Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Dulwich. Sunday May 20. 06:14 BST.]

A team plays thirty-eight matches in a Premier League season. We had played thirty-seven of ours. There was one left to go, and the one left to go was the Etihad on a Sunday afternoon against the side that had spent four hundred million pounds across three windows to do what we had been trying to do on fifty.

I had not slept.

I had come downstairs at quarter past five and put the kettle on, and now I was at the kitchen table with the FA Cup medal on the placemat next to the toast and a cup of tea I had let go cold. Sky was on with the sound off.

They were still running highlights of City’s title party from three weeks ago because Sky had nothing else to put on at six on a Sunday morning. I had watched it twice without noticing.

Mum was upstairs.

She had come down on the Friday before the cup. Pete had been on at her since the Carabao in February. He had finally got her on a train at Piccadilly at half six on Friday and brought her to Dulwich on his way home to Woking.

She had not been to Wembley because of her back. She had watched the cup from the kitchen table on Saturday while Emma made her tea. I had come in at half two and she had been asleep in the spare room, and I had not seen her properly since Christmas.

We had spoken at half five this morning when she came down for water. She had told me to drink my tea and stop talking to myself. Then she had gone back up. I had drunk the tea. I had not stopped talking to myself.

What I was talking to myself about, more or less, was coming second.

I had spent nine months telling the lads we were going to come for City, and we had come for City, and we had finished eight points behind them.

Now the Etihad was the last match of the league season, and the last match of the league season was a fixture in which we were going to give the champions a guard of honour and the champions were going to lift the league trophy in front of us at six o’clock. The thing we had chased for thirty-six matches was lifting over our heads tonight on a Manchester stage.

I had not figured out what coming second meant.

I had nine hours to figure it out.

Sarah rang at nine.

”Daniel.”

”Sarah.”

”You sound like a man who has been at his kitchen table since five.”

”I have been at my kitchen table since five.”

”Pope was up at six. James since five thirty. James does not sleep before a match.”

”Lineup. Pope. Joel. Tomkins. Mama. Aviero. Mili. McArthur. Bowen. Townsend. James. Connor.”

”Connor today.”

”Connor today.”

A pause.

”Are you all right.”

”I have been awake five hours trying to figure out what coming second on fifty million pounds against a side on four hundred actually means. I am at the kitchen table in Dulwich. My mother is upstairs. I am about to get on a bus to Manchester to watch the side I spent a season chasing lift the league I could not catch them in. I am not all right and I am also entirely fine. I do not have a word for it yet.”

”Take the bus, Daniel. The word will come.”

She hung up.

Emma came down at half nine. Mum followed her ten minutes later. The three of us sat at the kitchen table for an hour and we did not talk about Manchester and we did not talk about Arsenal and we did not talk about the medal next to my toast.

We talked about Pete’s mate Reg, who had bought himself and Pete tickets in the away end at midnight last night because Pete had been on the phone to him at eleven and had said let’s go; and about my mother’s neighbour Margaret from number forty-six, who had supported City her whole life and was coming round to my mother’s house this afternoon to watch the match with her on the television because Margaret had wanted to watch a match with somebody who had a son in it.

I left the house at quarter to eleven.

Mum stood at the front door in her dressing gown.

”Daniel.”

”Mum.”

”Whatever you find out today about coming second, you bring it home tonight.”

”All right, Mum.”

She closed the door.

[The Grove. 11:38 BST.]

I read the lineup. The lads on the back row had their feet up. The lads in the middle were halfway awake.

Connor was at the front in his chair the way he had been at the front of every meeting since I had promoted him out of the under-eighteens on the twenty-third of April last year along with Eze and Nya and Aaron, three weeks after Pardew had been let go and the club had been five points off relegation with a losing streak.

Thirteen months ago.

Five wins in a row to save the season and put Crystal Palace into the Europa League for the first time in the club’s hundred-and-thirteen-year existence. The four lads I had promoted that Monday morning at half ten had been the four lads on the pitch for every one of the five wins. Connor up top. Eze in the ten. Nya in the middle. Aaron at right-back.

Connor at the front did the small nod he did when he was named in a starting eleven.

Pato got up from the back row.

”Mate. You score me a goal today, I am buying you a Lamborghini.”

”You’re not buying me a Lamborghini, Pato.”

”I am buying you the Lamborghini. Yellow. You are scoring at the Etihad on the day City lift the league. It is a Lamborghini occasion.”

Wilf from the back row: ”I want one. I scored at Wembley yesterday.”

”You have one already, Wilf.”

”Different colour.”

I let them have their minute. Then the rest of it short.

”Christopher on at sixty-five if we need it. Pato seventy-five. Eze, Aaron, Konaté, Ben, Wilf, Olise, Nya - you are on the bench in tracksuits and you are not on your feet. Thursday is the night. Anybody on their phones during the match the fine is going to Mateo’s baby fund.”

Mateo on the crutch by the wall: ”I do not have a baby fund.”

”You have one now.”

”Iza will not like that.”

”Tell Iza it is the gaffer’s decision.”

”I will not be telling Iza that.”

Room laughed.

I went to Connor at the front. Crouched in front of his chair.

”All right, lad.”

”All right, gaffer.”

”Your mum at home?”

”At home with my nan. Nan came down from Birmingham last night.”

”I am ringing her at quarter past three when the team-sheet goes out. She’ll know before Sky.”

”You don’t have to, gaffer.”

”I am ringing her at quarter past three.”

He nodded. Could not say anything.

I left him there.

[The Bus. M1 north. 13:14 BST.]

I sat next to the window for the first hour and I did not talk to anybody.

The bus moved north. The motorway moved past. Junction ten. Junction fifteen. Junction twenty-one. The lads in the back were on Pato’s song again, the song they had been singing since Christmas, the song that did not really have words and did not really have a tune, just three notes and a clap. Connor was on the back row trying to learn the second verse the lads had only ever sung half of because the second verse changed every match.

What I was thinking about, on the M1 north past junction twenty-one, was this.

Thirteen months ago I had been the under-eighteens manager of a football club. I had been in the academy office at Beckenham at quarter to nine on a Monday morning when Steve Parish had walked in and said the senior job is yours for the next five matches and after that we will see.

I had said yes without thinking about it because the alternative was watching us go down without doing anything to stop it. I had promoted four lads that afternoon. I had taken the senior squad on the Tuesday morning.

We had played West Ham on the Saturday and we had won two-nil. Then we had played five matches and won all five and finished the season seventh, and seventh had been the Europa League because of the fair play table, and the fair play table had been the only Europa League qualification the club had ever had.

Thirteen months later, I had won the FA Cup at Wembley yesterday. The bus had two hours left to the Etihad.

Coming second on a fifty-million pound squad to a side on four hundred. I had been turning it over for five hours at the kitchen table and another two hours on the bus and I had not landed on the word.