Glory Of The Football Manager System

[Crystal Palace 1 - Chelsea 2.]

Conte was on his feet on the touchline pumping his fists. The Chelsea end started we are top of the league. They were not top of the league. The lads on the pitch did not need to be told that the lads on the pitch were two goals from the cup.

I let Mama be the one to say it.

He walked to the centre circle from the back four and pulled the lads in. I could not hear what he said from the touchline. Eze nodded. Konaté nodded. Wilf nodded. Nya nodded.

The lads broke up. The match restarted.

[65’.]

Pato on for Christopher.

The Holmesdale stood for Christopher all the way to the touchline. Christopher had played his last Wembley match in a Crystal Palace shirt. He knew it. Steve Parish in the directors’ box stood for him. The Holmesdale stood for him for the whole walk because the Holmesdale was the Holmesdale.

Christopher sat down next to James and Mili on the bench. James put a hand on his shoulder. Mili put a hand on Mili’s. The three of them did not say anything.

[68’.]

Nya put a tackle in on Kanté in the centre circle that was the cleanest tackle of Nya’s career. Eighteen years old. Kanté did not get up for two seconds.

The ball came to Rúben. Rúben to Eze. Eze cut inside.

He drew Rüdiger. Slipped it to Olise wide right.

Olise’s ball into the box was a yard too long. Pato did not get on the end.

Conte turned and pointed at his own bench because Conte had felt it.

[73’.]

Eze got it off Fabregas in midfield.

Did not pass.

Carried it.

Past Kanté. Past Kanté’s cover. Past Rüdiger who had come out too high because Rüdiger had come out too high all afternoon.

Twenty-five yards from goal.

Looked up.

Did not look up for a teammate. Looked up at the keeper’s feet.

He went past the second centre-back with one touch and slid it inside the post from the corner of the eighteen-yard box.

Whump.

The same goal he had scored at the José Alvalade.

The same goal.

In the Holmesdale Lower Frank Whitlock got up. Did not scream. Stood with both arms out at his sides as if he could not find anything to hold onto because the goal had taken hold of him. David got both arms round him and held him because David had to. The man with the daughter on his shoulders put her down because the dad could not hold the daughter up any more. The daughter started crying because the noise was too loud.

The drum at the back of the Holmesdale started again. Tom Donaghue, twenty-two years old, the lad who had brought the drum to Wembley for the Carabao Cup Final in February and had brought it to every Palace match since. He hit it harder than he had hit it at Selhurst against Salzburg. The drum went on for ninety seconds without stopping.

[Crystal Palace 2 - Chelsea 2.]

Eze walked back to the centre circle. Did not change expression. Wilf got to him first. Wilf shook his head twice. Konaté got there. Mama came up from the back. Nya was at the back because Nya had been on the pitch for seventy-three minutes of an FA Cup Final at eighteen years old and had not believed the goal until it had gone in.

Mateo on the touchline had both crutches above his head and was leaning on Bray to stay upright.

[81’.]

Wayne saved with both hands off Willian. The Chelsea end went oh in unison.

[83’.]

Wayne saved with his face off Tammy. The face save. He sat down on the line for a second. Sarah came on with a towel. Wayne waved her off without looking up. Wayne was Wayne.

[85’.]

The fourth official held up the board. Three minutes.

[89’.]

It came down the right.

Olise picked it up off Aaron at the halfway line. Took it past Marcos Alonso who had come too far up. Drove to the byline.

Olise sixteen years old at the byline at Wembley in the eighty-ninth minute of the FA Cup Final.

Looked up.

Eze was on the edge of the area. Eze had been on the edge of the area for the last ten minutes because Eze had decided where Eze was going to be.

Olise cut it back.

Eze took one touch.

The touch killed the ball dead.

He looked up.

Wilf was at the far post.

He had been there since the seventy-fifth because he had decided that night in 2016 when Lingard had scored in extra time and he had been on the pitch in red for a club that was not his and had watched his Crystal Palace lose the FA Cup, that if he ever got back to a final he was going to be at the far post in the eighty-ninth.

Eze played him.

Wilf took it on his right foot.

Whump.

Far corner of the goal. Top of the netting. Courtois did not move.

In the Holmesdale Lower Frank Whitlock did the thing he had told himself before kick-off he was not going to do.

He cried.

He stood in row K seat 47 with David’s arm round him and the Margaret hat on his head and tears coming down his face that he was not trying to hide because there was nothing to hide them with. The man with the daughter put her down. He cried too. Tom Donaghue at the back of the Holmesdale put both hands flat on the drum and stopped hitting it because Tom could not hit the drum any more because Tom was crying.

Across the stadium in the directors’ box Steve Coppell put his face in his hands. Wright put a hand on his back. Bright put a hand on Wright’s shoulder. Salako put a hand on Bright’s.

The 1990 generation had watched the 2018 generation finish what they had started.

[Crystal Palace 3 - Chelsea 2.]

[90’+5.]

Last corner. Hazard over it.

He whipped it in. Tammy at the back post. Aaron jumped with him. The ball went over both of them. Came down in the six-yard box.

Mama.

He had come up from the back. He had come up for every corner Chelsea had taken since the eighty-ninth because Mama had come up to make sure he was in the box.

The corner came his way.

THUD.

Off his forehead.

Out of the six-yard box.

Twenty yards into the Wembley turf where Rúben was waiting.

Rúben took it. Looked up. Saw Mateo on the touchline. Played it backwards to Wayne deliberately because Mateo had told him on Tuesday at Beckenham that if Palace were leading in injury time at Wembley Rúben should play it back to the keeper to run the clock.

Wayne held it.

The whistle went.

BLEEP.

BLEEP.

BLEEP.

[FULL TIME: Crystal Palace 3 - Chelsea 2. FA Cup Winners.]

[Wembley. 19:18 BST.]

The lads came to me.

Mama first. Konaté second. Aaron. Wayne. Eze. Olise. Wilf. Nya with his face wet with tears that had finally come at the ninety-fifth when the whistle had gone. Christopher from the bench. Pato. James. Mili. Pope. Bowen. Aviero. Joel. Tomkins. Mandanda. Lewis Grant.

Then Mateo.

Mateo came down the side of the technical area on his crutch with Sarah holding his other elbow. The crutch came down on the Wembley turf and made the small sound the crutch made on the Wembley turf in the middle of the loudest stadium in England. He put his free hand on the back of my neck. I put mine on his.

We stood there for ten seconds.

Then the lads were a half-circle around us and Mateo turned and said something I did not catch and the lads went out onto the pitch for the lap.

Iza came down to the pitch. She had Caitlin with her because Caitlin had been in the directors’ box with Emma. Emma was behind her. Emma’s dad behind Emma in the half-and-half scarf. Steve Parish behind him. The lads’ wives and girlfriends and parents on the pitch.

I did not go on the lap with them yet.

I stood at the touchline.

I looked up at the Palace end.

Forty-five thousand of them on their feet. The drum had started again. Tom Donaghue had picked it back up off the ground in the ninety-third and had been hitting it on the half-beat for ninety seconds. The dad with the daughter on his shoulders. Frank Whitlock at row K seat 47 in the Holmesdale Lower with the hat that Margaret had bought him in 1990 still on his head. David’s arm around him.

I had thought about Margaret in the eighty-ninth. Not Margaret Whitlock. My own mum.

She was at her house in Moss Side watching on the television because her back would not let her fly to London any more. Sarah had rung her at quarter to five. Sarah had told her the lineup. Mum had not said anything because Mum was not a talker. She had said five words.

Tell him I love him.

I had not been at Margaret’s grave in fourteen years. Not Margaret Whitlock’s grave. Not Mum. Margaret Walsh. My own.

I let myself stand at the touchline at Wembley for thirty seconds with my mum on the phone at her house in Moss Side and Frank Whitlock at row K seat 47 with his Margaret’s hat on, and twenty-six months of running between Princess Road and the centre circle at Wembley, and the lads at the Palace end doing the lap.

Then I put it away.

Walked onto the pitch.

The lads were at the Palace end. Mateo at the front of them on his crutch. Mama next to him with the armband. Eze on the other side. Wilf with both hands on Olise’s shoulders. Nya at the back because Nya had been the last one off the pitch.

The lift was on the stage in twenty minutes.

I went to the Palace end.

***

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