Chapter 282 - 2 Legs I

He missed it from the seat next to mine.

Stokes came up the steps of the main stand at 20 to 8 on the Friday in his club suit, with the tie done right up to the collar. The floodlights were on and the ground was full under them. He sat down and put his hands flat on his knees.

"I asked Craig where he wanted me," he said. "He said anywhere but the dressing room."

"Why?"

"He said they would look at me instead of him." He looked down at the dugout below us, and then away from it. "He is right. They would have."

"When did you last watch one from up here?"

"Never. Every ban I ever served, I sat in the dressing room." He lifted his hands off his knees and looked at them. "Where do you put these?"

"On your knees."

"That is where I had them." He put them back.

Marsh led the side out with the armband on. He had told Craig on the Sunday that the first leg was his, the third of his 6, and Craig had said yes.

Maguire came out behind him and looked up at the main stand until he found Stokes. Stokes lifted one hand.

"TOWN! TOWN! TOWN!"

"GLO-VERS! GLO-VERS!" from the 500 in the away corner, green and white scarves held up over their heads.

peep.

On 17 minutes Murphy caught one of theirs late on halfway. The referee gave it, and Maguire and Pett both turned to tell him what they thought of it.

Their number 4 did not wait. He put the ball down and hit it long while our back 4 were still looking at the referee.

Stokes was on his feet before the ball landed.

"TURN ROUND!" He had both hands round his mouth. "HARRY! TURN ROUND!"

Nobody on the pitch could hear him. Their top scorer had gone in behind Kettle with no shirt near him. He took one touch to kill it and a second to slide it past Braithwaite. zip along the grass and in.

0-1.

The away corner went up. The rest of the ground went quiet so fast I heard a seat creak behind me.

"WHO WAS ON HIM?" a man shouted from further back. "WHO WAS ON HIM, TOWN?"

"NOBODY!" somebody shouted back at him. "NOBODY WAS!"

Stokes sat down slowly and put his hands back on his knees.

"That is mine," he said.

"You were up here."

"That is what I mean." He watched them kick off again. "Craig will show them that tomorrow. 20 times, he will show them it."

"COME ON, LEN!" from the Bovril End. Marsh was walking back to the centre circle, pointing at each of them in turn. He had been 10 yards from it when the ball went over his head.

peep, peep. 0-1 at half-time. The ground clapped them off, and nobody sang.

Stokes was half out of his seat before the players had reached the tunnel.

"Can I go down?"

"Craig said anywhere but the dressing room, Dean. You heard him."

"He did." He sat back down. "Then I will shout from here, and they will not hear me, and I will feel better for it."

"What would you tell them?"

"Turn round when the whistle goes. Every whistle. Turn round and find your man before you find the referee." He shook his head. "I tell them that every Monday morning, and every Monday morning they groan at me."

"I have heard them groan."

"Then you have heard all of it," he said.

On 58 minutes Pett got down the right for the first time all night and hung one up at the near post. Vardy got there half a yard before his man and volleyed it, crack, and their keeper had not moved when it went in.

1-1. ROAR off the Bovril End.

"VAR-DY! VAR-DY! VAR-DY!"

Stokes did not stand up. He was watching our back line.

"TALK TO THEM, LEN!" he shouted, to a man 50 yards away who could not hear him. "TALK TO THEM NOW!"

3 minutes later their full-back took a throw-in level with our box while the Bovril End was still singing. He threw it long. Their big man at the near post got a flick on it, and their centre-half came round the back of everybody at the far post.

Pett was watching the ball. Kettle was watching the ball. thump of the header, down and in off the post.

1-2.

"NOT AGAIN!" the man behind us shouted. "NOT THE SAME AGAIN, TOWN!"

Stokes put both hands on top of his head and left them there.

We had half an hour to get it back. Mahrez had one tipped over the bar. Maguire put a header over from a corner. Their keeper caught everything else, and their 500 sang the whole of the last 10 minutes.

peep, peep, peeeep.

1-2.

The Bovril End stood and clapped them off. Nobody had gone home early.

"SEE YOU MONDAY, DEAN!" a lad shouted up from the front.

Stokes lifted a hand to him. Then he stood up and buttoned his jacket.

"Monday," he said.

"Monday."

"I will be stood next to them on Monday, chairman. They will hear me on Monday if I have to stand on their feet."

"Start with Harry’s," I said. "He will thank you for it by June."

Sadler was in my office at 9 the next morning. He put a laptop on my desk, turned it round so we could both see it, and did not sit down.

"Twice," he said. "I have watched it 20 times since midnight, and it is twice every time." click. The picture froze on the free kick. "Look at Harry."

"He is looking at the referee."

"4 of them looking at the referee, and the ball 40 yards behind them." click. The ball went over the top. click. Their top scorer was already gone. "Every one of them could have caught him, if they had turned round."

"Marsh was out there."

"Len was out there with a knee that will not turn. He was the one man looking the right way, and he could not get there." click. The picture moved on to the throw-in.

He tapped the screen on Pett, then on Kettle. "3 minutes after we score. Both watching the ball. Nobody on their centre-half."

"And Monday?"

"Dean comes back. That fixes the first one." He shut the laptop. snap of the lid. "The second one I fix by telling them about the first one until they are sick of me. Then I have one question, and you are not going to like it."

"Go on."

"Do I risk the captain on Monday?"

"Ask him."

He did not answer straight away. Then he nodded.

"Dev says the knee was up this morning. A little. He says if it is up like that on Monday morning, he stops it, whatever Len says."

He picked the laptop up and put it under his arm. "You have said that to me about Len since March, chairman. I thought I would hear it once more before I asked him."

"Now you have."

"Now I have." He opened the door.

"What will you say to them on Monday?"

"Nothing new. I will put Dean back in the middle of them and let him say it."

He went out.

I could have said no. Nobody at that club would have argued with me except the man the knee belonged to. I sat at my desk after Sadler had gone and did not ring anybody.

On the Monday morning Margaret drove. She picked me up at 7 in her little blue car, with Maureen already in the back with a road atlas.

It was a bank holiday, dry and warm, and the M25 was empty. Margaret drove at exactly 70 and indicated for every lane she changed into, even when there was nobody in any of them.

"I do not go to away games," Maureen said, somewhere on the M3.

"Neither do I," said Margaret.

"Then why today?" I said.

"Ted asked me on Saturday if I was going." Maureen turned a page of the atlas. "I could not think of a reason to tell him."

"He asked me as well," said Margaret. "In the car park. As if he were asking whether I had paid the gas bill."

She looked at me in the mirror. "There are no away goals in the play-offs. I rang the League on Saturday to be certain. If it finishes 1-0 to us today, it is 2-2. Then 30 minutes more. Then penalties."

"Penalties," Maureen said, to the atlas. "I could not watch penalties."

"And the deed is in my bag."

"Today?"

"It goes where I go until it is signed."

She moved into the inside lane behind a caravan. "It cannot be signed until the trust’s registration comes back, and that will be the week of the final. If there is a final, I want it signed that morning, in front of Ted. If there is not, the Tuesday after."

"What registration?" said Maureen.

"The trust has to be on the register of societies before it can hold anything at all. The papers went off on Thursday."

"What does Ted think we are signing?" said Maureen.

"That nobody sells the ground or changes the name again without asking him," said Margaret, "and 600 others."

"Is Lenny playing?" said Maureen.

"That is for Lenny."

"That is what Dev said when I asked him on Saturday," said Maureen. "Word for word."

"He played the whole game on Friday," said Margaret.

"He is 34," said Maureen.

"He knows how old he is," I said.

"While we are on Wembley." Maureen shut the atlas on her finger. "If it is Wembley, the players’ families go free. Wives, mothers, children, on the club. I want that minuted before anybody tells me what it costs."

"Minute it," I said.

"I already have," said Maureen. "On Saturday. I was only waiting for you to agree with me so that I could tell Priya to start the list."

Huish Park sat on the edge of the town, a lot newer than ours and about the same size. The main stand was seated, with the tunnel and the dugouts in it, and the home end was a covered terrace, packed and green already.

At the other end was the away terrace, open to the sky, with a big electric scoreboard behind it. Priya’s coaches had parked in a row behind that, and 1,600 of ours were already in, most of them on the terrace in the sun with nothing over their heads.

Priya was at the coach door with a clipboard, ticking names.

"1,600," she said. "They gave us 1,600. I could have sold 3,000 by Saturday dinner time. I had a man ring me from Spain."

"What did you tell him?"

"To find a bar with it on and sing as if he was here. He said he would. He said his whole street would hear him."

The team coach was in the car park by the main stand. Marsh got off it last, with his boot bag in one hand, and stopped when he saw who was getting out of Margaret’s car.

"Is that Maureen?"

"It is."

"At an away game." He hitched the bag up. "Then it is a big day."