Chapter 266 - 7 in 8 II

By 7 the ground was empty and the laundry under the main stand was going full tilt, 4 washing machines in a row. slosh, slosh behind the glass. The match ball sat on the bench beside Stan, scrubbed white, under a radio on the shelf.

"Vardy brought it in," Stan said. "Asked me to get the mud off. He said, ’We let 2 in at home, Stan.’ That was all he said to me."

"Did you get the mud off?"

"Course I did."

pip, pip, pip. The 7 o’clock news.

"Finance ministers have agreed a rescue package for Cyprus," the radio said, "which includes a one-off levy on bank deposits: 6.75 percent on deposits below 100,000 euros, and 9.9 percent above. There have been queues at cash machines across the island."

Stan turned it up. "They are taking it out of people’s savings?"

"That is what it sounds like."

"Our Jean and me went to Cyprus in 1984. Lovely people." He shook his head at the radio. "Imagine going down your bank on a Saturday for your own money and finding the queue. Poor sods."

"You have gone quiet," he said after a minute.

"Thinking."

"About Cyprus?"

"About money."

"Leave money to Maureen. She enjoys it." He held a shirt out at arm’s length, looking for grass stains. "Fold, chairman."

That night people in Larnaca with savings in a bank would sit up looking for somewhere a finance minister could not reach, and some of them would find the coin.

It was about 47 dollars that night. Inside a fortnight it would be close to double, and in the second week of April higher than it had ever stood. I held it. Stan handed me a pile of shirts, and I folded them.

On the Tuesday, against Preston, the wall turned the side inside out again. Quinn and Reece were red. The back 4 came back in with Kanté and Murphy, Rowe kept his place, Maguire had the armband back, and Sadler sent Vardy up to the main stand to sit with Marsh.

I watched that one from the Bovril End, behind the goal, in among the people who had made up the song. I wanted to hear it from the inside.

Preston came to stop us and stopped us for an hour. Every corner we won, they hung 2 men off Maguire, one in front and one behind, and every time he went up between them he got nothing clean. thud of a shoulder in his back. thud again.

"They are holding him!" the woman next to me shouted. "Ref! Are you blind? They are holding him!"

On 61 Mahrez went over to take a corner, and Stokes jogged out to the edge of the box with his hand up for a short one. Both of Maguire’s markers turned to look at him.

Mahrez swung it to the far post instead. Maguire came from the penalty spot with nobody touching him, and the ball came off his forehead with a crack I heard from behind the goal. 1-0.

"HAR-RY MA-GUIRE! HAR-RY MA-GUIRE!"

He did not come to us. He ran straight to Stokes and took him by both ears.

The woman had hold of my arm with both hands. "Did you see Stokes? Did you see him? He has never asked for a short corner in his life!"

"He was not asking for one," I said.

"I know that now!"

Preston had 1 shot in the last half hour, from 30 yards, and it landed 3 rows behind me. At the whistle the terrace sang the tide song again, louder, because by now they had all learned the words.

52 points. Played 35, 11 to play.

It was the number I had given Danny Vine in August, when the bookmakers had us 5 to 4 on to go down. The Bovril End was too busy with the tide song to count. I said it once to myself, and went round under the main stand.

Sadler came in off the pitch while I was standing by the boot room. He stopped beside me, which he does not do.

"52," he said.

"52."

"With 11 to play." He looked up the stairs that go to the press box, where Danny would still be typing. "That is my job done. The rest is yours. Go on, then."

He went into the dressing room and shut the door. click.

Danny had his coat on and his laptop open on his knees. He did not look up. "Not 52 any more, then."

"6th."

"Is that a quote?"

"Put my name under it."

tak tak tak of the keys. "Ted’s bookmaker reads my back page, you know."

"I hope he does."

Priya had 17 coaches booked for Milton Keynes and a clipboard on the counter of the club shop when Ted came in on the Thursday, out of the sleet, his cap dark with it.

"Cross me off Saturday, love."

"You have been to every away game since August, Ted."

"Not that one. I will not pay at the gate of a club they took away from its town and drove up the M1." He looked at me over the box of Kane shirts I was carrying. "You will not get me there, Sam, not for 3 points or 30."

"Then we will bring you them back."

"Do," he said, and went back out into the sleet.

It sleeted all the way up the M1 on the Saturday. The coldest March since 1962, the papers said afterwards. Sadler had his first 11 back.

I spent the warm-up by the corner flag with Robbie Doyle, collars up. The home substitutes were working in bibs in front of us. Doyle tipped his head towards the end of their line.

"That is him," he said.

A tall boy, 16, all legs, laying passes back to a coach first time. They had given him a game in the Cup in November. Doyle and I had talked about him in the summer, with the academy rules open on my desk.

He took a ball on the half-turn with his back to us and played it off the outside of his foot without looking where it went.

Before he was 19 a club in north London would pay for him, and at 22 he would play in a World Cup semi-final.

Doyle watched him lay one more pass off. Then he looked up at the main stand, where 4 men sat with notebooks on their knees and club coats zipped to the chin.

"And who are they here for?"

"Mahrez," I said. "Watch where they look."

Doyle went along to the bench without another word about the boy. Neither of us said his name to anybody, then or on the coach home. He did not get on. He sat on the end of their bench with a coat over his knees till the final whistle.

The 4 men watched Mahrez all afternoon. On 31 he went past his full-back, then past the same man again, and pulled it back for Gray to side-foot in at the near post. swish. 1-0.

Kane came on for Gray, and on 77 he held the ball up with his back to goal and rolled it into Mahrez’s stride. Mahrez curled it into the far top corner from the edge of the box. thwump of the net against the stanchion. 2-0.

"TIL-BROOK! TIL-BROOK!"

Braithwaite made one save all day, low to his left, slap of the glove. The 900 who had come up on Priya’s coaches sang the tide song into the sleet till the end.

Dev came down the coach aisle on the way home, writing minutes, and sat across from me.

"No outfield player has done 3 full in 8 since the 2nd of March," he said. "8 goals in 8 days, and 5 of them in the last half hour. They had nothing left at the end. We had."

"Tell Craig."

"Craig knows. He did the sums himself last night."

Mahrez leaned over the seat in front. "Chairman. The men with the books in the stand."

"I saw them, Riyad."

"My agent will ring you on Monday."

"He rings me every Monday."

"This Monday he will ring twice." He sat back down and put his headphones on.

"Roll it, do not drag it!" Kieran shouted. "Roll it!"

It had frozen hard on the Monday night, and Kieran had put a message on the club website. At 7 on Tuesday morning 60 people were on the pitch in gloves and scarves, rolling back the long white sheets. fwump of each one lifting off the grass.

"Is there a cup of tea in this?" a woman in a bobble hat called back.

"Tea, and your name in the programme next home game!"

Kieran came past me with an armful of rope, red in the face. "Never had 60 before, boss. Never had 10. I done Christmas on me own."

Wilf was at the far end in his flat cap, leaning on a shovel. He had been to Glasgow and back. He folded a corner of the cover over and stood on it.

"I saw him once," he said. "I do not put my name to a lad on once. I am going back."

"Tell me about the once."

"Left foot. Never stops running. He went up and down that touchline for 90 minutes, and he wanted the ball at the end the same as he wanted it at the start."

"And the ground?"

"They play in the national stadium, Sam. 52,000 seats, and an amateur side in it." He bent for the next corner. "I did not see anybody else there watching him that I knew."

"When will you go back?"

"Twice more before I tell you anything you can sign. Hold that end."