Chapter 297: Not Any Of The 4 I

Margaret waited until Priya had gone back down to the phones. Then she turned the letter face down on page 1.

"You have a week," she said. "Nothing has to be said tonight. Not to Leicester, and not to the players."

She kept her hand on the back of it.

"Leicester have written to the club and asked permission to speak to them. That is the right way."

"And if they go round us?"

"If anybody from Leicester, or anybody acting for them, talks to one of our players or to his agent about moving before we give written permission," she said, "that is against the FA’s rules, and I will report it the same day. Whatever you decide, say it on Friday, in writing. Not before."

Maureen had her pen in her hand and had not used it.

"That letter pays for the stand without you selling a coin," she said. "And Robbie’s block starts before the 8th of July. That is the sum, Sam. The choice is yours."

"And if I said yes to one of them?"

"Jamie’s money is most of the stand. Harry’s is Robbie’s block, and Craig’s centre-forward, and change."

I looked at the letter face down on her desk. Behind it, the window, and the car park, and Kieran’s van with its back doors open and a roll of netting half out of it.

It would settle the stand in pounds before the bulldozers came next May, without one sheet of my paper ever going near a machine.

"If you sold one of them," Maureen said, "which one would it be?"

"Not any of the 4."

She put the pen down.

"Then who tells them?" said Margaret.

"Craig. Tonight."

Sadler was at the training ground till 8 most evenings the week before pre-season. I found him in the little office off the corridor, with Monday’s training groups written out on a sheet in his small square hand.

Harry’s name was at the top of the first group, where it had been since Marsh’s knee went in the semi.

He read the letter once, standing up, and gave it back to me.

"Jamie is the one they want most," I said.

"Jamie will say no to them on the phone. Harry is the one."

"He has 4 years on his contract."

"He is 20, and that club is just down the M1 from where he grew up. They will be near the top. He reads the table." He sat down. "Sell him and I want a centre-forward out of it. Keep him and I want his head here by Monday."

"I am saying no to all of it."

"Then my centre-forward is still not paid for."

"No."

"Tell Harry to his face. Not on the phone."

He had been asking me for a centre-forward all summer, and the rule I had made at the start of it said a man’s wages came out of what the club took in. Leicester’s money would have paid that man’s wages for years.

By the morning it was in a paper.

Danny rang me at 8 on the Saturday, while the kettle was still coming to the boil. click of it switching itself off behind me.

"Their local paper up there has it on its website," he said. "Vardy and Maguire, by hand, yesterday. They have both figures, and that they asked about Mahrez and Kanté as well."

"The club has had offers for 2 players, in writing. We will answer them in writing by Friday."

"So you might sell them, Sam?"

"I am not selling them. Hold it till Friday, when Leicester have it in writing."

Priya rang 10 minutes after him. The phones had not stopped since she got in at 7.

"31 calls," she said. "Most of them want to know if we are selling Harry. 4 want us to sell Jamie and get 2 strikers with the money. One man says he will not renew his season ticket if we sell anybody at all. I told him to ring back on Friday."

"Who was he?"

"He did not say. He said he had been coming since 1971."

I rang Harry Maguire at half past 8 to ask him in. It rang out. I rang the other 3. Jamie said, "No," and then, "Is that it?" Riyad and N’Golo were away till Sunday, and I left them both the same message: come and find me on Monday.

At 9 a text came. Driving down. There by dinnertime. Harry.

He was at Marsh Road by half past 12. He had set off from Sheffield as soon as he sent it.

Kieran was in the car park with a roll of netting on his shoulder when the car pulled in.

"All right, Harry?" he said.

"All right, Kieran."

Kieran looked at him, and at me, and took his netting off to the pitch without another word.

Harry came across the car park in shorts and a hooded top, turning his car keys over in his hand.

I took him through the tunnel and out to the home dugout. The ground was empty. Kieran had netting over both goalmouths where the new seed was coming through, and the pitch smelt of wet earth from the night before.

He sat in Sadler’s seat. I sat beside him.

"Is it true?" he said. "3 and a half, for me?"

"It is true they offered it. It came by hand just after 4 yesterday."

"My agent says they would pay me a lot more than I am on. He says he has not spoken to them. He says he knows what they pay their centre-halves." He turned the keys over again. "He wants me to put a request in by Monday. He says that is how it gets done."

"Has anybody from Leicester spoken to you? Or to him?"

"He says not."

"If anybody does, you tell Margaret, and she reports it. They are not allowed to, without our permission, and they have not got it."

He looked out at the netting on the goalmouth nearest us. A pigeon was walking up and down on it, testing it.

"Are you selling me?"

"No."

He stared at the keys in his hand.

"Leicester is an hour and 20 from Mosborough," he said. "Here is the best part of 4 hours. They will be up there all year, everybody says it. We will be fighting to stay up. I am only saying what everybody is saying, chairman."

"Craig says the same. They have the money for it."

"So why keep me?"

"Because you wear the armband at 20, and you were the best centre-half in League One last season, and the players voted it. And because I said in May that none of you was for sale this summer, and I am not changing that for the first club that asks."

"And if I asked to go?" he said. "In writing. Properly."

"Then you ask, and Margaret puts it on your file that afternoon. I still say no to Leicester on Friday, because you signed for 4 years and the club does not want to sell you. You have every right to ask."

"Would you have asked? At 20?"

"Yes."

He was quiet for a while.

"Lenny gave me that armband in the semi without saying a word," he said. "He took it off his arm and put it on mine and walked off on one leg. He would not get on the stretcher."

"I saw him."

"I keep thinking about that. When my agent was talking this morning, I was thinking about Lenny walking off. That is what is doing my head in, chairman."

He rubbed his face with both hands. tik of a drip off the dugout roof onto the concrete step.

"I said yes in my head before I had my breakfast," he said. "When he rang. I was stood in the kitchen and I had said yes before he had finished."

"I would sooner hear it."

"I know you would."

He stood up.

"I will see you Monday, chairman," he said. "I do not know what I am going to say on Monday. I will see you, though."

He went back up the tunnel. I stayed in the dugout till I heard his car pull out of the car park.

Pre-season started on the Monday at 8, with a new coach on the grass.

The car park was full by half past 7. Stan had the kit laid out on the long table in the corridor in piles by number. Dev had his folding bed up in a corner of the canteen with a roll of strapping on it, and the whole building smelt of cut grass and liniment.