1.56 - Chester Knights

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56.

Football glossary: The Treble. In most countries, the best thing a team can do is win 'the treble'. This involves winning the three most important trophies: the national league, the major domestic cup, and the Champions League. Manchester United won The Treble in 1999. Liverpool say they won The Treble in 1984, but historians are baffled by the claim since Everton won the FA Cup that year. In case this section wasn't clear: Treble, Manchester United, end of list.

***

I was not at my mental sharpest when I arrived at the pitchside. The meds, the foreign locale, the speed at which events were eventuating. But what did it matter? I'd use the curse to rearrange the team, they'd win comfortably, and I'd earn the chance to manage a full-size under 14s game. Progression. Love it. If I kept this up, I'd be managing Chester by the end of the season.

There wasn't time to get to know the team or do anything tactical. We arrived a full minute before kick-off. Just enough time to shake hands with Terry, the team's coach, apologise for barging into his domain (which he took with good grace), and give my drink order to a teenager, who heard me say tea, milk, no sugar, and sprinted off to get it. The VIP treatment for Max! At last!

The match kicked off.

Almost instantly, a Knight crashed into an opponent. A full speed collision! Instead of rolling around, begging for a foul, they helped each other up and sprinted towards the ball, where they collided again.

This was not what I'd expected, not in the slightest. But my heart pumped just a little bit faster. This had the potential to be fun!

***

It was Para football. Both teams comprised partially sighted players, ones with hearing impairments, ones with cerebral palsy, and some with Down's Syndrome. This was baffling. I clarified it with Terry. "Is this normal? They've got such different strengths and weaknesses."

"Yeah," he said. "It's called pan-disability footy. It's big and it's growing. Think how many competitive games you'd get if you only played with people with the exact same disability you had. The biggest benefit is getting games scheduled. Games are the pathway to growth. The kids who excel here can get taken up by disability-specific teams."

"Huh. But isn't it unfair?"

"A lot of things are unfair." Well, true. I took in a drag of crisp, cool air. It was a sunny morning. Cold but bright. The pitch was small but the grass was green and the lines were white. A level playing field. A prerequisite condition for sport. He saw that I was still stressed about the mixed abilities and gave me a little smile. "Max, relax. We know what we're doing!" He tapped my crutches. "You should try frame football. You'd be good at it. And when everyone's in the same boat, everyone's in the same boat."

I smiled back. "Who are the other team?"

"Ellesmere Eleven. They're decent. They have a big CP centre there."

"Oh," I said, trying to understand. "The more cerebral palsy players, the better?"

"We try not to think like that," he said. "We're the top destination for Para players in the region so we get first dibs. Not to be too harsh but we've looked at all the Ellesmere kids and if we wanted to sign one, they'd be here."

"But you always lose, I was told."

Terry gave me a look. "There's more important things than winning. Our kids are two years younger than theirs. Our goal is to develop players. We've had kids go on to play for Wales. For Team GB at the Olympics. For the big Para teams."

"Great," I said. "But I was told people drop out of the programme because you always lose."

"That's just mad parents who want to live out their childhood fantasies through their kids. If they stop coming, it's a shame for those kids but honestly, we're all better off without them. Without the parents, I mean."

"Huh."

My tea arrived, and I took stock of the picture in front of me.

The Chester Knights were in jerseys very much like the blue-and-white Chester FC home kit. The sponsor was different; even more local sounding, and if my eyes weren't deceiving me the names on the shirts weren't in quite the same font as the first team. But that didn't matter. The kids were resplendent.

I clarified the rules. Rolling subs, no offsides, and when the ball went out of bounds the players could do a kick-in, throw-in, or roll-in depending on what they preferred. There were several other minor tweaks and the goalposts were made of rope surrounded by white tape, so the partially-sighted players could crash into them and not get hurt.

Now that I felt I had a sort of global overview of Para football, I zoomed in to the pitch itself. Watching the match was like watching two swarms of bees buzz around. It was like primary school playground football but without the goalhangers. Just loads of kids running towards the ball, wherever the ball was. Mayhem. And 'my' swarm had bees that were smaller and slower than the other swarm. If I couldn't change anything, then defeat was inevitable.

Fine. So what about the players? We had seven on the pitch, plus three subs. Chester's mum must have spread the word that something interesting was happening. She'd ensured a bumper turnout. So in principle, the Knights were more talented than their opponents, but so much younger they were unlikely to win. Okay. On my left, Chester himself was in goal. After I'd made jokes about how goalkeepers could be replaced by home appliances! Ah, well. He was wearing absolutely mad steampunk-style goggles. No wonder he never looked me in the eyes. Without his goggles he probably couldn't see me! "How far can Chester see?" I asked Terry.

"Not far," he said. "Like... five, ten metres."

"Shit," I said. "And how far with the goggles on?"

"That's with the goggles on."

"Shit! Is he waiting for a cornea transplant or something like that?"

Terry squirmed. "It's probably best if you don't think about it," he said.

Fuck.

We had another partially sighted girl. She was wearing very thick, round-framed glasses. She was playing as a sort of attacking-midswarmer. The ball bobbled towards her and she hit a fierce shot that went just wide. "Who's that?"

"We call her Scrappy. She's a real terrier. Gets stuck in. And she's got fantastic ball striking."

Ball striking. Interesting way to put it. I thought through the ramifications of what that meant and why he'd said it. I imagined having poor vision and finding the ball at my feet. How well would I be able to kick it? Probably quite well, to be honest, because I had years of experience to fall back on. What if I'd been born differently? What if I'd been born blind? Could I score a penalty with my eyes closed? Only through luck. If I blindfolded myself and just left a couple of little holes to look through, how good would my technique be? Probably awful. So Terry saying that Scrappy had good technique meant a lot. "Have you tried her in defence?"

He gave me a sour look. "Mike Dean said to let you do what you want so if that's what you're recommending..."

I gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm not changing anything until I understand what I'm seeing. I'm not a complete nutjob, whatever you've heard." The game continued, the players moving seemingly at random, like Brownian motion. I wished I had a tactics screen, but that was only available for 11-a-side matches. I noticed that Terry had a little whiteboard among all the bags of balls and equipment behind him. It seemed to suggest a 2-2-2 formation. A reliable classic! "Er... the kids aren't really following your plan. Are they able...? Are they...?" I wasn't sure how to word the question without seeming like a total gammon.

"Are they capable of understanding tactics?" He gave me a withering look. "Yes, Max."

I understood that he'd want to defend his players. He worked with them up to 4 times a week. "But I mean," I said, pointing to the mayhem.

"But what?"

"But they aren't doing it."

"They are." He picked up the whiteboard and pointed to the two centre-backs, then pointed to the pitch. "Clogger and Wilson." He pointed to the midfield duo on the board and on the pitch. "Zoe and Scrappy." The strikers. "Beans and John."

I watched the boy called Clogger and the girl called Zoe for a while. And, indeed, their average position was as they'd been coached. It was just that they spent a lot of time running around that area.

"Okay, that's good," I said. "I can work with that." There was another thumping collision in the midfield. "Shit!" I said.

Terry laughed. "Yeah. They're absolutely fearless. It takes some getting used to."

I shook my head in wonderment.

Fearless was a great way to describe it. Another way was brave. What was that kid's bravery score?

And that thought was the catalyst for the crisis that followed.

***

There were no player profiles. I hadn't noticed at first because I'd been busy trying to get up to speed with Para football. Also, I hadn't been offered the chance to play a Free Hit when we got free kicks or corners. I was definitely in charge, though. Terry had said as much.

I did a little test and threw on one of our subs. Terry was surprised by the change, but didn't say anything. The referee accepted my authority, as did my players. Okay.

Next, I tried asking Clogger to drop back a few yards. He nodded and did it. I gave him a big thumbs up.

Right. I was in charge. So why wasn't I getting the Free Hit button?

I thought that maybe I wasn't seeing it because I'd arrived late. But I'd always seen player profiles no matter when I turned up. As long as there were people playing football and the football was considered serious, I saw the profiles. 5-a-side always triggered it, and this was sevens.

"Terry, can I ask you some questions? They might be annoying."

"I'm used to it," he said. Did he mean he was used to me asking annoying questions? Cheeky!

"Do you work for Chester FC? Like, are you an employee of the club?"

"Yep. Full-time. I do bits and bobs of coaching. Some admin. The hours are long but at least the pay is bad."

"The Chester Knights are affiliated with Chester FC? Like, if one of these kids attacks the referee it'll be Chester City's name in the newspaper?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Chester FC. But yes."

I nodded. This game was more embedded into and higher up the English footballing ecosystem than almost all the ones I'd been to since getting the curse. With a jolt I checked and realised I wasn't even getting XP from it! What the actual! "And you said about pathways. Kids go from here to bigger teams. To the Wales team."

"Yes."

"Wait, wait!" I said, excited to have solved the problem. "Is this game technically in a Welsh league or something like that?" Maybe the curse only worked in England! That would be insane but at least it would explain what was happening.

"No, it's England."

Well, fuck.

Ellesmere darted through and hit a low shot that Chester saved, but he could do nothing about the rebound. 1-0. Not the best of starts to my twelve-month plan to take over as first-team manager here.

Terry clapped and gave a little shout of encouragement to his wards. "Come on, Chester! Champion mentality!"

The Knights pulled themselves taller and spent the next twenty seconds zipping around with even more intensity than before.

I glanced at Terry. He seemed like a super guy. There was no curse data over his head, so maybe he wasn't a proper coach. He was coaching the hell out of these kids, though. "Terry, you don't seem to mind me coming here and disrupting your day."

He looked a bit shifty. "I do mind," he admitted. "Only a bit, though. I don't know who you are but suddenly we've got a lot of bigwigs showing an interest. I've been on the phone all morning." I glanced over my shoulder to see who he was talking about. He helped me out. "There's MD. A couple of the first team coaches. And Jackie Reaper."

An opportunity to get some hot goss! I played it cool. "Oh?" I said. "Who's that?"

"Used to play for Chester. Big talent. Got injured, started coaching. I think he's in Manchester, now."

"Huh. I've seen him. The way he swaggers around you'd think he owns the place."

Terry shrugged. "I think CFU trusts him. That's City Fans United. The group that owns the club. Reaper helped the club get back on its feet in the early days. He's a bit of a ledge."

Ledge was footy shorthand for legend. "So you don't mind getting some senior eyeballs on the Knights even if it means letting me make weird substitutions."

He bit his lip, then looked sheepish. "Yeah. Could say it like that. And," he added, "it's something different for the kids. Learning opportunity." He took in my ankle and black eye. "Maybe."

"One last question. And I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm not saying it's what I believe. But if someone said to you that this wasn't real football, what would you say?"

"I wouldn't want to have too many conversations with people like that. Life's too short. But I'd just say look at the players. They think it's real football."

And yeah, they did. They were going through all the emotions. Putting in the effort. Getting stuck into tackles and trying to move up the pitch.

So why wasn't the curse treating it like football?

As if to hammer home the point, Ellesmere scored a second goal, caused by a mistake from our partially deaf midfielder, Zoe. She had this large, flat hearing aid sort of running up her skull giving her huge cyberpunk vibes. After hitting a loose pass that led to the goal, she fell on all fours, and pounded the turf in frustration.

I'd seen that before.

Flashback!

1999. Manchester United are playing Bayern Munich. United have an amazing team but half the midfield is suspended and can't play - a moronic rule that was later changed. The 90th and last minute. Munich are one-nil up and they take off their star defender so he can get a round of applause. The match officials tie Munich colours to the trophy. The English commentator says 'Can United score? They always score!' He's right. 91st minute. United get a corner. The ball bounces around. Goal! Munich are stunned. 92nd minute. United get another corner. They fucking score again! It's insane. The United fans go bonkers except for one twat who is looking the wrong way so he can take a photo. I hate that prick. Watch the game! Anyway. That's how United won the treble. Sport is joy! A Munich defender called Samuel Kuffour falls on all fours and slaps the turf in frustration and disbelief. It's an iconic image. Sport is pain.

I've never had that emotion. To me, sport is process. I've never cared that much.

But our cyberpunk girl cared that much. That's why she was slapping the turf. Conceding that goal meant more to her than any goal ever has to me. A Down's kid had his head in his hands. Chester was lying prone on the pitch, hoping it would swallow him whole.

Okay, 2-0 down and I wasn't getting any help from the curse. I kind of needed this match to go well. This was something of an audition.

I took a step away from the pitch and tried to think clearly.

The first time I'd gone to a 5-a-side game I'd briefly wondered if the curse would give me XP for it, but it had never really been in doubt. 5-a-side football was football. The clue was in the name.

Before I watched Beth's team play I'd wondered if women's football would give me XP. But again, I hadn't ever really thought it wouldn't. At school there were a few girls who would join in our lunchtime games, and they'd sometimes do skills as good as any boy, and they'd defend and tackle and get scraped knees and all the rest. Even the kinds of people who would complain about women's football being slow and boring would still admit it was football.

So what kind of twat would look at this Para football match and decide it didn't 'count' as real football? Some of the gammons from Oldham, maybe? No... that didn't feel right. They were annoying but they weren't actual monsters. Not when it came to kids, anyway. Not when it came to English kids, anyway.

So... who was the villain here?

I swallowed. "Terry," I said. "What's frame football?"

"It's indoor football but everyone uses a special rollator." He whipped his phone out and brought up a video. It was loads of kids milling around a blue-floored sports hall in walking frames, kicking a ball. With all the human legs and metal legs, it looked even more chaotic and congested than the pan-disability match.

I instantly felt sick. My neck was hot.

"Got it," I said, trying to smile. "Thanks."

I took a couple of steps away and drank the last of my VIP tea.

I had a bad, bad feeling about this.

Seeing the frame football clip brought back a memory. Me and some school friends had seen such a match going on in a local sports hall and we'd stayed for a while to watch it and laugh our heads off. We didn't know what it was but we all agreed on two things. One, that it was hilarious. Two, that it wasn't football.

I leant onto my crutches while I felt my face turn red. Imagine being disabled and trying to play the sport you loved and having some fucking brats mock you for it. The heat had spread up my skull. But the worst was to come.

I finally put two and two together.

Since I'd been hijacked by the curse, something had been bothering me. Little details. God Save the King featuring players I'd read about in old comics and football annuals. Why not some obscure guy who was a genius but didn't have a Wikipedia page? The renaming of the Tommy Tactics achievement. Why would the curse rename anything except to use a new phrase I'd only just heard? And most of all, the fact that the perks didn't have fixed prices but changed according to my mood/needs/motivation.

What it all boiled down to was that I influenced the curse as much as it influenced me. It was very very definitely taking my personal footballing opinions and making them into some sort of foundation for how it interacted with me.

And when the curse said it didn't give a shit about disabled football, that it wasn't real football, that meant that I, Max Best, agreed with it.

I'd invited Henri Lyons to watch this game because football showed character. And that's exactly what was happening. Come on, everybody. Come on down and see Max's character. Okay! So where is it? That's the joke. He doesn't have one!

I dared to look up. Our short little CP player, John, got the ball and went on a mazy dribble. He beat one, he beat another, but was finally crowded out. There were just too many players in his way. Including his teammates, sometimes. John looked towards me, wondering if I would approve or tell him off.

I gave him a thumbs up.

This prompted a brief but monumental surge of disgust and self-recrimination.

I looked at the sky and sucked in a deep breath.

So I was a twat. What was I going to do about it?

Option 1. Complain to the curse's management. If that meant Old Polish Nick, well, he was elusive. I got the feeling he'd be in the crowd somewhere, watching, mocking me, but I was even less able to chase him than before. And how could you chase someone who could teleport?

Option 2. Admit defeat. Walk away from my commitment to these kids. Try to explain to MD and Jackie that they'd backed the wrong horse, that this was out of my skillset. Flee to Manchester. Try to sleep it off. Feel like shit, forever.

Option 3? There was no option 3.

Oh, but...

Option 4. Blow it up. Press the retire button.

As soon as I thought that, my vision went bonkers.

There was the grass, the players, the sky. But it was all sort of jagging sideways like an old TV where the signal wasn't quite working. I wasn't quite attuned to the frequency of the universe.

The pain in my head was briefly extraordinary.

The pain ebbed and my vision settled back, and now all the players had profiles, but every single cell was plastered with question marks.

Then there was another jab of pain and the profiles disappeared.

Huh. I'd almost changed something, there. Maybe if I kept threatening to retire the curse would sort this shit out?

But hitting retire wasn't really an option yet. If I nuked my footballing skills, almost nobody in the universe would notice. Life would get no better for these disabled footballers, that was for sure. I shook my head. No rash decisions. I took a couple of steps forward, back in line with Terry.

The curse's shitty designers, including me, could go fuck themselves. I'd spent weeks and weeks thinking about 7-a-side football, about formations, about skills. I'd seen enough to affect this game.

I glanced from player to player.

We had a goalie. That guy could tackle, she could pass, he could dribble, she could run box-to-box, and he could score. The last kid didn't have obvious skills but we could use him by not using him.

"It's game on, Terry." He gave me a weird look. I wondered how long I'd been internal. "I've cracked the case. It's game on."

Game on, and the treble was on:

Sort out this formation, win the game, convince people I had character.

I hesitated and changed my goals. Increased the degree of difficulty.

Sort out this formation, win the game, convince myself I had character.