2.40 - Play On

40.

Football glossary: Play on. Continue the game! Your player was kicked, but you have the ball in an advantageous position. So play on!

***

Saturday, 10th December

The first team gathered at Eastbourne and stayed indoors for as long as possible while our kit and bags were loaded onto the team bus. Indoors. Out of the cold, and boy was it cold. Our training pitches were under a foot of snow. We were heading south, far south, the deep south. Almost as far as Bristol. I tried to remember if I'd ever been further from Manchester, and decided that no, Gloucester would be a new record.

Gloucester City. Good team. Just short of the playoff spots. Beat us and they'd move up to 5th or 6th.

The lads weren't talking about football, though. They were 20 weathermen, navigating 15 different apps that they all swore by. That's a good app for Darlington, but it doesn't know shit about the south. The south? We're not driving to Italy. It's still England, mate. I've got two apps; one for the summer. The winter one says Gloucester is buried. Buried, mate. You'll see.

If the wisdom of the crowd is a real thing, then it seemed probable that our match wouldn't take place. We'd drive 4 hours to the home of everyone's 4th favourite cheese, the referee would arrive and declare the pitch unsafe, and we'd all pile back on the bus.

Football is about glory.

***

When the last bag was loaded, an infuriated Cutter barked at us to get on board. We raced on like little kids, hopping over the snow, the snow is lava, piling into the doorway like the Marx Brothers. I got on last and Pat closed the doors behind me. The bus didn't seem much warmer than the outside world. That's because it wasn't. I checked the road ahead of us and glanced around at Cutter and the coaches. "Pat," I said. "Anyone asks you to go faster, send them to me."

"Ah, Max," he said. "I'm the captain of this vessel. Don't worry about me taking any risks. No chance. Not for all the tea in China." He peeled away. The bus slipped along, crunching snow underwheel. I had a bad feeling about this. Pat turned a fraction to check my face. "You go sit down, now. I'll steer you right."

Yeah, no. It wasn't Pat's driving that had me on edge. What was it?

***

I settled in next to Junior and tried to chill. Put one of my flea market earbuds in and realised it hadn't charged. Seething, I shoved it back into its case and jammed it into my backpack. Three, four, five thousand pound a week. Just go to some team for a couple of years! Why the fuck not! Even Junior had a pair of expensive headphones.

I tapped him and he took them off. "Junior, mate. Is that logo upside down?"

"Huh? What?"

"Your Beats headphones. The logo seems wrong."

"Ah." He grinned. "They're not Beats. They're Peates." He waited. "Max, it's a knock-off."

"Oh!" A cheap imitation brand. "Oh, that's all right then."

He tutted and put them back on. I thought I heard a voice like a teacher, but on his tablet was an action movie. Weird.

A few minutes later, I got a text.

Emma: I put your photo on Insta. It's my fave. Let me know if you don't like it and I'll take it down. But I hope you let me keep it.

I sighed and tapped Junior again.

"What, Max?"

"You on Instagram?"

"Yeah. Who isn't?"

"Me. My girlfriend just put up some picture. Can you go there and show me?"

He tutted again. "Just sign up, Max. It's photos. It's not going to suck your brain out." I raised my eyebrows and pointed at his phone. He paused his action movie, but I noticed the sound didn't pause. Huh. He took his phone out and went into Instagram. "What's her username? You don't know?"

"Type Emma Weaver." He did. It brought up a list of accounts. He started scrolling down and I said, "Whoa! Slow down there matey. It was the first one."

He laughed. "Max. You've been catfished. That's not a real account. That's like an AI generated girl. Did she ask for your bank details yet?"

"Click on it."

"Huh. Okay there's a picture of you. I notice you're not in the photo with her. That's suspish. Then there's, ah, hey. I need to be alone with these for a minute. Okay! Jesus. I'm joking."

"Gimme," I said.

He handed the phone over and I saw a photo of Emma and Gemma on a beach somewhere. It looked warm, but that might have been a filter. Maybe they were in Skegness. But maybe they were in Ibiza. Why not? Normal people had holidays abroad.

I pinched the screen to focus on Emma's face and drifted into my memories. Just after my outburst in the tent at Sheffield Wednesday's training ground.

***

I collected Emma on my way out and we walked past the Rolls Royces and onto the street. I knew enough about the layout of Sheffield to turn left and head towards the big stadium. There we bought tram tickets and hopped on one to the city centre. It seemed totally normal to make our own way home. It had the added benefit of not drawing attention to Brad and Summers. No need for their relationship with the club's owners to turn sour.

The tram accelerated away from Leppings Lane and trundled towards the city centre.

It took a while but Emma finally looked at me and said, "What just happened?"

I put my middle finger to the bridge of my nose and rubbed in a circle. "Good question." I took a minute to think of a possible explanation that would satisfy her curiosity and ideally put an end to all questions. "I met Nick when I was working in the bank." That was good. A lie wrapped in truth. "Long story short, I helped him out once and he sort of latched onto me. He tried to bribe me. He's charming and everything, but he's a con man. A trickster. As soon as I saw him get off that helicopter I was looking for the scam."

"Why did he let you stand there and wreck his deal?"

I shrugged. "People like that are arrogant. They always think they'll come out on top. And he's a showman. Loves drama. No, I get why he did it. I'm more interested in why no-one else tried to shut me up."

"Well," she said, then bit her bottom lip. "It was pretty hot. Why interrupt a man in the throes of passion? Know what I mean? When the lights went out I was just... enchanted. And I wasn't the only one. I saw Brad run towards you like he was going to intervene, but then he changed his mind. Just like that." She clicked her fingers.

Enchanted. Ah. Okay. I went internal to ponder that. It seemed that Nick had subdued everyone to let me do my speech. No, that wasn't right. It was for his speech, and I'd interrupted him. But he'd waited till I was there. He must have known I'd do something like what I did. Or maybe it wasn't any kind of extra enchantment - maybe what happened was simply what happened when someone with influence 20 got on his soap box.

Emma snapped me out of it. "But don't you want to play for Sheffield?"

I looked around the tram to see if anyone had heard. Leaning towards her, I whispered, "They don't like it when you call a team Sheffield."

"The con man did."

"Exactly." I leaned back and returned to a normal voice. "Would I like to play for Wednesday? Sure. I'd prefer to manage them. But er..." Thoughts that had bubbled up during my rant resurfaced. "Sometimes," I said, carefully, watching for her reaction, "sometimes I think I'd let to give it all up and manage a disabled team. Or do something totally different." I waved my hand around trying to think of an example. "Rescuing... swans... from trees. I don't know."

"As long as it's not becoming a butcher," she said. "Sausage skins are made of collagen." She shook her head at my ignorance of this basic fact of life. "Can you live off managing a disabled team? I thought it was all volunteers."

"It's not a lucrative career. I was thinking I might sponge off my rich lawyer girlfriend."

"You were thinking that, were you?"

"I was maybe thinking that?"

She gave me a weird look. I was convinced I'd blown it, blown the whole relationship, but she said, "You'll have to do the dishes."

"Deal." We shook hands. "Anyway," I continued, "I'll only be poor for a few more years. I've still got my clients. When James hits the Premier League, I'll buy us a dishwasher." I settled back and put my arm around her while the tram jiggled us around. "A dishwasher. A flash car. Holiday in Tahiti. And even," I said, punctuating the thought with a tiny gasp, "a nice suit."

Emma squirmed her head into the crook of my neck. "Forget the suit. Forget the car. My Max Best won't give up his dream so easily."

"I notice you didn't say, forget Tahiti."

"Yeah, well," she said. "You can take a break from your dream. You have my permission to take a two-week break. Twice a year."

***

"Uh, Max?"

Junior was trying to pull his phone away. "Oh. Wait a second." I unpinched the screen so that Gemma was visible again.

"She's hot. Is she single?"

"She's seeing Henri Lyons. Fancy your chances?"

"Against him? Yeah!"

"Really?"

"Maybe not. He's got that accent. Anyway, he's a good guy. Helped me a lot."

I think Junior was giving examples of Henri's tips and tricks, but I was back in my memories.

***

We walked around Sheffield city centre for exactly thirty minutes.

Emma's phone beeped.

"You set a timer?" I said, appalled.

She was unmoved. "Max. A deal's a deal. It's been half an hour and we didn't find it by, what did you call it? Kismet? Now be a big boy and ask a local for directions. Like we agreed."

I shook my head, mildly annoyed. I didn't want to ask for help, but she was right - a deal's a deal. So I looked around the busy street we were on, then burst into a massive smile. "Great, come on." I gripped her by the hand and we darted across to intercept an extremely beautiful woman. "Hi there," I said.

She was a Gemma type - tall, thin, long, wavy black hair - but much more my type of Gemma type. She had a coldness to her eyes and a hint of playfulness to her lips. She glanced from me to Emma to me to Emma. "Hi," she said, avoiding making any facial expression. Her eyes drifted to my hands - I was carrying my little boot bag and a Sheffield Wednesday shirt.

"Sorry to bother you. We're looking for Planetology."

"Plantology," said Emma.

"Well," I said with my cutest smile. "I'm looking for Planetology and she's looking for Plantology. I'd love directions to the nearest one."

The smile did the trick. The Gemma-type smiled back. "Planning your wedding in space? Plantology's great." She came next to me to point down the road and tell me where to go. But also, maybe a little bit, she came next to me to come next to me. "And then cross the street and it's there," she finished.

"Thanks," I said.

"Yeah thanks," said Emma, trying to pull me away.

"Do you play for Wednesday?" said the woman.

Emma let go of my hand. Danger!

"No," I said. "We just got a tour of the stadium. Didn't we, honeybunch? Pumplekins? Snuggles?"

Emma said something like 'yeah, sure' then louder, she said, "Those guys look like they know a good place to eat. I'll go check with them."

And she wandered a few yards away and waved at a couple of handsome guys in big, stylish coats with nice hair. One had big, designer glasses and the other a chunky, expensive-looking watch. They immediately began to fawn over her while she giggled excessively. Shameless.

The Gemma-type spoke. I checked her face - cold amusement. "I think your girlfriend is winning this game," she said.

"We're all winners if we all enjoy it," I said, watching her response carefully.

Her eyebrows raised a fraction and there was a little twitch of a smile. Her cold eyes heated up. "Enjoy your meal," she said. "I hope you like your new friends."

With that, she swished away magnificently. Holy shit.

I wandered over to Emma. No doubt she'd expect me to compete with these guys. "Honey," I said, butting into the conversation. "We might have to postpone the wedding."

That killed their conversation. "Why?" said Emma, genuinely annoyed. The news, though fictional, wound her up. Or maybe she thought I was breaking the rules of the game.

"Wednesday have increased their offer to 8,000 a week. But I've just heard Millwall are interested, too. Brad says he could get 20, there." I looked at the guys as though seeing them for the first time. "Oh, hi," I said, giving them handshakes. "You probably want autographs. I don't have a pen on me." I sort of exhaled noisily and stared at a particular lamppost. "Do you ever go into a room and forget why you went there?" I slapped my hips a few times. "Ah yes. The wedding flowers." I gave Emma a look of concern. "We might as well still go and choose them?"

She considered her response. "What is it the referees say? Play on."

***

"You cheated," said Emma, once we'd slipped away from the men.

"In what way?"

"Your star player power. That's not fair. It's the Attention Game, not the Fame Game."

I laughed. "I'm not famous. Anyway, if we do it on looks alone, I've got no chance. Why were we playing the Attention Game anyway? I was only asking for directions."

"You know why."

"I simply thought she looked like Gemma and maybe you would want to be her friend."

"Max."

"Are we still friends?"

"No. Now let's go plan our wedding."

***

I came back to reality, back to the photo of Emma and Gemma on the beach. I wasn't sure I liked the thought of thousands of random men seeing my girlfriend in a bikini before me. I didn't want to think about it. I gave Junior his phone back and went to the front of the coach. Cutter and his assistants broke off their conversation to look at me. I held my hands up. "I've got questions for Spivvers."

The physio groaned. "Max! Again?"

"Have you got something better to do? Because I haven't."

"What's all this?" said Cutter.

"Max has started his coaching badges," said the physio. "And he's got to do first aid. And he's taking it very seriously."

"Too seriously?" said Cutter.

"You can't be too serious about first aid," said the physio.

"So what's the problem?" said Cutter.

Spivvers deflated. "Go on, Max. Fire away."

"Check my work," I said. I told him how to use a defibrillator, what to do if a player swallows his tongue, how to check for concussion, and ran through the A,B,C,D,E approach.

"Spot on," he said. "You're a good student."

"What else is in your course, Max?" said Cutter.

"I'm going through the introductory modules," I said. "Whizzing through, I should say. I did two weeks in one day. The meat of it is creating lesson plans. You know, this session aims to improve technique so we do this drill and that drill. My attitude as a coach is such and such. I'm just copy pasting from sessions I've seen. Your ones plus ones I saw from Jackie Reaper."

"Do you need to use our academy kids?" said Cutter. I must have looked surprised, because he added, "You know. for your inspections."

"This course is all online. But the UEFA C license has a big practical component. If I can use the academy, yeah. That'd be top. Are you serious?"

"Of course, Max. We encourage all the players to do a badge. Not many are interested. Don't think ahead like you."

"Lucky them," I said, ominously.

"Now fuck off so we can gossip about you."

"Aye aye cap'n."

***

I shuffled back down the aisle of the bus. When Junior saw me coming, he quickly did something on his phone. Closing Instagram, the prick! Perving over my girl. Holy shit. I paused, holding onto one of the headrests. I looked out the side of the bus and saw the motorways were clear. They'd been gritted, or the sheer volume of traffic dealt with the snow. But beyond the roads, the white stuff lay thick everywhere.

Recent events came to mind. Me versus Nick. Me versus the future of football. It was going to be very hard to fight it alone. Scratch that. Impossible to fight it alone.

I glared at the back of the bus where the Cavemen were dicking around, being loud, playing cards, acting the maggot. When one of them saw me looking, the volume from that area halved. Even Captain Caveman himself bowed his head and pretended to be focused on the poker.

On the pitch, we were getting more and more effective. Off the pitch, they didn't exist.

I shuffled towards them.

Now, you probably remember there was a dude whose job it was to delay me from going down to the dressing room on my first morning at the club. He was extremely mediocre and his normal role was 'unused sub'. I hadn't spoken to him, except to yell things like yes! or man on! or one two! during drills and training sessions. When he saw me looming over him, he visibly swallowed.

"Twatface!" I said. I did actually use his real name, but it's more satisfying to imagine it this way. "Twatface!" I said again, even more aggressively and just as fictionally. Yep, still satisfying.

"Yes, Best?"

"I'm ready to join the union. Sign me up."

He seemed confused by this entirely appropriate comment. Something clicked. "Oh. No, there isn't one."

"The PFA," I said, the way you'd point at the big yellow thing in the sky and say, 'the sun'.

"Yes," he said, waving a hand. "I know. But that's only for the leagues. The PFA doesn't cover non-league."

"The Professional Footballers Association doesn't cover non-league. Isn't everyone on this bus a professional footballer?"

"Not quite all, no. But you're right. We should be covered. But we're not."

"You've got to be joking."

"No, Max. I swear."

He was giving me big don't-shoot-the-messenger vibes. "And there's no union for non-league players? What the fuck."

Chumpy, for some inexplicable reason, decided I was being out of line. "So we have to stick up for each other."

I pushed away from Twatface's headrest and landed on Chumpy's. You know, the one in front of his seat, so I could menace him and point my cone of wrath into his stretchy face. "Right," I said. "So when are we going to start doing that?"

Chumpy's mouth opened and closed.

Once he'd retreated into a sullen silence, I stood there for a while thinking of the implications. When my fight with Nick next escalated, there wouldn't be any help for me from the players's union. I wasn't even sure what kind of help I'd need. But I crossed them off my mental list of potential allies. What did that leave? Almost nothing.

Well, shit.

***

I took a few steps back towards my seat. I passed Smokes, Paul Larkin, and Gray, the tall striker whose job was to be a battering ram for the team. Smokes pulled me into an empty seat.

"Max! Tommy Tactics! Did you see the Brazil game?"

See it? I managed it! "Yep."

"We couldn't believe they didn't win. They looked the best team in the tournament. What happened?"

"Well, they had 11 shots on target and Croatia scored from their only one," I said. "So mostly they were just unlucky. I actually liked Brazil's formation, but I played 4-2-4 instead."

"You played?"

Slip of the tongue... "I would have played 4-2-4. We know Croatia has a great midfield. Let them have it. Give me a flat back 4, no forward runs. Two DMs. So we've got 6 behind the ball at all times. Then 4 of the best attacking players in the world, spread out wide. And they don't have to defend. Croatia aren't pushing too many men forward in that scenario, let me tell you. So yeah. But look, the real manager did it right. They were unlucky. That's football."

I'd earned 127 TINOs from that match. I'd been hyper-focused - phone off, no distractions - in case me losing TINOs meant some other curse guy gained those TINOs. I wasn't just fighting to boost my own power - I was fighting to stop Nick's other protégés increasing theirs. First, because they were obviously dicks who were telling Nick how to turn football into a gated community where clubs like Darlo would be kept at arms length. Second, because I needed to be Nick's top dog so that my threat to retire would keep him under control.

"What about Holland Argentina?" said Larkin.

"That was weird," I said. "I didn't like what the Argentina manager did. He played 5 at the back so that he'd have a solid base and hope the forwards grabbed a goal. Me? I would have gone 4-1-3-2 and blown them away. Dominate all areas of the pitch. Don't let the Netherlands have a sniff while you keep pounding shots at them. 3-0, job's a good 'un."

127 more TINOs, thank you very much.

In my version of the World Cup there would have been a mouth-watering semi-final between the two South American giants. Imagine that!

"What about today, Max?" said Smokes. "You going to dribble the wrong way and get your leg broke again?"

"Today?" I scoffed. "No chance. I don't know how to ski."

***

TINOs: 3345

Matches remaining: 6

***

I went back to my seat and crashed back against it with a big sigh. I was unhappy. Anxious. Kind of stressed. What had I said to Shona that time? Stress is the time before you make a decision.

What did I need to decide?

I slapped Junior's arm again.

He inhaled and slowly took his headphones off. He paused the movie but it didn't pause the audio.

"What are you listening to?"

"Plane. Gerard Butler. Good, mindless action."

"Mate," I said. "You're listening to something and pretending to be watching that. It won't wash with me. I'm the greatest detective since Pikachu. Now fess up."

He became shifty and leaned in. "Motivational stuff. Okay? Self-help shit. Happy, now?"

"No. Why are you ashamed of trying to improve yourself? Jesus. Anyway, listen." I made a little throat noise. "I need your Instagram again."

"Mate," he said.

"Mate," I explained.

He unlocked it and gave it to me. The first picture on Emma's Instagram was of me. She'd taken it in that florist, Plantology, when I'd gone so far internal I couldn't even see or hear.

***

The florist was tiny. I suppose I'd been expecting a giant shop, a tropicarium filled to the brim with plants and flowers from all over the world. Despite its size, as soon as we went in, Emma lost her mind, asking an assistant if she could take photos for her Insta and yeah, could the assistant help us plan our wedding? Some of the details Emma came up with were so specific that they could only have come from her actual wedding fantasies. When she said there'd be a castle with a drawbridge and we'd pull it up behind us to stop the paparazzi getting in, I had to turn away to stop myself from laughing and ruining her little adventure.

I ended up going to a window, putting my hand up on the old-fashioned wooden frame, and peering out into the world. The sun was trying to come out. The air was cold. Not much wind. Great football weather, if the pitch was safe.

Football. Football was eating itself. Clubs were choosing to move away from their own fans and their own traditions. Barely a week went by without some team changing their 150-year old crest to some modern marketing-friendly logo. Spanish cup finals were held in Saudi Arabia. Big clubs bought talented young players and hoarded them like dragons, so much so that those clubs had created a whole new job position for the guy whose job it was to remember all their names. This is only a slight exaggeration.

And the World Cup. I'd watched almost every game in Qatar, and it had been absolutely incredible. A masterpiece in storytelling, building nicely to a thrilling climax. But FIFA weren't happy to earn 4 billion dollars hosting the greatest tournament ever. They wanted more. More games, more dollars, more shots of the president sitting next to world leaders and trillionaires. The new proposal was 104 matches played by 48 teams over 39 days. Bloated. Half the matches would be meaningless. And they wanted to host it every 2 years instead of every 4. More more more. Killing the goose that laid golden eggs.

So what Old Nick was doing was just one straw. For many fans, the camel's back had broken long ago. That's why FC United had been created. And for me, while there were teams like FC United and Darlington, there was still hope.

And there was still a route to the top. I could take control of Telford United and bring them to the Premier League.

But even at breakneck speed, that might take 20 years. Would the pyramid still be there in 20 years? There was talk that Bournemouth would soon be bought by a rich American. That would be the 10th Premier League team owned by Americans. Half. There's no relegation in American sports. Owning a sports franchise in the U.S.A. is a license to print money, with no risk. Would they change the rules to align English football more with American sports? Why wouldn't they? Eliminating the chance that your team might be kicked out of the league would be entirely rational.

And it wasn't just Americans. If you were a nation state buying a club to increase your diplomatic clout, you needed your club on the biggest stage. And the few English guys who were left? You don't get to be a billionaire without killing a few billion fluffy mammals. They were as heartless as they come.

It seemed that Nick was right when he said I was looking at the future of football. Secret meetings of rich men surrounding by sumptuous food they didn't even pause to sniff, making decisions that would hurt millions of people in order to safeguard their 'investments' and squeeze their bottom lines.

I sighed and felt the wood under my fingers.

There were 20 clubs in the Premier League. You needed 14 votes to change something. If there wasn't currently a majority in favour of ending relegation, of lifting the drawbridge to the castle, there soon would be.

Once the bridge was up, that was that. The rest would slowly wither and die.

Resistance, I told myself, was futile.

I stood straighter and thought: fuck that.

6 was the number.

6 votes could block changes to the Premier League that would harm the fans. Harm the sport. In England, anyway. I couldn't do anything about fucking FIFA. But I could get my hands on one of those votes. I could be that vote.

If I took Telford from the bottom of the National League North all the way to the Premier League, I'd have that power. I'd be in the secret meetings flicking Vs at all the pricks. I'd hold them to ransom. "I'll vote against everything you propose from now till eternity unless you all get on social media and profess your love of relegation and the pyramid system." And even better, I thought to myself, my club would be there at the expense of one of the villains!

Nick must have thought he was punishing me for becoming a player.

But he'd simply lit a fire under my arse. My ambitions had just increased a million fold.

I would jump behind the wheel of some shitty little fan-owned club, and drive it straight up the nearest cliff face up into the professional leagues, through the Championship, and into the big one. Into those secret meetings, into every unscrupulous owner's nightmares.

And while I was doing it, I'd take a leaf out of Nick's book and transform my decrepit little vehicle into a fucking FLYING TANK.

So I didn't have 20 years. So what? Flying tanks go fast, mate. Dead fast.

***

While I was deciding I needed to embark on a hostile takeover of English football, Emma had snuck into position and taken a photo of me.

I was there, one hand on the window frame, the sun hitting my skin just so. In my other hand I had my Wednesday kit and boot bag. My expression was what you can maybe imagine from my thoughts - steeling myself to fight future battles.

It became Emma's favourite photo of me.

***

Back on the bus with Junior's phone in my hand, I moved the picture and saw the caption. Emma had written, "Max, fresh from the fight."

Every time I read it I found a new meaning, and every new meaning felt true.

***

Stress is the time before you make a decision. What was I going to do? Storm the castle. At what cost? Guerilla war didn't seem like the option that came with the most financial rewards. Fan-owned teams paid peanuts. I could make wheelbarrows of cash as a player, but not at Telford.

Okay, so I'd have to accept that my income would be low for a while until James got to a big club. I'd have to put up with shitty earphones and borrow money from Emma and my call centre suit would be my best suit for years to come.

I exhaled.

I could always play for a team like Sheffield Wednesday, build up a nest egg, drop down a few divisions and then start my management career. I shook my head. Far too long.

All right. Player manager at a fan-owned club. Done. Side hustles to try to be less poor. Fine.

So now what? What about Darlington? What about January 31st and the whole Maxterplan?

I looked out the window. The snow was falling in clumps.

I slapped Junior. He paused his audiobook but not the movie. "Max."

"If this game today is called off, when will it be replayed?"

"Dunno. March or something." He waited for my follow-up question.

March or something. By the end of the transfer window, I wouldn't have played 10 games. I wouldn't get a league winners medal. So if this match today was abandoned, there was no point staying at the club. I would stay only until a fan-owned club sacked their manager, at which point I'd hop in my car and apply in person. Based on what Nick had said, I'd definitely get the job. But that meant doing things his way. What about doing things my way?

"What do you think the odds of us playing today are? Like, really?"

"50-50."

"Yeah. Me too. Thanks."

Junior went back to his motivational tapes. I bit my thumbnail.

50-50. A coin toss. So why not let the universe decide, for once? If the game went ahead, I'd take it as a sign that I should follow the Maxterplan and stay at Darlington until January 31st. Maybe there would be a way to do it that wasn't despicable.

And if the match didn't go ahead, the Maxterplan was dead in the water. So I'd take the next management job that fit my needs, whether it was next week or next year.

For now, I left things in the hands of the Gods. By which I mean the referee and his assistants.

***

The pitch was hard and covered with a layer of snow, but the lines had been cleared and the ref thought we were good to go. Most players wore gloves. I didn't. I'd like to say it was because I was too big and tough, a real old-school hero. But I simply didn't have a pair and when I asked Junior if I could borrow his, he laughed.

So I stood around, teeth chattering, while the match went on around me. After five minutes, the snow started falling again. After a big flurry, the ref paused the match. The ground staff and all the players and coaches grabbed brooms and shovels and tried to brute force some of the snow off the pitch.

I say all the players, I mean almost all. I grabbed a puffy coat - I think it was the referee's - and stood in it and shivered. If this match didn't go ahead, it would have huge repercussions. Huge. The universe was flipping a coin.

Heads, do it the Max way!

Tails, do it the Nick way.

Helping to clear the pitch would mean putting my thumbs on the scale.

After about ten minutes of a lot of people working very hard so that the match could continue, the referee re-appeared. He looked suspiciously like a man who had just had a lovely hot cup of tea and a few hobnobs, and I hated him for it.

He went through an elaborate routine known as the 'pitch inspection'. That involved him looking at the pitch and turning to the two managers. They and the 800 watching fans were agog.

I scampered forward, ready to learn my fate.

The ref cleared his throat. Like all refs, he loved a bit of attention. He stretched the moment out like he was announcing who was going home on Love Island. And the decision is...

"Play on."

...

Heyyyyy! Thanks for your support! Incredible as always.