Glory Of The Football Manager System

[The Centre Circle. 20:14 BST.]

I saw it as I walked to the centre.

Nya stood twenty yards from the lads and their families with no one. His Macron tracksuit top with KIRBY 33 on the back. His medal in his hand because he had taken it off the ribbon because the ribbon had irritated his neck during the climb.

The other lads had their families on the pitch and Nya did not have a family on the pitch because Nya’s mother had not been able to afford the ticket to Wembley and the FA had only allocated each lad two complimentary tickets and Nya had given his two to his older brother and his older brother’s girlfriend because the older brother had been there for him longer.

Sarah saw it the same second I did.

She crossed the pitch to Nya. Put her arm round his shoulders. Said something I could not hear from twenty yards. Nya nodded.

Then she walked towards me.

”Daniel. The black car at Beckenham. I am sending it to Streatham. His mum at the flat. The car gets her to the team hotel by ten.”

”Tell her there is a room for her if she wants to stay.”

”All right.”

She was already on the phone before she was off the pitch.

I went to Nya at the centre circle.

”Nya.”

”Gaffer.”

”Sarah is sending a car for your mum. She will be at the hotel by ten.”

He did not say anything for three seconds.

His face did not change because Nya at eighteen had a face that did not change, only it was different from Eze’s not-changing because Nya’s not-changing was effort and Eze’s was nature.

The effort gave out.

He put a hand across his eyes. Did not turn around because Nya was not going to turn around in front of the gaffer.

I put my hand on the back of his neck.

”All right, Gaffer.”

”All right, son.”

He took the hand off his eyes after a long second. Looked at me.

”Thank you, Gaffer.”

”Sarah does these things, Nya. I do not do these things. I am the one who tells Sarah she’s allowed to do them.”

He laughed once.

Olise came across the pitch from his father. Walked up to Nya. Put his arm across his shoulders. Walked him towards the families.

I stood on the centre circle on my own with the medal round my neck and the trophy four yards away in Mama’s hands and my mum on her sofa in Moss Side three hundred miles north.

Took the phone out of my Macron tracksuit pocket.

Rang the home number.

She picked up on the first ring.

”Daniel.”

”Mum.”

”Daniel.”

”You watched it.”

”I watched it. I watched all of it.”

”All right.”

I did not say anything for two seconds.

”I am at Wembley.”

”I know you are at Wembley. I am on the sofa. I have the kettle on.”

”I am on the centre circle.”

”You are on the centre circle.”

She did not say anything for three seconds.

”Margaret would have been proud of you.”

I did not say anything for a long second.

The Holmesdale somewhere caught what I was doing. Some lad in the front row had a camera and the camera had caught my face and the camera was on Sky and the Holmesdale had two screens and the Holmesdale had seen.

They started.

Daniel Walsh, he’s one of our own.

The four sides picked it up.

I could not hear what mum was saying for the next thirty seconds. I held the phone to my ear and I held my other hand to my other ear because my other ear could not hear the Holmesdale and I did not want my mum to think I was not listening.

When the Holmesdale dropped, she was saying my dad’s name.

I had not been at Margaret Walsh’s grave in fourteen years. Margaret Walsh was my mum’s name, like the woman in the Holmesdale’s hat. My dad was buried at Southern Cemetery in Chorlton next to his own father. I had not been to either grave. The fourteen years was the fourteen years since the funerals.

”Daniel.”

”Mum.”

”Will I see you next week.”

”Next week, mum. Sunday.”

”Good. Bring the cup.”

”I will bring the cup.”

”I love you, son.”

”I love you, mum.”

She hung up.

[The Tunnel. 20:42 BST.]

The walk off the pitch.

Mama with the cup. Wilf with a hand on the back of Mama’s shoulder. Eze with his mother on one arm and his sister on the other. Konaté with his father.

Mateo on his crutch with Sarah and Iza. He was the slowest. The lads in front waited at the entrance to the tunnel without making it obvious. The cameras did not pick it up because the cameras were on the trophy. The lads waited for Mateo and then went down the tunnel together as a group.

Walsh’s medal was on my chest. The ribbon irritated my neck and I had not taken it off.

[The Dressing Room. 20:51 BST.]

The FA had put six bottles of alcohol-free champagne on the kit-man’s table.

The new rule. The 2018 final had been the first one where the FA had stopped sending in the real stuff because the FA wanted the dressing room to be a dressing room every player in it could spray in.

Konaté looked at it.

Eze saw him look. Picked up a bottle himself. Walked across to Konaté holding it out like an invitation.

”Ibu.”

Konaté looked at the bottle. Then at Eze.

”I have never sprayed one of these.”

”I am offering it to you for the first time.”

”I am not the lad who sprays first.”

”Then I will spray it on you and you can spray it on me.”

He shook it. Sprayed Konaté with the whole thing.

Konaté laughed.

It was the laugh nobody had seen him do all season. He had laughed in training. He had laughed at jokes his older brother made when his older brother had come to watch matches at Selhurst.

He had not laughed in a dressing room before because Konaté had been nineteen and Konaté had decided in his first week at the club that he was going to be the most serious lad in the building.

He laughed for fifteen seconds.

Then he picked up a second bottle. Sprayed Eze back.

The room went up.

Wayne in his goalkeeper kit with the gloves off and the medal still on. Aviero on the bench with his cap on backwards. Pato singing in Portuguese the song his grandmother had taught him at four about a footballer who scored at Maracanã. Christopher with a Belgian beer he had brought in his own bag and his free hand on his five-year-old son’s head. James on the phone to his mother in Bogotá.

Mateo on the bench by the door with the cup across his lap because the lads had carried it to him and he had not got off the bench. Iza next to him.

The cup stayed on Mateo’s lap for the next eleven minutes.

The lads came back to it one at a time and put their hands on it.

Bray was in the corner with Sarah going through the bus schedule for the Etihad. Twelve of the lads on the pitch tonight had played seventy-five-plus minutes and would not be starting tomorrow. Pope back in goal. Mama insisting on playing. Most of the rest a rotation.

I told Bray to push the bus from half eleven to half twelve so the lads could get the extra hour of sleep.

[The Corridor. 21:02 BST.]

Sarah found me coming out of the dressing room.

”Garth Crooks for the BBC. Three minutes. Then the bus.”

The Crooks interview was at the side of the tunnel. The lights of the camera in my face.

”Twenty-eight. Three trophies in nine months. What is it like?”

”I do not know yet, Garth. Ask me in a week.”

”The Etihad tomorrow.”

”The Etihad tomorrow. We are not going there as winners of two trophies who deserve the points. We are going there because Manchester City are champions of England and we have come second to them and I want the lads to see what the champions look like on the day they lift the trophy. So when we go back next season we know what we are going back to.”

He paused. Was meant to ask about Mama’s medal-ceremony moment. Asked something else instead.

”Forty-five thousand sang your name on the centre circle while you were on the phone.”

”I was ringing my mother in Moss Side.”

”What did she say.”

”That my dad would have been proud.”

He nodded. Did not say anything else. Held his hand out. I took it.

I went to the bus.