Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Wembley. Kick-off. 17:14 BST.]

The Holmesdale dropped the tifo on the first beat of Abide With Me.

Three rows. Twenty-four badges across the full width of the Palace end. The first row was Crystal Palace badges from 1905 to 1948 in the red and yellow and blue the club’s colours had been before they were what they are now.

The second row was eight badges from 1955 to 1994. The third row was eight badges from 1995 to 2018, the eagle as it had stood on the front of the shirts of the lads on the pitch since Coppell and Wright and Bright.

Twenty-four badges. One for every five years of the football club.

Across the top in foot-high letters:

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN YEARS.

ONE CUP.

ONE TODAY.

Frank Whitlock in the Holmesdale Lower at row K seat 47 put the hat on at five past five.

He had not cried yet. He had not been going to. He was not crying when he put the hat on. He was not crying when the lads came out of the tunnel. He was not crying when the tifo unfurled.

Margaret had bought the hat in 1990. Margaret had washed it twice a year for twenty-eight years. The hat was the hat and the hat was on his head where Margaret had put it for him after the 1990 Final at the Edgware Road branch of British Rail when he had been crying because the cup had been Crystal Palace’s and the cup had not been Crystal Palace’s.

David next to him put his hand on Frank’s hand. Did not say anything.

Across the pitch in the directors’ box Steve Coppell stood up.

The 1990 manager of Crystal Palace Football Club. Sixty-three years old. He had not been at Wembley for an FA Cup Final involving Crystal Palace since 1990 because the club had not been at the FA Cup Final in 2016 when he had been ill, and the 2016 Crystal Palace had not been Coppell’s Crystal Palace anyway.

Wright was next to him in the row. Bright next to Wright. Salako behind Bright.

The referee blew his whistle.

BLEEP.

[9’.]

Tammy Abraham took the first ball off Kanté on the halfway line.

He took one touch with the outside of his right. The same touch he had been doing at Beckenham from August to January. The touch every defender at the training ground had learned to track over five months.

Konaté was on him. Konaté had been on him since the team-sheet had been confirmed at half six.

Konaté put him on the floor cleanly.

Tammy got up. Walked back to the halfway line. Did not look at the bench. Did not look at me. He had decided in the tunnel that he was not going to look at the bench or at me until the final whistle, because Tammy Abraham was twenty years old and Tammy Abraham was professional.

Konaté put a hand on his shoulder before he walked off. Tammy nodded once.

[18’.]

Eze drew a foul on the right.

Corner. Eze over it.

Bray had drawn KB-twenty-two on a flipchart in the analysts’ room on Monday morning. The routine we had run at Sporting at Selhurst and at the José Alvalade and at Liverpool at home a week ago.

Mama on the near post running across the keeper. Konaté at the back post. Christopher dragging Rüdiger across the penalty spot. Rúben on the edge of the box for the second ball.

Eze put it where Eze put it.

The keeper came. Mama ran across him. The keeper got blocked. The ball went over Mama’s head.

Konaté.

THUD.

Off Konaté’s forehead. Bottom corner. Courtois got a fingertip and did not get any more.

For half a second nothing happened.

Then the Palace end.

In the Holmesdale Lower at row K seat 47 Frank Whitlock did not stand up. He stayed sat. David stood up next to him. The man in the half-and-half scarf with his daughter on his shoulders stood up. The forty-five thousand at the Palace end stood up.

Frank did not stand because Frank was seventy-three years old and Frank had been waiting to see this for sixty years and he was going to take the sixty seconds the goal would last sat down because if he stood he would not feel his legs because the goal had taken his legs.

He let the goal sit in his chest for the sixty seconds it took to sit.

Then he stood up and screamed for thirty seconds at the top of his lungs without thinking about his heart, and his heart held, and David next to him was crying.

Frank was not crying yet.

Konaté ran to the corner of the Palace end. Mama got there first. Wayne came up from his goal. The bench was up. Mateo on the touchline behind the bench had one crutch in his right hand above his head and the other steadying him.

In the directors’ box Steve Coppell was standing with both hands on the top of his head. Wright next to him was clapping. Bright was clapping. Salako was clapping. The 1990 set-piece goal had been at eighteen minutes by Gary O’Reilly. The 2018 set-piece goal was at eighteen minutes by Konaté. The 1990 cup had not been Palace’s. The 2018 cup was not Palace’s yet.

[Crystal Palace 1 - Chelsea 0.]

B

Aaron put his arm across Hazard inside the box.

Hazard went down. The referee pointed.

Aaron stood with both hands on his head. The referee was not changing his mind. Aaron walked back to the eighteen-yard line.

Hazard took it.

Wayne went the right way.

Hazard sent it the other way.

Whump.

[Crystal Palace 1 - Chelsea 1.]

The Chelsea end went up. The Palace end did not go quiet because the Palace end had been waiting since the thirty-third for Tammy not to equalise on the back-post header that had gone two yards wide, and the equaliser when it had come had come from the penalty spot, and the Palace end had been ready.

Frank sat back down in the Holmesdale Lower.

David put his hand on his shoulder.

”Forty-five more, Dad.”

”Forty-five more.”

[HT.]

I went into the dressing room behind the lads.

Mateo was at the wall on the chair next to the door. He had come down the tunnel before the lads because he had to. He had the crutch across his lap.

”You go again.”

”We go again.”

I looked at the room.

”Forty-five minutes. Same shape. Same plan. Nya you are not changing what you are doing. Rúben you carry. Michael you find the inside-right. Eze the channel. Wilf the second touch. Christopher I take you off at sixty-five for Pato. Konaté you stay on Tammy. Aaron the penalty is over. The forty-five minutes start now.”

Mama from the bench: ”We are eighteen minutes from where we deserve to be.”

He had said it at half-time of the Carabao Cup Final in February. The lads who had been in the room in February laughed without smiling.

The bell went.

[60’.]

Cesc Fabregas had been twelve months from leaving Chelsea. He wanted this.

Free kick from twenty-five yards.

He looked up. Whipped it in to the six-yard line.

Tammy.

He had peeled to the back post the way Sarah had told me at the Grove that morning he had been peeling at Cobham for four months. Konaté was on him. Konaté was on him. Konaté was on him.

Tammy got it half a yard before Konaté.

Thud.

Past Wayne’s right hand.

The Chelsea end went up. The Palace end went quiet for one second.

Then Tammy turned to the Palace end.

Did not celebrate.

He put his right hand up to the Palace end. Held it there. Walked back to the halfway line with his hand still up.

The Palace end did not boo him because the Palace end had loved Tammy Abraham from the moment he had walked into Selhurst Park in August. They sang his name for ten seconds. Then realised they were singing his name for the lad who had just scored against them at Wembley. Stopped. Then sang it again.

In the Holmesdale Lower Frank Whitlock did not stand up for the goal. Did not sit deeper. He nodded once.

The man with the daughter on his shoulders set his daughter down because the daughter had asked. The daughter was four years old and did not know what Tammy Abraham had just done. The dad knelt and explained it to her.

”That is the lad who used to play for us, love.”

”Why is he with them now?”

”Because they took him back.”

”Why.”

”Because that is football.”

She nodded. Did not understand. Put her arms up. The dad picked her back up.

[Crystal Palace 1 - Chelsea 2.]

***

Thank you for 200 Power Stones.