Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

The women’s starting eleven had risen from 87.8 in our final pre-season friendly to a stupendous 92.1 in our recent win against Leicester. 92.1 had to put us around the same level as the league leaders Birmingham City. The league winners would go straight to the top tier, while the second-placed club would play the worst WSL team in a one-off match. Winner takes all. By the time of that match, we would be CA 100, wouldn’t we? I doubted that Charlton or London City were close to triple digits, and I doubted their manager was as good as Jay Cope.

Jay had navigated the fixture list beautifully, playing defensively against Burnley, taking the handbrake off against Hashtag United in the Nando’s Cup, going cautious against Crystal Palace, then attacking Hashtag United (again) in the league. He used the kids in the Cheshire Cup, and back in the league the 5-1 home win against Leicester was all kinds of impressive. Six wins in a row with the minutes being spread around.

The walls in my corner of the shop were decorated with unsheathed singles, colourful album covers, and some records that had been heated into the shape of flowers. Give Jay Cope his flowers. The women were going great. They didn’t need me.

To the left of the racks were some bookshelves. Religion, then Geography. I’d had far too much of both in recent times.

I looked up. Vinyl records had been stuck to the ceiling, like tiles. Those were the first thing entering customers saw. The second was a ceiling drop, painted green, on which the owner had painted a quote.

”Read it out,” said Sophie.

”His old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.”

”Great. Say it again but with more foreshadowing, then look into the distance as though dreading what misfortunes will surely befall you.”

I nodded and tried to get a dreamy look going. I spoke in a lower tone, as though I had recently been through a life-changing event and had become about 24% more mature. ”Her old life as a documentary producer lay behind in the mists, dark unemployment lay in front. She regretted how bossy she had become.”

Sophie bursting out laughing was rare, which made it incredibly rewarding. ”Okay, okay. Pretend I’m not here. Keep looking at books and albums. We can use it to fill out the episode.”

There was a wooden shelf with albums under the heading Jazz and Blue’s. As someone with a spotless record of 100% perfect grammar, spelling, and punctuation, the randomly inserted apostrophe offended me.

I bent and grabbed The Benny Carter Collection, which featured songs from 1929 to 1947. For some reason I looked Benny Carter up on Wikipedia and found that he recorded music across eight decades. ”Eight!” I told Sophie. ”And it seems like he kept getting better. He won Grammys in the 1980s and 90s. Imagine peaking when you’re, like, 77 years old.”

”That would be fitting for you.”

I rubbed my eyebrow. ”I won’t be a football manager for long. No way.”

Benny went back on the shelf, then I looked at more comics. They didn’t appeal, so I retraced my steps. What was so compelling about Benny’s album cover? The simple black and white aesthetic, the art deco font, Benny’s enigmatic expression?

I had seen such photos taken of me while managing games. I’d be standing there, would glance at the camera as though trying to communicate something, but there would be nothing for the viewer to hold onto. Was I happy? Sad? Depressed? Was the match panning out as expected? Sometimes it was hard to tell.

Other managers wore their hearts on their sleeve almost all the time. Toddy Braun bobbed on waves generated by the game state. Vimsy was an open book. Jay Cope was good at radiating calm and looking in control, which was what our youthful team most needed. Sandra Lane had a good balance between looking like a technocrat and being ready to give a guy a kick up the arse.

She had dished out a few arse-kickings in my absence, but not as many as the results might have suggested. Defeats to Luton and Wolves (2-0 and 5-1) were followed by draws against Hull and Bristol City (2-2, 0-0). Two points from a possible twelve, but those were four tough games. Luton had a great starting eleven, Wolves were basically a Premier League team, and the other two were about our level.