"You lot are with Kershaw," Lommo announced to the no-bibs. "Listen to what he tells you. I’m taking the bibs."
The five trialists on my team gathered around me in a tight circle.
They weren’t looking at me like a disgraced match-fixer anymore. They were looking at me like five exhausted lads who were losing 1-0 and desperately wanted someone to tell them how to win the match.
"Right," I said, keeping my voice low so Lommo and the bibs couldn’t hear us over the wind. "Listen close. Their number 5 Liam, the lad with the ponytail."
"Mason’s mate," Hursty panted, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. "He talks a lot."
"He talks, but he doesn’t watch his back," I said, pointing a finger at the center of the pitch. "Every time the ball goes out to his left, he turns his hips completely to the touchline. He leaves a massive gap right behind his right shoulder. A barn door."
Mason, who was standing on the edge of our huddle after being rotated into our midfield, squinted across the pitch at his mate. "You saw that in ten minutes?"
"It took three minutes," I told him bluntly.
"Here’s what we do. When we win the ball back, don’t rush it down the middle. Play it out wide to the right. Draw Liam toward the touchline. The second he turns his hips to face the ball, Kian, you make a diagonal run straight into the gap behind him."
Kian Doyle looked up, his eyes sharp. "Inside his shoulder?"
"Right through the middle," I said. "He won’t see you until the ball’s past him. One touch, finish it."
Kian nodded once, hard. "Got it."
"Right," I said, clapping my hands. "Let’s go."
We restarted. The bibs brought the ball forward, but Hursty held his ground at centre-back. He waited, timed his tackle, and dispossessed their midfielder with a clean, crunching challenge CRACK!
The ball rolled out to our right-winger. As instructed, he didn’t panic. He took two touches down the right touchline, drawing the bibs’ defense toward him.
Right on cue, Liam Vance opened his hips, turning his back entirely to the central channel.
Kian Doyle didn’t wait. He checked his shoulder, saw the open space, and exploded into the gap like a greyhound off a leash.
Our right-winger slipped a simple, ten-yard ground pass straight through the channel. Liam tried to turn, but his hips were locked the wrong way, and he stumbled awkwardly on the rubber crumb.
Kian took the pass on his left foot, took one touch into the box, and buried it into the bottom corner of the net SWISH!
"YES!" Kian screamed, pumping his fist into the cold air as he turned and ran straight toward me, his face glowing red under the floodlights. "It worked! The gap was huge!"
Hursty ran up behind him, slapping Kian on the back, while Mason laughed out loud, shaking his head as he looked at Liam Vance arguing with his keeper.
Out on the touchline, Lommo stood completely still. His biro was held frozen against his clipboard, and his mouth was set in a tight, unreadable line.
He looked across the turf at me. I gave him a calm, steady nod.
He didn’t smile, but he lowered his clipboard slowly to his side, took a deep breath of the freezing valley air, and blew his whistle to restart the game.
For the next fifteen minutes, we didn’t just compete; we dictated the match. We played simple, structured, disciplined non-league football, built entirely on space, positioning, and communication.
By the time the school floodlights flickered once and shut off at precisely eight o’clock, plunging the pitch into cold, starlit darkness, every single lad on my team was surrounding me near the corner flag, listening to every word I said about defensive body shape and passing angles.
They weren’t thinking about my seven-year ban. They weren’t thinking about carrier bags of cash outside Sal’s chippy.
They were looking at a football coach.
After the floodlights went out, the twenty trialists trudged off the dark turf toward the small changing block behind the school gym.
The air inside the changing room was thick with steam, the sharp smell of Deep Heat, and the metallic tang of twenty sweating lads stripping off wet kit. Metal benches groaned under their weight as boots were unlaced and tossed into the middle of the floor with heavy, hollow thuds.
I sat on the far end of a wooden bench near the cold showers, my legs trembling slightly from the exertion. My size 13 trainers were coated in wet rubber crumb, and my calf muscles felt like pulled piano wire.
Across the room, Liam Vance number 5 was sitting with his head down, unstrapping his shin pads.
"How did Kian get behind you three times, Liam?" Mason asked, pulling his shirt over his head. "You were completely lost out there."
"He was offside," Liam muttered bitterly, tossing his shinpads into his bag. "Kershaw was calling the runs from the back. It’s not fair, is it? He’s played four hundred League One games."
"He wasn’t playing," Kian Doyle chimed in, leaning over from his spot near the pegs, his eyes bright. "He was just telling us where the space was. If you turned your hips properly, I wouldn’t have scored."
"Shut your mouth, Kian," Liam snapped, but there was no real venom in it. He looked across the changing room at me, meeting my eyes for a second before looking down at his socks. "He knows his stuff, though. You can’t deny that."
The door swung open, hinges squeaking, and Lommo walked in, his oversized club coat dripping with rain. He held his clipboard under his arm and a mesh bag of wet footballs in his right hand.
The changing room went dead quiet.
Lommo stood in the center of the room, looking around at the twenty boys.
"Good session," Lommo said, his voice echoing off the damp tiles. "Some of you showed me something tonight. Some of you showed me you need to work harder if you want to play at this level. I’ll be texting the list for Tuesday’s final trial tomorrow morning."
He looked over at me sitting on the bench.
"Kershaw," Lommo barked. "Outside."
I stood up, my knees cracking loudly in the quiet room, and followed him out into the cold drizzle near the dugout.
Lommo set the bag of footballs down on the tarmac. He pulled a pack of Benson & Hedges from his coat pocket, lit one with a plastic lighter, and took a long, slow drag, the orange tip glowing bright in the dark.
"You haven’t lost it," Lommo said, blowing smoke into the rain.
"I’m slow," I said honestly. "My calves are shot."
"I didn’t bring you here to run, Matt," Lommo said, tapping his clipboard. "I brought you here to talk. Did you see the way Hursty listened to you? That lad’s been backing off for three weeks. You gave him two pointers and he won every tackle in the second half."
I didn’t say anything.
"The Chairman wants a defensive coach for the First Team," Lommo continued, leaning against the wooden dugout rail. "The Gaffer Dave Morley is coming down to the ground tomorrow night at six o’clock. I told him about you."
"Did you tell him about the ban?" I asked quietly.
"Dave knows," Lommo said bluntly.
"Dave doesn’t care about seven years ago. Dave cares about staying in the Northern Premier League. We’re conceding two goals a game from set-pieces, Matt. If you can fix our back four, you’ve got a paid coaching contract. Fifty quid a week petrol money, club tracksuit, and a seat on the bench."
My heart gave a heavy, rhythmic thump against my ribs.
A formal coaching contract. Paid. Official.
Before I could answer, a sudden, blinding flash of emerald-green light burst open directly in front of my eyes.
CLICK.
The system notification window expanded in the air between us, floating crisp and clean over Lommo’s glowing cigarette tip:
[Quest Completed: Gain a management position at any football team.]
Reward: 10 EXP
[Level Up! You have reached Level 1.]
New Feature Unlocked: Attribute Menu.
Managerial Reputation: Local (10/100)
I stared at the glowing green letters. The System didn’t wait for contracts or signatures. The moment Lommo offered the job and I felt the internal commitment in my chest, the quest completed.
"Well?" Lommo asked, flicking his cigarette ash onto the wet grass. "Are you coming tomorrow at six, or are you going back to your warehouse?"
I looked at Lommo, then looked up at the dark sky over the valley.
"I’ll be here at six," I said.
Lommo grinned his crooked half-grin, clapped his heavy hand onto my shoulder, and nodded. "Good lad. Now get inside before your trainers freeze to the floor."
I walked back down the hill toward the station in the pouring rain, my boots heavy and my body aching. But inside my head, the System interface remained open, displaying my new Level 1 status screen.
For the first time in seven years, I wasn’t running away from football.
I was going back to work.
***
Enjoying the story? Please consider adding it to your library and leaving a vote! Your support directly helps me write faster and release more Chapters from my backlog.
I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to drop a message or a comment with your thoughts and suggestions on this Chapter.
See you in the next one! ?(⌒▽⌒)?