Glory Of The Football Manager System

1-0

Wembley came up out of its seats behind the far goal. Olise stood where he had hit it from with both hands over his mouth. Kirby got to him first and jumped on his back, and the 2 of them went over on the grass together like boys in a playground.

Sarah wrote the time on the sheet. Bray had not moved.

The Burton end did not stop. If anything the drum got louder.

”BREW-ERS. BREW-ERS.”

On 19 Akins got his only run of the half. Fraser slid it down the channel and Akins was onto it, strong, quick over the first 5 yards, the best player they have. Aaron Wan-Bissaka let him get level and then took the ball off his toe with 1 leg from the wrong side, and stood up with it, and gave it to Kirby. Akins kept running for 2 strides before he knew it had gone.

2 minutes later Collins went long from a goal kick, and Tyrick Mitchell climbed above Marcus Harness on halfway and headed it down to Kirby.

Kirby hit it first time. He did not look. 40 yards to the left touchline, flat, over the whole of Burton’s midfield while they were still facing their own goalkeeper.

It landed in front of Semenyo with Brayford 3 yards off him.

I have watched John Brayford on Marcus’s wall for a week and he is a proper defender. He did nothing wrong. He set himself side on. He showed the boy the line. He stayed on his feet. Semenyo pushed the ball past him down that line, 15 yards, and went after it, and it was a straight race between a man of 30 and a boy of 18 over 30 yards of Wembley.

Brayford lost 4 of them.

Shhk. Semenyo cut inside off the byline with Turner coming across. He hit it early, with his right, at the near post, and it went in off the underside of the bar with Collins still getting his hands up.

Tonk.

2-0.

Semenyo ran to the corner with 1 arm in the air. Brayford got up off the grass where the turn had left him. He pulled a sock up, clapped his hands twice at his own back 4, and pointed at the centre circle.

There was a gap between those 2 sides you could have driven the team coach through, and not 1 man in yellow stopped running into it.

On 29 Bowen won a corner on the right and Bray stood up. It is the only time he does. He held 4 fingers above his head.

I looked at the halfway line. Mitchell and Tuanzebe were stood on it, 10 yards apart, with their hands on their hips.

Olise took it, left foot, swinging in. Quinn had dropped onto the 14 yards of grass where Eberechi Eze arrives in that routine, because Clough’s analyst has a wall as well. So nobody was stood on Connor Blake.

Blake came across the front of Turner at the near post with his body turned open to the pitch, the way he has been stood on pitch 2 for 3 months. He met it with his forehead 6 yards out and headed it down so hard that it bounced up under the bar.

Thump.

3-0.

At Bristol in September that lad went into the net to fetch the ball. Against Leicester on Saturday he stood with both hands on his head. This time he ran. He went along the front of the Palace end with his arms out and his mouth wide open. Then he stopped, turned round, and pointed up into the seats behind our bench.

Christian Benteke was up there in a club coat with the rest of Saturday’s team. He was already on his feet with both fists in the air.

3 goals in 17 minutes, from a boy of 17, a boy of 18 and a boy of 19.

Bray sat back down. He did not say a word about the corner. He slid the laminated card from his back pocket, made a mark on it with a pencil, and put it away.

Prrrp. Prrrp.

I said 1 thing at half time.

”They were behind at Shrewsbury and behind against Burnley, and they won both. They are not finished.”

Krul said the rest. He is 30 and he went round that room with a bottle in his hand, and he told a back 4 with a combined age of 80 what the first 10 minutes of a second half feel like against a side with nothing to lose. I let him. A goalkeeper sees all of it and they listen to him.

Clough made no changes. He sent the same 11 out early and had them stood in the centre circle waiting for us in the cold.

It took them 3 minutes.

Fraser found Allen 22 yards out. Allen hit it well, low. It beat Krul’s dive and came back off the foot of the post.

Tink.

Kirby was watching the ball. All 11 of mine were watching the ball. Jake Hesketh had been running since Allen pulled his foot back, and he got there with nobody near him and put it into the empty side of the net from 4 yards.

3-1.

The yellow end went up as if it was the winner. The drum lost its beat altogether.

”BREW-ERS! BREW-ERS! BREW-ERS!”

Hesketh ran to them and Buxton ran after him, 33 years old, the whole length of the half. Clough did not celebrate. He clapped twice and held up 10 fingers to his midfield, and I knew what the 10 was. Score again inside 10 minutes and it is a cup tie.

Kirby stood on the edge of his own box with his hands on his knees.

I stood up. It was the only time in the 90 minutes. I walked to the front of my area and stopped with my toes on the paint, and when the ball went out for a throw I got his eye.

”Hesketh,” I said.

He nodded. He did not look at the grass and he did not look away. Then he went and stood next to Jake Hesketh, and he stayed next to him for the rest of the night.

I sat back down. My hands were cold. I put them under my legs.

For 12 minutes Burton had the noise, and they had Akins. On 55 Harness crossed from the right and Akins got in front of Konaté for the only time and headed it down hard from the penalty spot.

Krul was already going. He got his right boot to it on the line.

Thock.

Tuanzebe hooked it clear. Behind the goal there was a water bottle with 5 names on it in the back of the net, and 10 yards along the touchline from me Michael Steele stood with his arms folded, exactly as he had stood at kick-off.