14.7 - End to End
7.
Football glossary: End-to-end football. A period in a game characterised by high levels of chance creation at alternating ends of the pitch. 'It's like watching basketball!' A reminder that an end is one side of the stadium. Famous footballing ends include the Stretford End (Manchester United), the Gallowgate End (Newcastle), and the bellend (Luis Suarez).
***
End To End Football is a website dedicated to the football stadiums of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It gives a potted history of the ground, describes its current state, and helps away fans plan their trip. The user-generated reviews section is an invaluable resource.
Name: Kieran Price
Stadium: Field Mill, Mansfield
Game Attended: Mansfield versus Chester
Competition: League One
Date: Saturday, August 15, 2026
What was the reason for this visit?
Like a lot of fans me dad took me to matches growing up and it's a cliche but footy was the main thing we talked about. When Chester City folded, he said he would never go back. I stuck with the phoenix club because I couldn't walk away but dad said I was too young to know what it was like to be so hurt.
That was it for ages but then Max Best turned up and dad would ask me 'what that gobshite was up to now'. After the attack, when Max was in intensive care, dad listened to the rest of the season on the radio. Same again next season and I was happy enough with that because all I want is a good relationship with my dad, you know?
Then we lost to Kidderminster and Max was in bits on the pitch and next time I saw dad he said 'I'm going back.'
We've been to every home game since.
Two things happened this summer. The club knocked down the terrace we always went to (meaning there are no home games until October) and my dad retired. Mum says he's being a complete misery guts around the house and she doesn't even have the football to look forward to for a break.
So I took a few days off work and me and dad are doing a tour of the Max Best Universe. I haven't been to many away games so this is all pretty new for me.
Mansfield finished above us in League Two last season and they beat us home and away so we were expecting a tough game.
How did you travel and how easy was it?
I drove to Nottinghamshire and parked in a Pay and Display. It was painless, though dad had thoughts about my parking. What's new?
What did you do before kick-off and did you meet any home fans?
We were quite early so we walked around the Stags' club shop and wondered how it would compare to the new one at the Deva. I told dad I heard Brooke Star and her new team were working on getting some fun merch so it wouldn't just be the usual kits and posters and scarves.
We got into chats with a few home fans and they couldn't have been nicer. We were rivals in League Two but not enemies and this early in the season everyone's optimistic. I've found that if I meet a fan of a Premier League team he normally has no clue who Max Best is but if you meet a lower league fan and you say you're from Chester, every question is about him. Why is he swanning around Europe wearing war paint? Don't know. Is he coming back? Don't know.
What were your first impressions of the ground?
I really liked it. It's the oldest stadium still in use anywhere in the world but it has a friendly, modern feel. The Bishop Street stand is new, apparently, and before that there was some ugly old thing. How it is now is great. The new Deva's going to be grander and more architectural but I really liked Field Mill and so did dad.
Pies good? (Use this space to comment on the atmosphere, stewarding, home fans etc.)
Pies were very good! It was a cracking atmosphere. The Mansfield fans are surprisingly noisy. We watched Max playing in Greece and that was next level but the Stags were as loud as you could reasonably expect to get! The Chester lot were amazing, as always. The away end has a low roof and that makes everything feel five times louder.
How was the match?
Amazing. We know Mansfield are a quality outfit and obviously three of our best attacking options are out in Gibraltar getting ready for their trip to Aberdeen. The home team started strong and were on top for twenty minutes. We were pretty lucky with some of the deflections and one striker didn't seem to have his shooting boots on.
Sandra Lane matched the home team's 3-4-1-2 formation, but our wide midfielders were Josh Owens and Matt Rush, who are normally full backs. With defenders in the midfield, it was quite solid, but she had Charlie Dugdale as our CAM behind Beckton and Dazza. I can't remember seeing us play like that but when we got a grip on the match, Duggers dictated the tempo. He could join Youngster and Contreras in the midfield or he could dribble up and create chances for the strikers.
Mansfield reacted by strengthening the centre but it didn't take long for Lane to send Duggers wide left. Before they knew what was happening, he had sent in a wicked cross that Dazza headed in.
With us a goal up we did our new thing of sitting back and being hard to play through. 5-3-2, little bit boring, not that anyone in the away end cared.
At half time she took off Hall and Beckton and put on Andrew Harrison and Ryan Jack. 4-1-4-1 with Youngster in his proper position. He must have been watching his manager on TV because he played out of his skin. We bossed the second half and the Duggers to Dazza combo hit again.
Two-nil, three points, and after a wobbly start we were really impressive for the whole match. "She's brilliant," said dad. "She's really switched on."
Was it easy to leave the stadium and get where you were going?
Very easy. We went slowly so we wouldn't get caught up in the worst of the traffic.
Sum up your experience and say if you would return to this stadium.
It was a good day out and great to see another part of the country. I'd definitely go back to Mansfield. Lovely stadium, very friendly people, and their team is good. It was strange seeing us outplay them after they had turned us over twice last time out, and even stranger when you think four of our best players aren't even in this time zone!
***
MARBO
College had a badly-timed training session in Marbella and I missed large parts of the Mansfield match. I had my laptop open on a table beside the pitch and went over to watch snippets in between drills. Typically, I missed the goals, but I reckoned we were 5 CA better than Mansfield and I wasn't overly worried. Baggers was watching carefully and he assured me that we were bossing it.
We were training at almost the worst possible time because it was the only slot we could get that day; I had told Mateo not to bother. We weren't going to beat Aberdeen over two legs, not without Baggers. "Save your money," I'd said, thinking that half of any waste was coming out of my pocket.
Mateo didn't listen. He had developed a wildly optimistic view of my abilities, to the point he wouldn't believe me when I explained that the team had been designed to win by playing 4-2-3-1 and while we could frustrate a team like Aris for a while playing a low block, Aberdeen had better fitness and a deeper bench. We would get battered if we turtled up but without Baggers we didn't have enough weapons to do anything else but defend and pray.
"Hmm," he said. "By the way. I booked William a session with the physio that Magnus was raving about."
"Physio?" I had said, but Mateo had hung up. I got my phone out to check the call logs; it was almost exactly twenty-four hours ago. Now Mateo was around the compound somewhere, networking. He had his own training centre in Tenerife and I assumed he was poaching staff or checking out the equipment. Pretty shameless, really. You wouldn’t catch me doing that… so brazenly.
I sighed and once again tried to work out what was happening with this physio based on snippets of conversations I'd overheard. Magnus had been seeing a woman in Marbella. Magnus had raved to Mateo about a physio. Mateo had mistakenly taken Magnus's enthusiasm to be professional and had arranged some treatment for Baggers. That's why the little shit had come to Marbella with us, hampering his recovery. Guys like Baggers absolutely hated watching other lads train, so it was weird that he had literally hidden on the back seat until we were too far gone for me to tell the bus driver to turn around.
I should have gone with my first instinct, which was to send him home the morning after we got back from Greece. The injury was a minor strain that would put him out for a week, but obviously I wasn't going to risk him in Scotland or use him in the second leg in Gibraltar. Baggers had begged to stay with the group and I didn't have the heart to resist. It would be a long season; a slight delay to his recovery wouldn't hurt anyone. Plus having him on the bench would give the oppo something to think about; it was possible they would hold back one of their subs just in case Baggers was unleashed.
Yeah. I was chilled all the way out. People kept asking me about the buzz my goal had generated, about how UEFA’s suits were making dour statements about my antics. I wasn't too interested in looking backwards or trying to guess which way the authorities would turn. I mean, if you're spineless you can go any direction you want, right? No, the only sure punishment on my horizon was a one-match ban if I got a yellow card in the first leg. Apparently, I had been booked for taking my shirt off and twirling it around.
The possibility of me missing the second leg simply meant I had to use Bench Boost in the first leg in Scotland. All things being equal, it probably made more sense to do it in Gibraltar on our home patch, but with five players Bench Boosted it was perfectly possible we could draw the first leg and get another half a coefficient point. And if it all went to shit, who cared? Winning in Greece - drawing, to be more accurate - had been overwhelming. Absolute euphoria all night and well into the next day. It was around lunchtime when the phrase 'pyrrhic victory' popped into my head. We'd won the battle in a way that meant we had lost the war.
No biggie.
Since I had my phone out, I sent Sandra a message.
Me: Mansfield? More like Womansfield.
Sandra: This is where you say 'that's terrible, cut that.'
Me: Not this time! That was a quality comment.
Sandra: Do you have any feedback?
Me: Yes, but it's almost all positive. It can wait. On the whole it was masterful. Or perhaps I should say: mistressful.
Sandra: Um...
Me: Okay, fine. Cut that.
The training session was better than my banter. Our army coach had found his feet and was a big fan of the constant sunshine and the high-level matches. I wasn't sure he'd be so keen on life out here when there were no big European nights and College were playing some genuinely terrible opponents in an empty stadium, but I suggested that Mateo might want to get to know the guy. Meanwhile Siggers and the rest of the College squad were completely bought into my way of doing things. Before training I'd told them that I would do something weird up in Aberdeen which would mean a couple of players I hadn't used yet would get ten to twenty minutes at the start. That was motivational; they were training for a place in history.
When we were wrapping up, Mateo gathered Magnus and Baggers. "Bad news, lads. Something came up with Nicole and she can't do the session today. Her next available appointment is Wednesday."
I said, "Yeah, tell her thanks but it's not a big injury and it's not worth the fuss. I don't want injured players traveling when they don't need to. Baggers will be back in training in a week. It's bad enough him flying out to Scotland with us but he doesn't need to come to Marbella every day."
Baggers pulled a face but Magnus spoke. "Boss. Trust me. You want to see this."
"I want to see Nicole, do I?" I said, almost waggling my eyebrows at him.
He didn't seem to notice I was teasing him. "Yes. She's incredible. I've never seen anything like it."
His tone didn't help me to get a read on his emotional state so I just sighed. "Okay, fine. Baggers, you can come with us on Wednesday. Until then, you'll stay in your hotel room and stare at the ceiling while you repeat your mantra: my leg is healing, my leg is healing."
"Boss," he whined. "Tomorrow you need me to stay by the side of the pitch and tell you when Saltney Town score!"
"I need that, do I?"
"Yes," he said. "It's your baby, isn't it? If they win the league, you can do all this again but at a higher level."
Mateo said, "He can do it again at a higher level here."
Baggers looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Wouldn't you like to have the option, boss?"
"I'll have the option whether I watch the match or not."
Baggers frowned as he tried to remember a phrase. "The act of observation changes what is observed. If I'm watching and sending good thoughts, they're more likely to win."
"What a load of crap," I said, laughing. "But fine, whatever, if it'll shut you up, you can spend two hours a day with your leg in an unnatural, unhealthy position." Baggers hissed a yesss. I tutted, but my mind was already wandering. With Baggers on the sidelines, I had used Secret Sandra to boost Magnus's training today. Same again tomorrow? It had occurred to me that an extremely valid use for the perk was to use it on days when we trained penalty kicks. Adding one or two points (over the course of a week) to six or seven player's penalty-taking scores (if that was one of the attributes) would make us more likely to win a shoot-out but would be a waste in terms of general play. "It's more efficient to train passing than penalties," I declared.
Magnus took the others by the elbow. As they moved away, I heard him whisper, "Let him cook."
***
Name: Kieran Price
Stadium: Cae-y-Castell, Flint
Game Attended: Saltney Town versus Flint Town United
Competition: Cymru Premier League
Date: Sunday, August 16, 2026
What was the reason for this visit?
Taking my newly-retired dad on a tour of football grounds to give my mum a break! Also Saltney have some Chester FC lads so we were keen to see how they're getting on.
How did you travel and how easy was it?
It's just down the road from Chester where I live.
What did you do before kick-off and did you meet any home fans?
Because we live close, I timed it so we wouldn't be too early. It was odd though because the match was played in Flint's stadium but technically Saltney were the home team. It's the typical strangeness you get when you stare at the Max Best Universe too hard. We met some home fans who were the away fans but almost no away fans who were the home fans! And we were away fans supporting the home fans who - you get the idea.
What were your first impressions of the ground?
Small, neat and tidy. It's got a new-ish 3G pitch so it's all-weather and you don't get crap bobbles like you expect in lower leagues.
Pies good? (Use this space to comment on the atmosphere, stewarding, home fans etc.)
Everything was basic but clean. Flint have been raking it in from hosting Chester Women and now Saltney and they've reinvested some of that in the stadium and facilities and it's solid. There wasn't much atmosphere because Saltney have about 50 fans.
How was the match?
I was keen to see the three lads loaned from Chester. The goalie (Rainman), midfielder (Omari), and the striker (Tom Westwood) have been playing for Saltney on and off for three seasons and while all three are coming along, Tom is looking a real handful. He had a bit of a struggle for us against Northampton and Crewe but Max gave him a new contract. 900 a week, apparently, which isn’t much for these footballers. Young Tom's a bit of a cocky one, it seems, but he had the stuffing knocked out of him in those matches and maybe his poor showings helped him to realise he hasn't made it yet and he needed to get his head down and graft for another season.
I was pleasantly surprised to find some of our Youth Cup winners in the Saltney squad! Lucas Friend started at left back, Tyson played behind Tom in a 4-4-1-1, and Noah Harrison was on the bench. He replaced his older brother, Michael, in the second half. Keeping it in the family!
It was also interesting to see Vincent Addo play midfield. We're supposed to be signing him one day soon, though it looks like happening in January. He's a tidy player but raw. I think League One will be too much for him. Not sure how Max arranges these things but maybe keep him here, learning the game?
We also saw Toquinho, one of the Brazilian lads Max scouted when he went down there. He didn't seem very impressive and I would be less keen to see him at Chester.
Amazingly, the Chester connections didn't end there! Three of the defenders were signed using funds from Henri Lyons's Syndicate. If they are sold for a profit, the Syndicate makes a profit! All a bit mad but that's Max Best for you.
They looked quite decent to me and it was one-way traffic with Tom Westwood scoring a brace as the home team ran out easy two-nil winners.
While we were waiting for a pie afterwards, I saw that Bonnie who used to play for Chester and me and dad got chatting to her. She says the team's in good shape but Max doesn't think it's quite at the level of TNS, the champions, and he's looking to bring in another player or three to really smash it.
Was it easy to leave the stadium and get where you were going?
Very much so.
Sum up your experience and say if you would return to this stadium.
Very interesting to see the Chester lads, past and future! Going from Mansfield, which was crowded and noisy, to this was a bit like going to a game in the local park. Good quality, though, and cheap. I might invite my dad back for something to do on a weekend until the Deva is back open, at least until the women’s season starts.
***
GIBBERS
Monday, August 17
Since returning from Greece, the Maxnificent Seven had been riding the high of our triumph. Almost all our conversations centred around that night. The sights, the sounds, the smells, me threatening to batter the oppo, me winding up fifteen thousand people who were already at their limit. My goal, which the lads thought was half-decent...
But this morning the mood at brunch shifted. The chat was about Scotland. Aberdeen were more or less the same level as Aris. If we could beat one, we could do it again. I mean, could we? Could we?
I put a stop to that particular bit of fun. "We're not going to get through," I said. "They're deeper into their season than Aris were in the first leg. They've got loads of little Scandinavian fucks - no offence, Magnus - a deep squad, and intense home fans. I want to surprise them this Thursday. Hit them with the kitchen sink, see if we can get a draw or if we're super jammy, a win. I'm going to use my entire repertoire of tricks, yeah, but then the second leg will just be an absolute backs-to-the-wall, try to keep the score down affair."
I didn't have a lot of information about Aberdeen but last season they had put together a nine-match winning streak followed by a seven-match run of defeats. No wonder my own thoughts were so jumbled.
"It's football and if we have something to hold onto, you never know. If we beat them in their gaff, their fans will slaughter them, the Scottish media will slaughter them. 90% chance they'll come to Gib fired up and they'll destroy us. 10% chance they'll crack the first time a striker pulls a shot wide. But please be serious. We're not going to win and I don't want to think about it. Can we just try to enjoy ourselves for the next ten days? What we've done is amazing and I'm already tipping into melancholy thinking about how it's nearly over. Emma has started to pack. I want to go to Scotland and play with absolute freedom knowing that the score doesn't matter. Maybe at half time I'll decide we can go mad trying to score some goals, lose 6-4 or whatever. Who gives a fuck? Right now I want to talk about watching Casablanca in Casablanca. How do we schedule that in a way that doesn't cost twenty thousand Euro for a private jet?"
***
Name: Kieran Price
Stadium: Recreation Ground, Manchester
Game Attended: West Didsbury and Chorlton versus Whitby Town
Competition: Northern Premier League Premier
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2026
What was the reason for this visit?
Taking my dad to see clubs associated with Max Best.
How did you travel and how easy was it?
Manchester's easy to get to and there were loads of options for this one. We decided to park at Old Trafford and visit the Lowry Centre before taking the tram to Chorlton. Tram back, get the car, actually very civilised!
What did you do before kick-off and did you meet any home fans?
This was the strangest experience I've had at a football match. There isn't much by way of a stadium but there was a decent attendance, something like 1500 which is about what I'd expect Chester would have got if we had been relegated to this level instead of Max Best saving us. West's numbers have been rising year on year and now the club's at the limit of what it can do in its current guise.
The locals sang about eating hummus and celery one minute and it was 'fuck the Tories!' the next. It's the wrong section to talk about the atmosphere but when they weren't doing their funny chants the vibe was more like a cool roof party than a football match and I got the feeling everyone knew each other or maybe it was just that everyone acted like they did.
When someone asked if it was our first time - I suppose we looked a bit lost - we said yeah we're from Chester we're big Max Best fans and the party vibe got even stronger. There was a commotion and we were swarmed by the Krombacher Ultras and they kettled us like the police - if the police ever formed two Conga lines either side of their victims - and danced us to the halfway line opposite the dugouts. The club's owner was there. He said 'What is all this?' It was Mr. Yalley, father of our amazing player James Yalley. 'They're Chester fans on a Max Best pilgrimage!' 'Be welcome!' cried Mr. Yalley. 'Be my guest!'
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We got the West equivalent of the VIP treatment, then, standing near the club's owner being plied with free drinks and delicious multi-ethnic nibbles. Mr. Yalley doesn't speak much but mostly smiles at everyone. Sometimes he yells at the pitch. Things like 'Play up, Mikey!' or 'You must run more, Steven!' When one of the players answers back, Mr. Yalley shakes his head and repeats his instruction.
We ended up having our ears chatted off by some local businessman. He and Mr. Yalley seem to be fast friends but it's a very unequal relationship in terms of how much they speak. This man was one of the main sponsors of West and he seems to think their success is all down to him.
What were your first impressions of the ground?
It's in a very leafy area by the River Mersey. I didn't know that went all the way to Manchester. As stated, the stadium aspect is extremely minimal slash non-existent and the fans just mill around behind a fence, but the businessman said they were starting to think about building something more substantial, if they could overcome local planning objections. Something like a 4,000 seater stadium that could let them move up a couple of divisions if they kept improving.
As it is now, it's the kind of place I had nearly forgotten about, one where at half-time the hardcore fans swap ends so you can be behind the goal your team is shooting towards. A different meaning to the phrase end-to-end football!
Pies good? (Use this space to comment on the atmosphere, stewarding, home fans etc.)
The food and drink was excellent, served by bubbly Manchester locals. They had more craft beers on tap than in some fancy bars I've been to.
How was the match?
West reminded me of a Max Best team, the way they rode the waves of the match. The West manager is called Jay Cope and like Max he's not afraid to make his players and the fans suffer. West had a basic 4-4-2 shape for the start but when Whitby had a good spell, the two wide players dropped to be extra full backs, making a 6-2-2.
That made for a turgid spell of frankly rotten football but it killed Whitby's momentum and they didn't have anyone in the middle who could carve out an opening.
After about twenty-five minutes, Cope pushed his players back to their default positions and it was an old-fashioned 4-4-2 versus 4-4-2 encounter. My dad said it was a trip down memory lane!
In the second half, the right midfielder was replaced with a new signing and the new lad changed the match. I suppose he didn't start because he wasn't fit enough but he looked a level above everyone else. He ran Whitby ragged and after the first goal West played 4-2-4. It was three-one, final score. Whitby's goal was a big header scored against Vivek Purwaha, a lad who was at Chester for a while. He looked decent but he's still got a lot to learn and he's still new to this level. His mum was near us, yelling at him to be more switched on at transitions. My dad said, “Wasn’t she the one who didn’t want her son playing football?”
A young striker came on near the end. The businessman said Max found him at those Exit Trials of players released by academies and that if Jay gave him minutes, Max would bring in a left-mid or left back before the transfer deadline. That's very Max. Show me that you'll develop this player and I'll get you a ready-made one, too.
Was it easy to leave the stadium and get where you were going?
The hardest part was getting the businessman to shut up.
Sum up your experience and say if you would return to this stadium.
It was quite full-on and if I do go back, I won't say I'm from Chester. You could treat it as a big party, like lots of people did, or you could enjoy the football, which has to be some of the most interesting being played at this level. If I lived in the area I think I would go often.
***
MARBO
Wednesday, August 19
We were down to the last eight days of this adventure. Tomorrow morning we would fly to Scotland for the first leg. What was the best use of this final training session?
I had toyed with the idea of doing some Relationism, but it would have been a waste. One of the key ingredients in Relationism was how well the players knew each other, how much time they had spent together.
That was why, when I'd used it the first time, it had hit so hard. The intensity of the connections between the Das Tournament lads, most of whom had been together for years even before I rocked up at Chester, gave Relationism afterburners.
The College guys had been thrown together fairly recently, and even within the Maxnificent Seven there were weak connections. Before this trip, I had played what, four games alongside Jack the Lad? And I'd spent most of those minutes tormenting him.
No, we would do normal stuff. Passing drills and some shape work. But what shape? With Baggers injured, 4-2-3-1 was off the table. 5-3-2 was appealing and maybe we would start like that, but I would use Sharky for at least 70 minutes. What formations did I have that suited the players at my disposal?
I settled on 4-1-4-1. Pascal left, Sharky right. Magnus at centre back next to Glenn would give us a pretty decent backline. Zafari and Gosling as the central midfielders wouldn't give Aberdeen sleepless nights, but they would run around and sometimes stand in the right place by accident. They'd done their jobs brilliantly against Aris, but I knew better than most that low CA players were inconsistent. The chances of them both repeating their heroics were slim to none, while Sardena, our goalie, was due a poor performance. Even Glenn was playing above himself - any reversion to the mean would probably cost us.
Yeah, it wasn't worth overthinking it. 4-1-4-1, prepare well, be professional, don't get carried away.
***
We arrived in Marbella and some of the staff who worked there came to the team bus to say hi. We were a popular group. Probably a lot more down-to-earth than some of the star-strewn clubs who visited Marbella, and we had Emma, Jack the Lad, Magnus, and Henri who were as likely to ask for a dustpan and brush to clean up a spill than to order the staff to do it.
I wandered to the training pitch and saw a match was going on. Strange, but then I remembered we were early because Baggers had an appointment with the mysterious Nicole. I scouted the players on show, then wandered off until I found a lounger in a quiet spot. I had a lovely little snooze.
"Boss," said Magnus, shaking me awake. "It's time."
"Right," I said, holding my hand out so he could pull me up. "We'll start with some slow rondos and we'll do a refresher on the Art of Slapping."
He smiled. "Okay but it's not that. It's Nicole."
"Oh," I said. I was annoyed he had woken me up for something so trivial. Did I have to hold some of Nicole's crystals or something?
Magnus sensed my mood but it only made him smile. "This way."
***
I found Baggers in a small treatment room. Almost everything was as you might expect. A framed certificate on the wall (made out to Nicole Gimenez), the very heavy scent of an essential oil, a few fluffy towels on a chair. If you were expecting to see Baggers stripped down to his boxer shorts and socks, you're a lot more prescient than me.
I had been picturing Nicole as a Spanish version of Livia, who I suspected Magnus had once had a crush on. I wasn't even close. Nicole was tall and thin, getting on to twice my age, and was wearing braces on her teeth. She had her hair in a bob which didn't offer the slightest sniff of a chance of a ponytail. She glided about the room with ease and grace.
Magnus sat in a chair at the side of the room; I went next to him.
"How can I help you today?" said Nicole, in a perfect English accent. That was the first time I wondered why she was Nicole instead of Nicola.
"My calf's all mashed up," said Baggers.
"Hmm," said Nicole. She looked at him for a while. Then she poked him in the arm. "Hmm," she said. She turned him and pressed into his back, then touched his shoulders.
I wanted to say, "His calves are down there, mate," but decided I would suffer in silence.
She got Baggers up onto a treatment table and did virtually nothing. She would poke Baggers and sometimes ask him to breathe in, breathe out. When he did, at the end of his exhalation, she would make a strange flicking motion.
Flicking away the evil. This was some Reiki bullshit, all right.
It went on like that for ten minutes before Baggers turned over and she did something to his shoulders. She sat behind his head for ages, her thumbs dug into his trapezius muscles.
"Hmm," she said.
By this time, I was barely in the room. I was in my screens, checking the Condition scores of my players, looking at the player database, browsing the perk shop.
"Okay," she said.
I blinked. It was over? She had barely done twenty minutes of nothing. We were paying her for an hour!
"Can I get dressed?" said Baggers.
Nicole smiled. "If you want! Some of the staff might enjoy seeing you like this."
Magnus said, "You look taller."
I was pretty annoyed at the whole thing and was close to snapping at Magnus. Something gave me pause. "He does look taller." I hadn't realised how slouched Baggers had been. Now he looked relaxed and powerful. Masculine. "Um..."
Magnus was a lot less surprised than me; he had seen this transformation before. "How do you feel, William?"
Baggers shifted his weight around, bent his knees, twisted. "Huh. Pretty good. Yeah. Wow. Feels amazing. Feels like new!"
I went to his player profile and shot to my feet.
His stamina wasn't red. His Injuries tab read 'none' and his Condition was up to 92%. He was cured and he would be close to fully fit in the morning! "Oh my fucking God, what just happened? What is this?"
"The method? It doesn't have a name," said Nicole. "I trained as a physiotherapist and I did my post-grad working under a Dutchman. He was extremely fat and in terrible health - he was always wheezing and gasping for breath - but he had the most amazing, delicate, and sensitive hands. He taught me his method and I'm constantly amazed at what it can achieve."
"But you didn't even touch his calf!" I whined, attractively.
Magnus said, "It's all connected, boss." He pointed to a map of the human muscular system. "See the white bits? That's your fascia. It's the connective tissue that surrounds your muscles and nerves and provides support. You always talk about muscles but these fibres are all bundled together."
"Fascia," I said. "You've been trying to tell me about that. Muscles are so 1980s. Fascia's in fashion. I thought you were just being a fascia-nista."
Magnus shook his head. "That's terrible."
Nicole touched Baggers on the back, halfway down his spine and a couple of inches to the right. "This was very twisted. It's why I got into physiotherapy. Help one part of the body, you help it all. Touch one person, you touch everyone." She eyed me and gently touched her fingers to the back sides of my neck. Her fingers skimmed down my spine. "Did you have a fall?"
"What? No."
"Hmm," she said, poking me gently. The fingers of her left hand, as if guided by some magnetic field, traced their way down my spine, while her right hand probed upwards. "I think you did. Here?"
She was exploring the spot on my skull where I had been murdered. Magnus stepped forward - this display was amazing even to him. "Boss," he whispered.
"Er, yes, I remember now," I said. "I had a fall. That's right."
Nicole nodded. "Book an appointment; I can help you."
She took her fingers away and I experienced a sudden wave of dizziness. I couldn't tell if it was some slight release of tension even from her brief touch or if it was my brain finally catching up with Baggers' profile update. "Can he play tomorrow? Can he... Can he train today?"
Nicole peered at Baggers. "Why not?"
"Baggers?" I said, sweetly.
"Yes?"
I raised my voice. "Why are you lurking around Spain in your underwear? Get fucking dressed!"
He did a pretty good impression of James Yalley's goofy smile. "Yes, boss."
"Tell everyone we're doing 4-2-3-1. Tell everyone to forget all that shit I was saying. We're in it to win it."
He raced off while I paced around the little room.
The enormity of what I had just witnessed slapped me in the face. It wasn't just that Baggers was back. It wasn't just that our chances of getting something against Aberdeen had skyrocketed. It was that Nicole had done something I had never seen before. Maybe physios all around Europe were able to touch their patients and literally erase Injuries from their player profiles but I really fucking doubted it. In one twenty-minute session, Nicole had resurrected my chance at getting a million Euro. Forget your Slovakian Messis and your Greek playmakers. My next signing had to be a physio who could get my players back in time for critical matches. "Nicole, you're one of how many people who know this technique, would you say?"
She laughed. "A very small number. The Dutchman was extremely direct; most people couldn't stand him. Also, he died."
Magnus stepped closer. "Boss. Max. I would like to learn this." I was slow to process what he had said. She was unique! She was a unicorn! No wonder Magnus was obsessed with her. Mateo had been right; his interest was purely professional. A million-dollar physio! My head was heating up; I had to squash the sides of my temples to stop it exploding. Magnus misunderstood my reaction. "I don't think I have Nicole's skill but..."
"This skill should be taught far and wide," I said, belatedly trying to turn on the charm. "Nicole, are you half-British, by any chance?"
"Yes," she said. "My mother's from Oxford."
"Hmm," I nodded, sagely, trying not to do a literal jig around the room. There wouldn't even be any work permit hassles! "Have you ever been to Chester? There's an amazing Spanish restaurant..."
***
Name: Kieran Price
Stadium: Pittodrie, Aberdeen
Game Attended: Aberdeen versus College 1975
Competition: UEFA Conference League (playoff, first leg)
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2026
What was the reason for this visit?
Wanted to take my dad to the greyest place on earth! Mission accomplished! What a good son I am. Also it was the final leg of our six-day, end-to-end tour of the UK. Not quite Land's End to John O'Groats but competitive!
How did you travel and how easy was it?
By car, six and a half hours one way! We spent a night in Stirling on the way up so that it wasn't one entire day behind the wheel. Doing it that way made things more bearable. My dad wanted us to take the scenic routes. Ye'll tak the high road and I'll tak the laigh road an' I'll be in Scotland before ye. Nice song but not true - if you're in a hurry take the motorways. Still, it's a beautiful country. I want to go back and explore with a less anxious and bossy passenger.
What did you do before kick-off and did you meet any home fans?
We explored the city. There's talk that the football club will leave Pittodrie and move to a more modern stadium and we asked about that. Plenty of opinions on that one! We met lots of locals because there were only about a hundred who traveled from Gibraltar. I can't blame them, really, it's a hell of a trip! The locals are proper nice, though. I can imagine things getting salty around here for the big regional derbies or even clubs coming up from England but with Gibraltar and probably teams from anywhere else in Europe everyone seemed to click into tourist mode.
One chap tried to teach us about Doric, the local dialect, but I couldn't tell if he was taking the mick or if that's how they really talk! Also, it helped that Max Best hadn't been winding up the opposition like he sometimes does. The whole week since the last match he'd been saying how Aberdeen were going to thrash College and he was just hoping to get to a proper local pub after the match and he actually seemed to be serious. I hadn't seen the final interview he gave the morning of the match where he said he was hoping to get to a pub to have a pint of Guinness. If I'd seen that, it would have been a clue that he was feeling cheeky and would have put the game into more context for seasoned Chester watchers like me and me dad.
What were your first impressions of the ground?
First impression was that we couldn't believe how cold it was! It was fresh outside but we somehow expected the inside of the stadium to have a different climate. We were soon disabused of that notion. Brrrr!!!
Okay so it's a proper football ground but one stand is colossal and dwarfs the others. It's kind of what I'm expecting from the remodelled Deva but what I learned was that it can be all right. It looks odd but all the hardcore Dons were in that stand and it was absolutely electric in there. Noisy as. We were in the away end, miles away, and even though the locals had been super welcoming all day it was still intimidating as anything.
We saw the scenes in Greece and that looked a few levels crazier but I swear to God, the first half in Pittodrie was the noisiest, scariest experience of my life. They call Aberdeen the Granite City and the people are hard as nails and you wouldn't want to cross them.
My dad's reading this over me shoulder. He's telling me to change this to say normal people wouldn't want to cross them but Max Best isn't normal.
Pies good? (Use this space to comment on the atmosphere, stewarding, home fans etc.)
Everyone was lovely and we had a tasty pie and lots of warm drinks. I'd say it was overpriced given the location but it's not like Chester is cheap. The stewards were bored for ages and were obviously just clockwatching but afterwards, five or six of them came up to us and said, what the hell just happened?
How was the match?
Okay, deep breath.
It started a couple of months ago when Max Best took some of his mates over to Gibraltar with him. As a Chester FC fan I know those players very well and the one I wasn't so familiar with, James Gladfelter, plays left back for Tranmere and there's no mystery to him. The College captain is Glenn Ryder and he was at Chester for years. It's the local lads from Gibraltar I've been trying to learn about.
I informed myself about Sardena, the goalie, and I got to know Taveres, the centre back. They got loads of minutes because Max could only bring so many players because of the loan rules. We also saw a decent amount of two midfielders, Zafari and Gosling, and there was a young striker called Jesse Picardo who tore his hamstring when he was through on goal. Rotten luck, but three weeks later he was getting minutes again! Everything's topsy-turvy in the MBU.
Oh, in the previous round, young William Roberts got a little strain and had to be subbed off and that fella doesn't leave the pitch unless he's really hurt. We knew he wasn't training and that was a big reason Max was chilled out and giving interviews with Chester fan podcasts and stuff. He was resigned to defeat and unlike some managers he's not a whiny b**** when he loses to a better team.
But when we saw the College lineup we were really shocked. 4-1-4-1 against Aberdeen's 4-2-3-1.
Sardena in goal, okay.
Glenn Ryder as captain, yes. Gladfelter, Lee Hudson, Tavares. That's the defence we've seen a few times. Magnus Evergreen playing defensive midfielder. So far, I love it.
Then it's a midfield of Mtarfi, Davis, Cruz, Pozo. I've never heard of these guys! How can they be the starting midfield in an important European cup tie?
Up front was Jesse Picardo. My dad hasn't been following as closely as me. He sees the name and goes, "I'm sorry but isn't he dead?"
We were gutted. Max was throwing the match. We knew he was heavily incentivised to be out in Gibraltar and presumably he had looked at the odds and the rewards and decided he had made enough dough and it wasn't worth getting injured and anyway, Henri Lyons and Wes Hayward and the Chester boys had real jobs to do. They would stay in the sunshine for another week, living it large, staying out of injury trouble. I mean, you can't really blame them but it was a kick in the teeth for us. Dad said I couldn't get too upset because it's not like Max knew that people from Chester would drive up to blinking Aberdeen to watch this! What was crazy was that we weren't the only ones. We saw about twenty people in Chester kits in the away end.
So the game kicked off and very quickly my dad and I were wondering whether this College side were the worst of the four Max Best teams we had seen this week. I mean, Chester would give Aberdeen a game, Saltney had a bit of verve and dynamism, and even little West seemed more solid and technical. The team with Max actual Best on the bench was the worst of the lot!
Aberdeen took their time to get going and it didn’t help that their best striker was out injured. His backup went through on goal and did a pointless dink instead of rolling it into the goal. The dink hit the post and the home fans weren't happy. I felt sorry for the guy but also, if you're in a bad run of form and the fans are on your back, just score! Why mess about showing off?
Anyway, he soon made amends, making a nice run into space and slotting home a low cross.
That was one-nil after fifteen minutes, which was the cue for Max to bring himself on instead of Picardo. Was he going to play striker? Well, yes. But he only jogged around. I couldn't understand what he was doing. Dad speculated that Picardo was injured and there wasn't a good striker on the bench. "But there's Henri Lyons!" I said.
"Yeah," said dad. "I can only think Max isn't allowed to use him today but he doesn't want Aberdeen to know that. That’s why Roberts is on the bench, see? That’s classic Max."
One thing I noticed was that although Max didn't seem very motivated, a couple of times he very nearly intercepted the ball as Aberdeen tried to play the ball from the goalie to the defenders. The goalie started to kick the ball long and Max dropped to support Magnus in the DM slot. I'm not sure I saw Max sprint at all but he was definitely making life hard for the Dons.
Then the home team got the ball wide and swung in a lovely cross that one of their lads nodded home. Really good goal. Two-nil and the home fans were really incredibly loud and intense at this point.
At half-time they applauded their lads off the pitch and I had the echoes of their clapping in my ears for minutes. I did that thing where you stick your finger in your ear and jiggle it around to see if it helps you hear any better, but it didn't. It took a while for the players to file off the pitch and Max was one of the last ones. He had his head down, disconsolate, depressed, his world crashing down around his ears. Real last days of Rome vibes. My dad elbowed me in the ribs and nodded towards him. "Here we go," he said.
"What?"
"That's Max hamming it up, heh heh."
"No, he's upset."
"That's so fake," he said. "When Max is upset he goes in the dressing room and sulks. He doesn't do it like this."
"Are you saying this is a scam?"
Dad looked around and made eye contact with a Chester fan a few rows away. "What do you reckon?"
The other guy smiled. "If I didn't know any better I'd say that went exactly the way Max Best wanted."
"Right?" said my dad, and suddenly the guys were best mates and got chatting about Chester City and everything that had ever happened, ever.
SECOND HALF
After the break, off went three of the guys I'd never heard of and on came Henri, Pascal, and Wes Hayward. I'd say College went to 4-2-3-1 but with Max as one of the CAMs dropping deeper. Kind of 4-3-2-1 and just like that, we had control of midfield. Max and Pascal did that thing where they pinged one-twos to each other and when a defender went to make them stop, they just moved away.
Five minutes of that and the home fans got restless.
James Gladfelter and Lee Hudson appeared in forward positions more. Aberdeen's defenders hadn't expected it - Max often waits until after half time to make radical changes so managers can't give instructions. The home team got pretty ragged. Max pinged a ball over the top, Hayward obliterated everyone in the race for the ball, cut it square for Henri. He smashed it into the goal. He doesn't miss from there!
Two-one and the College slash Chester fans were all jumping around hugging each other. Dad and his new best friends were laughing, sort of cry-laughing because they'd come all this way and thought it was a bust but no, it's Max o'clock and there's over half an hour left!
Aberdeen responded well and there was pressure, pressure, pressure. Cross, shot, cross, shot, but they got sloppy and Lee Hudson won a tackle and it broke for Evergreen who slid it to Max who shaped to pass but accelerated and fuck me when he gets going he's as fast as Hayward and Max was veering left and right and so were Henri, Pascal, Hayward, but the defenders were most scared of a Max Best special so when he slowed a fraction and unleashed a thunderbastard, two guys threw themselves in the way of the ball.
Except all he'd done was draw those blocks before sending the ball left into the path of Pascal. He took a touch and dinked the ball over the goalie. That's how you dink the ball, mate! That's how it's done.
"Player-manager to player-manager!" screamed my dad. I didn't know exactly what was happening but everyone in our little patch of Scotland was crying our eyes out. We were all hugging each other and laughing and crying and Max Best was doing some Irish Dancing just outside the penalty box. I think he was trying to annoy the home team by saying he didn’t even know what country he was in but they were too stunned to even notice, I think.
So then we went again and it was another blistering wave of attacks from Aberdeen. Their fans were half on their backs, half roaring them on. One of the dudes hit a decent shot at goal that Sardena tried to punch away. Why? Just catch it! It hit the side of his fist and pinged back into the goal. Three-two Aberdeen! The home fans went bonkers and there was a lot of disgust from guys like Glenn Ryder and Lee Hudson. Max, though, who is a bit of a knobhead sometimes, ambled over, picked Sardena up, put his arm around him and covered his (own) mouth as he said something. Sardena was disconsolate until he looked up, took a breath, and laughed. Max had perked him all the way up, and followed it up with a friendly punch in the arm. By now, Glenn and Lee had got over the initial disappointment and they came over and cheered their guy up.
At some point in all that, Max had ordered a substitution. Off went the last rando, on came William Roberts.
The Chester contingent, somehow much bigger now, were all falling into each other again, sort of swaying at the absurdity of it all. He's injured! How can this be happening?
Only what happens next is the strangest yet. College got on the front foot and stayed there. It was Henri Lyons leading the line, playing as well as I've ever seen him. Behind him was Pascal, Will Roberts, and Wes Hayward, and the speed and skill was thrilling. Behind them was a screen of Max and Magnus Evergreen. The full backs got up to support when the ball was on their side, and they stayed back when it wasn't.
Super simple, super effective.
Aberdeen got battered in a way they probably only expect when they play Celtic and Rangers. The home fans were wailing and gnashing their teeth as Max danced around midfield like a little sprite, and when he got extra dainty to draw the wrath of the nearest players was when he threaded a delicious pass through the lines or chipped a ball into space or curled a dangerous cross towards Henri.
It wasn’t just him. Pascal and Roberts combined with one-twos and all kinds of flicks. Those moves often ended with free kicks for fouls on Pascal, or with long shots from Roberts.
One of the free kicks had Max licking his lips. He did a strange thing where he looked around the stadium checking who was watching. It was like he was saying, 'am I allowed to score this?'
He scored.
It was three-all and as his long-range fans celebrated, Max did one of the most surprising things yet! He ran past the goalie and picked the ball out of the net to place it on the centre circle. No celebrations, no delays, back to the match, we're going for the win!
The away end went bonkers when he did that because we knew what it meant. The feeling seeped into the home crowd around us, too, but in the form of dreadful apprehension.
I don't know how he does it but he'd got the whole stadium watching his every move. Our hearts were dancing to the beat of his drum. He took a few sidesteps and he was in front of an Aberdeen player who was dribbling towards him. Max did a weird shimmy thing and the Aberdeen guy sort of tripped over himself and the ball squirted ahead. Max threw his left leg over his right and somehow that made the ball pop up and with one little head boop, he was away again. He got to halfway and the Dons defenders were backing away, backing away.
Max shaped to shoot but they'd seen this trick before - it was a feint to disguise a pass.
Max Best shot from the halfway line.
We were right behind it and we had the best view in the house. The height, the dip, the accuracy - it was incredible. The goalie was scrambling to get there, he leaped, maybe he got the tiniest of touches, the ball smacked against the underside of the crossbar, bounced down but didn't cross the line. The keeper threw himself on the ball and clutched it, panting.
The home fans screamed at him to get up and get a move on. Three-all at home isn't a good result! The lad got up and hurled the ball wide right. The midfielder slid it forward. James Gladfelter competed but the ball went through him and his opponent. Another Aberdeen player was on it. Great cross! Header! Goal! No! Sardena flung himself and got a hand out. The rebound? Anyone's ball... Tavares clears!
Incredibly, the clearance bounced in no-man's land, boinged crazily high over everyone and into the path of Pascal Bochum. He got his head down and sprinted. He left everyone for dead. Who exactly is the fastest player on this team?!
Pascal thought about shooting, but his angle wasn't great. He delayed long enough to take an opponent out of the game and passed to Roberts. He had Hayward storming on the right. Lyons made a run in front of the goalie, more as a distraction than anything.
Roberts angled himself away from the goalie to hide what he was doing and tried an audacious chip. Again College hit the crossbar! What kind of rotten luck is this?
But Lyons watched it all happen and while the defenders were on their heels, he chased the ball and was on hand to bundle it over the line!
Four-three!
Joy uncontained on the pitch. Small but potent pockets of bedlam in the away end! A couple of Aberdeen fans ran onto the pitch to berate their players. Stewards and police ran out to grab them and sort them out.
My dad said, "Good to see there's someone in this city who knows how to tackle." Big laugh in the area, and I realised all the Chester fans had found each other and had come together in one big blob.
Four-three was the final score. Huge boos and whistles from the home fans, while the mighty College 1975 came to the South Stand to applaud us and pose for selfies.
Max himself wandered over, which isn't something he always does because he's got to do his media stuff. Someone started a chant of 'Chester! Chester!' and 'Best will tear you apart again!' He lapped it all up for a minute and then tried to shove the Gibraltarian players into the limelight. Yeah, nice try. Max thought about taking his top off and throwing it to someone but I saw him looking back at the referee. You’re allowed to take your shirt off after the game but he didn’t want to risk it. The second leg is on! This thing is happening!
My dad called out, "Are you coming back to Chester?"
Max laughed. "Try and fucking stop me."
With that, he turned and ambled back towards the tunnel. Along the way, he and Henri seemed to be competing to do the best Irish dance. I was laughing my head off but then I realised my dad was having a moment. He was in floods.
I was close to full panic. What are you supposed to say?
"Dad," I said. "Just had an idea."
"Go on," he said, wiping his eyes to little effect.
"How do you fancy a trip to the Med?"
He stopped crying, from surprise I think. "The Med?"
I tried to do a cheery smile. "I hear the football's pretty good there this time of year. Gibraltar? Next Thursday? You and me?"
"I'd love that, son. I'd love that."
"'Ere," said dad's new friends. "Can we come 'an all?"
Was it easy to leave the stadium and get where you were going?
When we got out of the pub, yes. Sadly, that was thirty-six hours later.
Sum up your experience and say if you would return to this stadium.
Incredible experience. Amazing. Not sure I could handle it again. Dave and Tony, if you're reading this, izzy, wizzy, let's get busy, hahaha! Come on, you Dolphins! Dad, I can't tell if you're reading this over my shoulder. You and me, Chester FC from the cradle to the grave, yeah? End to end football, that was your gift to me. It's my turn to hold up my side of the bargain. This end comes with more beer though, eh?
[Edit - dad just read this. He says, and more hangovers! Hahaha.]