Chapter 279: 10 Men I

By Saturday morning there were 411 names under Ted’s.

Margaret had pinned the trust’s rules to the wall of the club shop at 9 on the Friday, a typed page in a plastic sleeve, with the list beside it. Ted’s name sat at the top. Under it came every kind of handwriting the town had.

ding of the bell over the shop door, every half a minute. The queue went back past the scarves and out onto the pavement.

Ted was standing in front of the list in his 1996 scarf when I came in at half past 11. He had his reading glasses on the end of his nose and his stick under one arm.

“411,” he said, without turning round. “Priya says. 412 with the woman who signed while I was stood here.”

“Morning, Ted.”

“There is a boy of 9 on there.” He put his finger under a line near the bottom, a big wobbling D and an A and the rest of the name sliding off the edge of the box.

“His dad held the pen with him. A pound out of his pocket money. Margaret says he gets his vote when he is 16.”

Priya was behind the till with a stack of forms under her elbow and a biro behind each ear.

“We have run out of forms twice,” she said. “Maureen gave me a ream of paper from her cupboard and wrote it in the book. Ted, you are in the way of the door.”

“I am reading.”

“You have read it 4 times.”

“It is longer every time I get to the bottom.”

A painter in white overalls got to the front of the queue with a pound coin held up.

“Is it a pound?” he said.

“A pound a year,” said Priya, “and you get a vote.”

“A vote on what?”

Ted pointed his stick at me. “On him.”

The man looked at me, and then at the pound, and put it on the counter. click of the coin on the glass. “Right. Where do I write?”

“Under the boy,” said Priya. “That is 413.”

“What happens to my pound?”

“It goes in the trust’s account. Not the club’s. Margaret opened it on Thursday with the trust’s name on it.”

“And it stays there,” said Ted.

Ted took his glasses off and folded them. “7 to 1, this morning,” he said.

“Who says?”

“The girl in the bookmaker’s. On Monday it was 20. Today she did not have to ring anybody.” He put the glasses in his top pocket. “I said it on Wednesday and I will say it again. Win, and that is it. I am too old for sums, son.”

“That is the deal, Ted.”

“Then win.” He went out past the queue, tap of his stick on the step, and the queue stood back to let him by.

At a quarter past 2 I went down the corridor under the main stand as far as the kit room and no further. The dressing room door was shut, and I left it shut.

Stan had the substitutes’ shirts on hangers along the hooks, numbers facing out. He was smoothing the 5 with the flat of his hand.

“Bench,” he said. He hung the 5 back on its hook and nodded past me. “He is behind you.”

Marsh was in the corridor in his club tracksuit with a bottle of water. He had come from Dev’s room. He was walking on the knee the way he had walked on it since Christmas.

“Dev has passed me,” he said. “Before you ask.”

“I was going to ask why the bench.”

“I walked into Craig’s office on Thursday before he had his coat off and said Saturday, bench. He said yes.” He drank some of the water. “Dean has carried that back line since March. He has earned the last day. And I wanted to be sat 10 yards from it.”

“In case.”

“In case of anything.” He nodded at the hooks. “I said real ones, Sam. I never said I would start them all. The last day is real wherever I sit.”

It was the second of his 6. He had picked to sit down for it.

bang of the dressing room door. Sadler put his head out, saw us, and pointed at Marsh. “In. You as well, Stan.” He looked at me. “Chairman.”

“Craig.”

The door shut again. Through it I heard him start talking, low, and nobody else.

By 3 the ground was full right up under the roof. Raj was in Margaret’s seat beside mine, behind our dugout, with a cup of Bovril going cold between his knees. He had shut the cab for the day and put a card in the windscreen that said so.

“Crewe won a cup at Wembley this month,” he said, when the red shirts came out. “It was on the radio in the cab. Middle of the table, nothing to play for. They will be relaxed.”

“Very.”

“I hate a relaxed man. You cannot get a fare out of a relaxed man after midnight. He wants to walk.” He blew on the Bovril out of habit. “What do we need?”

“A win.”

“And a draw?”

“Then somebody does sums, and Ted told the whole shop this morning he will not. In front of half the town.”

“Then we win.”

The Bovril End had the tide song going before the teams had finished shaking hands. boom of the drum under it, boom, boom, and the roof threw the whole thing back down onto the grass.

“OH, THE TIDE IS COMING IN, THE TIDE IS COMING IN! FROM THE SEAWALL TO THE BOVRIL, THE TIDE IS COMING IN!”

“ALEX! ALEX!” from the 400 in the away corner. Then the whole ground drowned them out. “COME ON YOU TOWN! COME ON YOU TOWN!”

Down at the covered end I could see Ted in his seat in the middle of the dry, cap on, not singing.

Sadler had kept the side that won 7 in 8, with Stokes back in beside Maguire and Marsh among the 7 on the bench with Gray, Gayle and Kane.

peep.

For 20 minutes we kicked it too hard. Every pass was a yard long or a yard behind. Crewe kept the ball in little triangles in the middle of the pitch, 3 men at a time, and made us run after it.

“SLOW IT DOWN!” Doyle was up on the edge of the technical area, bawling it. Sadler stood behind him in his coat and spoke in his ear, and Doyle shouted it on. “WE HAVE GOT ALL DAY! ALL DAY, GARY!”

The woman in the row in front turned round in her seat. She had a programme rolled up in her fist and a scarf older than Ted’s. She had been 412 on Ted’s list.

“Is it meant to feel like this, Mr Mercer?”

“Yes,” I said.

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

“40 years my husband sat in this seat.” She turned back round. “He never once told me it felt like this.”

On 22 minutes their number 8 turned out of a tackle on halfway and looked up. Pett had pushed on. Their centre-forward was already going, off Maguire’s shoulder into the empty grass behind him, and the ball dropped over the top for him 35 yards from goal. thud of it landing.

Stokes was the only man near. He came across from the left of our back 4, and I watched him make up the ground, 10 yards, then 5, and then I watched him decide.

He did not look at the ball. He took their man by the shoulder with one hand and put his hip into him, and they went down together a yard outside the box.

peep.

“OFF! OFF! OFF!” from the away corner.