitable return for a player of his talent."

  Camila undocked from me like she was a space station and I was a ship carrying thousands of tech bros. "He won la liga."

  "Yeah but think what it could have been. Take two months off, let your injury heal, come back and score 15 in 15. Anyway, I'll sort him out." I leaned closer to the second piece of art.

  It was a match report that had either been cut out of a newspaper or printed to look like that. It read:

  Swindon Town 0 Chester 2

  Blues Make Robins an Endangered Species

  "What is it?" said Camila.

  "Our last match," I said. I pointed to my right, to the far end of the corridor. "My theory is that the photos and match reports go back in time. I wonder how many of the lads zipped right past all this and went straight to the booze? All of them, I reckon. The league table is right now. This match report is from Saturday. We went down to Swindon and gave them a bit of a hiding, to be honest. Smacked them into the second relegation slot. They have a caveman type manager and the team is all hulking brutes. They're supposed to win by keeping things tight and scoring from set pieces. I put Cole Adams at left back - he's as tall as a centre back - and played 4-2-3-1 so that we had loads of numbers back and to match them in the middle. They played 4-3-3. Up front we had Pascal, Wibbers, Sharky, and Henri and their quality and movement was far too good."

  Swindon had CA 74 and my eleven, though not our strongest, was 78.3. Camila slipped her arm around mine again. "Brutes?"

  "Yeah it's a thing I see less and less but you can't come at Chester with this big boy shit. We've come up from the National League North, mate. We've scrapped and battled against lads who'd claw your eyes out to get a win so they can pay their mortgage that month. We're battle-hardened. Where the fuck do you get off thinking we'll shirk a fight? I'm placid as fuck but even I'll fucking waste you." I tried to calm myself and failed. "Christian Fierce. Zach. Cole, the Lees, Henri. Most of my team's first words as a baby were 'are you talking to me?' I can't believe there are still managers who think we can't mix it. Fuck sake. The match was one huge scrap until they realised we weren't going to back down. Ever."

  "Did you play?"

  "No," I said, gently easing Camila towards the next artwork. It was a photo of a man celebrating a goal. "There's Henri. I think that was his second goal. We got two-nil up in the first half and I switched things round, made some subs. Games come thick and fast this time of year so a lot of my job is about managing workload. We went to 4-4-2 with Dazza and Tom up front. Wasn't really trying to score more, just save energy." Energy. I felt like I had loads but I also felt tired all the time. "I need to decide what to do with Tom. He's fourth-choice striker for the next six months. It's good for the club to keep him around, but it's good for him to loan him out and get minutes into his legs." I frowned and touched the glass that covered the photo. "All the pitches are turning to onion fields. The groundsmen do their best but the winters are so brutal. If it's not snow it's rain. If it's not weather it's concerts. Bradford's pitch always goes to pot but they got a game played early somehow. Very clever; wish I'd thought of that. Not that we had any spare time with all our cup runs." I blinked. Was I talking shit? "We'll be able to train to a high standard all through the winter but if the Deva cuts up, what kind of football are we going to play? Not Relationism, that's for sure."

  "What's that?"

  "Nothing," I said, morbidly, but when we moved to the next photo, there it was. Our boys against West Ham's. The angle of the camera wasn't as high as in a proper stadium, but it was clear enough. Eight Chester players were gathered in a slim rectangle on one side of the pitch. "Okay, actually, this is Relationism. Have you ever seen this before?"

  The concept was far more common in South America than in Europe, but Camila wasn't a big football fan. She shook her head. "It looks strange."

  I sighed. "It is strange." I pinched my nose as a wave of fatigue hit me. My feelings towards my new module were all over the place. "Do you know when you work hard for something for ages and then you do it?"

  "Yes?"

  "People get sick when it's done. Something was pushing you forward for weeks, months, it was the reason you got out of bed, the thing that kept you up until three in the morning, and then puff - it's over. All the germs and viruses your body has been suppressing, they get their day in the sun."

  "Are you sick?"

  "I feel like it. And I can't sleep."

  She peered at the strange image. "Because of this?"

  "A few different things. My assistant had a baby. We were all worried about him, the baby, because he was coming early. When he was born healthy it was such a relief. Such a relief. That's one thing. Another is just the team in general. We got to the stage where I can put in some kids and we can beat Swindon with no alarms and I don't need to even touch the pitch. That's a milestone, even if no-one else realises it. And, yeah, this new way of playing."

  I stared at the photo for ages.

  It had taken me many, many months to save the experience points I needed to unlock the Relationism module. There was only one way I could earn XP and that was by watching live football or by managing a team, which gave me double rations. The demon who cursed me didn't want me to play so I only got minimal XP when I was on the pitch, but he had messed up and in the process of granting me my powers, he had accidentally made me a star player. Balancing how much I played versus how much I managed was tricky but I'd settled on playing for 20 minutes per match, normally at the end when the oppo was tired and I could do more damage.

  The curse and the upgrades it gave me were all targeted at Max Best the manager, though. Since I'd been cursed I had been slowly mastering what is known as positional play, in which the manager is king and the main currency in his realm is space. By using players such as Pascal, the self-titled space invader, a clever manager can give his opponent problems they can't solve.

  Thinking years into the future, however, to a time when my Chester team had the 20th highest budget in the 20-team Premier League, I knew I would need radical solutions to bridge the gap. In Relationism I saw a way of playing that could, theoretically, negate the financial advantage the top Premier League clubs would have. It was the opposite of positional play - instead of spreading out to perform pre-planned, much-rehearsed moves, my players would create a rolling, sentient blob that would maraud around the pitch as it wanted, dictating the play through the simple medium of short passes and organic combinations.

  The only problem was that when I had finally come to use it, both my players and I had gone fucking haywire. The boys had rushed into the blob, playing short passes, doing tricks and flicks to retain possession, attacking like whirling dervishes to recover lost balls. Meanwhile, my new interface seemed to have been styled on addictive mobile games like Candy Crush. It was incredible, funny, joyous, but terrifying.

  I counted myself lucky that I had no chance to use Relationism before the new year. The army team I was coaching, 3 R Welsh, were on a winter break, and the next FA Youth Cup match would be in three weeks. I had no intention of using Relationism with the first team until I knew it was safe. I had a lot of time to think about how the new module had made me feel.

  Camila had stopped looking at the photo and was looking at me. "This made you unwell?"

  I shook my head. "No. Yes. It was crazy. It should be like that but not like that. I run a football club. I can make any two teams play against each other and I can be the manager and I can experience it again. I haven't done that, and that says a lot, I think. I'm up all night reliving what happened. I genuinely don't think they meant it to be so intense but do I want to take the risk?" She didn't pick up on my moronic use of the word 'they', so I continued. "I'm not as stupid as people think, I don't think. That was pure crack. First sample free to get me hooked. No thanks."

  Camila read aloud from a little placard under the photo that I hadn't noticed. I heard Henri's voice beneath hers. "Best's Babes Humiliate Hammers ran the headline. Match coverage focused on the apparent animosity between Max and Sam Norman. Max's renegade new approach was barely mentioned, with the notable exception of one hipster YouTube channel. The nerd behind it used the scant footage available to him while running the ghastly title: 'The World's Most EXCITING New Strat Is from... CHESTER?!'"

  I yawned massively. "Sorry. Bit sleep deprived. That just reminded me; there was one new thing in the Swindon match. The game was a damp squib so it didn't register at first but when I think about it now, it's seismic. I just don't know how to activate it."

  "Maybe Foquita will help."

  "Yes," I lied.

  We had been so in control against Swindon and I'd gotten so good at using the hotkeys that I'd been able to run the match in my crazily sleep-deprived state. Playing would have been a totally different matter, but I'd named myself on the bench for Morale purposes and to make my opposite number's life harder. I was the best player in the division, after all.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  But at some point in the first half I was stunned to discover a new option in a player's individual instructions. There was the usual 'make forward runs, yes or no', 'pressing yes or no', and so on. But in addition to those old faithfuls there was a new line.

  Bestball yes or no.

  First of all, maddening that the imps who ran the curse had called it Bestball instead of its proper name, Relationism.

  Second, what? I mean, what would happen if I clicked yes?

  Third, I couldn't click yes. When I clicked on a player to change his option, the toggle flipped straight back to no.

  Yep. It was all kinds of intriguing and I hoped it would one day actually lead to something. If I could run Relationism through the plain, vanilla, safe curse screen and not the manic new version, that would be a huge relief. A huuuuuge relief.

  Camila had moved on to the next object. It was another text-heavy one, in what looked like the font from The Guardian. "Chesterness Review: Pitch-Perfect Sports Doc Scores From Every Angle. What's this?"

  "That's our documentary. Like Welcome to Wrexham but better in every way. You should watch it while you're here. Not sure when we're selling it to Peru. Shit! Did we retain the international rights? We could make another mill!"

  "Is Ryan Reynolds in it?"

  "No. That's why it's better."

  She smiled. "I've met him at a fashion show. He's muy simpático. Will Foquita be in it?"

  "Not much; it's about the women's team. Sometimes Henri and Sophie consider it narratively satisfying to watch the women watch the men and lots of scenes are filmed at Bumpers Bank - that's our training centre - so you might see him in the background of shots."

  "Why is it only about the women?"

  "Because I'm not interesting," I said, and tried to ease her along the wall.

  She resisted and dragged her finger along a line of text. "But it is director of football Max Best who steals the show. His slapstick humour, manic energy, and passion for the sport drive the team - and the narrative - forward."

  "That's a four-star review. Every word is positive but the reviewer only gives four stars. They're like those people who review books and say this is the best thing I've ever read, love it unreservedly, four stars because I never give five because nothing's perfect."

  She smiled again. "Perhaps four stars is the maximum in that newspaper."

  "That was a good point about the international rights, wasn't it? I bet we could get twenty grand selling it to Slovakian TV. That's a lot of self-cleaning toilets. And I'm massive in Malta!"

  We shuffled to the next photo. It was me looking heroic at the end of the AFC Wimbledon match. I'd used Bench Boost, a precious and overpowered once-per-competition-per-season perk, to make sure we got a win in order to sell mini-bonds. In the photo I looked all kinds of epic, with my hair flying around and my eyes ready to fire laser beams. "You're very dashing," said Camila.

  I sighed. "I know. This happens all the time now. I go to TESCO and my hair starts blowing around like there's a storm. I'm banned from the fruit section. It did the job, though."

  "What did?"

  "That win. Gave the fans belief we could compete in the league, opened a lot of wallets. That look in my eyes there, that's not triumph. That's just... emptiness. I had to do it so I did it. It doesn't feel good. I should be able to find a clever hack. A solution that gives me the win and the new stadium and keeps my powder dry for later in the season."

  "You did what you had to do."

  "Yeah," I said.

  "That's what a real man does. You can do for yourself later but first put food on the table for your children."

  I stared at the past version of me. I knew using Bench Boost in that match was right but I hadn't ever tried to reframe it into something that spoke well of me. I had fixated on what I couldn't do but Camila had a clearer view of the sitch. I had put food on the table and that was my duty.

  I turned and looked at her more closely. Yes she was pure eye candy and the stage name Caramel seemed ever more appropriate. But her real attraction was in the extremely strong feminine energy she was broadcasting. Her looks, her energy, her accent - she was a perfect storm and the longer I spent with her, the less I was twisting in the wind.

  Emma was amazing but her energy was variable. She might go clubbing one night and beg me to do prank phone calls with her the next.

  Brooke, Chester's Chief Operating Officer Lady, hid her energy as far behind her mask as she could.

  Ruth, my landlord and business partner, had stable energy with almost everyone. With me, she launched into every interaction scrabbling for higher status but always ended lower.

  The closest woman I knew to having Camila's vibe was Emma's mother. Her state was serenity itself.

  I'd been staring at Camila for a while. For the first time, her energy changed. She briefly looked uncertain. "What?"

  "Thank you," I said. "Let's speed up, shall we? I suspect there will be loads of this and Henri definitely has some big caper planned."

  "Caper?"

  "Some big, silly thing. The centrepiece of the whole night. Last time he wrote a play about robots in the future and we were all in it. The players, I mean. It was bonkers but people still talk about it. Okay, this one is Henri and Dazza celebrating their goals against Liverpool."

  "Liverpool?"

  "You've heard of them, eh? It was their under twenty-one team so it was all guys like Foquita. Really good but they don't have experience of playing players like mine."

  "What sort of players do you have?"

  "Tough bastards. Problem solvers. The thing I remember from that night was our old campaigner being the guy who reacted fastest. His legs barely work, ditto his scalp follicles, but he's a master craftsman of the game. He still has a role." Ryan Jack was a 37-year-old central midfielder and was very clever. "I can see him connecting with Foquita in an interesting way. Okay this little group is from where we played Newcastle United. Oh, I've never seen this one."

  "Pascalito!"

  "Right. You sent that lovely message when he got injured. He was supposed to be out for a year but he came back in two months. I hadn't told anyone. This is him warming up and the rest of the players are looking at him thinking 'what the shit is this?'"

  "He is popular, no?"

  "Oh, yes, it's more like, has he got a bionic leg? Like how is he even ambulant? I love that word; I've been waiting ages to say it. Their faces look unfriendly, yeah, but they're only worried about him."

  "I know this," she said, pointing to the photo of me scoring from 60 yards. "Foquita watched it again and again."

  "Yeah, well tell him if he tries it he's dropped."

  "Dropped?"

  "Out of the team."

  "You can, but not him."

  "Correct."

  She shrugged. "You're the boss. I like this one," she said, pointing to the photo of Newcastle's Slovak goalkeeper leaping dramatically to save a shot.

  "Yeah, that's beautiful. I'd love to sign him one day but we're not even close to that." To buy him would cost at least ten million pounds. I was selling Ben Cavanagh for fifty thousand. "I've got a slot in my squad for a goalie but I'm really torn on what to do about it. There's a guy who's basically Ben with a higher ceiling. If I could get him for 50K that's a simple upgrade but it doesn't move the needle much. There are more young whippersnappers like Banksy and Rainman who I could get for cheap but goalies seem to develop slowly and the gap between my first choice and his backup can't be so huge. But then if I buy a premium guy, what's the point of Sticky? I put a lot of the club's resources into him and if I just buy a better one, I mean, that can't be right, can it?"

  She smiled, gently giving out energy. She was the peace at the centre of the hurricane. A little less hot air might be welcome.

  I brought my voice down. "I was hoping you'd tell me what to do. No? Okay, what's next?"

  There was a gap in time to the first league match of the season. Chester FC's first match back in the football league since its destruction at the hands of hideous, uncaring owners.

  We got a two-all draw against Fleetwood Town thanks to some Max Best heroics, but Henri had correctly picked a photo of the away end when my second went in. "We call this kind of celebration 'limbs'."

  "How to use it in a sentence?"

  "Mostly you just shout limbs, but you can say oh it was bouncing, it was absolute limbs."

  "Absolute limbs," she said. Her eyebrows shot up, amused.

  We picked up the pace. "Pre-season friendly against Slovakia. The opening of Bumpers Bank. Youngster and Dazza in the under 20 World Cup. That's where I spotted Foquita."

  "You knew he was injured. Adrian was very stressed. He repeats, how did he know? How did he know? So... how did you know?"

  I shrugged. "He looked injured. Wasn't running freely. I'm always surprised that I'm the only one who sees it. It's blindingly obvious."

  "You liked Foquita even though he was injured?"

  "Yep. His talent is clear. I didn't think I had a chance with him but Adrian is a good agent. He's managing Foquita's career very well."

  "Five stars?"

  "Four," I smiled.

  Camila stepped back and looked me up and down. "What could be better?"

  "From what they told me, Foquita's next step will be to Germany to get him ready for one of the big Spanish clubs or, if he survives the frozen wastelands around here, a big Prem team. Imagine a slider with weather on one end, money on the other. You'll have some input, I reckon."

  "Weather," she said, sliding an imaginary object all the way to her left.

  I laughed. "If it was my client and he was as good as Foquita, I'd send him to Portugal for two years. Then a year or two in Germany. He'll be the outstanding striker in the world aged 24. Hundred million pound transfer, bosh."

  "They talk about Portugal but they believe they can jump it."

  "Don't skip steps," I said.

  "Don't skip steps," she said, thoughtfully. "Don't you want him to stay here?"

  "Of course I do. It's by far the most romantic option."

  "Are you romantic, Meester Max?"

  I pointed to the next photo. It showed Henri, his girlfriend Luisa, plus me, Ems, and a massive statue of Jesus. I was sporting a yellow mohawk and a wide smile. "Question answered."

  "If you want him, why don't you fight for him?"

  I was enjoying this. Didn't want it to end. It would, though. All too soon, it would; the door was behind us and we were practically at the end of the line. "It's not my destiny to have him longer. I get to walk down one corridor with him, but then we go our separate ways."

  "We'll always have the caper," she said.

  "Yeah."

  She looked behind her. "There's another corridor. There is more art."

  For the first time in a week, my head felt clear. "I love looking at art. Have I mentioned how passionate I am about art?"

  "You're passionate, you're romantic. Such a dream. I love this shot of you."

  She had moved in front of a photo taken from the last Exit Trials. I was at the back of the stand, fast asleep, with Meghan and Sarah Green sitting next to me. Behind were a dozen others, trying to take the most demented possible photo without waking me up. The Brig and Ruth were holding each other, the young players we'd brought had their arms and legs spread everywhere like they were playing Twister, and someone was giving me bunny ears.

  "I've never seen this," I said. "So funny."

  She stepped away so I got in close to look at all the faces, imagining Tom and Josh egging each other on. Camila came back, grabbed my arm, and pulled me past photos from the previous two seasons - celebrations, trophies, fans shedding happy tears - to the penultimate artwork. It was a montage of photos of Chester players and staff, ranging from baby pics to ones taken in primary school.

  "Which one are you?"

  I quickly scanned the images. Baby Christian Fierce was instantly recognisable. The toddler Youngster already had the goofy grin. Ten-year-old Bonnie was holding a baby in her arms. "Already looking out for her sister," I said. "God, this is maximum adorbs. Oh, shit! Look at little baby Henri! He's got a little baby scarf. Julie's McKay's freckles." Julie was a local girl who had been in a bad relationship when I'd met her. Her waste of space boyfriend had been the prime suspect in my murder. She was blameless but I still felt a dull pain at the back of my head every time I thought about her. I quickly moved on. "Is this Brooke doing a tea party? Look how serious she is. Those dolls better not ask for soy milk. Lee Contreras? Got to be. Hey, he was a good-looking kid, wasn't he? Why do I get the feeling he kept pushing his hair back and had a catchphrase? Who's missing? I need a pic of Dazza in a kangaroo pouch."

  "Which one are you?"

  "I'm not here."

  "You are," she said, suddenly. "Aquí."

  "No, that's some rando." Camila's energy changed so with a frown, I leaned forward. Someone had scrawled 'Max, 9' on the photo, but I didn't recognise the kid whatsoever. He had a shit trim and hideous, thin trousers. His ears stuck out. He looked like a complete dipshit. "I think this is the caper. Henri's trying to gaslight me into thinking this was me. Before the end of the night I'll believe I grew up a Man City fan and I prefer Oasis to The Stone Roses. It's just, nah, soz. Come on."

  Camila frowned, but decided she believed me. Or she believed that I thought I was telling the truth. She slipped a huge phone out of some crevice in the fabric of her dress and tapped away. Soon she was showing me a photo of a pudgy girl, maybe 12 years old, wearing braces and horrible glasses. She looked like she was one inspirational teacher away from spending her life studying geology. "Me," she said.

  I shook my head. Her transformation was almost total but I found I liked the girl in the photo. "I'm glad you kept the smile."

  There was a tremor in her energy but she recovered and said, "I'm glad you kept the sweetness."

  "It's strange when I see what I looked like but I always remember wanting to be a model," I said. Her eyebrows twitched. "I even had a name picked out."

  She was suspicious. "Yes?"

  "Double Choc."

  She folded up with laughter. "You're teasing me."

  I grinned but internally, let out a deep sigh. My time with Camila was up. "Shall we go into the main room?"

  She shook her head. "There's one more."

  I hadn't quite noticed it because it was long and wasn't framed and the background was black while the walls were dark. I got closer and burst out laughing. "The guy's such a fucking nutjob. Jesus Christ. If you took a journey backwards in time you'd stop at your baby photos. That's what most people would do, right? This madman, though..."

  Henri had based this final piece on a textbook image of the creatures from the Cambrian era - the ones that had evolved into all kinds of wild shapes, the hard shells, the soft shells, the killer shrimp. But Henri being Henri, he had merged our faces onto the creatures. Christian Fierce was a hard-shelled proto-crab. Dazza was a jellyfish. Vimsy was a weird tube thing that came out of the seabed. I was a human brain riding on a tactics board. Henri, of course, was the apex predator of the era, the fearsome Anomalocaris.

  "I'm ready for a drink," I said.

  "Lead the way."

  ***

  We went into the main room, which was a hive of life and laughter. Everyone was wearing eye masks, which really enhanced the mood. It was great to see everyone so happy but I felt tired just thinking about all the small talk I'd have to do. Going from one vastly enjoyable conversation to sixty banal ones was a very definite step down.

  Camila went off to check on Foquita and I knew she wouldn't come back.

  I went to get a glass of white wine - Henri always chose amazing stuff and the first team's party budget was massive - and went to watch as some of the lads moved tables from the edges of the room into the middle. Were we going to eat? I glanced around, tried to smell food, but a movement caught my eye. Dazza and Foquita were lining up a table so that it matched two others. I should have wondered if they'd met at the World Cup, should have asked if Dazza spoke Spanish or if this was all happening on vibes. But no - I locked onto the circular tables. Circles in a line. Three. In my mind's eye I saw them gently vibrating, begging me to pop them. Pop and get a boost! Plus ten percent happiness to everyone within twenty-five yards.

  Emma put her hand on my back and clinked her glass into mine. "Did you enjoy that, you dog?"

  "Did I enjoy welcoming our special guest to the club? Yes. I'm kind. I have a big heart."

  "Yeah. And eyes as big as saucers when she took that coat off. Can't blame you. Woof!"

  I laughed. "Come on. What happens is, sometimes I try on new anatomical costumes like the creatures of the Cambrian era. Like, what if my eyes sort of bulged out like in a cartoon?"

  "And what if your tongue rolled down to the floor?"

  "Is Foquita okay?"

  Emma turned and checked. "Yeah. The lads took him off my hands right away. Henri, Pascal, and Zach have some Spanish. Brooke too, I think, but she's working the room."

  I snapped into manager mode in a way that almost hurt. "Camila will sit next to him for whatever this thing is. There's Dani so there will be voice-to-text going on, Henri's great about that. Let's see if we can get it translated."

  Emma pushed herself into me and leaned. She stayed there for about ten seconds until she felt me relax. She looked up at me. "No, babes. This is Henri's show; don’t try to micromanage it. And if Foquita has to struggle and the lads have to explain things to him, isn't that better?"

  "Yes," I said. "You're right." I tried to relax some more, but glanced at a box of pens that had appeared on one of the tables. Charlotte was picking them out, lining them up one by one. Three for a pop. Swap the red one to the end and you'll get three blues in a row. If you could slot a pen in wherever you wanted, the game would be too easy. What if you can only add pens to the sides? How would that change your strategy?

  Ems put her drink down, straightened my tie, fussed with my waistcoat. "Spend more time with Caramel."

  "Who? Oh. Why?"

  "It's good for you. Go on. Whatever this thing is, it's going to start in ten minutes or so."

  Tempting. I wanted to, of course, but wasn't dumb enough to say so. "No, I'll stay with you. Protect me from conversations, babes. I don't have the energy."

  She pushed her hands towards my shoulders. "You've been out there chatting away, being cool and charming and the tension's melting off you."

  I pulled a face. "You're actually my dream woman, actually. I relax around you."

  "You know the phrase 'a change is as good as a rest?' That's what Caramel was asking for. A break from her boyfriend, who she's clearly crazy about. You need a break, Max. I moved in with you, Sandra's on maternity leave, you're working hard, and I think you're actually a little bit sick but you're trying to fight it off. Go get that woman and talk shit with her until Henri starts this show."

  "I think the show is that there's no show. The show is the art that no-one's looking at."

  Emma smiled and tapped me on the heart. "See? That's the kind of thing Caramel wants to hear and when she gasps in admiration at your brilliance you'll do a cute little smile of accomplishment and you'll say more things and tonight will be like a big reset button and you'll sleep ten hours and wake up ready for anything and strangely keen to learn Spanish."

  I tutted. "You're as mental as Henri. Where do you get these mad ideas from? Gasp at my brilliance? We were talking about Fleetwood away and the weather. Anyway, she's probably had enough of me. There's loads of hot men around."

  With impeccable timing, Camila re-appeared. "What nice people! So kind."

  "I bet," said Emma, with dark amusement. "Max has a theory he can't wait to tell you."

  "Oh?" said Camila, slipping her arm around mine.

  "Er," I said. The silver dress was dazzling, the eyes so black no light could escape. "The show is that there's no show."

  "Ah!" she said, delighted. "We wait for the show and that's the show."

  I smiled eagerly, pointing my nose towards the lads who were moving tables around. "We even help prepare it."

  "We should search the next corridor. Perhaps there will be a Sphinx and a riddle and we will have had to study the art to answer its questions."

  Emma was smiling. "I'll leave yers to it."

  ***

  Camila and I left the big room through the same door we'd entered so we could enjoy the next corridor in the sequence the artist intended. As before, all the artworks were on the left, though this time I didn't think there was any particular organisational concept.

  It was a wall of memes.

  The first was the famous 'distracted boyfriend' meme. A boyfriend (a dead ringer for the Spanish goalkeeper David de Gea) and girlfriend are walking down a high street. The boyfriend has seen a fly honey in a red dress and is looking back towards her while thinking 'hubba hubba'. His girlfriend is pissed.

  Henri had labelled the boyfriend 'Max Best', because of course. The girlfriend was labelled 'Reliable First Team Player'. The girl in the red dress was labeled 'some nobody from a beach/a park/Crawley under 18s/fucking Wales.'

  "Wow," I said, but there was very little I could add.

  The second one was the Galaxy Brain meme, a series of images of brains getting bigger and more powerful with every step. Beside the first image, in which the brain was small and the colour scheme was dull, Henri had written '4-1-4-1'. The next brain, bigger with bright dots showing the synapses were firing, came with the text '4-2-3-1'. The next was '3-4-3'. Finally, where the brain activity was reaching out beyond the body of the human, connecting with the very galaxy, the text read '4-1-4-1'.

  I laughed pretty hard.

  "I don't understand," said Camila.

  "He's making fun of me," I said. "4-1-4-1 was my favourite formation back in non-league and I've been using these more sophisticated ones but now I like 4-1-4-1 again."

  "It's a boy joke."

  "Sure, maybe. He's laughing at my ego because I always call myself a floating megabrain but what I do is often pretty basic."

  "Keep it simple."

  "Exactly. I'm sorry, I can't explain why it's funny. Maybe you need to have been on this three-year journey with us."

  "Ees okay. I get the... the silhouette of the humour."

  The next meme was known on the internet as 'Young Thug at Computer'. On the left, two rappers are staring intently at a computer screen, probably at some music editing software. But on the right we 'see' what they're seeing on the screen. The one I knew showed them playing the Windows game Minesweeper, the humour coming from the juxtaposition of how seriously they are concentrating and how low-stakes the game is.

  Henri had used something like Microsoft Paint to sketch a footballer's skills radar. There were eight 'slices' of the chart and they started off pretty normal: xG per 90, xT per 90, final third entries, goal contributions. Then they got weird. Handsomeness. Cocky confidence. Gasps per 90. Swoonworthiness.

  Every segment was rated 100 out of 100. The heading said 'Max Best' and at the bottom, in spidery teenage boy handwriting, 'by Spectrum'.

  "Who is Spectrum?"

  "He runs our youth system and he does this kind of data stuff on the side."

  "What is the swoonworthiness of Foquita?"

  "There's not yet enough data to support any conclusions."

  She smiled. "Spectrum is a big fan of yours?"

  "He hated me at first but I won him over by making him do strange things until he quit."

  "The oldest trick in the book. Are you going to repeat that with Foquita?"

  "No. I'll make sure he's healthy and if he is, feed him assists and let him rack up goals. There's nothing for me to do except let it happen."

  "If he is healthy? Foquita wants to play every game."

  "Yeah, well," I said, trying to ease her to the next meme. "He's not gonna."

  She didn't want to move. "There's nothing for you to do? What do you mean?"

  "I mean he's on his path and it's best for me to let him stay on it. The only thing I might want to improve is his teamwork. He's selfish, which isn't terrible for a striker but there are times you want him to pass to a player in a better position and there are times he needs to suffer defensively. Which, yeah, if he was staying here I'd definitely wade in on but my job is to make him look good so he can get his next move on schedule."

  She was watching me carefully. "Foquita wants to be the best. Can you help him?"

  I clicked my tongue. "He's just passing through. It'll be hard enough for him, won't it? The cold, the rain, no family, no Caramel. He doesn't need me screaming at him twice a week, subbing him off after 17 minutes, making him look like a twat. This... This is just business, isn't it? I need to do my part, which is to let him score goals."

  Her voice got lower. "He wants to be the best. He wants to be pushed. Will he be unhappy? Maybe. But he will love you for it."

  I stepped away, turned around, messed up my hair in my hands. "I don't know if I have the energy," I admitted, as I turned back. "It takes a lot out of me, out of the staff. We have to hammer the message home every time he does something wrong. If ever we ease off, he goes right back to the start. I'm already frazzled and close to the edge. I might be past the edge, if I'm being honest. Christmas is a bad time for me."

  She eyed me. "Because of your mother."

  "Right."

  "We know the history. So sad. But you are not alone. You have the famous German coach." She smiled and indicated the radar chart. "And Spectrum. And you have the support of me and Foquita's mother. I will explain it to her. Foquita will phone us when he is unhappy and we will calm him down. I will tell him that if he wants to be the best he has to learn from the Best."

  The thought of going full Max to get Foquita a few more points in Teamwork and Decisions was exhausting, but looking at Camila returned most of the energy. She was an unbelievable ally. All I had to do was rage at Foquita when he did something shit and she would spend hours on the phone convincing him I was right. It had the potential to be the easiest coaching I ever did. I got a cheeky grin. "To be honest, I'm not sure I can stand by while one of my players plays for his own glory instead of the team. All right. You'll have to teach me the Spanish for 'that's fucking dogshit mate, get wrecked, do that again you're going right in the bin.'"

  She spoke quickly and I didn't catch so much as a word.

  "Change of plan," I said. "He'll learn English."

  ***

  From the main room we heard someone speak through a microphone followed by a huge buzz of chat and chairs scraping.

  "Want to go?" said Camila.

  "I'd like to make sure all these things aren't about me," I said.

  They weren't.

  Next was the 'first world problems' meme, which featured a tearful woman stressing about trivial things. The Chester version had text at the top: Dazza ate the last avocado again. Bottom text: Now I have to eat Greek yoghurt topped with fresh fruits, granola, and chia seeds.

  "Ha," said Camila. "I feel that one."

  The next was a Photoshopped Sticky sitting behind a desk in a park. Taped to the desk was a large piece of card that read: You should always play your first-choice goalkeeper. CHANGE MY MIND.

  Next was the famous 'handshake' meme where two beefy arms slap into each other. It's used to show one thing that two seemingly different groups have in common. The arm on the left was tagged: 'Sealbiscuit'. The right said 'Andrew Harrison.' Over their clasped hands were the words, 'Stops running after three hundred miles.'

  "Sealbiscuit?" said Camila.

  "That's our team bus. It's electric. We love it. It's the best three hundred grand I ever amortised. No, depreciated. What's the word? Ah, fuck it."

  The last one we looked at was a Venn diagram with three overlapping circles. The circle on the right was labelled 'Charlotte'. The one on the left was 'Formula 1 Champions'. The third said 'world-shattering tectonic movements'. The part in the middle, the one thing all three had in common, said, 'knows how to make a pass'.

  "Max," called Charlotte, which freaked me out for two reasons. One, because I'd just been thinking about her. Two, because a door had appeared just a few yards away like we were in Hogwarts. "We're ready for you. Use this door." She pulled her mask back over her eyes and vanished.

  I got as excited as when a referee blew his whistle after witnessing a foul in the box. Was he going to give a penalty... or a yellow card for diving? Was this going to be the new SILK! or was it going to be pure dogshit?

  "This is fun," I said, rubbing my hands together. "There could be absolutely anything in there. French acrobats. Elephants. Literally anything's possible."

  She pointed to the three parts of the 'handshake' meme. "Your players. Camila. Following you wherever you lead."

  I escorted her through the door with a colossal smile on my face.

  ***

  The door led directly to the stage and there was applause as I appeared. Ahead of me were a dozen tables, now covered with rich fabrics, drinks, nibbles, and Christmas ornaments. Most of the tables had five people each and at a glance I noted that the admins and backroom staff had been mixed up. MD was to my left, Brooke to my right. Physio Dean was near the back, Livia near the front. If Henri had assigned the tables, that made sense.

  He himself was over to the right of the stage, in front of a lectern. He was in a tuxedo, beautifully black and white, slimming, bulging at the biceps. He wore a blue-and-white bowtie but no eye mask.

  "Welcome, your Highness. Please take your throne." On the left of the stage was a red-and-gold high-backed armchair. "Miss Caramel, you may choose a team."

  Camila looked around the room. Emma was waving her over. Foquita was signalling, too. Youngster, the dog, had an empty chair next to him and he pushed it backwards as if to say, 'how about here?' Meghan slapped him on the arm and he pulled his neck in like a grinning turtle.

  "I choose Team Max."

  When he was in these moods, Henri was absolutely unflappable. "A wise choice. May we have a chair, please?"

  About seven guys shot to their feet, rushing to be the one to carry the chair up to the stage. I laughed and guided Camila into the throne, and took a chair from Wibbers. I sat; it was more comfortable than it looked.

  Henri waited for everyone to sit back down and said, "Those of you who said Max would refuse to wear an eye mask... award yourselves one point."

  "Yessss!" cried more than half of the teams.

  Teams. Points. Henri dressed like a game show host. Was this...?

  "Your Highness, we are playing a pub quiz."

  "Oh, mint," I said. I wouldn't have minded some sword-swallowers or a human pyramid, but a pub quiz was fun, too.

  "Many of the questions will be football-related. I thought it would be fun for the others to pit their wits against you. And now you have help you will be even more formidable."

  "Is there a music round?"

  "No, Your Highness, there is not a music round." Henri was holding a microphone and some white cards. He slid one to the back. "Thank you all for coming. We're delighted to welcome our special guests, Foquita and his partner, Caramel." Generous applause followed. Foquita was between Brooke and Zach and they were doing the translations for him. "It has been another wonderful year. Chester FC have gone from strength to strength and that is because of everyone's hard work. Thank you all." Applause. "Thank you to Christian for smashing the party fund piggy bank for tonight." Cheers and whoops. "Without further ado, let the quiz commence. First prize is eternal glory. Second prize is one bottle of very nice red for each team member. Remember that the referee's decision is final."

  Henri took a clipboard from the lectern and brought it over to me, along with a pen. I scanned the page. Typical pub quiz fare. "Do we need a team name?"

  "Yes," he said, walking back to his side of the stage before I could ask why the prize for second was better than for first.

  I wrote 'Double Choc and Caramel', which got a giggle from my teammate.

  Henri said, "Question one. Nice easy start. On which date is Christmas Day?"

  I frowned and wrote December 25th.

  "It's the 24th," said Camila, leaning close to whisper so the nearby tables couldn't hear. She was so close I felt her breath on my ear.

  "What?" I said, thinking she was joking, but then I remembered that in some countries they did it different. Maybe the quiz would force us to learn about each other. Maybe that was Henri's devious plan. I looked around to see who was placed where, but two tables away my eyes landed on Angel. She was watching Camila with a faraway expression. I whispered back. "Here the main day is the 25th. That's when you get the presents and have dinner with your family and eat too much and watch a James Bond film. The next day is Boxing Day and you eat too much and watch a film from a different James Bond."

  "Question two," said Henri. "Should little baby Lane-Beeks be allowed to open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve?"

  I scoffed and shook my head. "The fuck? There's no right answer to that." The other teams didn't share my doubt - they were leaning towards each other, whispering urgently.

  Camila leaned close again. "Little baby Lane...?"

  "It's my assistant manager's newborn. I don't think the question is about that baby in particular. It's, you know, general. Wibbers told me he was fine waiting till Christmas Day but his brother kicked up a fuss and made his parents give him something the day before. Parents shouldn't reward tantrums, right? And there's value to waiting for something. Most of the time the presents are underwhelming and the anticipation is more thrilling."

  "Question three," said Henri.

  "Shit," I said, and wrote 'yes' in the second slot. It's Christmas. Spoil your kids.

  The final three questions were also Christmas themed.

  Henri took my answers and brought them to the lectern. "Oh, interesting. As I expected, Our Majesties have got all the answers right." That announcement came with a very strange noise from the other teams. Something between a cheer and a jeer. "Please pass your answer sheets to the team next to you for marking. Okay, the answers." Since I'd got them all right, Henri read from my sheet. "Question one, Christmas Day is the 25th." A cheer from the players. "Question two. Should little baby Henri be allowed to open presents the day before? Yes." The word exploded like a bomb. Hands flew to heads in utter disbelief. Emma's team shot to their feet, all pointing at her while she crumpled into a giggling, embarrassed ball. Henri powered through. "Question three. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Answer, of fucking course. I'll give you a point for yes," he said, smoothly. "Four. Should a snowman be made from two balls or three? Answer: Whatever. To be clear, if you wrote 2, no points. If you wrote 3, no points. You only score if you wrote whatever, either/or, or that you don't care. Five. What's the best Christmas song? Answer: Fairytale of New York by The Pogues." Vimsy's team stood and high-tenned each other.

  Camila leaned close to me again. "How can 'whatever' be an answer?"

  "No clue. The guy's a total whacko. Or he might be doing a post-modern deconstruction of pub quizzes."

  "Round two is the football round," said Henri, to a big cheer. "The answers are all members of the men's or women's squads." I got the feeling that the pace of drinking had accelerated since the pub quiz had started. I'd been nursing my white wine but now signalled a waiter for a top-up. It came in a new glass. Swanky! In the next round there were ten perplexing questions and again Henri took my answers and, with an impressed face, declared I had scored very well. He took my answers away with him, presumably to mark them.

  "How is that - " I started, but Camila gently touched me to shut me up.

  "Question one. Which player would make the best manager? Answer: Pascal." Cheer. "Two. Which player would be hardest to replace? Answer: Magnus Evergreen." A surprised murmur swept the room, followed by chants of 'Mag-nus! Mag-nus!' "Three. Who is the boss's favourite player? Answer: Sarah Greene." A big shriek from the table that featured Wibbers and Sarah. Wibbers was nodding proudly. "Four. Which player is most likely to annoy Max and get sent to the bomb squad or sold? Answer: No-one, they're all angels, actually that's a good point, Angel." He had read my answer word for word, which was cheeky and potentially unhelpful. It got quite a few laughs, especially from Bonnie. Her younger sister was exasperated and tried not to smile. It didn't last long. I looked at her and mouthed 'sorry' and she said it was okay. "Five. Who is the most underpaid? Youngster. Six. Who has the best bromance? Answer: Josh and Tom. Seven. Who is the most likely to go into politics? Answer: Mari Hughes." Nobody cheered, a sign that no-one had written that as the answer, but Mari's table gave her some good-natured verbals. Mari was the daughter of one of the bigwigs at the Welsh Football Association so to me it was obvious she had the genes to want to run things. I had been so focused on trying to get the answers right I hadn't been looking for the meta-game, but on hearing Mari's name I got a sudden suspicion about the true nature of what's going on. Henri kept going. "Eight. Who is most likely to demand better service by yelling 'Do you know who I am?!' Answer: Tom Westwood."

  I was sure no-one else would have written that; I shot to my feet. "Hey," I said, to lots of sniggers.

  "Max, please," said Henri. "I don't interrupt your team talks."

  "You do, actually."

  "Question nine. Who is most likely to marry badly?"

  "No, no, no," I said, waving my hands around.

  I was met with jeers and was struck by a few balled-up napkins. "Sit down, Your Highness!" yelled someone.

  I glanced from Camila to Henri, not sure what to do. Henri took his chance. "Answer: Julie McKay."

  "Oh, fuck no," I said. "You're just reading out my answers. Why are you reading out my answers?"

  "You are the state!" yelled Henri, jabbing his finger at me. "Your opinion is the only one that matters! Question ten."

  "Don't," I said, with a warning tone.

  Henri nodded and made a show of turning his microphone off. He looked sad and gave a big shrug. Suddenly he was two yards further to the right and the mic was on. "Apart from Max and Henri, who has the hottest girlfriend? Answer..."

  I was on him, trying to wrestle the mic out of his idiot fingers. He lost his serious demeanour and broke into fits of laughter. It might have been the way I hadn't slept for a week but I joined in. We laughed like mad idiots while genuinely wrestling hard to get the mic.

  "Max!" called Emma. "That's a Boateng Boateng! That was a gift!" She meant my suit. I bounced away, hands up. "And we all want to know who you fancy."

  This proclamation was met with wolf whistles, sniggers, and whoops. With as much dignity as I could muster, I ambled back to my seat and put my player-manager face on.

  "The hottest girlfriend for anyone on the current squad, thus excluding Foquita, of course... is Gemma." If the cheers were anything to go by, two tables had chosen that, including the one containing the Brig. “You get a point, of course, if you actually listened to the question and wrote Andrew.” Henri smiled as he adjusted his bow tie. "I believe Max has worked out the game, and why second prize is the real prize. That ends the quiz. Please add up your scores."

  There followed a minute of admin and the announcement that the Brig's team had won. They got generous cheers and the staff brought five bottles of wine to their table.

  "Thank you for playing Beat the Boss! You may now visit galleries 1 and 2. I will escort His Highness to gallery 3. Adieu!"

  There was rapid applause followed by a rush to the corridors I'd been down. So it wasn't that people hadn't been interested - they hadn't been allowed. Or perhaps the pictures had been put up in the time between the normal guests arriving, and me.

  Henri came over. I said, "Whatever I said was the right answer."

  "Yes."

  "So they were guessing what I would write. You told them the rules before I arrived."

  "Yes."

  "That's diabolical."

  He rubbed his nose to hide a smirk. "I had no conception that you would be so inflammatory with your answers."

  I tutted and sighed. "You've stirred the pot big time."

  "Yes." He sighed. "I must admit I'm glad you worked it out so fast. The questions for round three are hot garbage. Would you follow me?"

  "Am I invited?" said Camila.

  "Rather you than Max," said Henri, reaching out to help her up. Smooth bastard. "Do you know he plans to replace me with a younger model? I thought he meant Foquita but I now suspect I misunderstood."

  She smiled and fell into step beside him. I followed along like a jealous sausage dog.

  But when we arrived at 'gallery 3', Henri took a step back and Camila and I went from piece to piece. "Fuck," I said, the brief moment of annoyance forgotten. "Henri! You've outdone yourself. I demand a hug."

  He laughed and gave me one, then I returned to the art.

  The first one was simply a foosball table but with Chester Men against Chester Women. 3-5-2 against 3-5-2. The women were in our away kit and all the faces and squad numbers were authentic. Henri said, "I thought about having every player be Best 77 but it would only have been funny for a moment. This, I think, will be popular in Bumpers."

  "It's so mint," I laughed, spinning the midfield around. Best 77 was on the right, next to Bochum 18. "I love it. This is custom-made, right? Can you get more? I'd love one that was like 4-4-2 against 4-3-3."

  "I can hook you up with the creator."

  I tapped it. "I want to play this all night. Am I right in thinking no-one's allowed in this section until I've seen it?"

  "Yes."

  "Because I'm the king or whatever."

  "Yes."

  I knew that by the time I'd got to the end of the art, the table football zone would be packed with people and there would be a staggeringly long queue. Ah, well.

  The next piece - I'd only been gone three seconds and the fucking foosball table was already in use! - didn't make much sense at first. It was the men's first team squad photo we'd taken at the start of the season. Three rows, front sitting, back standing on a bench. Goalies and coaches to the ends. Me in the middle at the front. "I don't get it," I said. It was just a large photo. Not Henri's style at all.

  Camila stepped closer, reached up, and pulled on a stick that was hard to spot against the dark wall. When she did, Ben Cavanagh's face slid off the photo. She pulled three more away - Sharky, Eddie, and Tom Westwood.

  "That's fucking brutal, mate," I said.

  "Perhaps you would like to look in the mirror."

  "I would like to look in the mirror, as you know." I smiled in the direction of Camila to see if she had noticed that I'd won the conversation. "If I know the way Henri thinks, there's a way to put new faces to replace those." She nodded, slunk in front of me, and found more sticks on the right. One slipped Foquita into Tom's position. Another pushed the face of the current Bayern Munich goalkeeper into Ben's slot. "Torben Ulrich, mate? Have you got a spare 70 million to lend me?"

  "In this space, we are only limited by our imagination." He curled his lips at Camila. "And my imagination has no limits."

  Camila played with another stick but nothing happened. "Move Torben Ulrich out of the way," I suggested.

  She did. There was another face lurking behind. "Who's that?" she said, frowning.

  "That's Ben Cavanagh in a fake moustache." I shook my head. "Henri, please talk to Alex about the voices in your head. At least one isn't meant to be there."

  Henri was delighted by that feedback and led us through more of his mental fault lines.

  One piece was a small 3D model of the fully redeveloped Deva stadium, which, by the way, was incredibly cool. Henri had also 3D printed a small statue of me and we were supposed to put it where we thought it should go. The statue came close to the height of the stadium roof.

  The next piece was an old-fashioned weighing scales. In front of it lay nine small wooden boxes with player names on. A sign informed us that the weight of the box represented a player's salary and that we should try to balance three against six. "Jesus Christ," I complained.

  "Can you solve it?" he said.

  I moved three boxes to the side. Our wages weren't all public knowledge but it was possible the nine players had told Henri what they were making. "This?"

  Henri stared at my hand, blankly. "That's actually impressive."

  "Show me on the balanza," said Camila.

  I shuffled the boxes around and pulled her away. "Sorry, that's not a good idea. Money's a sensitive topic around here. It's all right if the lads joke about it but I shouldn't. Do you know what I mean?" I ruffled my hair and looked down the corridor. There were more interactive pieces. "Mate," I said. "How long did all this take you?"

  He tutted. "One does not measure art by how long it took to create. One measures it by the amount of emotion it generates. Joy, antipathy, disgust. You feel joy there, disgust here. I am content."

  "Yeah, it's good," I said, vaguely. I looked around and checked the time. "So when are the strippers coming?"

  Henri's face contorted.

  I smiled. "You're disgusted. See? I can do art, too."

  He nodded rapidly. "Yes. Very good, Max. Very, very good." He continued to seethe until all at once his face cleared up. "You are the state, Max. I find I'm in need of validation. What do you think of the evening?"

  "The Wall of Time is amazing."

  "I call it - " he brought his palms up and spread them wide. "Time's Narrow."

  "Bosh. Perfect. The memes..."

  "The Memery Palace."

  "Okay! They're funny. I need to go back and look at the rest. And this stuff is great. Oh, and the pub quiz was deranged. Yeah, all in all, a good event. I rate it four stars but is it out of four or five? You'll never know."

  Camila said, "It's out of four."

  "What she said."

  Camila said, "I have felt tired these last few days. England is so cold, so wet. But I'm full of energy again and I'm happy Foquita is coming here. Yes, very happy."

  "Henri," I said. "Camila wants us to give Foquita the full Tyson treatment."

  Henri's eyes widened. "Are you sure, miss?"

  She looked uncertain. "I thought I was."

  I got serious. "Henri, Reading are in trouble."

  He looked at Camila. "My former club."

  "I've got an EFL call about it tomorrow. If it's what I think it is, can you sneak me into one of their training sessions? Like, asap?"

  "Are you going to pillage a club in crisis, Your Highness?"

  "Yes."

  He nodded. "You have been strangely calm this past week. I see now it was the calm before the storm. Of course I will help you."

  I slapped him on the arm. To Camila I said, "Let's check the future of Peruvian football is all right, yeah?"

  She came with me into the big room where we found Foquita perched next to Dani on the edge of the stage. He spoke into her phone, there was a beat, and she read what it said. I signed a question mark and Dani showed me that she was using an app that listened to Foquita and automatically provided the translation. She typed away and it turned the text into Spanish.

  "That's going to be handy," I mused, and the app translated it. Both Dani and Foquita agreed. "Dani, show the video of the day I found you."

  She read what I’d written, smiled and swiped.

  I moved away, letting them get to know each other. Camila said, "The day you found her?"

  "She was playing in a pan-disability tournament but she's one of the best players in the country. I was angry because I thought she was cheating. When I realised my mistake I knew I had to sign her. She didn't want to come but I convinced her with my dance moves."

  "Oh?" Camila raised an eyebrow. An invitation to strut my stuff.

  "That was before I was put in a coma. I'm still recovering. Got this weird feeling that dancing will come back last. Yep, pretty sure. Dani's doing great, though. She has to be close to an England call-up."

  Emma bustled over and joined us. She looked like she'd been having a good time. She dropped her mask on the nearest table and rubbed her forehead. "England? Who?"

  "Loads," I said. "Dani, Angel, Kisi. Meghan and Sarah again, of course. Wibbers has to be right up there. Dan maybe? He passes the eye test. Cole has to be close to an Ireland call-up. I've been bigging them up to people close to their national teams but there hasn't been a lot of activity that I've seen. It's one of my challenges for the next six months."

  Camila said, "What else is, ah, on your plate?"

  "Spend all the club's money. Beat Bradford, beat Manchester United. Oh, fix Welsh football."

  "That one sounds hard."

  "Nope. I'm going to do it in a few hours, a week on Friday."

  Camila laughed and fell into me. To Emma she said, "He's so funny!"

  Ems smiled back and gave me an affectionate cheek rub. "He is, but he's not joking."

  "Ems is right; I'm not," I said, almost apologetically. "What else? Win the league, win the Youth Cup. Oh, piss Angel aaaaaalllll the way off. Heh."

  "Max," complained Emma. "You shouldn't enjoy it so much." We made eye contact and it got pretty heated. She twisted her lips, but then changed energy completely. She slapped my knee. "Relationism! You need to do more of that!"

  I squinted; Camila had distracted me from thinking about it. Relationism. A player-first approach built on combinations. A system that cried out for flair and imagination. Flicks, tricks, and skills aplenty, but built around a very serious, simple core - together we can build a better world one pass at a time. The version I had in mind would be as beguiling as spending time with a beautiful woman. Serious, simple, winning football for the TikTok generation. Every boy and girl in the world would watch my teams play and hear the same words: sometimes I fantasise.

  For the first time in a week, thinking about Relationism didn't send my head spinning. For the first time in a week it got me fired up.

  "There's a storm coming," I started.

  Camila finished the thought. "And his name is Foquita."

  I gasped. Emma and I looked at each other, mouths wide open. "Camila bringing the sass!"

  Emma smiled. "She's an absolute ledge. Come on, His Highness has had you to himself long enough. Let's mingle."

  "Love to," said Camila. The pair of them went off towards gallery 1, arm in arm, leaving me mostly alone in the main room.

  In the corridors around me were sixty people, laughing, joking, looking at art, playing foosball. My people. My family.

  I got up, clapped my hands together, and headed to gallery 3 to have the first of sixty chats. I had so much fucking energy to burn.