Glory Of The Football Manager System

Michael Cooke sat behind the wheel with the engine off and looked at the cap on the dashboard. Navy, with the eagle on the front, and the peak gone soft from 20 years of his thumb. He looked at it long enough that I nearly said something. Then he picked it up and got out, and I got out after him into the cold. It had been dark for nearly 2 hours.

We were halfway up the path when the front door opened.

Dion Asare stood in it in a pair of our training socks, pulled up his shins, and no shoes. Behind him, at the end of the hall, a television was on loud enough to hear from the gate, and a presenter was saying my name.

”...a contract until June 2021, and the question this desk has been asking since August. Does today end the Danny Walsh question? Roy.”

”She has had it on since 5,” Dion said. ”Sorry.”

”What for?”

He did not answer that. He looked at the cap in Cooke’s hand, then stood back against the coats on the hooks to let us by.

”No,” Roy Keane said, somewhere past him. ”It moves it.”

The kitchen was small and hot and smelt of rice and fried onions. Mrs Asare was at the worktop in her blue work tabard with the remote in her hand, and she did not turn it down when we came in. She pointed it at 2 chairs.

”Sit there. Both of you. Dion, shoes.”

”I am in the house, Mum.”

”Shoes.”

He went. Cooke put his cap on the edge of the table on his way down, the way he puts it on every table, half on and half off. A brown and white dog the size of a footstool came out from under the sink, took it off the edge in 1 movement and went back under with it.

Skrrt.

Cooke stopped halfway into his chair and looked at the sink. Mrs Asare looked at Cooke.

”He does that,” she said.

On the wall above the fridge, Keane was still going.

”In Spain a caretaker gets 15 days. That is the rule over there.”

”So they had to...”

”Give him a contract or give it to somebody else. He came in on the 29th of October. Count it.”

”Until 2021, Roy.”

”Benítez got 3 years.” Keane let the presenter wait for it. ”June 2015. Gone on the 4th of January.”

Mrs Asare pressed the side of the remote until the white bar went all the way across the bottom of the screen.

”Hang on, hang on.” Gary Neville, over the top of him. ”You keep leaving the other half out. 11 wins from 12. Through in Europe with 2 games left. He has had Manchester United’s letter since July and he has not even opened... well. He has not answered it. So why does a man who does that walk out in January with a last 16 tie coming?”

”Because it is Madrid.”

”And that is Crystal Palace, Roy. That is my whole point. You are talking about them like a stepping stone.”

Dion came back in with his trainers on and the laces undone, and sat at the far end of the table with his back to the television.

His mother had turned away from the screen to look at me.

”Are you going to Spain?”

”Mum,” Dion said.

”I am asking him.”

”No,” I said.

”That Irish one says January.”

”He has said January on that programme since September, Mrs Asare.”

”Has anybody rung you? From Spain.”

”Nobody has rung me.”

That was true. Dougie Freedman had rung me at 10 past 8 that morning to tell me that a man who works for Florentino Pérez had rung him on Thursday and asked whether I would take a call. Dougie had told him he would ask me. He was ringing to ask me. I told him I was on pitch 3 at 10 and I would ring him back, and I had not rung him back.

Nobody had rung me. They had rung Dougie.

She was still looking at me. Then she turned the same look on Michael Cooke.

”And you. If he goes, January, whenever it is. Are you still there?”

Cooke took his time.

”I run the under 23s,” he said. ”I will be at Beckenham in January, and the January after. That does not change with whoever is in the manager’s office.”

”Then it is you I am listening to.” She put the remote down on the worktop face up, with the sound still where she had left it. ”Go on, then. He said on the phone you would tell my son to his face, with me sat here.”

She stayed standing, with her arms folded over the tabard.

Tk. A mug of tea in front of Cooke, 1 in front of me, none in front of her son. He does not drink it.

Cooke took a sheet of A4 out of his coat pocket, folded in 4, and flattened it on the table with both hands. There was a brown ring on it from a mug, and his handwriting all the way down 1 side.

”Right. Dion. I wrote some things down so I would say them in the right order, and the first thing is...”

Dion was looking at the paper.

”...and we will come back to Madrid, I promise, but I want to do Saturday first. Jamie, you have been itching.”

Cooke stopped. All 4 of us looked at the wall.

”Everybody has done Eze’s free kick since Saturday, and fair enough, it is a worldie. I want 2 seconds. 85th minute.” The picture behind Jamie Carragher turned into Wembley. ”JJ Johnson, left touchline. Wan-Bissaka. Watch.”

JJ came in off the line at walking pace, dragging the ball along with the outside of his left boot. 3 yards from Aaron he trod on it. The ball died. Aaron stopped with it.

”Stop it there. Right. Every defender in the country, what is your head telling you here? He has stopped. The ball is dead. Go.”

”Go and win it,” Neville said.

”Go and win it! I did 16 years at Liverpool, and every time a good winger did that to me I went, and every time he was gone before I landed. Play it.”

JJ went, and Aaron went with him and poked it away off his toe.

”Nothing! He does nothing! He ran 13 kilometres on Saturday, this is the 85th minute, and the lad just stands there.” Carragher ran it back and let it go again. ”I have watched Wan-Bissaka since he got in that side. He goes. He always goes, he is that quick he gets away with it. So somebody has stood in front of him and done that to him, over and over, till he stopped going.”

”Zaha,” Neville said. ”He trains against Zaha every day.”

”Zaha does not stand still, Gary. Zaha comes at you at full pelt with 6 step overs. This is somebody who stops. Somebody has done this to him 100 times on a training pitch, and I would love to know who.” He tapped the frozen picture. ”And whoever it was, it does not work on him any more.”

”And he will not be showing it to England this week,” the presenter said. ”Wan-Bissaka has pulled out of the under 21s with a shoulder he did on Saturday.”

Cooke folded the A4 back up along the same creases and put it in his pocket.

”That is you, Dion.”

Dion did not turn round. He had shifted his chair while Carragher was talking, enough to get the screen in the corner of his eye, and he stayed like that.

”He is late,” he said.

”Who is?”

”Aaron.” Then, quieter. ”He is late.”

”He took the ball off him,” his mother said.

”I know he took it.” He turned the chair all the way round this time. It scraped on the lino. ”Mum, put it back. Just back a bit.”

She picked the remote up off the worktop and held the button down.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

The picture ran backwards, JJ walking backwards off his run with the ball coming back to his foot.

”There. No, there.” Dion stood up. ”He goes when JJ goes. Same time. That is too late, that is... if JJ goes inside there, he has got him.”

”How do you know he is not going inside?” I said.

He looked at me as though he was deciding whether I wanted to know or whether I was testing him. Then he bent down and took a tennis ball out of the dog’s basket, grey and gone flat on 1 side, and dropped it on the lino.

Pok.

”Dion.”

”I am not going to break anything, Mum.”

He put his sole on it in his undone trainers and stopped dead. Then he dropped his left shoulder, barely, 2 inches.

”That. JJ does that before he goes outside. He did it every time on Saturday. I watched it on there.” He nodded at the wall. ”Aaron needs to go on this.” The shoulder again. ”Not on the touch. Half a yard before.”

The dog came out from under the sink for the tennis ball and left the cap behind on the lino.

”And before anybody says it,” Neville was saying on the wall, ”yes, JJ scored on 51. Son beat Palace with the pass there. Wan-Bissaka did nothing wrong.”

”He did,” Dion said to the television. ”He went with him. He was facing the wrong way.”

Bzzt.

MARCUS REID. 18:24.

JJ took him on twice after half time. 51 and 85. Same frame both times: Aaron moves on JJ’s touch, not before. Clip on your email.

Marcus had that off a frame counter in an edit suite. Dion had it off his mother’s television with his back to it.