by Chris Harris
When Greg appointed Hilario Vincent, Denham Phoenix FC were still rattling around in the third tier of the Sussex County League. Now, somehow, they’d clawed their way into the bottom rung of the national non-league pyramid. Greg had advertised the job successfully, and with pre-season starting next week, time was of the essence. He was delighted. He found himself staring at twenty-seven applications, further evidence of The Phoenix’s growth in kudos and the allure of the national leagues.
On Thursday evening, he took the applications to the Red Lion, where he and Big Mal settled into their usual corner with a couple of pints. There was pressure on him now, absolute pressure, and Greg didn’t like the idea that one bad call could come back to haunt him. So, he’d made a tactical decision: the final three candidates, from the shortlist, would be interviewed by the whole board. If the appointment went tits up, entirely possible in non-league, he wasn’t going to carry the can alone. As he was rapidly learning, running a club in the national leagues meant you needed all the help you could get. Even the questionable kind you got from Big Mal.
Their early favourite, their fantasy appointment, was Mark Henderson, the former silky Crystal Palace midfielder they’d previously idolised. When his application appeared in Greg’s inbox, both he and Mal had practically wet themselves with excitement. Henderson had all his coaching badges and the name that would get tongues in the division wagging.
But as Greg read more deeply into his managerial record, the shine dulled quickly. He’d started slowly in management in the upper reaches of non-league, and every year for five straight seasons he had slipped down a level, ending up exactly where Denham now found themselves. A downward spiral in football management never reads well. Greg was gutted. Henderson had been a brilliant footballer, sure, and maybe there were reasons for the failures, bad boards, poor support, basket case clubs. But a trend was a trend.
Still, sentimentality dies hard. Henderson made the shortlist.
Next came Stephen Woods, the archetypal progressive coach. The type who believed football should be played like a concerto: all movement, triangles, and beautiful patterns across the pitch. Tippy-tappy, some called it. Others said it was genius until the moment the ball reached the penalty area, where it all seemed to stop dead and then that crucial lack of concentration at the back.
Woods had done well enough in the Welex Division Two with Haywards Heath Town and had a thick book of contacts. People spoke highly of him. But he hadn’t actually won very much. Greg could already picture Mal rolling his eyes through entire matches. Still, Woods represented ambition, style, a shift in identity.
He became candidate number two.
Then came Ed Stephens. His reputation preceded him and he had was well known at the tribunal panel. A brute, some said. Old school, said others, usually while wincing. He’d spent his playing career stomping through the Sussex leagues keeping hospitals busy on a Saturday afternoon. Moving into management, wherever he managed, he won promotion, and then got sacked not long after. His football was effective, brutal, and, to the average fan, unspeakably dull. Park the bus, defend for your lives, steal a goal. His temperament was to say in the least suspect, his longevity at clubs short, his success undisputable.
But for Stephens, the Welex Waste Products Division Three job would be a step up, and Greg wondered whether the lure of better players and a more ambitious club might soften him. Maybe he could mellow. Maybe.
By closing time, the shortlist was set. Three wildly different visions for the future of Denham Phoenix. Three men who could each change the club in an entirely different direction.
The emails went out before Greg went to bed.
All three were invited to the clubhouse early the following early evening.
The board would decide.
And whatever happened next, Greg knew one thing for sure.
This decision could shape the club’s future, or dictate that the national leagues were a step too far.
The following evening, the clubhouse felt strangely grand, as if the mismatched chairs and the faint smell of spray polish were trying their absolute best to impersonate a Premier League boardroom. Present, Greg, Big Mal, Economical Tony, Catherine, Charlie and Lucy. There was an air of tension, this was new to all of them.
Ed Stephens sat down. He had a warm smile that contradicted his reputation.
Greg cleared his throat. “So Ed… how would you describe your footballing philosophy?”
Stephens blinked. “Simple. Win.”
There was a small pause.
“And… style?” asked Economical Tony.
Stephens shrugged. “Defend like your life depends on it, score once, shut up shop. Job done.”
There was a collective wince around the table, but Greg had expected this, but was unsure if he was being ironic.
“What about the fans demanding more attractive football?” asked Catherine
Stephens nodded thoughtfully. “That’s why we score the one goal. This is a results business. I get results, I get sacked, people don’t like my methods, but sure, I can be pragmatic and to be honest, if as you suggest, I have a substantial budget for the league, I am sure we can do a little tippy tappy too”
And that was pretty much it. When they thanked him, Stephens stood, shook everyone’s hand like a bailiff, and left the room convinced he had absolutely no chance. He kicked himself for playing up to their expectations of him, he wanted to play it cool, he didn’t know why?
Next in was Stephen Woods, who drifted into the room wearing a cardigan. He radiated positivity and diagrams.
“Great to be here,” he said, before anyone had even welcomed him. He was annoying.
Greg gestured to the chairs. “So, Stephen, tell us about your philosophy.”
Woods beamed. “Football,” he declared, “is poetry.”
Big Mal frowned as if the word caused him physical pain.
He launched into a Cantona/Sardine diatribe “Imagine,” he said, “the ball travelling like water flowing down a mountain”
“Does the water ever go into the net?” asked Big Mal hopefully. He didn’t like him.
“Oh, absolutely,” Woods said, “though not every week, obviously. But what matters is the journey.”
Big Mal muttered something under his breath.
After fifteen minutes, nobody had the faintest idea whether he would win football matches, but they all felt strangely calmer, convinced he might win them, but there again, he might lose them.
He left with polite smiles. The room exhaled.
Finally, Mark Henderson arrived, chiselled, charming, and radiating the sort of confidence only ex-pros seem to possess. Greg introduced him, Big Mal was starstruck.
“So Mark,” said Greg, “tell us why you want the job.”
But before Henderson could answer, Big Mal leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “Before that, can I just ask, what was it like marking Ian Wright in training?”
Greg’s heart sank as Henderson launched into story after story of his days at the Palace. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Then forty-five.
Occasionally, Greg tried to drag the conversation back to management. “So, Mark, your recent spell at—”
“Yes yes, later,” Mal waved him off. “Tell us about the playoff final”
Henderson obliged. More stories. More Palace nostalgia. More laughter. By the time Greg finally forced in two actual questions about tactics and recruitment, the interview had been running ninety minutes.
When Henderson left the room, Mal sighed like a man in love. “That,” he said, “is our man.”
But what had become clear was Marc was living off past glories, his desire to win was cancelled out by a sense of entitlement which may explain his dismal record to date.
When the three candidates had gone, the board gathered themselves.
Catherine piped up first. “If we want to tread water in this division, getting frustrated because we’ve employed a dreamer or a has been, that’s fine, but if we want to really test ourselves and make something to be proud of, we need to get Ed in.”
Charlie added, “I think, at the end of the day, he is a nice guy, if brusque. But he spoke common sense and is clearly very pragmatic. He is at least going to give us a genuine shot at promotion.”
Greg looked up.
“Yes, we need someone who can get us out of this division.” The fact that Catherine wanted him and Ed had said he would not need the full budget, he needed four new players, he wanted a compact squad, aided his decision!
The vote went around the table.
Five votes for Ed Stephens.
One for Mark Henderson (Mal, obviously).”I agree Ed is the best, so excuse my selfish Palace loyalties!”
That was that.
Outside, in the car park, Ed Stephens sat in his car staring at his phone, practising the tone of voice he’d use for the inevitable rejection.
When Greg called and said the words, “We’d like to offer you the job,” Stephens paused for so long Greg thought the line had gone dead.
“Are you sure?” Stephens asked.
“Oh yes,” Greg said. “Very sure.”
The meeting over, Greg was feeling hyper-bullish. They all drifted to the village for dinner at The Millennium, where he had booked dinner for the whole group. The excitement of the new appointment and their new enterprise only accelerated the drinking. And as the alcohol went down, their expectations increased of what they could achieve, wildly inflated dreams of what the new man might achieve for Denham Phoenix FC
Nobody was under any illusion that Ed was anything other than an unknown quantity to work with. They also knew, equally, that the other two applicants would probably be rubbish. One of Greg’s first thoughts, as the evening grew louder, was that Ed would now have to deal with the board. Smart people, all of them, but nice people, and this may soften the new manager a little, keep him from becoming too prickly.
At 10:30 the next morning, Greg received a text from the new manager asking for the go-ahead to sign the four new players. Greg agreed without hesitation. Tuesday night would be the first training session, followed by Thursday, and then the pre-season games the week after. His work was cut out to get the squad prepared. But given that his footballing philosophy amounted to little more than parking the bus in front of goal, it wasn’t as if he needed to conjure a tactical spider’s web overnight.
The only dampener on the previous evening for Greg had been watching Catherine and Charlie, who were clearly very close and she seemed more out of his grasp than ever.
Still, despite that disappointment, that didn’t stop him waking the next morning with Lucy after yet another one-night stand. As usual, she left early. No drama. No complication. Ideal.
NEXT WEEK, the new squad assemble and the board learn about parking buses and Economical Tony reveals cheap ideas to develop the ground.
Non League Football #FootballFiction #DenhamPhoenixFC #SussexFootball #SerialStory
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