Rain was coming down in steady, slanting sheets by the time I stepped out of the changing block gate at St Wilfrid’s.
It wasn’t the soft, gentle mist you get on spring mornings over the hills.
It was that bitter, sharp Lancashire drizzle that finds every gap in your collar, soaks straight through cheap trackie bottoms, and turns street trainers into squelching wet sponges within thirty seconds.
Down the steep asphalt hill leading away from the school, three trialists were trotting ahead of me under the yellow glow of the streetlights.
Young Hursty, the sixteen-year-old plasterer’s apprentice, was walking with his shoulders hunched against the wind, his giant size-12 boots dangling by their laces over his left shoulder like a pair of dead birds.
A battered white Transit van pulled up alongside the curb with a loud, clattering diesel idle clatter-clatter-clatter and a man in a grease-stained high-vis jacket leaned across the passenger seat to push the door open.
"Get in, soft lad!" the driver shouted over the engine noise. "Your mum’s had your tea on the table for twenty minutes!"
Hursty hopped into the passenger seat, but before he pulled the heavy door shut, he caught sight of me walking past in the rain. He stuck his head out into the wet air, his dirt-streaked face splitting into a wide, bright grin.
"See you Tuesday, Matt!" Hursty yelled. "Thanks for showing me that hip trick on the number 5!"
"Keep your line on Tuesday, Hursty!" I shouted back, shielding my eyes against the rain. "And don’t back off into your keeper’s lap!"
"I won’t!" he shouted, and the van door slammed shut THUNG before the Transit pulled away, spraying a double plume of black diesel exhaust and wet road grit into the night air.
I watched the red taillights disappear down the hill.
We had lost the half-pitch scrimmage 4–2.
The bib team had better fitness, sharper ball-handlers, and two college lads who had played together since primary school.
But watching Hursty turn out of trouble, watching Kian Doyle exploit the open channel behind Liam Vance’s right shoulder three times in a row, had ignited something deep in my chest that had been dead for seven years.
They hadn’t looked at me as Matt Kershaw, the disgraced centre-back who sold corners outside Sal’s chippy. They had looked at me as a football coach who knew how to win a match.
My size 13 trainers made heavy, squelching sounds against the pavement as I walked past the Fleece pub. My calves felt like two sacks of wet sand, and every step down the incline sent a sharp, dull ache through my right knee where I’d bruised it against the coffee table during my laptop spill.
Near the bottom of the hill, the small train station at Ellerby Bridge sat tucked under a stone railway arch.
A single fluorescent light tube hummed overhead on the deserted platform bzzt... bzzt... bzzt casting a cold, flickering blue light over a rusted green metal bench and a broken vending machine.
The rain rattled against the corrugated iron roof with a sound like throwing handfuls of dried peas against a tin tray.
I sat down on the wooden bench, resting my elbows on my knees, my breath rising in thick, white plumes into the freezing valley air.
Nobody else was on the platform. Just me, a dripping umbrella leaning against a poster for a local farm show, and the quiet hum of the valley.
I closed my eyes, took a long, slow breath, and focused my mind on the green icon floating in the top-right corner of my vision.
CLICK.
The Level 1 status window unfolded in the cold air directly in front of my face, glowing crisp, sharp, and perfectly rendered against the dark stone wall across the tracks.
[Level Up! Current Level: 1]
EXP: 0/50
Managerial Reputation: Local (10/100)
Unlocked Features:
Attribute Menu (Basic)
Tactical Overview (Standard)
Session Log (Last 24 Hours)
"Attribute Menu," I muttered under my breath, testing the words on my tongue.
Nothing happened. The text stayed static.
I tried again, focusing my thoughts directly on the words Attribute Menu, reaching out mentally the way I had done when expanding Josh’s profile in my hallway.
BZZT.
A new interface panel expanded downward like a roller blind, widening until it occupied my entire field of vision. It was styled in the exact emerald-green and dark-slate palette of Touchline Manager, complete with clean white grid lines and bold headings.
I looked directly at Craig Lomax’s profile, which was still saved in my temporary session memory from the pitch.
Staff Profile: Craig Lomax
Role: Assistant Manager / First Team Coach (Ellerby Bridge Town)
Age: 38 | Reputation: Local
Below his name was the main data table a massive grid divided into three primary categories: Technical, Mental, and Physical. There were thirty-five individual attribute boxes arranged in neat rows.
I leaned forward on the cold wooden bench, staring at the grid, expecting to see Lommo’s complete coaching numbers his Tactical Knowledge, his Man Management, his Working With Youngsters, his Defensive Coaching.
My jaw tightened.
Across the entire thirty-five-box grid, thirty-four of the boxes were completely blacked out, stamped in bold, blood-red text:
[LOCKED]
[LOCKED]
[LOCKED]
[LOCKED]
Out of thirty-five total attribute boxes, there was only one single, solitary number visible on the entire screen.
Right in the middle of the Mental column, tucked between two red [LOCKED] boxes, a single white box glowed clearly:
Work Rate: 161
I stared at it. I blinked three times, rubbed my wet eyes with the back of my sleeve, and looked again.
Thirty-four red locks. One number.
"You have got to be joking," I whispered out loud to the empty platform.
I focused my mind on the locked box next to Work Rate the one labeled Determination.
A sharp red warning banner flashed across the middle of the screen:
[Attribute Restricted]
Detailed analytical data requires Managerial Reputation: [Regional] or higher.
Current Managerial Reputation: Local (10/100).
I sat back against the bench, letting out a long, bitter laugh that echoed off the damp stone archway.
Seven years of isolation.
A dead laptop.
A ruined keyboard sloshed with stale Stella Artois.
A knee scraped raw on a coffee table. Seeing floating green boxes over my brother’s head, nine-year-old Tyler Walsh, and a terrier with a flat football.
All of it, just to unlock a single stat on Lommo’s card that I already knew back in 2011 when we were playing away at Brentford on a freezing Tuesday night. Of course Lommo had a Work Rate of 161 out of 200.
The bloke ran until his lungs bled and tackled wingers through the advertising hoardings. I didn’t need a magical video-game System integrated into my skull to tell me Craig Lomax worked hard.
"Thirty-four bloody locks," I grumbled, rubbing my temples. "Piss-easy game."
A two-tone chime echoed from the loudspeaker above the bench DING-DONG.
"The 20:42 Northern Rail service to Hallowfield is arriving at Platform 1. Please stand back from the platform edge."
Down the track, a pair of bright yellow headlights cut through the slanting rain. A two-carriage diesel pacer train rattled around the bend clatter-clack, clatter-clack, PSHHH slowing down as its brakes squealed sharply against the wet steel rails.
The double doors slid open with a heavy pneumatic hiss TSHH.
I stepped into the warm, brightly lit carriage. The air inside smelled of wet wool, stale instant coffee, diesel fumes, and the damp heaters blowing hot air along the floorboards.
The train was nearly empty.
A tired nurse in blue scrubs was leaning her head against the double-glazed window, fast asleep with her phone clutched in her lap.
Two blokes in orange high-vis trousers were sitting near the back, sharing a greasy paper bag of chips from the chippy near the station, talking loudly about Burnley’s result on Saturday.
I walked down the aisle, my rubber soles sticking slightly to the blue patterned carpet, and sat down in a four-seater bay near the middle of the carriage.
The train jolted forward THUMP and accelerated out of Ellerby Bridge, the dark valley walls swallowing the lights of the town behind us.
I rested my head back against the worn moquette seat, looking at my reflection in the dark glass of the window.
Beyond my reflection, floating in the center of the dark glass, my status screen was still open.
I bypassed the locked Attribute Menu and navigated to the bottom option on the list: Session Log (Last 24 Hours).
CLICK.