Chapter 278: Play Up II

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Portsmouth’s players went round the ground. They had been relegated, and they walked round like men who had won something, and the crowd gave it back to them from all 4 sides.

I stood up and clapped them.

"What are you doing?" Ted said.

"Clapping."

"We have just lost 3-0."

"I saw it, Ted."

People in our end were looking at me. Kelly’s lad turned right round in his seat.

"He has gone," somebody said behind me. "The chairman has gone."

"Leave him," Kelly’s lad said, still turned round. "Look at them."

The woman with the bucket had come out to the corner flag with the other trust volunteers. I pointed her out to Ted, and he looked at her. Then he hooked his stick over the seat in front, put his hands together, and clapped twice.

"That is for the lady with the kitchen," he said, and sat down.

Ted was waiting for me on the pavement by the supporters’ bus with his stick hooked over his arm, and he let me help him up the steps, which he never does. We sat halfway down. Before we were out of Portsmouth, Kelly’s lad came up the aisle and crouched next to us.

"Have we blown it, chairman?"

"We have 2 games left."

"That is not what I asked."

"Win them both," I said, "and see where we are."

He thought about that. "Right," he said, and went back to his seat.

We went up the A3 with the sun low behind us. The bus went quiet a few rows at a time. Somebody was snoring. Somebody had a radio on low with the other scores, and nobody asked him to turn it up.

I took the programme out of my coat and gave it to Ted, folded open at the back page.

"Ted."

"What?"

"I am going to give the town a share in the club."

He read what I had written on the programme, and then he turned his whole head round to me.

"You are what?"

"One share. A special one. It goes to the supporters, to a trust anybody can join for a pound, and it stays with them for good."

"What does it do?"

"It gets a vote on the ground. On the name. On the colours. On any money this club ever borrows, from anybody. And it puts one of them on the board, at the table, every meeting."

"A vote on what you do?"

"On what anybody does."

Ted thought about that for a mile or so, with the programme on his knee.

"What does Margaret say?"

"I have not told her yet. She will write it so I can never get out of it."

"Good," Ted said. "Let her." He looked at me sideways. "Is this because your money was late?"

"Yes."

"Would this have stopped it?"

"No. Margaret’s rule does that now. This stops the next man borrowing against the ground when his number does not turn up." I looked out at the fields going past. "It is for the lady with the bucket, Ted. So it never hangs on whether one man’s number turns up."

"Not even yours?"

"Mine most of all."

Ted did not say anything for a long time. The bus went over a bridge, rumble of the joints under the wheels, and down the other side.

"In all my life in that end," he said at last, "nobody ever once asked me anything." He folded his hands on top of his stick. "Who signs it?"

"Somebody has to go first."

"Do not look at me."

"I am looking at you, Ted."

"My joined-up writing went the same winter as my knees," he said. "You will get capitals."

"Capitals will do."

He turned to the window. He took his cap off, looked at it, and put it back on.

Margaret had the draft on my desk at 10 o’clock on the Monday. She had written it on the Sunday, at home, by hand first.

"Read the first clause," she said. "The rest is detail."

DEED OF THE SPECIAL SHARE · Tilbrook Town Football Club · draft, Monday 22 April 2013 1.1 The club issues 1 Special Share to the Tilbrook Town Supporters’ Trust. 1.2 Without the written consent of the holder, the club shall not sell, lease, charge or leave its ground; change its name, its colours or its badge; or borrow, beyond ordinary trade credit, from any person, including any shareholder. 1.3 The holder may appoint 1 director. 1.4 Nothing in this clause 1 may be changed without the holder’s consent.

TED’S PRICE · Monday 22 April · Tilbrook to go up: 20 to 1

"Including any shareholder," I said.

"Including you." Margaret took her glasses off. "If you ever want to lend this club a penny, you will have to ask a room full of Ted Cutlers first. I wanted you to read that before you sign it."

"I want it written down."

"I know you do. I am making sure you know what it means." She put her glasses back on. "There is no trust yet. A share needs somebody to hold it."

"Then we start one. Wednesday night, in the bar."

"I will bring the papers," she said. "You bring the people."

Maureen had read it over my shoulder from behind my chair.

"It does not cost the club a penny," she said. "I checked."

On the Tuesday night, at Meadow Lane, Sadler picked Marsh.

He rang me at 4 that afternoon to tell me, which he did not have to do.

"I told you I would keep his first one till I needed a captain more than a centre-half," he said. "I need a captain tonight."

"It is your pick, Craig."

"I know it is. I am telling you because he will want you to know." He rang off.

Stan told me afterwards what had happened in the tunnel. Maguire took the armband off his own arm and held it out. Marsh looked at it and put it on.

"Neither of them said anything, chairman," Stan said. "40 years I have been in tunnels. I have never heard one go that quiet."

Notts County had nothing left to play for, and they played like it for an hour. We had everything to play for, and for an hour we played like men who were frightened of it.

Marsh talked the whole time. I could hear him from the stand.

"HOLD. HOLD THE LINE, HARRY." clap clap of his hands. "LET HIM HAVE IT THERE. HE CANNOT HURT US THERE."

Every ball that came into our box, he was in the way of it. He was a yard slower than he used to be, and he was in the right place every time.

On 64 minutes Mahrez put a free kick on Vardy’s head at the far post. thud. 1-0.

On 78 Sadler took Marsh off. He walked to the touchline at the pace the knee allowed, and the 400 of ours who had come up on a Tuesday night stood and sang his name.

"LEN-NY MARSH! LEN-NY MARSH!"

At the line he stopped and looked up at where I was sitting, and held up one finger.

5 left.

I found him in the corridor afterwards, sitting on a bench with his back to the wall and his boot off and his leg out straight.

"Craig picked that one," he said, before I could say anything. "The other 5 are mine. I will tell him when."

"That was the deal, Len."

"It was." He leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. "I am just saying it out loud so I can hear it."

We won 1-0. 72 points. 45 played. 6th. 1 to play.

40 people came to the bar under the stand on the Wednesday night. I had expected 10. Kieran brought half his volunteers. Terry Brennan stood at the back with his arms folded. Danny had his notebook in his hand and did not open it.

"Is any of this on the record?" he asked Margaret.

"All of it," she said. "It goes on the wall in the club shop on Friday, where anybody can read it before they buy a scarf."

Margaret stood at a table by the window with 2 sheets of paper and a pen. The first sheet was the rules of the Tilbrook Town Supporters’ Trust. The second was a list, with a line for every name.

She explained it in 5 minutes, standing up.

"Anybody can join. A pound a year. One member, one vote, whether you have been coming for 60 years or since Christmas." She held up the first sheet. "The trust holds the share. Nobody in this room is ever paid a penny for any of it. Questions."

"Does he get a vote?" Terry said from the back, nodding at me.

"He gets a pound’s worth," Margaret said. "Same as you."

"Then I am in," Terry said.

A woman near the bar put her hand up. It was Kelly, whose lad starts the tide song. "Can he join? He is 16."

"16 is old enough," Margaret said. "He can vote before he can drink in here."

"He done more singing than the rest of us put together," Kieran said, and the room laughed, and Kelly’s lad went red to the ears.

"Then who is first?" Margaret said.

Ted was sitting at the front with his stick between his knees. He looked round the room, at Kieran and Terry and Danny and the lads from the Bovril End, and then at me.

"72," he said. "One game. Win it on Saturday and we are in, whatever anybody else does." He stood up with one hand on the table. "I am 79. I had better go first."

Margaret turned the list round and gave him the pen. "Tonight it is a pound and your name, Ted," she said. "The trust sells shares in the summer."

He bent over the table for a long time. His hand shook. He stopped, then started again in capitals, one letter at a time. scratch.

TED CUTLER.