Player Manager - A Sports Progression Fantasy

11.

UK glossary. To go down. Phrasal verb. To go to prison.

***

Donnie Wormwood was nicknamed Scrubber in some sort of cockney pun homage to Wormwood Scrubs, the notorious prison. The idea, I suppose, was to intimidate on two fronts. One, the idea that you were about to get 'scrubbed'. Two, that Donnie wasn't afraid of going down for scrubbing you. It was pathetic, to be honest, to think that there were enough weak-minded people in Essex to fall for it, and doubly pathetic that it was absolutely working on me. I was literally trembling in my trainers, having hospital flashbacks, and despite my boxing training I felt helpless.

Wormwood took a few paces closer, as did Danny, but with a gesture from his uncle, the striker stopped.

The champion came closer and closer, and walked to a 45 degree angle. He looked me up and down. Stupidly, I didn't pivot to face him. I couldn't. I realised in that moment I had tons of unresolved trauma and if I wanted to be any use in such a situation I needed to talk to someone. A thought that contained rather a lot of assumptions about how chatty I'd be with my teeth scattered all over Lincolnshire.

Wormwood nodded a couple of times, got in front of me, and pushed me in the chest. I wobbled an amount that seemed to satisfy him.

He took a couple of steps back and examined me from slightly behind.

"How's your right calf?" His voice was as expected. Pure Essex gangster. He could have played a thug in a Guy Ritchie movie.

It was hard to think but finally I realised he wasn't going to hit me - probably - and the old cogs started whirring. "Tight."

He nodded and went back to the front. "This doesn't add up," he said, touching my right forearm. "What's this?" He had his hand on my hip, pushing me. "Relax here. Can you relax?"

"No. I'm scared of you."

He laughed - his face briefly became angelic, then settled back into cock-of-the-pub. He offered a handshake but I showed him my fist. He bumped it with no rancour. "Donnie Wormwood. I'm Danny's uncle. Heard a lot about you. Didn't know you boxed."

I tried to stand like a normal person going to work. In my mind I was shaking like jelly. "I don't. I just do the training. It's hard. Not much is hard for me these days. What did you mean it doesn't add up?"

He pointed but took his hand away like he wasn't sure. "Your stance says you're an inside fighter. Close quarters. The way you threw Danny off the pitch? Inside fighter. But we've been looking at you play. Free kicks. Pitch-length dribbles. How you manage. From afar. Outside fighter all day long."

"Can't you be both?"

"Not if you want to win a title."

"I'd want to be both."

"You're not both. You can't be. I don't get it. I can size up a boxer in seconds." He looked around the car park and nodded at Danny who was staying five yards back. "Heard about the prick what attacked you. Bad business. Didn't mean to scare you, Mr. Best. It's just your woman wouldn't let me in."

My receptionist had stood up to the champion boxer better than me. "Mel? She's amazing. I've given her dude a bit of a leg up and she's like my personal Grimsby Rottweiler now. I love her."

"Yeah? She scares me." He chuckled and again, his face got thirty years younger. "Love a big girl, me. To business. I'm Danny's agent, s'well as his uncle. Can we have five minutes of your time?"

My heart rate was going down. The sheer panic of the scenario had brought me out in a light sweat, but the rational part of my brain had been screaming that a champion boxer wasn't going to lay into a civilian. They didn't do that. Still, it was like finding yourself in a cage with a tiger that had recently eaten. He would leave you alone... probably. But if you had any common sense you'd still stare at his claws and teeth and wonder who could make it to the exit first.

"Hang on. I know a bit about you and what you did in your career. Blasting the national anthem all over Vegas and Madison Square Garden. If anyone's earned the right to drop the Mr. Best shit, it's you. You don't have to be that polite."

He grinned, which brought a fresh film of sweat to my neck. "It's not polite. It's the veneer of civilisation, innit, and who knows what lurks beneath? Much more intimidating to talk polite when you look like me. Lead the way... Max."

***

We got coffees from the canteen and I took Wormwood to the manager's cabin with Danny scuttling along behind like a puppy behind two big dogs. "It's my office, not that I use it much. We won't be disturbed."

Wormwood and I sat facing each other, but after the drama we felt a bit closer. Wormwood was terrifying in one regard, but I also had a lot of respect for him. He'd struggled and sacrificed to get his career going, maximised his talent, and quit before he lost. 46 wins, no defeats. 46 and oh, as they say. That 'oh' would be in the history books forever.

Top top top. Or was it more glorious to push yourself one level higher and not quite make it? Did the 'oh' maybe mean you didn't quite test yourself to the limit? I didn't know enough about boxing to say, but what about football? Taking the Grimsby job might have been a bridge too far. Did that make me brave or foolhardy?

We started with all kinds of small talk. I had time before training and if the meeting overran, Ollie could step up. I was talking to one of the country's greatest ever sportsmen and I threw myself into the opportunity. After about eight minutes, Wormwood realised I'd been making him do all the talking. I was asking him about the elite mindset. How did he keep going in difficult fights? How did he prepare? How did he stick to crazy diets for months at a time? What was the best regimen for quick recoveries?

He laughed and made me stop. "You ask the right questions, Max. You're the boss at your age? Yeah. Makes more sense, now. But I'm not here to tell you how to be a champion boxer."

"You're very free with your secrets."

"He who teaches, learns."

"What? Hang on." I scribbled it down and stared at the phrase. I couldn't quite get my head round it.

"My trainer taught it me. It means if you want to learn something you have to teach it. First, I thought it was a scam to get me coaching for free, but nah, he's right. The more you teach it, the more you learn it. It's like a shortcut if you're not all that talented. Like me."

I gestured while I stared at my note. "Don't give me the self-deprecating humour shit. It's obvious how good you were. You can get lucky in football. Get yourself a juicy contract after a good World Cup or a few good games at the end of a season." Tiny dig at Danny, there. "You can't fake it in the boxing ring. He who teaches, learns. That's fascinating."

I stayed lost in thought for ages. So long, in fact, that my guests stared at each other.

"Max," said Wormwood, finally. "What it is, right... Danny's dad passed away and I've been trying to keep an eye on the lad. I'm here as his agent and his uncle, whichever you'll listen to."

"I'll listen to you all day long. You got to the level I want to get to."

He tried not to show his pleasure. "I'm here for Danny. He thinks you don't rate him."

"I rate him exactly as much as he deserves to be rated."

Danny's head sank, and didn't come back up for some time. Wormwood pushed his thumb against his nose, the most boxerly gesture imaginable. "And how high is that?"

The car park incident clicked into 'the past'. We were in the here and now and on my turf. Football. "When I took the Grimsby job I said I wouldn't be giving out career advice or anything like that. How they build the squad is none of my business. To some extent, I'm happy for them to overpay on transfer fees and salaries. It's Chris Hale's money in the end, and he has enough of it. Why shouldn't some of it end up in Danny's pocket? My issue is when that money distorts the culture. Toxic players using their income as a stick to beat new signings with."

In the silence that followed, Wormwood's breathing became more pronounced. He was trying to contain his emotions. "Dan. What does he mean?"

It took ages, but Danny finally mumbled, "Some of the lads was cashing him off."

I closed my eyes while I tried to process what he'd said. His uncle seemed to understand but I wasn't a hundred percent. "Cashing me off? The twenty pound note or what? What does that mean?"

"Laughing at how much you earn," said Wormwood.

"It wasn't me," whispered Danny.

"It's all the same culture, isn't it?" I mused. "Tom Brady took a lower salary so he could play with better players because he wanted to win. I'm on no money at Chester so we can blast through the leagues. But it doesn't matter, does it, what I'm paid? It matters if I can do the job and that's one thing you and the other two pricks don't care about." That was aimed at Danny and a reference to his bling-men wing-men Simon Green and Caine. "You don't care about anything except what you see in the mirror. You're not team players and you don't have proper pride in yourselves. You ask me, I'd rather be in my shitty car and go hard at every single day than be one of you lot wearing your big gold chains in clubs 'cashing people off' and burning hundred pound notes and all that crap. I can heat my house, buy food, and I can play football, mate. You and your kind can fuck right off. The fewer twats I have, the better the team plays. You might have noticed we fucking slapped as soon as you deigned to get off the pitch. Bad apples all over the place. Full of worms; that's why I've cut the squad to the core. I'm looking for the footballers and I reckon I've found 'em. It ain't you."

Danny hid under his hood and his uncle fumed, not that quietly. The latter was the next to speak; it was his turn to unleash a flurry of punches.

"I've been digging into this whole Max Best thing. Asking around. You know what I found? You push people. You push people. You've been pushing around here. Pushed the players, the staff, the fans. Pushed young Danny, didn't you, looking for a reaction? You're doing it again. Doing it now. But you overreached on Tuesday night. Danny's the golden boy of Grimsby Town. He could get you sacked. You're gonna apologise to him."

Danny looked across, astonished, and then dipped his head. He had given the game away, though. Wormwood was improvising. Checking if I was congruent. Pushing me on the chest to see if I'd go down. I shook my head. "Nope."

"You've only got two strikers."

"I've got four. But you're bad at research. Everyone in Chester knows on my first day I took out the trash and played with eight including one little tiny mascot kid. I'd rather play with ten than have Danny Look At Me Look At Me Look At Me Cashing You Off. Ten guys with character, nine guys with character. Give me eight guys who give a shit and I'll get us enough wins to stay up."

"You're a cocky bastard, ain't you? Even you have to be worried about losing your job."

"It wouldn't look good on my CV, yeah. But there's exactly one person in Lincolnshire today who's likely to be player-manager in a Champion's League final. Sacking me's like rejecting the Beatles or passing on Harry Potter. Danny Flash the pampered prince getting Max Best the sack is a bad look for exactly one of us. About five years from now there will be a spate of think pieces called 'Remember the Incredible Sulk? He got Max Best fired. Where is he now?"

"Hang on - " started Wormwood, but I was off on one.

"Player-manager and acknowledged transcendent genius Max Best needs no introduction. His sublime Chester men and women's teams continue to rampage through all who oppose them. But did you know that a fucking worm with a few Instagram followers once contrived to get him sacked just as he was trying to save that same player from a massive contractually-stipulated pay cut? That's right! Max briefly popped over to Grimsby to get them out of a jam but a few jumped up little shits felt threatened and guess what? After back-to-back relegations their personalities, for want of a better word, were deemed too toxic even for English football and now they're all working in a hotel in Izmir that is rated the absolute worst tourist destination in Turkey while Max brings Margot Robbie to help him collect his many awards, insisting they are just good friends."

Wormwood breathed through his nose for a while, then he shifted in his seat. He made some sort of grunting noise. "Is he always like this?"

"Don't know," mumbled Danny. "He never talks to us."

The uncle appraised me. "A boxer's only as good as his trainer. Mine was Ricky Priest. You heard of him?"

"Not really."

"He's a legend. He took me from nothing and brought out the best in me. Knew when to give me a clip around the ear, when to tell me summat I needed to hear, knew when I needed to blow off steam, when I had another round in me when I thought I was done. We fell out all the time. Someone was on Wikipedia a while back and they worked out it was every two and a half years. Big blowouts, couldn't stand the sight of each other. But I always went back because no-one knew me like him and no-one could get the best out of me like him. People think boxing's a solo sport but it ain't. It's a team sport same as football. You don't have a coach that pushes you, you're nothing. Nothing." He stared at his nephew, who could only manage a quick flicker in return. "He's a good lad but he's been going off the rails since he got this Grimsby move. Bad crowd, like you said. He's the owner's blue-eyed boy so no-one'll touch him. When we saw you throw him off the pitch on Tuesday night we were up in arms, but then Granddad Don said, bout bloody time. Said he'd have you at the U's any day. You'd sort that mob out, he said. You've made one fan this week, at least."

"The Ewes?"

"U's. Colchester United. We got Danny on the Zoom, made him tell us all about it. He said how he don't want no non-league nobody subbing him off." He eyed me. "Nothing to say to that?"

I scoffed. "If I were Danny I'd fucking hate it, too." Danny glanced up. "But I'd run off the pitch and complain from the bench or put something cryptic on social media. I'd still want the team to win. I wouldn't sabotage the team." The head dropped again.

"The three of us had a big talk," said Wormwood. "Me and his granddad know a thing or two about sport. The two of us think you're running riot. Cutting the squad in half, not trusting anyone, doing things your way, no compromise. Too many mistakes. Too much change too soon. You'll be sacked before you get time for it to work. If it would even work, which we're dubious about."

"Okay," I said, wondering why he had said 'the two of us'.

"But you're right about Tuesday night. Hundred percent right." He counted to five and said, "Danny."

Danny squirmed, breathed weird, and took his phone out. He unlocked it and tapped a couple of times. The cabin was dead silent. At this critical moment, Coaches G and W flung the door open and walked in, laughing. Wormwood and I stood at the same time in similar stances. He looked at me and nodded. Giving me the lead. I said something along the lines of, "Would you mind awfully knocking next time?" and watched as the coaches fell out of the cabin. They threw the door closed in their haste to leave, leaving it swinging open. One of them crept back and pushed it half an inch per second until it softly clicked shut. I put my head back and massaged my head. "This place, holy shit. Those guys should set an example. Receptionist has more breaks than a ski slope. Captain's supposed to keep discipline with the squad but he's one of the biggest twats. I'll say one thing about Danny. He's one of the only ones who's respectful to Chris Hale. From what I've seen, this club should lose every match. You know what that means? Means all these fucking clubs are the same. Lunatics running the asylum."

Wormwood took even longer to settle back than me, but then we were ready and Danny went back to his notes app.

"Dear Mr. Best," he read. "I am very sorry about my behaviour. I was not a team player in that moment when the team needed me." He gulped - big effort to hold back the tears. "I was selfish and you got a yellow card because of my actions. What I done was so bad I don't deserve a second chance but I would like the chance to prove myself to you and to the fans who have supported me so much since I became a Mariner." He gulped again. There was obviously loads to go.

"Danny, let me just read it," I said, because otherwise I would have been there all morning. He handed the phone over and I read it in about four seconds. I handed it back. "Great. Got it. Did that take you a while?" He nodded. He wasn't an Henri who might dash off a quick essay about the fucking Mayans or whatever, or Pascal, who documented every aspect of his life. "You missed a couple of things."

"What?" It was a confused what, not one asking for examples.

"You forgot to apologise for training like shit."

Wormwood slapped the table. "Fuck me!" He stared, wide-eyed, then laughed, hard. "I don't know if I want to batter you or play for you." He laughed some more while shaking his head. "Danny, you been training right?"

Danny livened up. "He put me in the shit group! And he's been doing mad drills with the firsts while we do the same old shit!"

"Mad drills? I thought I was a non-league hack."

Danny exhaled, frustrated with me, frustrated with himself. He shoved his hands inside his hood and fussed with his hair so loudly I barely heard what he said. "They're buzzing. They love it. I didn't think you was watching us."

"Max Best knows all and sees all. If you want to move to the top group you need to be the top dog in your group. If you train like shit in the shit group you need to stay in the shit group."

Wormwood put his hands up. "I don't need to be here for this. You're the boss. You decide where he trains. Isn't that right, Danny?"

"Yeah," he said.

"But Danny wants to post that message on his socials and take some of the heat off you."

"Why?"

He stared at his nephew. Danny squirmed and said, "Training here's all defensive. It's boring. It's good but it doesn't get you out of bed. Know what I mean? And now there's..." He sighed and it took ages to speak again. "There's you and Coach O and I want it. It's what I want."

I pointed at his phone. "Got it. So if I let you into the good group you'll post on social media and I'll keep this job. Right. So if I do what you want, you'll save me. I work for you, now, do I?"

Wormwood's sinister snarl was back, and Danny let out a frustrated "No!" He covered his face with his hands and pulled them down, slowly, distorting his face one section at a time. "No, boss. If I have to train with the shits to get back in, I will. I shouldn't of sulked the last days but I thought... I didn't think. But I don't want you getting binned off. Some of it's well harsh like dumping Si in London but the tactics are dead on. I want to tell everyone how mint you are and it's our fault we're not winning. And that I was bang out of order."

I stood and walked away while I had a think. The truth was that I had a wild idea for how to play against Wrexham and having Danny Flash available would help. And as much as I didn't want to have to get political to keep my job, there were a couple of political things I had up my sleeve based around the fact that both Grimsby and Chester fans hated Wrexham. I would always be football first, but if we lost against Gillingham, I wouldn't even get the chance to do battle against the Welsh dragon. Danny could help me stick around for another week. Still, though, my status was only on 'insecure'. I'd kind of got used to it and even thought I'd be able to ride out a few weeks of 'very insecure'. I wasn't like normal managers. When sacked, they might never get another job. I had Chester, and I had West Didsbury. Pressure? What pressure?

As for Danny, the worm had turned. I was too stubborn to apologise and respected people who did.

"All right, you're in, on one condition."

He looked down at his hands. "What is it?"

"Don't post that."

Surprise. "What?"

I tried to be diplomatic. "I know you worked really hard on it so please don't take this the wrong way. I think you'd admit you're not a natural writer." He sort of grinned. "And I know it took you ages to get it sounding good. But it doesn't sound like Danny Flash, does it? It sounds like I've got a gun to your head and made you write something." I imagined a rando on a bus in Grimsby reading Danny's script and I couldn't help but laugh. "Look, that'd do more harm than good, wouldn't it? Here's the deal. You smash training today and we forget it ever happened. That's it. No need to make a public statement or anything. I don't want to lose this job but I don't want to be doing fake political bullshit to keep it. That's not me. We do our talking on the pitch. We beat Gillingham, everything's peachy. Good?"

Wormwood was nodding. He liked what I was saying. "Will he play against Gillingham? It's not far for me and his granddad."

"No," I said, but it didn't sound right. "Not the first half. Might come on as a sub. Not worth the hassle. Wrexham, though. That might be worth a drive." There was a knock at the door. "Come in," I said. Coach O opened it and looked in. I pointed at him while staring at Danny. "Standards." Turning to Ollie, I said, "Yes, mate?"

"Should we start? I don't know what the plan is."

In a dreamy voice, I said, "He who teaches, learns, Coach O. I'm going to teach Danny Flash how to stay onside, and in so doing, become a better player myself." I flashed Wormwood a Maxy Two-Thumbs. He didn't know how to respond because there was a very good chance I was being a sarcastic little SOB. He would forgive me, though. His nephew was all smiles.

***

Saturday, March 16

Match 3 of 10: Gillingham versus Grimsby Town

Gillingham is in Kent, a four hour and ten-minute drive from Grimsby.

The bus ride wasn't so bad - the atmosphere was not hostile for once and there was some excitement. The lads wanted to get on the pitch and try to do some slapping. There was also some apprehension - another loss would probably spell the end for me. I'd always said if I lost five in a row I'd get binned, but with all my antics and the way I'd fallen out with an entire county, three would surely be enough.

It was going to be a tough match. The Gills had one of the best defences in the league, though they struggled to score. If we got ahead, I felt sure we'd win. If we fell behind, it could be game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect fifty thousand pounds.

Morale was slightly up, and I felt the general level of fitness was improved. Players like Mal Mehew and Ed Williams had gotten good minutes and you could see it in how they trained and even in their CAs.

I decided to start with 4-1-4-1, the best formation for the team.

I would use Devonte Payne as the right mid with Danny Grant in the centre. Overall, we would have a CA of 81.4, but we would weaken at half time.

While on the bus, I took the opportunity to have quick chats with some of the players I'd bombed into group B. Players like Alfie Grimwood, the left back, and Tom Hickman, the talented centre back. I told them my reasons for splitting the group and said (in their cases at least) it was nothing personal and I expected them to be ready to play and if they trained well on Monday they could get moved into the core group on Tuesday and they'd have a chance of playing against Wrexham because I thought we'd have to go quite defensive in that one. The prospect seemed to excite them, but there was no immediate change in their morale. Maybe they thought I wouldn't be in charge by then so it didn't matter.

We got to the Priestfield Stadium and I pottered around checking it out. There were three nice stands - I could imagine the redeveloped Deva looking something like it, except there was no way I'd let the three stands be three different heights. Two maybe, but three? That was a no from me, dog. But then there was pretty much the worst stand I'd ever seen. The only competition was the abomination at Barrow. This one was just... a shape. With no roof. The internet said it was a temporary stand that had been erected in 2003. How about we talk about the meaning of the word temporary?

The dressing room before kick-off was quiet. There were no physios, the kit man had done his work and left, and the only coach was Ollie. I had told individual players if they were playing or not, but had instructed them not to discuss it with anyone else. Anyone trying to find out the whole team, I had said, was the mole. All very ominous and potentially bad for morale, but I was pretty sure no-one had blabbed.

With five minutes to go, I took them out to the pitch and told them the plan. Alex Evans would boss the game from DM, we would play with control, we would be sensible, but when the chance to slap came, we would slap hard. Nothing new, nothing surprising, but we had been starting matches with 4-2-4 and Gillingham went with 5-3-2 to defend against that. Their average CA was 81 but most of that came from their goalie and centre backs. They basically had two Christian Fierce types, which seemed unfair. Up front, their strikers worked hard and could win headers but didn't have much technical quality or finishing skill.

We kicked off and I used Cupid's Arrow to combine Grant and Wainwright. Immediately everything fell into place. We raced into sixty percent possession and got shots away. Low quality ones, but they were coming.

In the ninth minute, Devonte Payne went on an overlapping run and, seeing two defenders around Wainwright, decided against the cross. He cut back onto his left foot. His opponent hung out a leg, Payne went down, penalty! I smashed Free Hit in record time.

Wainwright took a couple of paces, hit it to his left... and the goalie saved it. Six out of ten penalty, ten out of ten save.

The home fans had been pretty quiet, but that got them mocking us.

"Going down, going down, going down!"

And when I popped out of the dugout to shout encouragement to Wainwright...

"Sacked in the morning! You're getting sacked in the morning!"

Seeing that his plan wasn't working, Gillingham's manager switched to 4-4-2 and tried to make the game bitty and sluggish. Maybe he knew I would only use Alex for the first half and he would ride out this storm and come at us in the second half.

Gills (pronounced like the woman's name) had a couple of efforts, one of which scared the shit out of me, but we finished the half with five shots on target. A decent haul against such a well-drilled team.

I went to the dressing room deep in thought. Two things were happening that I didn't have the experience to deal with. One, Wainwright's penalty miss had fucked him up. His head had dropped and it didn't help that the two centre backs were so good. They were bullying him, which didn't happen to him very often. But what could I do? It was him or Danny Flash and there was no contest.

The second thing was that I could see Gillingham were doing something strange defensively that I couldn't put my finger on. On the tactics screen, their defender icons were surrounded by thick lines. That meant they were doing something different to the default, but I couldn't see what. I'd need to study the tapes but that wouldn't help us in the second half.

Now I had to choose which subs to make. Alex was coming off - I couldn't risk overplaying him. I wanted to take Conor Quinn off, too. I could easily switch to 3-5-2, but that would mean putting Danny Flash on. The guy's pros and cons as a person had sort of balanced out in my head but what didn't shift was the fact that he wasn't good enough for the level and this particular pair of centre backs would make mincemeat out of him.

I waited until the break was nearly over - the home team were planning to stick to 4-4-2, so I said fuck it and told Danny he was going on. It slapped us down to an average CA of 77.6 and I hadn't seen how Jayden would play as a left-sided centre back, but five in midfield would give us more control, the fresh legs would let us keep running hard, and Gillingham would have to mark Danny Flash and that would ease the burden on Marcus Wainwright.

The change to three at the back caught our opponents by surprise and we had another good six or seven minute spell. They switched back to 5-3-2 and there was a long period of stalemate. I couldn't risk throwing bodies forward and the Gills manager seemed happy to take a point. That didn't make sense to me. They had a chance of making the playoffs and we were the worst team in the form table. Why not have a go?

I stood with my hood up as rain started to fall. Our fans in the uncovered terrace got soaked. We were playing well until the final third. At first I thought it was just the nature of the players. Devonte was faster than the left back, so I changed his individual instructions to allow him to dribble. We got him into positions to do just that, but every time he would spin backwards and play a safe pass to the midfield. I moved Payne inside and put Danny Grant out there and he did the same.

We were putting in a rugged defensive shift. There was patent togetherness and team spirit. It was fearless football in the sense that defenders would throw themselves into blocks and midfielders would leap into fifty-fifty tackles. But on the ball... It was like they didn't want to win. Not in a traitorous sense. Just the opposite, in fact.

The ultimate example was with two minutes to go. The score was still nil-nil and I'd used my three remaining subs to keep things fresh. We got a bit of luck on the left when a defender slipped. Greg Fasanmade burst forward, Wainwright moved to the far post - a sign of his low confidence, by the way - and Danny Flash sprinted into Wainwright's slot. Fasanmade passed to Flash, and he was in a dangerous position on the left of the box. He had Fasanmade sprinting to be an option, Wainwright, and Danny Grant rushing to make the far post a target-rich environment.

All Flash had to do was spin and chip to the far post and we'd have our best opportunity of the second half.

Instead, he dribbled to the corner flag and held the ball there. A defender kicked it out for a throw in, Fasanmade held the ball for so long he got a yellow card, and once again, Flash tried to hold the ball in the corner to let the clock run down.

Gills got the ball, Flash rushed into a foul to stop them breaking. He got a yellow card and that was the last action of the match.

Peep peep peep!

Nil-nil. Not many of those in my professional football career. I didn't quite know how to feel.

In the dressing room, I gave everyone a fist bump. "Danny. Amazing energy. Love it. But what was that at the end?"

"What?"

"You went to the corner. You were all wasting time at the end. Why?"

Flash couldn't believe his ears. "So we wouldn't lose again and you wouldn't get sacked." He looked around to check he wasn't the crazy one, and his mates were nodding.

I looked up at the ceiling, equal parts frustrated and pleased. "Guys, you let me worry about the sack. Okay? My teams don't go to the corner. Next time, sling that to the far post where we're queuing up and if it goes wrong, I'll eat it."

"But we could lose. I promised myself I wouldn't get another manager binned off."

"Yeah," I said. It didn't seem like much at the time but Danny's misguided display of loyalty was the moment the Grimsby adventure paid off. It had been a hell of a slog, but I'd achieved something. Most likely the rest of the world would consider me a failure. An abject failure, in fact. But I knew what I'd done. I'd got the snowball rolling, big time. If Wolfie stomped it flat, that wasn't on me.

Heart-warming as Danny's actions were, they also showed that my message wasn't getting through. The lads were pumped full of adrenaline and whatnot; they couldn't take new information on right now. It made sense why managers often communicated their thoughts to the media. Players would read it on the drive home, or the next morning, when it might sink in a little easier.

Danny thought I was mad at him. "Gills are good. That's a good point."

I inhaled. "That is a good point. It's a tough trip for any team, this, and we've outplayed them. How did the others get on?"

Alex Evans had been on the bench keeping track. "Everyone else lost, boss." He showed me the league table.