Chapter 281 - 10 Men III

"KAN-Té IN THE BOX AND THE TIDE IS COMING IN!"

Kanté had stopped on the penalty spot with both hands on top of his head. He looked at the net as if he wanted to see the ball was still in it.

Vardy reached him before anybody and picked him up off the grass. Mahrez kissed the top of his head. Then Kanté got down and ran back to halfway before anybody else had finished, and stood there waiting for Crewe to kick off.

In the life before, I had watched him win 2 league titles and a World Cup. I had never seen him look as surprised as he did on that halfway line.

Sadler did not move. He held both hands out flat at Marsh, palms down, and Marsh turned round and shouted it for him.

"NOTHING CHANGES! WE KEEP IT!"

"Is your manager always like that?" said Edna. "Does he never jump up?"

"Never," I said. "Not once in 3 years."

On the hour Crewe pushed a third man up front. We still had the ball. Mahrez stood on it on the touchline with 2 red shirts in front of him and waited for them to come.

"COME ON, THEN!" a man shouted behind me, at Crewe, not at us. "COME AND GET IT!"

whistle off the main stand, long and low, every time a Crewe player arrived a yard late.

"How long?" said Raj.

"25."

"How long now?"

"24."

They had one chance all half, a corner on 70. Their centre-half got above Maguire at the far post and put his header over the bar into the Bovril End. ping of it off a crush barrier. Somebody caught it and threw it back, and the whole end applauded the throw.

Vardy came off 4 minutes later. He had chased their 2 centre-halves since 3 o’clock and never let either of them have the ball in peace. He walked off pointing at the sky with both hands, clap, clap, clap from 8,000 people.

Gray went on in his place. Sadler held him by the arm on the line and pointed at the halfway line. For the next 19 minutes Gray did not come back over it, not even for their corners.

"Is he not tracking back?" said Edna.

"He is not supposed to."

Marlon Rowe went on for Quinn with 4 minutes left and tackled the first red shirt that came near him.

The board went up. 4 minutes.

"4?" Raj said. "Where has he got 4 from?"

"Vardy took his time walking off."

"Vardy can take as long as he likes."

"WE HAVE ONLY GOT 10 MEN! WE HAVE ONLY GOT 10 MEN!"

On 93 minutes Crewe won a corner and sent everybody up except one. Their keeper stayed at home. Braithwaite came for the cross through 3 bodies and caught it clean, slap of the gloves, and before he was down he was looking.

He rolled it out to Kanté. Kanté gave it to Mahrez on the turn. Mahrez went.

"GO ON!" Raj was on his feet. "GO ON, RIYAD!"

He carried it 40 yards with one defender running backwards in front of him. Gray came up on his left, wide, quicker than anybody in the ground. Mahrez waited, and waited, until the defender had to choose. Then he slid it across.

Gray took one touch out of his feet and passed it past the keeper’s right hand into the far corner. pock of it against the stanchion.

2-0.

The bench came out to meet him, Kane first and Stan last with a towel over his shoulder. Gray went under all of them in front of our dugout, 3 rows below me.

"AN-DRE GRAY! AN-DRE GRAY!"

peep, peep, peeeep.

Marsh bent over with his hands on his knees in the centre circle and stayed there. Maguire went and stood beside him until he straightened up, and carried his shin pads off for him. Kanté was going round shaking hands with every Crewe player he could find.

Raj had both arms round me from the side and was shouting into my ear. "WE ARE IN! SAM! WE ARE IN, ARE WE NOT? TELL ME WE ARE IN!"

"We are in."

"Again."

"WE ARE IN, RAJ."

My hands would not keep still. I held the back of Edna’s seat, and she put her hand on top of mine for a second without turning round.

Then she unrolled her programme and smoothed it flat on her knee. "He would have liked that," she said. "All of it. Even the first 20 minutes."

"Do we know yet?" Raj said.

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"Now I do."

Priya was already coming back along the row. She sat down on the step by my feet and turned her phone face up.

"5 o’clock," she said. "Ready?"

"Go on."

"Bury 3, Yeovil 2."

"They lost!" said Frank behind me. "Yeovil lost!"

"They are still 4th," said Edna. "We cannot get to 77. Sit down, Frank."

"Brentford 0, Doncaster 1."

"Brentford have blown it, then," said Frank.

"Sheffield United 0, Preston 0."

That was the one.

"75," said Frank. "They are on 75. We are on 75. Is it goal difference? Somebody tell me it is goal difference."

"It is goal difference," said Priya, loud enough for 4 rows to hear her. "We are 5th. It is Yeovil. First leg here, Friday night."

The people with radios had it by then as well. It went along the main stand in both directions, row by row, and across to the Bovril End, and the roar came down off the roof and did not stop.

"FRI-DAY NIGHT! FRI-DAY NIGHT! FRI-DAY NIGHT!"

"Priya said Yeovil or Brentford," Raj said in my ear. "Which is better?"

"Yeovil finished 2 points under Brentford. And Friday is here."

"Then it is better."

LEAGUE ONE · FINAL TABLE · Saturday 27 April 2013 1 · Doncaster Rovers · P46 · 84 · Champions 2 · AFC Bournemouth · P46 · 83 · Promoted 3 · Brentford · P46 · 79 4 · Yeovil Town · P46 · 77 5 · Tilbrook Town · P46 · 75 6 · Sheffield United · P46 · 75 7 · Swindon Town · P46 · 74 Semi-finals: Tilbrook Town v Yeovil Town · Sheffield United v Brentford

PFA LEAGUE ONE TEAM OF THE YEAR 2012-13 · named in London, Sunday 28 April 2013 Goalkeeper: Swindon Town Defenders: AFC Bournemouth · Doncaster Rovers · Tilbrook Town (Harry Maguire, 6) · AFC Bournemouth Midfielders: AFC Bournemouth · Crewe Alexandra · Notts County · Doncaster Rovers Forwards: Yeovil Town · Coventry City

They went round the pitch together at the end, the 10 who had finished it and the ones who had come off. Maguire led them. Marsh came last, slower than all of them. At every corner Maguire stopped the line and waited for him to catch up.

"MAR-SHY! MAR-SHY!" from the main stand as he came past us, and he lifted one hand without looking up.

"KAN-Té! KAN-Té! KAN-Té!"

Kanté walked round behind Vardy, as if Vardy were a wall he could stand behind.

"He is hiding," Raj said.

"He does not like the singing."

"He has just scored the goal that put us in."

"That is why he is hiding."

When they reached the covered end, Ted was on his feet in the dry with his cap in his hand.

Priya held her phone up to me from the step. "Kieran says the list is past 600."

Stan met me at the bottom of the stairs.

"He will not give me that shirt," he said. "I have asked him twice. He says it is not going in the wash."

"Then leave it with him, Stan."

"I was going to," he said, and went back into the kit room.

Sadler was outside the dressing room door, with Friday’s side already in his head and none of it on paper.

"Friday," he said. "No Dean. They will give him the 1 match for that, and it runs into the play-offs."

"He chose it."

"He did. Harry is 20. Len has got what he has got." He looked down the corridor toward the noise. "And their top scorer has 23 in the league. Nobody in the division has more."

"What do you need?"

"Nothing you can get me, chairman." He took his coat off at last and folded it over his arm. "Do you know what Dean did at half-time? He was sat on the end of the bench in his vest when they came in, and he did not say a word while I talked."

"And then?"

"Then before they went back out he went round every one of them. Every one. Shook their hand like it was the end of the season."

"It is the end of the season."

"Not for any of them. Not yet." He looked back at the door. "Go and see him. He is sat in the tunnel and he will not come in."

Stokes was halfway along it, on the bench by the referee’s door, showered and changed, with the match shirt over his shoulder. There was still grass on the back of it, and a long white smear from the line where he had gone down.

He saw me and stood up.

"Told you," he said. "Screwed to the plaster."

Out on the pitch they had started on his name again. "DEAN-O! DEAN-O!" It came down the tunnel from the far end, 8,000 people and the roof. He listened to it for a while with his hand flat on the shirt. When he spoke again, it was quieter.

"I miss Friday, mind."