Chapter 293: The Coach I

She closed the book on the Tuesday night. On the Monday after, with 13 days left on the June line, the man whose name had been in my notebook against Craig Sadler’s job drove down from the Midlands to meet him.

He was due at the training ground at half past 5. At 2 Margaret came through to my office with his wage on one sheet of paper. She checked it once more on the calculator, tap tap tap, before she let go of it.

“If Craig says yes tonight, this is what he costs,” she said. “First-team coach, 2 years, the same as Craig. I have put him in with the first-team wages.”

I read it through to the bottom.

“There is another way to do it,” Margaret said. “If he took the under-18s 2 mornings a week, part of his wage could go on the academy budget, and that part comes off the sum. It would be honest, as long as he really did the mornings.”

“He would be Doyle’s in the mornings and Craig’s in the afternoons.”

“Yes.”

“I want him to be Craig’s all day. Put the whole wage in with the players. It comes out of the season tickets, the same as theirs.”

“The season tickets can carry it,” Margaret said, and put the sheet in the folder for Craig.

Priya put her head round the door with her coat half on. “Southend away in the cup, Tuesday the 6th of August. An Essex night, Sam, and Kieran says he will get the bus. I am going to ask Roots Hall for 2,000 tickets.” And she went.

It is 5 minutes in the car from Marsh Road to the training ground, and I got there at 5. His car was already in the car park, an old red hatchback with the back seats folded flat, and he was leaning on the bonnet.

He was 33, a head shorter than me, with the frame of a man who had been quick once and still walked as if he might need to be. When he came across to meet me, his left knee did not bend all the way.

“Mr Mercer? Joe Tredwell.” He shook my hand. “I came early to look at your grass. I hope nobody minds.”

“Look at anything you like.”

“Who cuts it?”

“Kieran. He is 19, and he will tell you it is the best grass in Essex.”

“Is it?”

“He works on it every day. Tell him if you think so.”

He had coached the under-18s at a Championship academy in the Midlands for 6 years. Before that he had played centre-midfield in the Conference, until his knee gave out at 23.

I had driven up twice in the winter to watch his boys on a Saturday morning. I stood at the far end of a training pitch in a coat with the collar up, and he never knew I was there.

In the life before, 8 or 9 years on, his was the name every club in trouble rang first.

He took a sports bag out of the boot, thunk of the lid coming down, and we walked the long way round, past the brick building and the near pitches.

“Can I ask you something before we get there?” he said.

“Go on.”

“Does Mr Sadler know why I am here?”

“He knows you are here to meet him. He decides. If he says no, you drive home tonight and the club pays your petrol.”

“And if he says yes?”

“You work for Craig. You answer to him.”

Joe stopped on the path and looked out past the pitches at the estuary, flat and grey and full of light.

“A chairman does not ring an under-18s coach the week after he goes up,” he said, “unless he had him down for something before. Was it his job you were looking at me for?”

I had not expected it so soon. I kept walking, and he caught me up.

“Until the 19th of May,” I said.

“Wembley.”

“Wembley. Then he signed for 2 more years. You are here to work for him.”

“Does he know? That I was down for his job?”

“No. I am going to tell him tonight, after he has seen you.”

Joe thought about that, with his hands in his pockets.

“He will have it before you tell him,” he said. “If he is any good, he will see it for himself. I would.”

“Maybe. I will still tell him.”

He nodded, and we went on.

“Who do I need to know first, apart from the players?”

“Stan, in the kit room. Kieran. Dev, the physio.”

“Which of them will tell me when I have something wrong?”

“All of them. Stan first.”

“What does Stan not like?”

“Being hurried.”

“I can do that,” said Joe.

“Why would you leave an academy for this?” I said. “You had 6 years there.”

“Because at 18 my lads go off to somebody else’s first team, and I read about them in the paper.” He hitched the bag up on his shoulder. “Here I get to see what they turn into.”

Robbie Doyle met us at the gate to the far pitch with a bag of balls over each shoulder.

“40 tonight,” he said, at a volume meant for the far end of the pitch. “My scholars are off till July, so you get the town’s kids instead. Free, with a drink and a biscuit at the end. Both my coaches are off this week, and Craig is on the bench.”

On that warm evening the far pitch was full of children, in every colour of shirt there is, and a few dozen parents along the fence. The air smelt of creosote from the new fence and of the sun cream the mothers had rubbed into the backs of small necks.

Sadler was on the bench by the near touchline, in his shirt sleeves, with his arms folded. He stood up when Joe put his hand out.

“Joe Tredwell.”

“Craig Sadler.” Sadler shook it, looked at the knee, and sat down again. “Can you take half of them?”

“Which half?”

“The ones who cannot play yet.”

“I will have those,” said Joe, and put his bag down on the end of the bench.

Doyle split them in about a minute, with a lot of noise, so that the children thought the splitting was part of the game. He kept the ones who already knew where to stand, and sent Joe the rest.

There were 20 of them: the small ones, the ones whose mothers had sent them, a round boy in a goalkeeper’s jersey 3 sizes too big, and a tall girl of about 11 who stood with her arms folded and her hair in her face.

Joe clapped his hands twice, clap clap, and they came.

“Right,” he said. “I am Joe. I am going to forget all your names, so I need you to tell me them again when you get the ball. Every time. Shout it. That is the rule.”

“What if we never get the ball?” said a small boy in blue socks.

“We change the rules until you do,” said Joe. “What is your name?”

“Liam.”

“Liam, you are on this pitch, with these 4.”

He tipped 8 cones out of his sports bag, rattle, the cheap orange ones you can get at any sports shop. He made 2 pitches about 15 yards across, with a pair of cones for a goal at each end, and started 2 games, 5 against 5, so nobody had to wait.

I sat down on the bench beside Sadler. Sadler did not look at me. He was watching Joe.

pock of a ball off a shin. The children shouted their names when they got it, and then forgot to, and Joe called the names back to them. “Amy. Yes, Amy. Good.”

The tall girl read the game before anybody else on Joe’s side of the field. She got the ball every time it came near her and scored when she liked, and after 10 minutes she was walking.

thud of the round boy diving full length at a ball already past him. He got up laughing and dived at the next one as well.