Glory Of The Football Manager System

Clk. Scrape.

Sarah did not do that room on her own and she has told me off twice for saying she did.

You cannot put 4 trophies on a table in a canteen because you feel like it. I found that out on Tuesday morning at about 20 past 7.

The Europa League went back to UEFA in Lyon about 40 minutes after we won it and what sits in the cabinet at Beckenham is our replica. Same size. About half the weight.

The FA Cup goes back to the FA on the 1st of March. The Community Shield we have got until next August.

All 4 of them are on an insurance schedule that says where they are allowed to be, and a canteen is not on it.

So Nathan rang somebody at 8 on Monday night and somebody rang somebody else, and at 20 past 7 on Tuesday morning a woman from the insurer emailed Sarah 1 line saying it was fine for 4 hours if they stayed in their cases until the last minute and a man from a security firm stood at the door.

Deano wheeled them out of the vault at 7 and pushed them across that car park 1 case at a time. 4 trips. He will not put 2 cases on the same trolley and he never has.

A bloke in a black suit stood by the hot plate for 4 hours with his hands in front of him and left when the last case was shut.

The 4 women out of the kitchen moved their own service by 40 minutes and told nobody they had done it, and 30 footballers ate 40 minutes early on a Tuesday and every single one of them cleared the plate and got on with it.

Rebecca moved the feed to 11 and took the row about it herself, because you do not move 30 men’s food 3 days before a league opener and 2 of her own staff told her so in writing.

She moved it anyway. Bray took the session at 11 so that Sarah could be in a canteen, and Bray has taken about 4 sessions on his own in 2 years.

Michael Steele found the cloth. He has been asked 4 times where it came from and he has answered 0 of them. He says about 9 words a day and 3 of Tuesday’s were I have got a cloth.

Sarah put the 4 tables together herself at 8. Deano offered twice and she sent him away twice.

Here is the part nobody in that canteen knew and nobody in it is ever going to.

Jesús Navas came out of contract at Manchester City on the 30th of June 2017 and he was free from that morning. No fee. No clause. An agent who wanted 1 telephone call.

This football club took 5 weeks to make it.

I have got the email. Dougie sent it to me on the 9th of July and I did not open it until the 14th, because he was 31 and I had a list of 4 wingers and he was not on it.

Steve said he is 31 when I finally went in about him and he was right to say it, and I said he is 31 and he is free and that is the entire argument I made, and it was a bad argument, and I won it because nothing was riding on it.

5 weeks. A man who won us 4 trophies sat in a house in Seville for 5 weeks while I read about other people.

That is why there were 4 cups on a table in a canteen on Tuesday afternoon, and if anybody had asked me in that room I would have told them it was for him.

On the cloth, in a line.

The Carabao Cup. The FA Cup. The Europa League. The Community Shield.

4 trophies. 1 season and 1 afternoon. All 4 of them won by a football club that was 14th in this division and 5 points off going down 16 months ago.

And every single one of them won with a 32-year-old right winger in the squad who arrived on a free transfer when every club in England had looked at him and passed.

Sarah had also put a chair in front of them, on its own, facing the wrong way.

”What is the chair for?”

”He is going to want to sit down and he is going to be too polite to ask,” she said. ”It faces the room because he is going to look at the room and not at the cups. Watch.”

Hnnn. 60 people in a canteen at 2 o’clock and a fridge going in the corner.

30 players. Sarah, Bray, Marcus, Rebecca, Michael Steele, Deano, a man in a black suit by the wall. 4 women out of the kitchen who have made that man the same omelette at half 8 every morning since he got here. Michael Cooke and 6 of the academy staff. Gary Issott. 2 of the groundsmen.

Ron came in his own coat.

Steve Parish stood at the back by the hot plate. He stands at the back of everything.

Nobody made a speech. I did not make a speech.

I said 1 thing, stood next to a table, and then I sat down.

”Some of you know what he did on Sunday. Nobody in here knows why.”

Sarah did it.

She did not talk about football. She read out 4 dates and said what he had done after each one, and after the 4th she put the paper down and said a thing I had asked her that morning not to say.

”On the 4th of July 2017 he sat in Steve’s office and Steve offered him 3 years.”

Jesús Navas had his hands on his knees.

”He asked for 2. He asked for 2 himself, out loud, in a chair, at 31 years old with no other club in England interested in him.

”And when Steve asked him why, he said he wanted to go home to Andalusia while his mother could still watch him play there.”

60 people in that room and the only thing you could hear was the fridge.

”He has known the date since he signed,” Sarah said. ”He has kept it to himself in that dressing room the whole time. He said it on Sunday morning to me and to Rebecca because we had to plan for it, and 6 hours later he came off a bench and got a goal and 2 assists and gave the trophy back down the steps.

”That is all I have got. He is going to hate every second of the next hour.”

Prrp. Somebody’s chair.

He hated every second of it.

He stood up and did about 90 seconds in English, slowly, because he had thought about how to say it, and I have got most of it.

He said thank you to the 4 women from the kitchen by name.

He said Michael Olise’s name and then said something about being 16 that I did not catch because Olise had put his own face in his hands.

He said Crystal Palace had been the best 13 months of his career and then he said the number, and it was not 4 trophies, it was 19, because he counted every man in that squad who had played in all 4 of them.

And then he said the last thing.

”When I left Manchester I got a message on the website.”

Prrp. Somebody’s phone. Somebody turned it off fast.

”4 years. A league. 2 cups. I was homesick, and I asked, and they let me go and they were correct to let me go and I have no complaint about any of it.” He had both hands on the back of that chair. ”But on the last day I drove out of that car park and nobody knew I was going, and I did not want to make a fuss, and so nobody made a fuss.

”I have thought about it for a year.”

He looked at Sarah, and then at the 4 tables.

”This is what I meant. This, with the cups on a table, in a room where people eat. Not a stadium.”

Then he sat down and Christian Benteke put a hand on the back of his neck and left it there.

Clk. A door on a spring.

Ron got him on the way out at about half 4.

I was 15 feet away with a folder in my hand and no reason to be stood there.

”You off, then.”

”I am off, Ron.”

”Aye.” Ron had his cloth in his hand because he always has his cloth in his hand. ”I have been on that gate 19 years and I have seen about 300 of you go out of it.

”You are the 4th one that has come and said goodbye to me.”

Jesús Navas shook his hand with both of his.

Until 5 o’clock on Tuesday the biggest thing this football club had ever put on the internet was 6 seconds of me being hit in the mouth by a trophy.

It went up on Sunday night off somebody’s phone in the Royal Box. By Monday teatime it was on 3 continents. Marcus had it at 11 million views on Tuesday morning and told me so at 20 past 9, in a medical room, in the middle of a conversation about a Croatian.

There is a version of it now with a laugh track. There is a version with commentary in Portuguese.

My mouth is still purple.

There was a plan for this. There is a plan for everything.

Nathan had a farewell package built in July, because Nathan builds them in July for anybody who might go. Graphics, a montage, 4 clips with music under them, and a statement with a quote in it from me that I had approved in about 9 seconds without reading properly.

He binned all of it at 10 past 4 and put a photograph up at 5.

He had asked Sarah on Monday whether there would be anything worth sending a photographer to and Sarah had said probably not. Then she rang him back at 9 on Tuesday morning and told him to send 1 person, no lights, and to tell them to stand at the back.

1 picture. 5 words under it.

Gracias, Jesús. 4 in 13 months.

***

Thank you to Sir nameyelus for the support.