.

From a marketing point of view, I'd chosen an incredible week to become a professional rugby player. On Sunday, my beloved Darlington RFC were due to play at home to their fiercest rivals Hartlepool, known as Pools.

Of course, if we consider this little adventure's impact on my football career... the timing wasn't great. But then again, I'm pretty sure everything that happened only happened because instead of grinding and using Playdar, I spent three and a half days trying to learn the basics of rugby. Suffice to say that there were three and a half days where Old Nick saw I was serious about not giving him XP and it freaked him out.

***

Sunday 19th - Darlo versus Pools

I was pottering around, waiting for someone to tell me where to stand. Rugby looks organised on TV, but if you wander onto a pitch it's absolute mayhem. There's players everywhere.

"Max," called my captain.

I jogged in his direction. We were wearing black shirts, black shorts. Pools were in red. Most players were strong, but slow. "Yes, boss?"

"You're the kick-boy. Take the kickoff."

"Right." He threw the ball to me and wandered away. I had to drop-kick it from kickoffs and restarts. "Where do you want me to put it?"

"Over there somewhere. At least ten metres. See the line?"

"I could score from here. Just saying."

He smiled. "You know those onside kicks in the NFL? Think like that. Chip it up so we can try to get it before they have control of it."

"Oh, cool, that's fun."

So I did that, and then 14 blacks and 15 reds bumped into each other like dodgems. After ten seconds almost everyone was covered in mud. I hovered twenty yards from the action. Trying to contribute to what was called 'open play' wasn't really going to work - there were so many arcane rules that when I tried to help in practice, I was told I'd just given away a penalty. So I'd announced my intention to be a kick-boy and nothing else, and everyone was cool with that. I had two jobs - scoring penalties and booting the ball away when we were under pressure.

After spotting some infraction, the referee blew his whistle and pointed in our direction. "Aw," I said.

"It's good when he points at us," said our full-back. His normal job was to clean up any long kicks the other team made, and his secondary job today was to keep me out of trouble. "That's our penalty."

"Oh, top," I said. So the refs pointed the wrong way in this sport. No-one had told me that. I went to the spot the penalty had been given, waited for the ball, and placed it. I was allowed to use a little ring to hold the ball in place. I'd seen other rugby dudes take bloody ages getting their kicks lined up and going through their little rituals. My process was a lot more straightforward, but I didn't want to get in trouble for taking the kick too fast, which sometimes happened in football. "Can I kick it now, ref?"

"If you're ready, Best."

Penalties in rugby followed the rules of a free kick in football - you took the kick from the spot the foul happened. This one was halfway between the middle of the pitch and the edge, so the angle wasn't hard. It was only the shots from the very edge that were tricky. There wasn't a defensive wall, there wasn't a goalkeeper, and you had to kick the ball over the crossbar! I supposed it would be hard on a windy day, but otherwise?

"Ref, what do you reckon? Seven iron?"

"You don't know the first thing about golf, either, do you Best?"

"Not really, no."

I kicked the ball through the posts, the linesmen held their flags aloft, and we were three points ahead.

The crowd cheered.

The ref turned to me. "There's no bonus points for style," he said, smiling.

I wandered around for a bit. I had no feel for the game and no curse to help me. So I waited, patiently, until someone told me to take a penalty. I stepped up, scored, six-nil. The Pools players watched as I eased the ball through the posts with extreme nonchalance, and despite their evident bravery, their hearts sank a little bit. It was clear that every single tiny mistake they made would be punished.

It's fair to say I knew the feeling.

***

Friday 17th - Two Days Earlier

My first drive to Chester since the incident with D-Day was clear roads all the way. The universe was rewarding me for standing up to Old Nick. I arrived at 4pm, checked if anyone was at the Deva, had some food, then went to the King George V Sports Hub where most of our women's and youth training sessions and matches were held.

I was supremely early, but this was going to be the first ever match played by my team and I didn't want any insane things to go wrong. I put out the corner flags, I put up the nets, I brought out the balls for the warm up and the match balls.

By the time Spectrum and Jill turned up, the grunt work was done and they could focus on the warm ups and all that stuff. I let them take over for a while while I turned into a cheerleader. I welcomed the players, said hi to the first few parents and fans who'd come to watch, and then made a big fuss over our opposition.

The Puddington Pirates were a team from a small village in Cheshire. Inga had chosen them as our first opponents based on the progression principle I'd explained to her - our matches should get slightly harder each time until by the end we were playing some really good teams, but we'd never be completely outmatched. And early signs were good - the Pirates were not physically imposing, they didn't all wear the exact same kit, and there was a very amateur feel to their whole operation. Inga had nailed it.

Still, they were doing us a massive favour playing this game, and they were also lending us a left-back because I hadn't found one yet. So I turned the charm all the way up. Their manager was a small, bookish type wearing round glasses. During the match she kept quite still, and only her head rotated. In my head, I called her The Owl.

The referee arrived, and again I dished out the charm, not to get an advantage but because no ref, no game. If I didn't have good relationships with referees, it'd be harder to arrange matches.

And then that was that. I'd done pretty much everything I could. I'd scouted most of a first eleven and borrowed a few randos from local clubs to make up the numbers.

When the warm ups started, I had my first shock. The Pirates were way better than they had any right to be. Half the team were PA 1, but others ranged from PA 7, same as Beth, to PA 22. And they were almost all maxed out on CA. They'd trained, seriously. Their average CA was 8.

We had a very healthy average PA of 45, but that was massively distorted by Dani. Our average CA was 2.5.

Ten minutes before kick off, my screens kicked in. I didn't use Bench Boost or Triple Captain because our most important games would be near the end of the season when we were trying to show we were worthy of being placed in a higher division.

The Pirates were using 4-4-2. The curse had assigned us the default tactic, 4-4-2, with the players in the right spots, and I left it like that.

We had a goalie. The left-back was 'on loan' from our opposition. The rest of the defence was mediocre, to be honest. The best was a PA 21 centre-back. Two of our midfielders were that kind of level, too. But we also had Pippa and Dani, by far the best players on the pitch. I put Pippa as the right-sided central midfielder so she'd be able to combine with Dani. If they could turn into a good partnership, that'd be a source of strength in the future.

Up front we had a rando to make up the numbers, plus Beatrice Pearce, the girl I'd found training in the dark. The one who thought Max Best was fit. She was PA 36, so she'd be the third best player - eventually.

We also had a motley crew of subs, who I would throw on near the end as a thanks for coming.

"What's up, Max?" Spectrum knew me far better than Jill.

"Yeah," I said. "It's going to be a long match."

"What's the special plan? 1-8-1? 3-7-0?"

"4-4-2, keep things tight first five."

"Ha ha, but really."

"No, really," I said.

"Oh," said Spectrum.

"Listen," I said, scratching the back of my neck. "Let's be positive, yeah? Focus on the good things we do."

"Max," said Jill. "You're talking like we're going to lose. The Pirates are a village team."

"Must be a hell of a village. Er... Pippa's captain today. Tell me if you see leadership qualities in anyone else."

The match kicked off and we enjoyed a nice spell of possession. The ladies hadn't had many training sessions, but it was clear they'd had some coaching. When the ball got to Dani, there was a nice buzz from the crowd.

The crowd! Quite a few people had turned up to watch. Lots of curious Chester fans, with a high proportion of women and girls. Plenty of fathers and sons, too, it looked like. One turned and pointed something out and I realised it was Tyson and Bulldog. Ah! That whole section was under 14s. Looked like most of the squad. And there was Vivek, his sister, his mother. Over there was Ruth and some guy. I was too far to get a proper look, but he seemed overly handsome. To my left, MD, Joe, Inga, some of MD's rich friends. And look at that! Henri, Raffi, Shona, and a bunch of first-team players. Physio Dean and Magnus were nearby - spectators, but ready to help if someone was badly hurt. Our other physio, Livia, didn't turn up until about twenty-five minutes in, holding hands with her boyfriend, FC United's third most important coach. He'd probably decided to come late to make sure I wouldn't mistake his head for a rugby ball and practice drop kicks on it.

Ah! And, even more fashionably late, making a dramatic entrance, my assistant manager. We kissed. "How's it going?"

"Okay for now but we are about to get smashed," I said. The ratings said as much. Lots of four out of tens. Pippa was on five. Our best player was the left-back the other team had lent us.

Emma slapped my arm. "Don't talk like that! Fearless football. Do you know how shit the trains are in winter?"

"Not worse than in summer, I don't think."

Emma scanned the pitch. "4-4-2?" It's fair to say she'd learned a lot about football in the past few months. "I didn't travel three hours to see 4-4-2, Max. What happened to The Wizard?" Her calling me The Wizard in a sarcastic voice had taken over from intoning The Board as her favourite way to tease me.

I smiled. "Yeah, losing a match might be good for my reputation."

"That makes no sense."

"Wizards don't lose matches. If I lose, I'm not a wizard. Cogito ergo sum." Me dropping Latin phrases into conversations was my new favourite way of teasing her. While I was grateful to her dad for his help, and while he was incredible at his job, dropping hand grenades in a dead language was pretty pompous.

"How's Dani doing?"

"Shit," I said. The curse was sort of forcing her to stay at her post, like it did with all the players. So our shape was fine, and when the Pirates got the ball we were rarely badly exposed. But when Dani got the ball, her inexperience showed. She wasn't alone, but since I'd made such a big fuss over her, her indecision was the most public. "Almost everyone is having a shocker. It's fine. You can't just turn up never having played a match and expect to be good."

***

Unless it's me and the sport rewards players who can kick far and with accuracy. I'd scored four penalties out of four. The other team's kick-boy had scored one out of two. One of the worst teams in the league was beating one of the best, twelve-three.

And scoring penalties wasn't the only unfair advantage I brought. My second job was, when someone threw the ball to me, to kick it miles down the field. Our team would be under pressure near our goal and would work really hard to get the ball. But in rugby, having the ball near your own goal was almost as bad as the other team having it. You were still at risk - one mistake would lead to a goal, also known as a 'try' - so instead of attempting the whole 'pass and run' thing that the All Blacks did, most teams kicked the ball away and tried to rush up the pitch and get away from the danger zone.

What our coaches had worked out with admirable speed was that I could kick the ball almost anywhere they wanted. The balls were stupid egg-shaped nuisances, so there was always a big random factor about how they would bounce. But I could kick it over to the left, miles down the middle, or to the right, and if they wanted, I could make it so the ball was likely to go out of bounds. That was good, apparently, as long as it bounced first.

So the full-back would throw me the ball and yell, "long left, touch!" or "middle, long!" or whatever. And I'd follow his instructions, like a robot. And Hartlepool would trudge backwards forty or fifty yards and have to rebuild their attack from scratch. And because throw-ins were contested, we always had the chance to recover the ball.

All my teammates had to do was defend hard, let me get them out of trouble, then scrabble around doing rugby things until we got a penalty.

***

Dani gathers the ball. She has a little bit of space. She passes inside to Pippa.

Pippa holds onto the ball, evades a challenge, and dinks the ball forward.

That's a nice touch from Dani. She's striding forward.

Dani drops her shoulder left and accelerates right.

She's clear!

She looks up and finds Bea Pea with a crisp pass.

Bea Pea takes a touch and shoots!

But it's blocked.

The ball comes loose. Pippa is beaten to it.

It's played out to the right. Great tackle!

But Puddington are first to the ball. They play it left.

The winger goes on a run.

That's a nice-looking cross.

The striker has evaded her marker!

GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

Lovely football from Puddington.

A great team move.

"Max, you're right," said Spectrum, shaking his head. "They're a really good team."

"They know each other really well," said Jill. "We look like a bunch of strangers."

"That's fine," I said. "That's what we are, really. To get to there we have to start here. Remember, be positive. At half-time, think of some upbeat things to say, yeah?"

"Yes, Max."

***

"Great half, lads!" said Dan, the Darlo manager and head coach. "Wow! Max, incredible. The looks on their faces when you hit that one from the touchline." That provoked general merriment. The rest of the team was grafting and putting a shift in, and for once it was paying dividends. They were buzzing.

"That was 50-50," I said. "That's really hard, that angle." I could have made it easier for myself by striking the ball left-footed, but I was stubbornly hiding the extent of my two-footedness.

"Dan!" called one of the players. "Let Max do the half-time team talk! The football lads call him Tommy Tactics."

"All right," laughed Dan. "Come on, Max."

I stood and went next to him. "Right. They're playing offside trap, men behind ball. Flat back ten, with five sweepers. I say we switch to a dynamic 4-3-3 and hit them through the middle." Plenty of laughs. "Seriously, though, I'm getting bored. Your sport is really boring. I want to do something cool in the second half."

Dan frowned. "You said you didn't want to, and I quote, spend the rest of your life in traction, eating through a straw."

"Yeah, well, I've seen it up close, now. It's mental, obviously, the way you smash into each other. But it's not like footy where guys are trying to snap my ankle off. I think I can take a couple of hits."

Dan nodded. We had a pretty good connection. I was helping him win and had quadrupled the attendance. In return, he accepted that I wasn't fully reverential about the sport. "How about you try a Garryowen?"

"Yes, perfect."

"Do you know what that is?"

"No clue."

***

Halfway through the second half, Puddington were winning two-nil. We had a few nice moments, and generally looked like a team with more technical quality, which is what we were. But we were also unfit, inexperienced, and young. Puddington started to overwhelm us, and I had no answers for it.

"We could go men behind ball for a couple of minutes," I suggested. "Then go more attacking. Surprise them."

"In a game like this," said Jill. "When you go defensive, you stay defensive."

"Long ball?" suggested Spectrum.

"Their centre-backs would eat Bea Pea alive."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Look, we can't fix this in-match. We fix this with recruitment, with training, with more matches." My coaches nodded. "Spectrum, do you think you can get some of the boys to play against the women sometime? Maybe some short matches against the credit card company guys. Just whatever we can do for every little drop of match experience we can squeeze into them." I had a little think. "And we need a special move."

"What like?"

"When I play, there's free kicks and corners. Or that little kid from Notts who was doing all those through-balls. Or Ja - or that player who was good at crossing. We need a special move that's going to get us a goal every now and then."

***

Hartlepool had reorganised at half-time, and had come out a bit more prepared for my barrage. I didn't know the names of the positions, but even I could work out they were attacking with fewer men and leaving more sweepers back to collect my punts. There was some rule that meant if they got to the ball fast enough, they didn't have to wait for us to get there before taking the throw-in - they could just restart quickly.

Their attacks were weaker, then, but they were more solid defensively, which meant their attacks were more relentless. Good manager!

We were way ahead on the scoreboard, twenty-four to thirteen, but Pools had recently scored a try and if we didn't change something, they'd probably overhaul us.

So at the next defensive turnover, the captain yelled, "Garryowen!"

That was my cue to take a couple of slow, slow steps and absolutely wallop the ball as high as I could. Then I had to chase my own kick and try to get it before the guy catching it could gain control. I hit it so high the ball came down in the shape of a snowflake - there was no way the guy was going to catch it cleanly. I had handling 20 and even I found catching the egg-shaped 'ball' hard. As was normal in the Garryowen situation, the guy jumped just before I got to him and reached up. The ball hit his hand and bounced away. I didn't have the same instincts I had when playing football, but I reacted fastest anyway. I plucked the ball from the air and started towards the far side of the pitch.

But I'd hit the ball too high, and many other defenders had come to the area. One threw himself at me - I hurdled him. Another two were zooming from the left - I put my head down and accelerated with all my might. One of them, incredibly, was fast enough to get a big chunk of my shirt. He tried to pull me down. It was like being hit by a baseball bat, but reflex took over. I snorted and took short, powerful strides like a bull, adding in a hand-off as well. Then I was clear of the guy, and powered forward until the half-way line. I couldn't risk turning to check how far they were, so I kept at full pace until I was in the endzone. Only then did I look round to see how close the nearest players were - absolutely nowhere.

So I jogged across to the middle, behind the goalposts. If you've got the choice, you score the touchdown from there because then the extra points are easier for the kick-boy. But I was the kicker, and I wanted a bit more action. So I started to jog across to the edge so I'd have a harder shot. When the crowd realised what I was doing, they went bonkers. They all knew more about rugby than me. If I missed the kick and we lost, it wouldn't be a good story. So I popped the ball down, leaving myself an easy kick to add two points to the five I'd just earned.

"Perfect, Max!" said the captain. "Think you can do that again?"

"Yeah."

"You might want to change your shirt, first."

"Why?" I looked down. "Huh." My shirt had been ripped almost in half. "That's annoying. I was going to put that on eBay."

"I think you might get more with it like that."

***

At about the same stage of the match where my new move messed up Hartlepool's plans, Puddington put their foot on the accelerator. Goals three and four came close together. We held out for a while before conceding goal five. And then goals six and seven came in a manic final minute where they realised we had nothing left in the tank and our substitutes were even worse than our first eleven.

The great Chester Women project had begun with a seven-nil defeat.

***

With two minutes remaining in Darlo versus Pools, I was subbed off so that'd I'd get a round of applause from the fans. My first one! The applause turned into a standing ovation, which I milked shamelessly.

I pulled on a coat and sat in the dugout. The manager turned to me and said, "Man of the Match on your debut. So how much are you going to charge for the next match?"

I smiled and nodded towards the pitch. "See that? I'm pretty sure..." I thought about what I was about to say, and decided it was almost certainly true. "I'm pretty sure that was my entire rugby career."

***

I said thanks to The Owl, and praised her for the way she'd coached her team. She didn't give much away, but I think she was pleased. I wished I had the staff profiles unlocked, because she was really impressive.

Then I gathered our team for the post-match team talk. MD had come over to listen, as had a lot of people, but he got a phone call and moved away.

"Ladies," I said, with Dani's father translating beside me. He wouldn't be able to come every match, but he wasn't going to miss her debut. "I've never said this before, and I doubt I'll ever say it again. But losing that one? That's fine."

I was just getting into my flow, but I spotted MD doing a walky-run. He was so unathletic!

"You are good. That's a fact. But some of you have never played an 11-a-side match before. Some of you have never played with a referee before! You have an idea what's needed, now. The levels. You've played a really good team, there. No weaknesses, not letting you get settled, not letting up. Remember that, because we'll be doing what they did to us, to other teams."

I paused. MD had run towards Jackie Reaper and was whispering in his ear. What sort of news would MD get that Jackie would need to hear about? A bomb in Liverpool would do it. I briefly felt sick. That's why I tried not to read the news - I always feared the worst. I told myself to try to stay positive.

"Okay. Jill and Spectrum were watching closely. We saw a few nice moves that we liked. We'll see about repeating those and adding to them in your next sessions. We're not going to focus on your mistakes, but if you've got questions about things you did wrong, you can ask. All right? Next week, we've got another friendly. It's supposed to be a little bit harder, but I think it's going to be a little bit easier. Any questions?" MD and Jackie had vanished, but Livia was standing there, looking lost. For some reason, she looked right at me.

Dani was the first to ask, through her dad. "Are you sure we're good?"

That broke the tension. Everyone laughed. "I'm sure. Go get your showers. Sorry it's cold."

"Er... it's hot showers for the women," said Spectrum.

"What?"

"Ruth said. There's like, five club hairdryers, too."

"That's coming out of my budget, is it?"

"Yes. She says you don't need three goalkeepers, but her team does need to do their hair nice."

"Her team?"

"She says, she who pays the Pippa calls the tune."

"Very funny," I said, but I was only half paying attention. All around me, phones were blowing up. Parents, fans, Chester players, our staff - everyone was glued to their screens. I took mine out - nothing. "Er... what's going on?"

Spectrum reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. I saw he had seventeen unread messages. He angled his phone away and gave me a 'do you mind?' face. That expression didn't last long. "Fuck me," he said. "Ian Evans has quit.'

***

The curse news feed confirmed it. I shoved my hands as far into my pockets as they'd go, then read and re-read the message.

Ian Evans resigns from his position as manager at Chester FC. Chester will now be looking for a new manager

What the fuuuuuun. I realised I was walking around like a headless chicken, and when I turned back towards the place I'd last seen MD, a gaggle of my closest friends were coming at me in a semi-circle. I joined them and we formed a conspiratorial huddle.

"Max," said Henri. "Is it true?"

"Apparently, so," I confirmed.

"Wow," said Raffi. This wasn't necessarily good news for him - Evans had shown a fair amount of faith in Raffi, even if he hadn't played much recently. The next manager might not. Shona leaned against him, looking worried.

"Why are you out here and not in there?" said Emma.

"In where?"

"In wherever MD is."

I pondered that. Good question. "Obviously he's trying to talk Evans out of quitting. And when that fails, he'll offer me the job." There was a lot more laughter than I expected, since I was expecting one hundred percent agreement. "What's the problem?" I demanded.

"One," said Emma, incredibly disloyal. "You just got slapped seven-nil by Puddington."

"Two," said Raffi. "You was fighting one of our main goalscorers this week."

"Three," said Henri. "Chester might not want their next manager to come from the playing staff of Darlington Rugby Club."

"It's Darlington Rugby Football Club," I snapped back. "Shit. I can't believe this." The timing was shocking. Unbelievable. That fossilised prick had chosen the absolute worst conceivable moment to quit.

A call came through. MD asking where I was - telling me to go to the car park.

I looked at my so-called friends and pointed a finger at them. "Don't go anywhere!"

"Oh, we won't," said Henri.

***

MD was with Jackie Reaper by one of those bins dog owners are supposed to fill with poop. I'd never seen anyone empty such a bin. What was the deal with that? Did it just dissolve?

I went over and pretended to be out of the loop. "Is it true?"

"Yes," said MD. "He called me, said he was going to put it on Twitter when he hung up."

That was almost as shocking as the news. "Ian Evans is on Twitter?"

"Yeah mostly it's just one-word reactions to TV shows. There's a group of fans who try to guess what he's watching."

Awkward silence.

"MD," I said. "Do you think we should talk alone, briefly?"

"About what, Max?"

"About our next steps."

"Our next steps? You're looking at him." MD smiled in the direction of Jackie.

"The other day I got told off for not following the proper process. The proper process here is we discuss who the next manager should be."

"Yes. Next time. This time, it's already decided."

Jackie had been quiet. Not much going on facially. Now he grinned. "Am I not your first choice, Max?"

"Of course you're my first choice, you prick. But MD needs to know I'm ready to step in as caretaker manager for tomorrow's game and I can't say that when you're here looming over the area like a ghoul. Evans's body isn't even cold yet and you're here, trying on his boots."

Both men rubbed their mouths with the sides of their palms. Like my friends, they found the idea of me taking over after a seven-nil defeat amusing.

After a few seconds, MD said, "Fortunately, Jackie's contract allows him to leave FC United for a management position. He'll be in his post in time for tomorrow's match."

"Right," I said, slapping my hips a few times. "Right. So this is all good news. This is... good... news. Is this good news?"

"It's good for me," said Jackie, with a smug smile.

My thoughts turned away from trying to insert myself into the manager's dugout somehow, even if it was only for one match, towards practicalities. "What do we do? Announce Jackie right away? Or let people, er, mourn or whatever?"

"It's unseemly to announce right away. We'll wait until breakfast."

"I was planning to go back to Darlo tonight, but I can stay overnight if you need me around in the morning."

"You're fine, Max," said Jackie. "I've got it."

"You've got it? Tommy Tactics, right here. At your disposal."

"I've got it."

"So... what do I do?"

Jackie put his hand on my shoulder. "You make sure you're nice and rested for your big debut on Sunday."

MD rubbed his mouth again. They were taking the piss.

I nodded a few times while I got my annoyance under control. "Thanks, man. That's very kind of you." I realised they were trying not to look at each other, because that would set them off laughing. And it really hit me then, the simple fact that they'd known each other for years. MD trusted Jackie more than he trusted anyone, especially about football. My opinions had suddenly become a lot less important. My voice had become diminished. And my role had been squashed into a pea-sized blob.

It was going to take some getting used to.

"One thing," I said, as I half-turned to leave. "Why did he resign?"

MD frowned. "He wouldn't say. He simply... resigned. Said it was the right time."

"Huh," I said.

I walked away, leaving Chester's managing director and the new first team manager behind.

***

Saturday, 18th February

I kept a low profile and snuck into the Director's Box without being spotted. The Box was full. Jackie Reaper, the legend, was back, and so were all the sponsors and bigwigs who had slipped away under the shadow of the dinosaur.

I kept my cap and sunglasses on, so only MD and Ruth recognised me outright, while a few others recognised me by my girlfriend. She was wearing a Chester FC beanie a stallholder had given her for free. He was probably thinking it wouldn't do his sales any harm if people saw her in it.

"Oh, this is exciting, isn't it?" She was all smiles. "Big buzz around the place."

"Yeah," I said. "The prodigal son returns in the team's darkest hour. It's a great story. And they're hoping to see some good football."

"Will they?"

"Why not?" I said, smiling. "He's doing 3-5-2 with D-Day on the left and Anka on the right. Raffi's in the middle, Henri's up top with Tony. It's almost the strongest possible team. And no left-back, no problem. I swear Evans was sticking with 4-4-2 to make me look bad."

"I thought you don't like D-Day."

"No-one does. Not even his mother. But he's the only real option for a left-sided player in this formation. And Jackie probably thinks, new manager, clean slate. Everyone starts fresh."

"What else? Something's making you smile and it isn't the formation."

"He's got Pascal and Youngster on the bench. There's finally a pathway. It's happening." I shook my head in quiet amazement. "Did you see the way they were warming up with those little cones, those little shuttle runs? That's what the big boys do. We've got a manager who's a top coach. We've got a manager who gives a shit about the youth team. He came to watch the women! It's... it's so weird."

"Weird?"

"You know, like... I was running up the down escalator. Now when I think about my job, it's like... easy. There's no friction. There's no-one putting the brakes on. Jackie gets it." I exhaled. "We can finally focus on making the numbers go up." I tried to smile, but didn't. The turnaround had come so suddenly. It'd take a lot of getting used to.

"So... you aren't going to play rugby tomorrow." Emma had been moderately angry at me for signing up to play what she considered a barbaric sport, partly because I'd rushed to join the local team instead of taking her out for Valentine's Day.

"Babes," I said. "I have to play. I made a big fuss. I went on the radio. I did an interview with Bingo. They've sold two thousand tickets. Hundreds of little kids want to watch me. I have to go. But it's the first and last time. Probably."

"Do you promise?"

"It's a thousand pounds for kicking an egg. I can't promise. But no. I feel good about football again. I feel refreshed. I'm ready to grind. Ah, here they come!"

We had the windows open, despite the chill, and we heard the roar as Jackie Reaper led his team onto the pitch. He waved to all areas of the ground.

"Crackers will love this," said Emma.

"And it's only going to get better," I said. "It's only going to get better."