Chương 16: 7.10 - Expected Worms

10. Max Best glossary: Expected worms. A statistical measure of the likelihood that a given constellation of characters will include a worm.

Instead of giving one of my inspirational movie-based half time team talks, I was looking around the Grimsby dressing room wondering who the mole was, and since any detective story set in the world of football must now always be likened to the delicious Wagatha Christie case, here's a quick primer. The scandal started when Coleen Rooney found that information she shared to her closest friends on Instagram was routinely leaked to the gutter press.

Rooney segmented her followers, feeding group A a certain juicy tidbit and group B a different one. By a process of elimination, she whittled down the suspect list until she was absolutely sure who the mole was, ending her denouement with the legendary line, 'It was............ Rebekah Vardy's account.' Note the clever use of the word 'account'. Rooney was careful not to accuse Vardy directly. Rooney didn't go full Rooney and the results were far more devastating than if she had. The moral of the story? Easy.

My mole hunt wasn't, in fact, a heart versus head matter. It was one hundred percent in the domain of 'head'. One hundred percent in the domain of 'look before you leap'. My head was thinking: I should tell every one of the twenty-five people in the room a different formation I plan to use in the next match against Gillingham and see which one gets leaked. That would start a slow, methodical process over the next six weeks, building to -"Everyone out," I said, voice dripping with expected threat.

Or we could do that, my brain said to my heart as it threw its hands up in despair.

"Coaches, physios, kit man, young players, former captains - out."

"You're not serious," suggested Byram.

"You two," I said, meaning the physios, "go to the dugout and sit there until someone gets injured. Go on. Coaches, go sit in the stand somewhere until the final whistle. Then do the warm downs. Players. If you're not playing in the second half, out!" It took a minute as lots of grumpy pricks made a show of leaving as grumpily as possible. At the back of the queue was Danny Flash.

"Flash, where are you going?"

"You said if I'm not playing..."

"I haven't subbed you off, yet."

"But you're gonna."

"Are you fucking sulking, mate? We've got a fucking crisis here! Sit down and shut up while I decide what to do." When he did so, the door slammed behind the last person to leave, and suddenly things were quiet. The way Danny sat made me think of a boxer sitting on the stool in his corner. Why that? I shook it off - this wasn't about boxing. This was about moles. Moles. What was a mole, anyway? Just a big worm. Coach G was top suspect. He'd been nagging me to get the tactics and formations early.

I couldn't rule Mike Dobson out, but it didn't seem to fit his personality. He thought he was too good for the club, meaning his self-image was higher than what he saw around him. Would someone that arrogant sell our plans for what, a hundred quid a pop? Ratting out your teammates was tawdry stuff. Just didn't feel right. Who else? What if it wasn't about money? What if it was a Northampton Town fan whose first ever match had been the 1998 Playoff Final that Grimsby had won?

Getting a job at Grimsby and hollowing it from the inside would be a pretty over the top form of revenge, but stranger things have happened. I opened my mouth to announce my plan for the second half, but stopped and looked around. The dressing room. What if it was a question of acoustics? What if everything I said was broadcast to the away dressing room, clear as a bell? Or microphones. The room was bugged - that simple.

"My favourite film's Back to the Future," I mumbled as I snuck around the space looking at mirrors, bins, and motivational posters with unjustified intensity.

"He goes to Twin Pines Mall. Goes back in time," I said, eyeing the light fixtures above me.

"Hits a tree. Goes back to the future, name drop, now it's Lone Pine Mall. Amazing." I stood there doing nothing except rolling my eyes very slowly left and right until a linesman knocked on our door to announce it was time to go back.

"That's it. Get going."

"But what's the plan?" said Greg Brothers. He was a likely candidate to be subbed off at some point and wanted to know if that would happen sooner or later.

"You don't get the plans. I'll tell you on the pitch." A few of the guys looked at each other. I had gone bendy bananas. Brothers spoke again.

"Who's the captain, though?"

"I'll tell you on the pitch," I repeated.

Out in the very middle of Blundell Park, I gave the armband to John Windmill.

"This is until Alex comes on, okay?" The gig was temporary, but boosted his morale regardless.

"Yes, boss. What's the plan?" I shooed the subs away to the dugout. They didn't need to hear. To be fair, the eleven players didn't need to hear, either. But I needed to be seen to tell them. They formed a huddle around me at the edge of the pitch. Fans returning from their half time boozing saw me give my half time team talk in front of the entire stadium - the safest place to do it.

"They're doing 3-4-1-2 in response to the 4-1-4-1 they think we're doing. But their CAM isn't much good so we're going to take a risk and do 4-2-4. They've weakened themselves making that change, and they'll weaken themselves again when they respond. So hit the wings fast; we'll have four-on-three breaks. Lads, listen up. This is a weird fucking match but it's just a match. We are right in this. Right in it. And our next change will make us stronger. We are right fucking in this, I promise you. Come on!"

"UTM!" shouted Windmill, and that seemed like a good thing to say based on the reaction from Conor Quinn and Danny Grant.

Right away it was clear that the expected threat graph would have shifted to the Mariners side. Wait - Mariners. UTM. Up the Mariners! Yes! I was a way better detective than Henri. Henri. I sighed. What I wouldn't give for him up front instead of Danny Flash. If I hadn't been knocked on the head a year ago, it could have been Henri earning three grand a week and me skimming three hundred. That would add up pretty damn fast, and Henri would have been close to CA 90 by now. Flash ended an attack by running offside.

This guy was the opposite of a threat. Danny Flash, three thousand pounds a week, expected threat zero, expected offside one hundred percent. I tried not to let it get to me; I could only work with the tools I had.

"He's a tool all right," I mumbled. I stomped around, jaw clenched, trying to melt blades of grass with my laser vision. Sutton United had that SuperGrass stuff. Did SuperGrass have worms? Wasn't SuperGrass another name for a prison snitch? My brain was going haywire. I needed to focus, big time, or my stint in Grimsby was going to end in abject failure. With one final fist clench and release, I got back to work. My job now was to be a technocrat.

Scanning the match ratings looking for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Dipping into the individual player instructions, using my hotkeys to make changes back and forth between various states, and thinking hard about when to use the Free Hit and Cupid's Arrow perks. With Free Hit there was always a risk of waiting so long that time ran out and I didn't even use it, but on the other hand, turning a 3% chance of a goal from a corner into a 13% chance wasn't all that spectacular.

Turning a 20% free kick just outside the box into a 30% one - yes, please. But there was the game state to consider. At 2-0 down, everything we did was hard and MK Dons had it easy. Getting to 2-1 would lift the crowd, boost our morale, and put doubt into the mind of the opposition. There were times it would make sense to hold onto these bonuses, but today wasn't one of them. I used Cupid's Arrow to link Danny Grant, the starboy, to Wainwright, our best chance of a goal.

And at the next corner, I used Free Hit and used Masterpiece Theatre to push Wainwright to the near post. The chance came to nothing. Still, though, we had good control of the match. MK had more possession but generated no threat, while when we got the ball we went fast and half our possessions led to shots. MK didn't respond to our dominance, suggesting that they were quite happy to be outplayed and have no goal threat. Which was patently dumb, which got me steamed up again.

They were only winning this game because of the fucking worm! I grabbed a bottle of water from the dugout and glared at my bench. The two physios were trying not to look at me, and the remaining sub options were staring straight ahead, unblinking. From fifty to sixty minutes, we defended well and got quick balls out to the wingers.

Mal on the left was quite limited and my mental 'expected threat' meter merely flickered when he got the ball, but when Danny Grant got involved, the pulse quickened and the meter smashed red. Danger danger danger! He hit first-time crosses, he dribbled, he combined with Wainwright. The pressure was building - sort of. MK Dons had a safety valve that was letting most of the steam we were producing out, and that valve's name was Danny Flash. He was having a stinker.

The offsides were the most frustrating thing, but he didn't win headers, he was rarely in position to combine with his mates, and when he did get shots they dribbled low and slow into the keeper's hands. The keeper, of course, then flopped to the ground and took twenty seconds to get to his feet. In some strange way I was paralysed - I needed to take Danny off but his performance was so poor - five out of ten was very generous from the curse - that I found myself enjoying how angry and frustrated it made me.

But there was a footballing reason to keep him on. Despite everything, the formation was working. It gave our wingers space that I couldn't give them any other way. Flash could score goals at this level. If he could wriggle free of his marker he could get a shot away. The way his foot made contact with the ball was out of my hands. The MK Dons manager came to my rescue.

Whether he had only finally realised that we weren't playing the formation he'd been told or whether he was sick of watching us attack non-stop, he shuffled his pack. He took off a striker and switched to 5-4-1. Very defensive but not quite a low block. Their half time changes had cost them a point and a half of CA, and now they lost another little chunk. They would spend most of the rest of the game with an average CA of 78. I instantly signalled to swap Danny Flash for Alex Evans, bringing ours to 81. 1.

Hey, now! We could give this a proper go. Yes, yes, yes!

"Replacing number 9, Danny Flash, number 6, Alex Evans." I was bouncing on my heels, excited as a puppy, when the announcement was made. It was met by boos. Boos from three-quarters of the stadium. The purple guy behind me yelled some choice words along the lines of 'I don't agree with your decision to remove a goalscorer and replace him with a defensively-minded midfielder when we require at least two goals, you jolly handsome Mancunian.'

I was so shocked by his football ineptitude I actually turned to smile at him, which, again, he didn't like. When I turned my gaze back to the pitch, my smile turned into a fierce snarl. Danny Flash, whose performance was indistinguishable from a traitor's, was trudging off slower than if he'd got to his hands and knees and crawled like a baby. What happened next became, for better or for worse, one of the iconic moments of my career.

I want to say that I saw red, but I've said that a few times before and this was an entirely different feeling. Maybe we can say that I saw infra-red or something even past that. I saw octarine, the eighth colour, the colour of magic, visible only to wizards and cats.

I sprinted onto the pitch, grabbed the Essex boy twat, and pushed him like I was doing a rugby maul, shoved him like I was trying to push The Duchess out of a muddy patch, put my shoulder into it like he was a big cupboard I had to move because the zombies were about to hit the door. After the initial surprise where I got him five yards closer to the edge of the pitch, he resisted and tried to shrug me off, so I took hold of his arm and spun him off the pitch - Alex Evans had to hop out of the way.

Flash got to his feet, ready to rumble - again, he reminded me of a boxer - but all kinds of people got in between us. I walked away so the game could get going. Alex went on and took the captain's armband, the ref showed me a yellow card for going onto the pitch, and we slipped into 4-1-4-1. There was absolute pandemonium in the stands. Noise of all kinds. Screams, shouts, howls, and in the away end, derision. I'd turned Grimsby Town into a laughing stock.

The purple guy was purpling and the pinks around him were turning puce. I knew my name was being torn to shreds on social media, I knew Beth was scribbling notes about 'the failed Max Best experiment', I knew Wolfie would be on the phone to Chris Hale (who was spending Candy's birthday in the Bahamas) saying, 'yeah, about this guy...' My world was collapsing but I still had the pitch. I set my jaw and made the last tweaks.

Soon there was only one decision left to make - to let the full backs make forward runs or not. At Chester I wouldn't have hesitated - against a lone striker I didn't need four defenders. But allowing too many men forward had destabilised Grimsby in the Sutton match. And there was something else. The certainty I had that if we conceded a third goal, Chris Hale would magically teleport behind me and sack me right there, on the spot, in front of six thousand people. It didn't take long to decide.

Momma didn't raise no worm. If we were going to play Max Best football, we were going to play Max Best football. Jayden Ward - make forward runs. Conor Quinn - make forward runs. Let's fucking go. It was such a trivial piece of in-game management it shouldn't have touched me, but it did. I'd just dialled this up to eleven and there was no going back. I made my last hand gestures, yelled one last bit of gibberish, and fell to my haunches, letting myself get sucked into the match.

Every kick, every sprint, every one-two, every triangle, every square ball. Williams wins the header. Evans gathers the loose ball and feeds it to King. He turns smartly and releases Grant. Grant walks forward and rolls an ambitious pass down the line. Quinn is overlapping. He sends in a cross. Wainwright can't get there. It's cleared to the halfway line. Evans plays a first-time pass to the left. Mehew needs two touches to control. He moves the ball inside to Brothers. The layoff is to King.

He's in the centre circle with plenty of options. He passes right to Grant. Will he go outside again? No! He scampers forward and links up with Wainwright. The shot comes in... Just over! We didn't have threat from all parts of the pitch. The left mid slot was an attacking black hole and we lacked creativity in the centre of midfield. But there were no real weaknesses, either. If I could keep this eleven on the pitch for most of the rest of the season, we'd have a chance.

But would I even be allowed back in the building? I didn't know. All I knew is that this was it. Half an hour to go. Thirty minutes of pressure with no fucking vents this time. The pressure would build and build and if nothing came from it, I'd probably get sacked. But if we could keep fighting, keep winning duels... A rare foray forward for MK Dons. They move the ball to the left of midfield. Suddenly the away team have an overload! This could be trouble for Grimsby. In comes Quinn with a thunderous challenge!

The ball breaks loose. Grant competes but loses out. King is across to help with a shoulder barge. Fantastic quality from the Dons winger - he comes away with the ball. He dribbles past Quinn... But there's Danny Grant! He worked so hard to get back into position. He touches the ball to Quinn, who feeds King. King zips the ball infield. Nothing came of that possession, but I didn't give a fucking shit. The way the players were battling, fighting for each other, was fucking life-affirming, man. Fucking electric.

I didn't do a fist pump. I didn't do a double pump. I triple pumped that bitch.

"COME ON," I screamed, threatening to out-purple the purple guy.

"COME THE FUCK ON." The next phase of play was crazy. Madness. The team found a few spare calories in an old coat and they were whizzing around, passing, moving, grooving. MK tackled, intercepted, won headers, but somehow none of it mattered. We kept getting up from the knockdowns and charging back at the red wall. Evans to King. King to Grant. Grant waits for the overlap and feeds Quinn. Quinn shapes to send in a near post cross... But he cuts it back to Grant.

Grant fires a low cross towards the back post where Wainwright is lurking... GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!! A wicked deflection. Wainwright is claiming the credit but it will go down as an own goal! So unlucky for the defender. He didn't even see it! Grimsby are back in with a shout! I didn't celebrate. Nothing had changed - we had to keep playing like this while we still had gas in the tank. Too many of these guys had barely played in recent months and King was coming back from an illness.

I had Greg Fasanmade, the CA 60 left midfielder and he would have to replace Mal sometime soon. Devonte Payne was a good option - for King, maybe. And I had Tommy Blair, but I'd already used three of my five changes. He would probably miss out. Making those two changes would leave me with one major weak spot - an absolutely exhausted Conor Quinn. His Condition was currently at 79% and under normal circumstances I'd have subbed him off.

But not only did he have to stay on, I had to ask him to run up and down his side of the pitch, otherwise we just weren't going to get the equaliser. If Conor got injured, I was going to go beyond full Max and into wild, uncharted territory. Stuffed Max. Inflated Max. Double Max. MK Dons made some tweaks to beef up the left side of their defence, so I swapped Mal and Jayden and put Danny Grant as the left-sided of the two central midfielders.

On the right, Otis King and Conor Quinn got pressing: no and make forward runs: no. That would give them a breather for a few minutes while we attacked down the left. Sometimes I was really fucking good at this game. Evans takes the ball from Windmill. He sprays the ball out wide for Ward to chase. Ward gets there first and exchanges passes with Grant. Ward to the byline. He cuts the ball back - too far behind Wainwright for him to shoot. But the striker gets control of the ball and holds off a defender.

He lays it back... Danny Grant is running onto it... GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!! He rifled it home! The home fans erupt! I pottered down the line, oblivious to the noise from the stadium. What now? It wasn't in my nature to accept a draw but sometimes you need to be realistic. I swapped everyone back into their normal positions and stopped everyone from making forward runs. The next five minutes were about not letting our fitness levels get too low.

But Conor, Mal, and Otis King were really suffering so after a couple of minutes where six thousand people caught their breath, I made the first change. Fasanmade replaced Mehew. Fresh legs on the left. I gave Mal a big hug and he crashed into the seat next to mine in the dugout, pulling a big Grimsby coat over him. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Now, the clincher. Otis or Conor?

The central midfielder's condition was 81% and the right back's was 74. I had a good sub for Otis, but not really a good one for Conor, unless I put Devonte Payne there. He had good defensive skills but putting an attacking midfielder in defence at such a key moment was asking for trouble. In the end, I decided that I could stop asking Conor to go forward and try to manage his fitness that way. But I couldn't allow our opponents to get a complete grip of central midfield.

So I brought Otis King off and put Devonte on the right where his fresh legs and energy might help Conor. Just to be sure, I set Payne to mark MK's tricky winger. And that was it. What else could I do? Nothing. I'd managed the game to the best of my ability. If anyone could have done better, I doubted they were working in League Two. Or I was completely and utterly delusional. The Dons manager made some changes of his own - putting on a gaggle of mediocre players.

I went to get my water bottle and the exhaustion hit me like a cartoon piano. I spent the last five minutes of the match on one knee by the edge of my technical area. By the end I was spending more time watching the clock tick up than paying attention to the action. I just wanted it to be over. Evans slips a pass to Grant. Grant chips a tired pass to Brothers. It's intercepted! The Dons are breaking in their red away tops. There are lots of tired legs wearing black and white. Dons are through!

They have a three-on-two break through the middle! Pass left. Pass right. And a simple tap-in! GOOOOAAAAALLLL!!!! Grimsby's defence melted away. It's Dons's first shot of the second half! I knew it would look bad on TV but I couldn't help it - my head slumped and I stayed looking straight down for the next thirty seconds until the ref put us out of our misery. We'd lost three-two. Max Best, Grimsby Town interim manager. Played two, lost two. League Two Manager Points earned: zero. And now I had to face the music.

First, the media, then the dressing room, then Wolfie and Chris Hale. Someone put a hand on my shoulder. Otis King. He looked dog tired - he'd put a shift in all right.

"Unlucky, boss."

"Yeah," I murmured. I really didn't want to talk to anyone. Except Beth, weirdly.

"You still gonna mouth off to the papers?"

"Probably my last chance." His expression flickered, but returned quickly to 'blank exhaustion'.

"Okay, but listen. Bit of advice from an old pro who's been around a bit. Don't go saying Caine was faking it."

"No? He your cousin?" Slight smile.

"No, boss. I'd love to see you wreck him. But you don't wanna cut your nose off to spite your face."

"I kinda do, I think. But what do you mean?" He groaned as he stretched his back. Something popped.

"I mean," he said, struggling for the words.

"I mean if you do that, he wins. He'll take you to court and he'll win. You can't prove he's faking. You can't say that. You have to stop short of that. You feel me?" The MK Dons manager came over to shake my hand. The guy had been paying for information about my tactics. No handshake for you, dude. I stared at him until he fucked off. Talking about the mole in public might be counter-productive, too. I slapped Otis on the back.

"I understand. You're right. Thanks, man. And well played. You bossed it out there."

"Bossed it," he laughed.

"I ain't bossed it since I turned thirty."

"Eight out of ten today," I said.

"Bossed it. Max Best has spoken." His morale blew up. I gave him one last tap and strode through the various factions towards the media room. There were a couple of things I wanted to get off my chest.

Becky Stead, BBC Radio Humberside. That was quite a match. How do you feel? There are things I want to say. I can't help but imagine there's a three-metre long hook behind that door, there, and at any second someone's going to grab me with it and pull me out of here. [laughter] First thing, an injury report. Caine Amadi-Spokes fell to the floor in the first half and it's bad news. Bad news on that. He's got injuries that will keep him out until the 28th of April.

That's the day after the last match that I might be the Grimsby manager. If I get hooked, I think his injuries might clear up. What I'm saying is that his injury prognosis is my term as Grimsby manager plus one. Do you get me? [murmur from the press pack] What is his injury? He's got a bruise. It's a bad one. A real ouchie. We tried to kiss it better but we didn't have the right lipstick. And he's got a papercut. You know how savage those can be. Ooh, mate, you should see it.

He tried to play on - he really tried hard as I'm sure you'll see if you review the incident where he fell to his bum while MK Dons were attacking. He's a ferocious competitor, the lad is. Because he knew, as we all did, that Conor Quinn is in the red zone and needed a break. That's why he fought so hard for the team even though he had an ouchie. What are you saying? I'm saying that he's not fit to play the next game. I might not be popular here but I'm the Grimsby manager and I take that very, very seriously.

To wear this famous old shirt, you need to be fit. To wear the shirt, you need to be fit. Caine Amadi-Spokes is not fit. To wear the shirt. [gasps] You're probably going to ask me about Danny Flash. Danny Flash was offside six times today. Every time he's offside, MK could reset, take a breather, and most importantly, take thirty seconds off the clock. Danny Flash cost this team three minutes, plus thirty seconds when he all but refused to leave the pitch when I subbed him off.

When you're losing two-nil and you've contributed minus three minutes to the effort, the only acceptable speed at which to leave the pitch is light speed. He should be sprinting off faster than Usain Bolt. I'm deadly serious. Have you never been offside, Max? I was offside once, yeah. But I was inside my own half when I made my run. You can't be offside from your own half. Yeah. Tell that to the linesman. [laughter] My manager was good about it, though. He's quite forgiving if you're at heart a team player.

Was your manager that day... you? Yes. [laughter] Danny Flash comes from a long line of champion boxers. Do you think he isn't a team player? I've said enough about him. Let's talk about the first half. That was not acceptable, not good enough. I can only fix things that are happening on the pitch and I have no right to lay into the fans, but they're to blame for the second goal. They're booing one of their players and that's absolutely crazy. You're supposed to boo the other team.

You're supposed to put them at a disadvantage. Boo us at half time - yes, collectively. Boo us at full time. Absolutely. Collectively. But when you lay into an individual player during a match, what do you think's going to happen? I'll tell you what isn't going to happen. He isn't going to play better. He can only play worse. Boo these players if you want, if that makes you happy, but you're booing your own team straight into the National League. Are you blaming the fans for that defeat? I'm the manager.

In the end, I'm to blame for the result. There were six thousand people here today but I filled in the team sheet. I put names on there that I shouldn't have. That's a million percent my fault. All I can say is that when we start poorly I can do things to fix that. At one-nil down we were well in this game and we'd probably have won. The second goal - yeah, that was brutal and it didn't need to happen. But you got back to two-all. It costs energy to come from behind, Becky.

It's much harder when you're behind in a low-scoring sport like this. You have to work much harder. There were twenty minutes in the second half there that were absolutely fantastic. Brilliant teamwork, togetherness, balance, and some good quality, too. But we're using players that haven't played much and they need a few games to get match fit again. It's emotionally and physically exhausting to work so hard and put so much in and be ripped to shreds by your own fans. You're unhappy? I don't give a shit.

Shut your mouth. Or tell you what - scream at me. I tell you what, that's the solution. Vent your spleens at me all you want but let the guys on the pitch get on with it. Or, keep doing what you're doing and blame me when the team's relegated. That works, too, I guess, for some people. The dugout was a lot emptier in the second half. Did something happen at half time?

Yeah I think there was a general awareness that I was on the verge of maybe losing my temper a little bit so everyone ran off looking for zinc supplements. They found some, but by then the Danny Flash thing had already happened. What was the Sutton score? They drew. You're level on points and goal difference. You're only off the bottom of the table on goals scored. Jesus Christ. Do you still think you're the right man for the job?

I think there are better options but the owner might find Liverpool and Man City don't want to let them go. Strong words from someone with a zero win percentage. Beth, have you got a question? Bethany Alban, Daily Mail. Max, how many times have you been to see Dune 2 in cinemas? What's a socially normal answer to that question? One. I have been to see Dune 2 in cinemas one time.

What is it that attracts you to a story about an uprooted prince who travels to a harsh new world and finds himself having to work with suspicious water-obsessed locals who one by one are won over by his sheer talent? It's good when there's, like, space bagpipes. And when they turn the worms from enemies into like Metrolinks slash superweapons. Yeah. Absolutely flawless experience, couldn't be improved in any way, four out of five stars. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for your time, Max.

I hid in the manager's room until the roads around the stadium cleared. No-one came to talk to me, but on the other hand, no-one came to sack me. There was an update on the Job Information screen, though. Max Best - Grimsby - England - L2 - Slightly Insecure Hmm, okay. First of all, fuck you, Chris Hale. Second, while there were exceptions, these statuses tended to go from slightly insecure to insecure to very insecure before the plug was pulled.

Now, all three steps could happen tomorrow as the fallout from all the things I'd done reverberated around Grimsby, but as of right this second, I didn't think I would get fired before the Gillingham match. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Three days of training to get something out of this squad. Plans began to coalesce in my mind and I found myself nodding. The knockout blow was coming, but until then I could box clever. What was all this boxing shit?

I looked up Danny Flash and saw he was, indeed, from a line of champion boxers. His father was Donny Flash, British champion, RIP, and his granddad was Don Flash, British and Olympic champion who in 1977 had lasted nine rounds in a World Title bout against the American Bob Foster. The pedigree kept going, though, and his uncle was Donald 'Scrubber' Wormwood, who had dominated British boxing in the late 90s and had a 46 and oh record. I put my phone down and walked around. The granddad stuck out to me.

Nine rounds in a title fight against one of the hardest-hitting punchers going. You'd want him by your side when you found the mole. Shame about his grandson. I picked my phone up again and took another look at Chester's result. They'd beaten Southport 2-0. Earlier in the season we had slapped them up 5-0, but that was with me going a bit bonkers. Two-nil was perfectly fine but it did make me wonder if maybe things were very slightly going off the rails.

I looked around Chester Twitter to get the sense of what had held us back. Yes, it looked like we'd taken a two-nil lead and then turtled up. And Sandra had given minutes to Andrew Harrison, Bark, and Tony Hetherington. I smiled. Getting her stats up while developing young players while fulfilling our end of the loan agreement while putting Tony in the shop window for teams who would be looking for a striker in the summer. Sandra was doing way more than expected.

I sent her a fulsome voice note, then turned the light off in my office and didn't speak to another soul until five to eight the next morning.

I knocked on the front door again. Come on, you bastards. I need to pee. The door opened and a very confused young woman peered out. She had big hair, big eyes, and, speaking diplomatically as always, she was not little.

"Yes?"

"Yeah yeah yeah. I'm Max Best. Is Ollie in?" Confusion.

"He's in bed."

"It's nearly eight!"

"He doesn't start work till eleven." I scoffed.

"Can I come in?" She pulled at an earring.

"Um..." I wasn't in the mood for social niceties. Until I woke up that morning, I thought I had been going full Max. I hadn't. There were more levels of Max to come. I pushed my way in - not quite as rudely as it sounds - made a left turn and looked around the living room. There was a sort of slight arch between it and the kitchen.

"You knocked through here but it's a supporting wall so you couldn't replace the whole thing?"

"What? Don't know. We're just renting."

"I love rooms like these. It's like a sandworm from Dune came through and left a worm-shaped hole. You understand that I've only seen Dune 2 once, of course. Er... Can I use your toilet, please? And if it's not too rude, I'll make myself a cuppa while you tell Ollie his boss is here."

"Um... yes." Saying yes seemed to wake her up.

"Yes," she said again.

"There's one through there. On your right. I'll go tell him." When she came down, I was jiggling the tea bag in the cup.

"What's your name?"

"Mel." I pointed to all the spices on her kitchen shelves.

"Short for Melange!"

"Short for Melanie."

"Statistically more likely. I should have started with that." I looked at the solo cup and tutted.

"I should have made you one. Why am I such a knob?" She smiled.

"You're all right. What's this about?"

"Yeah, just football stuff," I mumbled, looking around. One wall was full of Grimsby Town memorabilia, while another was all family photos and the like.

"Are you a Shrimper, too, or is that stuff Ollie's?"

"Mariner, not Shrimper. You should know that by now."

"I can't learn all the words. I'm too busy sucking," I said, and that sent her into a large fit of tiny giggles. Ollie came down. He was a twenty-year-old coach that Grimsby had working in the youth system. He had good attributes, including a Coaching Outfield Players score of 14, but he had one outstanding quality: he wasn't the mole. He looked bleary-eyed - a few pints after the disappointing result the night before - and he was in pyjamas. He stopped dead when he saw me.

"Max Best?" I sighed.

"What the fuck are you doing, mate? We told you to get dressed." He looked down at himself.

"I am."

"In your work clothes. You're going to work!"

"What?"

"Yeah, wake the fuck up, all right? This is the first day of the rest of your life. The hand of destiny has plucked you from obscurity. Your toils as a lowly whatever you normally do are over. You are now," I made the sign of the cross, "Max blessed."

"Max Best?" I laughed.

"Seriously, you've got ten seconds to get ready for work before I lose my shit." He finally realised something good might be about to happen. Or something bad.

"Can I take a shower?" I thought about it.

"No. You can take one at Cheapside."

"Cheapside?" He was back to being a moron and I started to wonder if the other youth coach was maybe a better option. I could have called my private coach, Cody Chambers, and begged him for help but I had this inexplicable urge to do this alone using only the resources available at Grimsby Town. Mel helped him out by pushing him to the bottom of the stairs and giving him a slap on the arse. She gave off a good vibe. She came back to the kitchen and regarded me.

"This that you're doing. Is this good for Ollie?"

"I'm bringing Ollie into my inner circle. When I'm gone, Ollie will be the member of staff most closely associated with my success... or failure." Her only response to that was a tiny raising of the eyebrows.

"What do you do, Mel?" She pointed to a laptop with a headset.

"Customer service. Doesn't pay much but it's work from home and there's not loads to do. A few chats, a few emails, sometimes a call." I nodded, not really interested. But then I thought about the day ahead and got very interested.

"Work from home, did you say? How about you work from Cheapside?"

"Why would I do that?"

"For fifty quid."

As expected, the receptionist wasn't in place, so I installed Mel behind the desk and while Ollie went for a shower, I got stuck into my preparations. A few minutes later, I had three lists of players and staff. I was about to launch into my spiel when I hesitated.

"Do you know what the players look like?"

"Most of them."

"Okay, good. Actually," I said, trying to shove down a chuckle.

"Pretend you don't know who anyone is. They all think they're hot shit but most of them are worms. Let's put them in their place. They come in, you tell them to stop. Get their name. Look at these lists. List A, send them to pitch one. List B, pitch two. List C, tell them to fuck off or you'll call security. List D is Conor Quinn. You read this out to him." Mel took the note and read it."

Max Best requests and requires you to take the fucking day off and take yourself to Forest Pines Spa and Golf Resort where you will pamper yourself and stroll around in a bath robe and wear flip flops and drink lemon water while you listen to the plinky plonky music. Max Best will personally reimburse you for up to one hundred and fifty pounds so get yourself a facial or let a cheeky local wench place warm stones on your back. I'm not sure about wench."

"You're right, it's disrespectful. Er... farm girl turned masseuse? I can't really think of the right phrase. Kinda deep in the football right now. You can punch it up."

"Why don't you call him and tell him?"

"I don't have anyone's number. I don't work here, remember."

"Yeah, well that makes two of us. List C is the naughty list? Is Danny Flash on list C?"

"No. B." I handed her the notes.

"Oh, that's good. He's a lovely boy."

"No, he's a worm."

"You want to be careful. His family's all boxers. Champions."

"Yeah, yeah. I can box, you know. We have this gear we got. At Chester I mean. Once a week I go and beat the shit out of it. I used to spar with... Well, there's a good boxer in the area and he comes to train us."

"Isn't that training the wrong, like, moves?"

"Nah at our level it's mint. If you can box for ten minutes you can play a half. I guarantee it. No, I'm no natural but I can move my feet and dodge and I'll knock you out."

"No, thanks."

"I was more sort of picturing Danny Flash than you. You are my special Grimsby pumpkin, Mel." She beamed.

"Weird, but I'll take it."

"Let me think what else... No, that's it. Call me if there's a problem. I'll keep the volume on."

"What if the phone rings?" She picked up the landline.

"It won't ring if you pick it up like that. Have you never seen an old movie? Like, from the nineties? It has to be on the wotsit." She smiled and replaced it.

"But someone calls and says they... I don't know... They're from the BBC." I shrugged.

"Whatever you want. This is the training ground. Why are they calling here? Nah, it can't be anything important. Just say there's a worm infestation and they should stay away." A new voice spoke.

"What's all this?" The receptionist had finally decided to return to her work station.

"This is your replacement," I said.

"Someone who gives a shit."

"You can't sack me!"

"No-one's sacking you. But I need someone at this desk, right? The first thing most players see every day is an empty desk. The empty desk of someone off having chats, someone taking the piss. So they think they can take the piss, too. Well, not any more. While I'm here, this desk is properly manned. So bye."

"Should I call security, Mr. Best?" Mel was my absolute favourite. I fucking loved Mel! I kept a serious face, somehow.

"I think that won't be necessary." The receptionist scowled and angrily grabbed her handbag and her lunch and whatever.

"Enjoy your little joke. You won't be here long." As she exited, she gave Mel a fierce look. Why was she blaming her? I sighed, contentedly.

"This is going to be a good day." I strolled to the door, thinking about breaking the habit of a lifetime and breaking into a whistle.

"Mr. Best," said Mel.

"It's Max to you."

"Better if I stay in character, sort of thing. Er... what do I do if Chris Hale comes?" I laughed.

"Let him in, obviously! Oh," I said, popping my head back into the room, "and ask him for your fifty quid. Seeya."

Neo: Conor Quinn is in the red zone. Me: Thanks. Save it for the next guy. I'm going solo. Ollie found me laying out cones on pitch one. The training group would be relatively small - I had binned off the three traitors and ruthlessly sliced away a further chunk of the squad. Ollie and I would be working with a core group of thirteen, including Conor, who would soon be on his way to get pampered but would join us from tomorrow.

"So, Mr. Best," said Ollie, after I'd given the setup once last check.

"What exactly am I doing here?"

"Huh? Didn't I tell you in the car?"

"No. You said 'you'll see' and you laughed."

"Oh. Well, no big deal. You're taking first team training." I sprinted off after him and grabbed him by the waist. For some reason the ungrateful bastard was complaining.

"No, mate, no. I can't. What are you thinking?"

"Stop wriggling. You'll do yourself an injury and Mel will blame me. Come on, now. I'm here. I'm with you all the way. I promise."

"But," he said, hands on his head.

"But," he added. I waited for him to calm himself.

"So you're taking training and I'm assisting you?" I shook my head. The curse rated him as a coach but not me. Why was he overcomplicating this? I tried to explain as calmly as poss." You're in charge and I'm assisting you. But don't worry. I'll do all the work."

"What?"

"Good, isn't it?"

"What about Coach G and Coach W?"

"They've got a very important task. Don't worry about them."

"This is mental."

"Right, shut the fuck up with that. The players are coming and I don't want them hearing negative shit. All right? We're going to do a proper fucking training session for once and we're going to be a hundred percent positive for the next two hours." The A list players came over. Danny Grant said, "Why is Ollie here?" I had expected something like this. The players knew Ollie from visits to the youth teams and so on but he was like a baby to them.

Ollie's natural career path would have taken him up the ranks at glacial pace until, in fifteen to twenty years, he was in Coach W's shoes. It's fair to say I didn't have time for him to earn their respect so I'd fucking box some respect into them if that's what it took.

"This is Coach O," I said.

"That's O short for Oh My God I Can't Believe How Top This Session Is. He's going to warm you up. Coach O?" Ollie licked his lips.

"Er... two lines here, please."

"Coach O, I just need to give quick instructions to the other mob. I'll be back really quickly. Promise." I went over to pitch two and spoke to Coach G.

"Do whatever you want today. K bye." The useless worm reached out in a vain attempt to grab my arm. I dodged like the potential boxing champ I was, but stayed to hear Gareth out.

"Wait a fucking minute. What do you mean do whatever you want? Why've you split the groups? What's going on, here?"

"All you need to know is that you and W have these players. Coach them to play football in any way you see fit. That's it." I walked back to pitch one and blew my whistle.

"Right, gather round. Coach O has asked me to give you the instructions for our first drill. It's a little something called The Art of Slapping."

Thirty minutes into the session, we were practicing overlaps and I sensed a slight change in the way some of the players perceived me. Marcus Wainwright, for example, was very calm, very controlled, very distant, but he started piping up with opinions. If he had thought I was a clown, the drills were making him reassess. He had the greatest opportunity to observe while remaining involved. All he had to do was prowl the penalty box, make runs, and deflect passes into the goal.

To the right of the penalty area I'd set a couple of mannequins as obstacles and had a bag of balls on the edge of what Neo had called zone 14. From there, two players would pass to each other while a third would sprint to the byline. One of the two passers would try to roll a pass with the right timing and weight so that it would arrive at the byline at the same time as the runner. The runner would then cross the ball into the area, hoping to set Wainwright up for a goal.

Coach O was acting as a goalie and I was moving around seemingly at random, sometimes making things harder, but always giving feedback. I hadn't set the victory conditions and at first it seemed obvious - score a goal. Right? No. Every time the runner chipped the ball or tried to do a high cross, I whistled and made them do ten push-ups. (In a real match, hitting anything high from that position was a low percentage move. Goalies would intercept almost everything, defenders would clean up most of the rest, and if the ball did miraculously get to a striker, it was a fair bet he'd need good technique to deal with the dropping ball.) When they kicked the ball low but straight at the goalie I rolled my eyes but didn't mete out punishment. (There was no punishment because in a real match a striker could 'hit' the near post and get to the low cross before it even got to the goalie. It felt like it would have been wrong to discourage that option even though in this particular drill Wainwright didn't attack the near post. At the very least, these sideways crosses would encourage the goalie to stay on his goal line the next time we got into that position.) When the runners pulled the ball back crisp and sharp (so that Wainwright simply had to deflect the ball at goal), Ollie and I clapped and yelled positive things. Things were starting to get good when Wolfie turned up.

Impossibly, his haircut looked worse.

"Max. I rather expected we'd have a meeting this morning."

"Okay."

"Who's that on reception?"

"Mel. She's a trainee spice girl and my personal assistant."

"She says she works for an online nutritionist."

"Yeah it's all supplements. Stuff made from bees."

"From honey." I blinked.

"That makes even more sense, yeah."

"Why have you split the squad?"

"In this campus I have found many things that men had missed."

"What. The hell. I would ask you to take this seriously. A lot of people aren't happy with you right now. Including me. Including the fans. Including Chris." I stuck my bottom lip out.

"Just mixing things up. The usual stuff wasn't working."

"We need to talk about what happened in the match last night."

"Hmm. Talk. Yeah. Talk talk talk. Sounds great. Or we could skip that. Agree to disagree, get on with our lives."

"Look, if half of what I heard is true, I should recommend your dismissal immediately."

"It's definitely all true and more besides. If you sack me today I want two hundred quid in cash, though."

"What?" I clapped as Devonte Payne smashed in a good low cross. He really put some welly into it. Low crosses like that could be a nuisance even if Wainwright didn't get on the end of them.

"Yes, mate! Okay take a second, lads. Coach O wants you to pick up those corner cones and move them this way. Rectangle here, yeah?" Wolfie hissed, "Coach O? What the hell is going on?" I gave Wolfie my undivided attention.

"Wolfie. Ever since I drove through that gate, people have been undermining me and hindering me and last night I learned that in addition to all the usual unprofessional bullshit footballers get away with when I'm not around, someone here is a mole. I am doing some A/B testing, which in this case means that plan A and plan B are to trust no-one. These players you see with Coach O are getting a crash course in how I do things. Those guys over there are doing normal Grimsby shit. Someone here is a mole.

It might be someone in this group - there are only two people here it's definitely not, i. e. me and Ollie - but it's probably someone over there. Or maybe it's you. Or maybe it's Neo. It kind of infuriates me but at the same time, I kinda sorta don't give a shit. I will beat the mole by denying them information and in the meantime, I've started doing things my way and I'm going to do things even more my way, harder and harder, until we're safe from relegation or you sack me. That's all I've got to say.

The next time we talk you can say 'good luck against Gillingham!' or you can say 'please give me your badge'. We don't need further meetings or discussions." He wasn't going to let me rant one-sided.

"You wrestled our star signing, dumped our captain, and humiliated a young player! You nearly came to blows with Chris Hale's favourite player! You slagged off the fans! You don't get to decide whether we have meetings or not."

"Sorry, mate, but I do. I was worried about my legacy. My reputation. What will people think if I'm not a success everywhere I go? What if there's one stain on my record? And you know what? I don't give a shit. I'm right, you're wrong. Can this group learn Max Best football in a few weeks? Absolutely it can. They showed it last night and I'm going to turn that twenty minute spell into a forty minute spell and then sixty and then we're going to start slapping people morning, noon, and night."

"Slapping?"

"That's what it's called when you do things the right way. This drill we're about to do is so smart it has an honorary degree from the University of Honkytonk, New Mexico." He was fuming, and probably with some slight justification. But he was impressively able to control himself.

"You've been doing everything wrong since you came through that gate. But look - there are only twelve players here. You need sixteen plus the goalies. Why is Tom Hickman in the outcast group? You told Chris you rated him."

"You didn't use him the whole season. It's too late for him."

"Forever?" His eyes were bulging.

"No, he's top. Integrate him into the first team squad. Insist he gets minutes. At the start of next season." I shook my head.

"You gave all his minutes to Dobson, who hates the place, and lost a ton of games anyway. I'd love to know how you spin that to be my fault." He calmed just a fraction. I was being utterly unreasonable, he thought, but I hadn't gone full nutjob; he agreed with me about Hickman.

"What formation are we going to play with this lot?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Formation? Why do you need to know that?" He reacted to my suspicion with barely contained fury.

"It's my job to supervise you! To make sure you don't do, fucking... this!"

"As of half time yesterday, I decided that no-one will know the formation we're playing until one minute before kick-off. That information will be divulged to the eleven players on the pitch, on the pitch and not before."

"That's absurd. How can they... how can you prepare?"

"Oh, they'll be prepared all right. Don't you worry about that. Now, unless I'm sacked I need to get them doing the next phase before they cool off. Please don't interrupt my sessions again. Bye."

Max Best - Grimsby - England - L2 - Insecure After training, I gave Ollie a hug and told him he'd done well - between us, we unearthed some greens in attributes, CA, and even a couple of teamwork pops. I told him to bin off his youth team muppets because he was my dude, now. I said something pretty similar to Mel. It would cost me fifty quid a day but seeing her instead of the actual receptionist would cheer me up. I was quite wired.

I'd expended a lot of mental energy in the session, dashing around the cones yelling at players, pushing them, demanding more quality, speed, and purpose, and showing them other ways of approaching on-pitch problems. The vibe was improving but when I stepped in to show them some particular move or technique, they got very quiet. Yeah, I thought it was a great morning, but my brain was spinning and I needed to detach. I was just about to set off to the cinema in Cleethorpes, but then I went 'huh'.

Somehow, Beth knew that I'd been to see Dune 2 like five times since I'd come to Lincolnshire. I tapped my steering wheel. I really kinda wanted to watch Dune 2 again... I put 'Hull' into the maps app. There was no way Beth had spies in Hull.

On Thursday, the core squad's training was even better, and Conor returned to the camp looking suitably chill. His Condition was lower than everyone else's but after Saturday's match we would have a week before Wrexham. I hoped he'd be able to play the full ninety in both. There were still more greens, still more CA, and another teamwork pop.

Ollie had swelled in confidence overnight, and between his polite, respectful, but diligent coaching and my manic good cop bad cop energy and ability to demonstrate virtually anything on a football pitch, morale was improving, too. Interestingly, none of the players asked what formation we'd play against Gillingham. I drove to Scunny to watch Dune 2.

On Friday morning, I was feeling good as I parked The Duchess in its premium parking place. I had some good drills planned for the core. The core? Didn't you get worms in apple cores? Not this one! My core was guaranteed worm free. Yeah, I thought, as I closed the driver's door and opened the rear one to get my equipment bag. Today I was going to teach these Grimsby clowns more of the sweet science of football. A move I was calling Jab Jab Hook.

A seemingly slow, ponderous series of passes that could lead to a knockout blow. I smiled and took two steps forward, then dropped my kit bag and fell into my rudimentary boxer's stance. I glanced around but only saw two enemies. To my right, blocking my path to the gate, was Danny Flash, who looked like more of a worm than ever in a flesh-coloured hoodie. And to my left, blocking the way to the reception area and the possibility of safety, was Donnie 'Scrubber' Wormwood, champion boxer of yesteryear.

He was in his forties but he looked fierce as fuck and ready to rumble. His fists looked like bricks and when he spotted me, his lips curled into a cold-blooded snarl. There's the twat who humiliated my nephew... Some bonkers impulse made me check the job information screen. It still had my status listed as Insecure. Yeah. You think?