The Unwanted

[kerzhakov954]

Just read through this. It's a brilliant read and i'll definitely be following. Fingers crossed Kildare survive!!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, Kerzhakov. I appreciate your following along and hope you enjoy what follows.

___

The euphoria gathered from leading at the half was now giving way to a sense of determination. This was the second time we had led this team over the two legs and now it was a matter of somehow making that lead stick.

We had had enough of being pushed around, and Hastings’ use of language in the changing room belied his tender years. He above all was tired of it – now boasting a second contusion on his leg right below the one he had picked up during the first leg.

Yet he wouldn’t come off. Against my better judgment, I let him go back out, his face a picture of determination.

Barry Foley took the pitch for Tralee as a halftime substitute, in place of the young striker Cunningham, and we resumed play.

We were waiting for them to come at us, and they did. Only it didn’t matter. They huffed and puffed, but we started the half holding them down.

A long ball from the unfortunate McCormack was too firm and Traynor gobbled it up, starting Kinsella back down the left. He laid a ball ahead to Place, and with one superb touch, he flicked it on to Flood.

The striker’s run was perfectly timed down the left hand channel, and he strode confidently into the box – before burying it past Cotter to his right.

Two goals! Would wonders never cease?

Flood seemed to explode with joy, sprinting to the corner flag – near which there were no fans at all – to celebrate.

His fans were his teammates, though – the first game all season where we had scored two goals was certainly something to write home about.

Fergus Foley then caught up with O’Brien, and laid him low with a thundering challenge that somehow didn’t get him booked or worse. Turnabout was now fair play and with a two goal lead I wondered if we could stand prosperity.

It turned out we could. Foley fired over just past the stroke of the hour, and with Tralee now increasingly desperate to make something happen, it was time to think about protecting the lead. Except for Brennan, who went in heavily on Cleary to even the score in the crocked players department.

Yet even as I was urging the players to think about defense, they would do nothing of the sort. Flood walked right in and stripped the ball off Gorman as the match ticked past seventy minutes, but missed wide to the left with his effort.

It then dawned on me. They were having fun.

The players were enjoying themselves. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work.

Flood, who had been set up so superbly by Place earlier, now returned the favor. Off a long header by Brennan, he brought the ball to ground and found his strike partner up the middle, played onside by the now incredibly unfortunate McCormack.

Place had no one near him and he too fired home eleven minutes from time to send us into dreamland.

It was all coming out now. All the frustration, all the humiliation of 35 matches without a victory – it was all about to end.

Except, it wasn’t. Just a few minutes later, McGee took a ball from Treacy and whipped a fourth past Cotter to the rapturous delight of his teammates and the surprised applause of the home faithful.

Four. Four. Four. Four.

For us.

The final justice came when Stephen Nugent, who had gone into the book moments before our third goal, picked up a second yellow for hauling down Place by his shirt as the match ticked into injury time.

Insult had been added to injury, but this time we were doing the insulting instead of absorbing it. Just this once.

And we were staying up.

Kildare County 4 (Gary McCormack o/g 39; Fran Flood 56; Paul Place 79; Shane McGee 83)

Tralee Dynamos 0 (Stephen Nugent s/o 90+2)

A – 290, Station Road, Kildare

Man of the Match – Bernard Brennan, Kildare County (8.3)

[Makonnen]

Yeah, but they took the man of the match ...

w00t! Good job! Told you you'd grow to like this team

[WLKRAS]

Wooo! well played Kildare

[Mark Snellink]

Enough to bring tears to yer eyes.

Now, try to scamper a few points next season

[coloradogkb]

Amazing how an own-goal seemed to unbottle your squad. I hope you keep going on this one - it's fun.

[tenthreeleader]

Fellows, thanks for the comments. It's nice to know you are enjoying this story. Colorado, you make an interesting point regarding the OG - this team had led in the first leg but didn't get a set piece defended and had to settle for a draw against another basically all-grey team. I think the second goal was what did it - at that point checking the player motivation screen really was fun. And yes, this story will positively continue.

___

We celebrated like wild men, as you might imagine. We were a happy bunch.

We hadn’t died. For once, the other guys had.

Curry’s was thus a hopping place, and judging by the people who now wanted to shake our hands, about half the town would claim to have been in attendance.

The fact that just under three hundred of them actually had been there really didn’t matter. They all wanted to have been here, to watch the locals finally come up trumps.

We were popular. Flood and Place, the strike partners who had each finally found the range, were leading the celebrations.

Back in my usual spot in the corner, I watched them buying rounds and enjoying the fruits of their victory. The place was alive and that was really fun to watch.

As I watched, Bishop sat down at my table.

“So, Matt, are you moving here now?” he asked.

“I have to ask the chairman if I still have a job but if I do, I’ll be coming over as soon as I can find employment,” I answered. “This is starting to become a labor of love.”

“You must be mad.”

“Possibly,” I said, taking a drink of a Guinness that for once I hadn’t had to buy. That was nice.

It had been a long time since I had gotten drunk on someone else’s money. Watching my players cavorting into the wee hours, it seemed to me that they had earned the right.

Flood was having an especially good time. He was throwing darts against all comers, beating most of them, and drinking quite a bit, which made me wonder how he could be doing such a great job with the darts.

“He’s doing well,” I said to Bishop, motioning to the striker with my glass.

“He is,” my assistant agreed. “And his girl friend is a proper stunner. I imagine that tonight he’s on top of the world.”

“Aren’t they all,” I mused, shaking my head at the thought. “I guess when I played, the pretty girls skipped a generation.”

Bishop laughed.

“Just because you couldn’t find one,” he grinned, drawing a malevolent stare in response.

“Okay, sorry,” he said. “How about a drink? I’ll buy.”

“Why not,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

As Flood finished his game of darts, he accepted another Guinness from Nora. He then kissed her, which made me raise my eyebrows.

“Told you she was a stunner,” Bishop said. “Everyone in the place wants Nora. Flood got her.”

“I see that,” I said, shaking my head almost imperceptibly.

Almost. Bishop noticed.

“I see nobody told you,” he said. “Well, everyone finds out sooner or later. I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” I mused. “Like I’d have had any chance anyway.”

Soon, they left together. I supposed that it would be Flood’s night in more ways than one.

[tenthreeleader]

It really didn’t matter much anyway. She had talked to me a few times.

Yet she seemed to be one of the few people who had done so during my time in Newbridge. And I found it odd that she had never come to a match.

I also found it odd that none of Flood’s teammates had ever mentioned her at a training session or even casually, at least not where I could hear. You’d think with a gorgeous companion like that, someone would say something to him.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t either. I had some real decisions to make.

As the season was now over, I returned to Blackpool to try to figure out how I was going to re-structure my life.

Nakov had told me that I was welcome to return for the new season, but nothing else had changed. There still wasn’t a Euro to spend either on a player or on a salary. We would still be a fully amateur club in a fully professional division. So the challenge would definitely still be there for the coming season.

That meant I needed to find a better class of amateur player.

It would mean tryouts, it would mean combing the lists of released players and trying to build a network so we could evaluate players. Of course, if a player failed, it wouldn’t cost anything to buy out an amateur contract, so there was that to consider.

But in looking at the Kildare County squad list, it was obvious that a large number of players would have to go. They were simply filling shirts rather than providing options and that meant I needed to make some decisions.

Our link with Bohemians will help – but we can only loan five players from them. The rest, we’re going to have to do ourselves.

I’ve got players in my nominal reserves who are better than a lot of my first-teamers. So we made more than a few moves after the second Tralee match.

Thomas Coleman, Graham Gough, Tim Jackson, Lee Morris, Alan Martin, Roy Murray, David Duffy and Pat Clarke were all released a week after the Tralee match. None of them had figured in my plans in any event, and few of them had featured at all during my time in charge.

Central midfielder Declan Young was the first to be promoted from the reserves, along with several of his teammates. Under-20 striker David Tracey, who I had wanted to promote upon taking over, now got his call-up as well.

Sweeper John Fagan, who can already man-mark better than most of my defenders, is also up. He joins defender/midfielder Albert Nolan and central midfielder Steven Ryan as another callup.

Yet there are three ‘real’ signings as well.

Defender Ian Roche, who played fifteen games for non-league Mount Merrion last season and scored twice, will step into our back line straight away. He’s 29 years old, has a little bit of pace about him, and is by default the best man-marker I’ve got, which is a bit sad.

I don’t mind the other two new boys either. Midfielder Jake Wannell, a 19-year old attacker released by Exeter City, is also here and he promises to give us a bit of spark in the middle.

Also, we’ve made a strong signing from Portadown, nabbing 19-year old Ryan Winter on a free transfer. He can find the net with either his head or his feet, and that’s something we really need.

It does mean that I’ve got five strikers on the squad list at the present time – Winter and Treacy joining holders Chris Horgan, Place, and Flood.

I still have problems there as we head into the off-season. Winter is going to be the first name on the team sheet, but finding a partner for him is going to be a problem. The only thing Winter lacks is pace, so finding a quicker partner for him is something I really should look at doing.

I like Treacey’s ability to strike a ball but he’s even slower than Winter. Horgan’s quick, but he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat, which is one reason I didn’t play him more last season.

Place has the same problem Treacy does, and even though he can finish we’d have an awfully slow front line if he played.

That leaves Flood, our leading goal-scorer last season with four, through chances created by volume. He possesses neither the finishing skills nor the positioning skills to effectively partner Winter, yet he may be the one by default.

Oh, yeah, and there’s that other thing.

[kerzhakov954]

Kildare survive, but the story doesn't stop there does it with these boys? Loved the part with Flood's girlfriend. Looking forward to the next step in this.

[Burgess Basso]

Why do I sense that Flood will go and Nora won't be happy?

Great story 10-3, winless runs are great to end!

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks, fellows. Glad you are following along! As it regards strikers, Flood is the best of a still bad lot in the race to play alongside Winter. A conflict perhaps between the leading scorer and his luckless manager? Only time will tell

___

The idea was to put the best eleven players out there and see what happened.

An arranged friendly against our parent club, Bohemians, resulted in a 2-0 defeat that wasn’t nearly as close as the score, but got Nakov an extra gate against the champions of Ireland.

It also allowed me to get a look at a few of the new players on my last day of holiday time from my job.

The next day, we signed onetime Liverpool trainee Marc Kenny to a contract for his second tour of duty with the club. He had been with us in our second season, in 2003, on loan from Shamrock Rovers. He had even scored for us, which is more than I could say for most of my current players.

He had spent parts of eleven seasons with Rovers with time at Dublin City, Monaghan United, and Ashtown Villa in there as well, before spending three years with Phoenix FC of the Leinster Premier Division.

We can’t be all kids out there, and the 36-year old Kenny is the kind of player I feel we need to give us a mature, playmaking presence in the center of the park. He doesn’t have much time left in the game but I would like him tutoring some of our younger players as well to take advantage of him playing ‘for the love of the game’.

All that said, the best part about going back to work after the friendly was that I was prepared to leave it.

My request for a sabbatical to manage the Thoroughbreds for another season was denied so I left the Inland Revenue the week after the Bohemians friendly.

I applied for, and actually got, a position as a corporate recruiter in Dublin. It still meant a 20-mile or so commute to Newbridge for trainings and matches, but they were willing to accommodate my spare time requests to manage the club – which was necessary due to my complete lack of salary at the club.

Despite all the travail and trouble the fully amateur club had gone through over a winless regular season and a harried post-season, there were still no plans afoot to pay anyone anything for the season to come.

It was like youth football only with big people.

My first day on the job in Dublin was also a day I decided to go move a few things into my little office at the ground. Since I’d be staying for a little while, it seemed like a good idea.

I put in a few family pictures, and put a newly framed newspaper story on the wall commemorating our win over Tralee. It was nice to have a piece of paper on the wall that wasn’t yellowed with age.

I’d like to build on that. So, before I headed down the pub, I removed all the old frames from the walls.

I looked at the outlines of the old picture frames, rectangular shapes of clean wall trapped in an ocean of darker color. I then resolved to bring a few gallons of paint in the next time I visited the ground.

[Scalamunger]

This is an awesome story and from the 2nd game onwards when u were battling for the draw i could feel myself willing ur players to hold out! Im well and truly hooked into reading this now. Keep up the good work and come on KIldare!

[tenthreeleader]

Scalamunger, thank you very much. Fun to write, fun to play, fun to scour the lists for released players who I can bring in for literally nothing. Will Kildare survive another season, or will Matt Livingston be ready for the rubber room by the time it's all said and done?

___

As a corporate recruiter, I felt tempted to ask more than a few times if the people I was trying to find for local companies could also play a little football on the side.

Settling into the close season in Ireland is different from most other places due to the vagaries of the scheduling here.

Nobody else except MLS is out of season over the winter, so there was plenty of football to watch on television while my players recovered from the exertions of their season.

The highlight to that point had been a media event to introduce Kenny and Winter to the club right after the Bohemians match. I felt it a good idea to show people who had showed up to the ground wearing uniforms formerly worn by other players. It’s a good thing for everyone’s morale, I guess.

I could have used a few things to help my morale as well. In the close season, I would sit there and think about football and about the one match we had managed to win under my charge.

I wanted to know what Bohemians was up to so I could have some idea of who might show up on loan for the coming season.

I wanted to know what everyone else was up to so I knew how big the ladder would be that we’d have to climb toward respectability for the new season.

And above all, I just wanted the season to start.

I made a trip to Curry’s once a week or so and once word got round that the manager who worked in Dublin was going to stick around for a bit, I actually started to talk to a few people.

Not Flood, though. That was still a bit raw.

I knew I had no shot at his girl friend, but I was really wondering why she hadn’t mentioned anything about dating one of my players when she knew full well what I was doing in the pub and who I was. Not that her personal life is any of my damn business.

It just galled me. I still have that right, anyway.

The release of the yearly honors naturally contained no mention of any of my players, which was completely unsurprising. What I was hoping for was not to concede the Goal of the Year, and that little goal was thankfully realized.

The league’s Manager of the Year award went to Liam Buckley of Sporting Fingal, who got himself promoted to the Premier Division through the playoffs, while my friend Dermot Keely took second for winning the league with Shelbourne. Tony Cousins of fourth-placed Longford Town took third.

That day we lost out on another signing, when 34-year old defender Gary Magennis spurned us and Northern Irish side Chimney Corner to sign for Annagh United of Northern Ireland’s second division from Lurgan Celtic. That was a shame – he’d have given us a decent presence in the back line for sure.

But then, he was getting a wage. We couldn’t offer that.

We were losing out on half-decent players, all things considered, due to the status of our club, or lack of the same.

It was starting to get frustrating.

[Mark Snellink]

Perhaps Nora can play?

[Makonnen]

Perhaps Nora can play?

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.

[tenthreeleader]

Smart-alecks

___

So I spent my off days trying to build up my job in Dublin. It was really all there was to do after taking a quick look through lists of out of contract players.

Many of those players were either out of our range (which is to say, they were salaried) or out of options, in which case they were candidates to play for us. The idea was to go through the scrap heap and try to find serviceable parts.

Hard to stomach when you’re talking about footballers like that, but it didn’t take me long to face the facts – we’re bottom of the heap in a lower division. So it has to be that way.

Short of putting out public adverts for players, there’s really no other way to attract potential players to our club, and short of going professional, there’s nothing to stop our best players walking away for nothing if someone offers them a fee – or a salary, for that matter.

The overhead is low, but so is the security. For all of us.

One example of that was when I offered a contract to 36-year old Englishman Richard Liburd, a veteran full back who can play just about anywhere on the park. He has a long history in the game but had spent the last three seasons as a player-coach (well, okay, coach) at Hucknall, where he didn’t get into a game.

His big claim to fame was playing 41 matches for Middlesbrough in 1993-94, the season after their relegation from the Premier League. He then commanded a transfer fee of £230,000 to go to Bradford, where he spent four seasons.

After a year at Carlisie, he went to Notts County where he spent five more seasons before stops at Lincoln City, Eastwood and Hucknall.

Now, he was interested in becoming a player-coach for me.

And amazingly, Nakov said no.

“You have enough coaches,” he said.

“I have one coach,” I said. “And about forty players on two squads. And he wouldn’t make any money.”

“I said you have enough coaches,” he replied.

I was thunderstruck.

“You are telling me that a player who makes no money at all cannot join me as a coach for no money when I make no money myself.”

“Yes, that is my word.”

I was too stunned to put up much of a fight, so instead, I sent a text to Liburd asking if he wouldn’t mind coming here as a player. When he gets here, I’ll quietly ask him if he wouldn’t mind helping run a training session. That is, if he doesn’t die laughing first.

It was just amazing.

“May I ask what is prompting this?” I asked. “You pay expenses for everyone, myself included. Why do you hold this opinion?”

The darker side of the chairman now seemed to spill over the top of the conversation.

“This,” he said, throwing me a copy of a newspaper.

I tried to catch it and failed, the contents of the paper spilling onto the floor. I picked up the back page and saw it was the Rochdale Observer.

There was a story on it that said the club, which is fourth in League Two and chasing promotion, may lose manager Keith Hill when his contract expires.

The reporter wrote:

“Chairman Chris Dunphy fancies several candidates to replace Hill should the worst happen. Sensationally, one of those men is former Rochdale manager and Chelsea legend John Hollins, who worked at Spotland in 2001-02, at Stamford Bridge from 1985-88 and most recently managed at Weymouth.”

“Others on Dunphy’s short list include former Huddersfield Town boss Peter Jackson, who has been out of the game since 1999; veteran manager Tommy Taylor, who has bossed seven lower league clubs in his career with Boston United being the most recent in 2008; and 42-year old Matt Livingston, a young manager who somehow managed to save penniless amateur club Kildare County from relegation out of the Irish First Division.”

“That is why you have enough coaches,” Nakov snapped. “This is hard enough without you looking for work elsewhere.”

“It’s also not true,” I said, albeit reluctantly. Spotland seemed a palace compared to Station Road, which was pretty in its day but already starting to show signs of wear and tear despite only being built eight years ago.

I heard Rochdale also paid their players and might even pay their manager.

But I denied the story.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I insisted. “Look, I quit my job in Blackpool and moved here. Would I honestly do that if I were thinking of moving to Manchester?”

“Your assignment is this club,” Nakov said, leaving me to pick up the wreckage of the newspaper. “This club. Do you understand?”

“Of course I do,” I said.

Nakov then left, leaving me even angrier than before.

##

[Makonnen]

Making a ton of assumptions here, but very nicely done. When nonsensical things happen in the game, it is a real challenge to find a narrative thread. I know that I've stared at the computer screen for a while thinking to myself "Sheesh ... now what ... can't restart the game ... how the hell do I get through this?" So, yeah, nicely done.

[tenthreeleader]

Why, thank you ... kind of you to comment so. The two items came together in the game play and it seemed a plausible way for one to lead into the other. Whether it leads to anything or not, no one can say.

___

I spent the next few weeks stewing over Nakov’s backhanded slap at me in the office. For him to behave that way toward someone he wasn’t even paying was really beyond the pale.

I’m essentially a volunteer in this position, doing what I do for the love of the game and to try to make my way – eventually – in this game.

Yet I feel a sense of unfinished business and nobody who treats me like Nakov treated me will be a part of it when I’m done.

I sat there and stewed.

Oh, and I drank a bit too. I was a regular at Curry’s after the work in Dublin was done. I was even starting to make a few friends – even besotted bar patrons can often recognize the drunk next to them was the same guy who was there the night before.

Well, not a drunk. But you know what I mean.

Every now and again, I’d see some of the players in the place but by and large they were sticking to a close-season regimen that didn’t include regular drinking. I was happy to see it – or happy not to, as it actually worked out.

I’d talk with Nora from time to time, but whenever Flood was in the place – which happened from time to time – I kept my distance from both.

Bishop showed up one Friday evening, which was nice to see. The club’s mighty two coaches sat at the bar this time, the pain of the long season now passed into memory since the club had stayed up. We felt secure enough, as it were, to show our faces in public.

We talked with the patrons about the coming season and about what we were trying to do to strengthen the squad. Such as it was – we still weren’t very good no matter how you sliced it.

Yet somehow that didn’t seem to matter much to these people. We would put out a team that represented them, they wouldn’t come to the games, but they’d talk about them afterward. It all seemed odd to me.

So I sat with my deputy and we had a relaxed conversation with the townsfolk. That was nice.

When a young lady moved up to sit next to me, I almost jumped out of my skin, but eventually got over it. She had flowing black hair that culminated in a wavy flip just below her shoulders and large, dark eyes.

“Alana Carrigan,” she said, extending her hand. I smiled, and shook it.

“A pleasure, I’m sure,” I answered, to a look of amusement from Bishop.

“Matt doesn’t get out often,” he said. “At least not in groups that don’t involve eleven men.”

I shot him a glare, but Alana seemed to find Bishop funny so I let it pass.

“What brings you here tonight?” I asked.

“Night away from the child,” she responded. That seemed reasonable. If I had any, I supposed I would want to be free from them every so often as well.

“Good for you,” I finally answered.

“He’s with Eamon,” she said, taking a sip from a glass of Guinness. Judging by her shape, she didn’t drink often, and that seemed to agree with her quite nicely.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” I said, realizing pretty quickly that I ought not to pry.

“Eamon, who’s Diarmid’s father,” she replied. Now the look Bishop shot at me was entirely different.

“Perhaps you’ve seen him around Newbridge, he’s the fellow who has the black Aston Martin with the fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror and the big bumper sticker on the car boot.”

I couldn’t place such a car in my mind, but Alana certainly could. Perhaps the sticker might job my memory, so I asked.

“What does the sticker say?” I asked. She gave me a glum expression in return.

“Orgasm donor.”

I nearly choked on my beer.

“I should think I’d have remembered that,” I said, as Bishop tried and failed to suppress a snort of laughter.

“He’s rather unforgettable,” Alana answered.

‘Sorry to hear that.”

“Everyone is, I’m sure you’re the only one in town who hasn’t heard the story.”

She didn’t look terribly upset, which was a bit surprising. She did look, however, like a woman who had accepted her fate.

I took a deep pull from my glass and finished the beverage. Nora immediately appeared to give me a re-fill and looked across the bar at my companion.

Her gaze returned to me. “And how is Mister Livingston this evening?” she asked.

“I have no idea, but Matt is doing passably,” I replied.

“And you are presently learning about Miss Carrigan,” she said, just the hint of a crease appearing on her brow as she spoke.

“I am,” I replied, looking over at my table neighbor, whose expression had changed not a whit.

There seemed to be a history between the two and I could tell right away that I wanted no part of it. Not that it would matter – now was the point in most of my interactions with women that I’d say something stupid, wreck everything, and signal my cue to go home and spend the rest of the evening with my Playstation.

The two women looked at each other, and I turned to Bishop.

“I think Winter’s going to be a hell of a player,” I said.

##

[Jamcee]

"I think Winter's going to be a hell of a player," I said.

Excellent line! Another excellent story going on here 10-3.

[Satio]

wow, 10-3, this is good. Love this and really hope you develop a crush on them, much like I have with the numerous teams I have managed in past years.

Much love for some very good lines in here that have made me chuckle. Keep at it, and I'll be sure to keep reading.

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks, everyone ... this story is starting to roll a little bit and it's a lot of fun to write. Not quite as involved as RRRP and it allows me to show a different side of my writing style. And yes, Satio, I do like Kildare quite a bit. We'll see how long Matt stays there (or is allowed to, for that matter!)

___

It would really have annoyed me greatly if Curry’s would have been off-limits to me as well after the incident between Nora and Alana. Drinking seemed to be one thing I could do fairly well.

As the weeks dragged on during the Irish close season and everyone else in Europe was playing football, it gave me a chance to watch other clubs and see how they did things.

I made one more trip to England as my funds permitted as soon as I had banked enough time in my new job to take a week away. I caught a couple of games in the Unibond League to see how clubs roughly at our level played the game. It also gave me a chance to get away from the old group in Newbridge, to be quite honest.

I saw Marine play Matlock Town and, just to be cruel to myself, watched FC United play Northwich Vics at Gigg Lane. For crying out loud, FC United are a level below the Conference North but they’ve got their own television channel.

Ah, the life.

Looking at their players and then trying to figure out my own eleven for next season, I got a significant case of class envy. Even the smaller clubs in England had so much more resource, it was just amazing.

Of course, I also thought that my being seen at one or two of these grounds might wind up in the local paper and might make Nakov question my loyalty again.

Not that this was a bad thing. He had treated me very poorly. If someone truly did have me on a shortlist, I might have to contemplate moving back to England. For money.

Wow, what a switch.

I also thought a bit about Alana, and what possessed her to sit with me at the bar. Maybe it was because she thought I was the only person in the place who would be seen around her – so in that respect, we were probably even.

I also wondered why Nora had been so ambivalent toward her. That didn’t seem to make any sense. She was Flood’s girl friend, so unless Floody had been a very busy boy recently, there was little reason for her to be upset.

Flood’s a good guy, even if I am jealous as hell of him. I need him to do a job for me this season, though, so it’s not as though I can say anything about him even if I despise him – which I honestly don’t.

I just wish I could find some of this so-called ‘Luck of the Irish’.

As I thought it all through, I missed an FC United buildup that resulted in a goal. That figured.

##

[Shrewsbury_howie]

i need more. *bookmarks thread* keep it up!

[tenthreeleader]

Glad you like it! Okay, here's some more

___

Things seemed to settle down at the club after I returned from England. We settled comfortably into the close season and I had the opportunity to spend a Christmas holiday without the pressure of matches or a holiday schedule. I liked that feeling, to be honest.

I also settled into the community, and it was about time for that. There are places where that’s not so easy to do, and there are managers who either don’t try or who find it insanely difficult.

I had a few wags tell me I had built quite a local reputation on one victory, and after I took their ribbing with good humor, I gained a little more respect in and around the town.

I suppose it’s the same the world over. You really can’t claim to belong in a community until you’re accepted, and that can take time depending on where the natives live.

In some places, including some where I’ve lived, it never seems to happen at all. So to get a friendly smile and wave from certain of the good people of Newbridge was really heartwarming.

I’ve never really had a great deal of self-confidence in interpersonal relationships, so one might wonder why I would think being a football manager was a good career for me.

Or a corporate recruiter, for that matter.

In professional settings, I’ve been fine for much of my life. I can talk with someone professionally and have no difficulties at all. It’s when I get into the personal settings that I have had trouble.

So in a way, all those nights at Curry’s weren’t the worst things in the world for me. I need the practice, quite frankly.

Finally, two weeks after getting back from England, I screwed up the courage to ask Nora what had happened between Alana and her.

“Well, she talks about Eamon like he can be saved or something,” she said. “Everyone in town knows what he did to her and what kind of man he is. I mean, you’ve seen him. He’s the town gigolo.”

“Someone has to be,” I said, taking a sip from my Guinness and drawing a glare from the barmaid.

“People know about him,” Nora said. “And they know about her. She’s not a bad person, mind you, but she just makes bad decisions.”

“That explains why she sat next to me, then,” I said dryly.

“Stop,” she answered. “Look, Matt, I’ve come to like you a bit since you got here. You’re a nice man, a bit sarcastic perhaps, but a man who hasn’t had a lot of luck in love. I’m telling you, just avoid the situation.”

“Well, what makes you think I was interested?”

“You looked at her like you were drowning,” she replied, and I blushed in response.

“I hate it when I’m obvious,” I sighed.

“Well, don’t be,” Nora said. “At least, not with her.”

“I still don’t get why you’re so upset about her,” I said. “Not that it’s my business, but …”

“…but by asking the question, you’re making it your business,” she said, stopping the conversation momentarily to serve a new patron. She returned quickly, and lowered her voice so only I could hear.

“Matt, you’re too good for her,” she said. My glass, halfway to my mouth, nearly slipped out of my hand in shock.

“You’ve never intimated anything like that to me before,” I said.

“Well, it’s true. You’re a good man and a good person. Don’t get mixed up with Alana. It’s not worth your time.”

With that, she returned to her job and I was left to wonder what on earth had caused such enmity between the two women.

I figured it had to do with a man. We guys think like that.

##

[salkster2102]

FC United don't have their own television channel. It's just a little page where they film their matches and put the highlights on the net. Might have to watch them being mauled by the mighty stocksbridge on their But otherwise this is a good story 10-3

[tenthreeleader]

Salk, you should know by now that Matty Livingston is a bit prone to exaggeration But thanks for the kind words, the story is getting more and more fun to write.

__

Not that any of it mattered.

I was more interested in my team, to be frank. Liburd immediately accepted my counter offer to come to us as a player, and I told him he’d be more than welcome to help me run training – purely because he was interested, of course.

Not that I’d fly in the face of my chairman saying I shouldn’t have more than two unpaid volunteer coaches. Whatever.

So, with Liburd in the fold, I turned my attention to finding more freebies.

I quickly found two, and one in a place where we could frankly use some help.

That would be in goal, where Traynor and Skelly presently reside. Since I can’t play both of them at the same time, I have to do something to allow me to field one reasonably good keeper instead.

I feel that would be 28-year old Welshman Alex Davies, who signed two days after Liburd. He came in on a trial and though he hasn’t played in two years, he was a trainee at Swansea and played for them in their League One days before spending four seasons with Carmarthen Llanelli in the Welsh Premier League, suiting up 37 times.

He’s tall (6’3”), strong, is an excellent jumper and has absolute command of his area by comparison to anyone else in our colors. He’s also got good, quick hands and isn’t afraid to take charge of his defenders. So, all that’s good.

The other player I’m happy to see arrive is 22-year old full back Darren Nash, another Ulsterman. He spent three seasons with Institute in their Premiership before moving to Limavady United last year. When that club was relegated, he was let go.

Nash will slot straight into that left full back spot for us. So, in the span of a week’s time we brought in three players on no salary at all who are all going to find places in the XI.

With those three joining Kenny, Winter and Wannell as new arrivals in addition to my signings off our reserve team, we’ll have an almost entirely new team next season as compared to the start of 2009. That will mean they’ll need time to jell.

As opposed to a team that loses 31 straight matches, that is. I mean, how bad can it really be?

We haven’t resorted to the last refuge of the desperate, a public tryout camp, as of yet. But, you never know.

Join Kildare County and see the world. What an advertising slogan.

I was on my way in to Curry’s after another trip in from Dublin when I ran into Alana outside the pub.

I asked how she was getting on, and quickly noticed that a child was hiding behind her out of shyness.

Clearly, the girl was her daughter and I waited for an introduction to be made. I soon made Little Patrice’s acquaintance – still hiding, but introduced nonetheless – and I quickly talked with her mother while the girl waited.

This meant that she had at least two kids, so I had learned something else about her.

“Oh, I’m doing all right,” she said. “Getting by, you know how it is.”

I did indeed know, or at least I thought I did.

“It was nice of you to talk with me the other night,” I said. “I appreciate people who take the time and who make the effort. You’d be surprised how many do not.”

“Try me,” she said, a wan smile crossing her face.

I bit my tongue. Every time I ‘try’ someone, it winds up biting me, usually hard and in a delicate location.

“It’s tough sometimes,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to keep you from whatever you’re doing.”

“Will you be in there long?” Alana asked, motioning to the door with a thumb pointed over her shoulder.

“Don’t think so,” I said. “I need to get back to Dublin tonight, I’ve an early meeting tomorrow.”

“Well, how about I call you later when I’m free?” she asked. “The wee ones will be in bed then.”

I brightened.

“Sure,” I replied. I wrote down my personal phone number on a club business card and handed it to her. “Enjoy your day.”

I then went home and happily waited for my phone to ring.

But it never did.

##

[tenthreeleader]

It was starting to become time to focus on the new season.

This was a good thing, because focusing on anything that wasn’t job related was now an obvious and complete waste of my time.

Alana apologized a week later for not calling me, and then told me she wasn’t always the most consistent of friends. That figured. I let my guard down and got kicked in the pills again.

That was starting to get old.

It also annoyed me a bit that Nora had been so right. I wasn’t happy about that – not that I was mad at her, but because I had judged wrongly yet again.

It was just annoying.

My trips to the office during the close season were now rote. Nakov had forgotten about how he had treated me regarding Liburd but I certainly hadn’t, and though I of course never said anything to the chairman about the situation I was less than pleased about it going forward.

I was starting to develop an edge, and I supposed that it was about time.

Unfortunately, in the matter of personal conduct, it was the wrong kind of edge but that couldn’t be avoided. I hadn’t started it.

If people were going to keep rejecting me, it was the only thing I could do.

I went into a shell. The only people who saw me as I really am – or at least the way I think I am – were Bishop and, to a lesser extent, Nora.

Not that this mattered either.

Alana tried to make it up to me one night at Curry’s, but I paid her little heed. That seemed to satisfy Nora.

Not that this mattered either.

There comes a time when you just have to focus on the job. Anything else is baggage.

Especially when it comes to women.

It just annoyed the hell out of me, quite frankly.

At long last, the holidays dragged themselves by me and it was time to schedule friendlies.

A bid for one more player –24-year old midfielder Stephen Hurley, who would have been our best player by far – was accepted by his club Arklow but the player himself wound up signing for Grays Athletic, which was disappointing but not unexpected.

Bishop did all right for us – scheduling amateur club Garda FC to start our friendly list on 29th January before adding St. Kevin’s, Blackrock, Freebooters and Drumcondra to the list to prepare us for the season.

All five of the matches are at home, so that’s an added convenience. Maybe someone will even show up to watch, which I’m sure will delight Nakov.

Oh, and speaking of him.

On December 30, he stepped into my office late one afternoon and asked me if I would mind managing the club next season. I had the day off from my job in Dublin and was trying to prepare a training schedule for the opening of the work-up period after the New Year began.

“I thought that was the plan,” I said.

“Your contract expires at the end of the day tomorrow,” he explained.

“You aren’t paying me anything, so what contract is there?” I replied.

“We must have paperwork,” he said. “It is in the rules.”

“Can’t argue that, I guess. Okay, where do I sign?”

I realized I had undergone a pretty significant change in attitude to ask where I could sign a contract – for nothing – without so much as a second thought. A few months ago, Kildare County was beneath me.

Now, not so much.

I had been mentioned in despatches, as the Army might say, regarding a couple of other jobs but thankfully Nakov had not reacted as violently as he had the first time he had seen my name in another town’s paper.

I think he was coming to realize that the English press does what it wants and says what it wants. Whether something is true or not can sometimes be secondary.

Football managers have been arguing with reporters since football was invented. I wasn’t the first to have those thoughts and I am quite certain I won’t be the last.

I’m starting to get a little jaded.

I saw Alana casually a couple of time right before training started, and I thought it might be a good idea to keep my distance. I never knew from one minute to the next what I might learn about her and her family.

It’s not that she isn’t nice. She’s very nice. It’s just that I don’t know what’s going on with her from one minute to the next, so the best course of action for me is to simply not get involved.

This, of course, was just fine with Nora. I couldn’t figure that out either, and really couldn’t be arsed to try. Obviously, whatever had gone on between the women in the past was more than skin deep.

Alana drove me nuts. I thought she liked being around me, but she was so streaky and unreliable I got to the point where I’d almost wave her off when she said she’d call. Sometimes she did, which was always a nice surprise, but usually she wouldn’t.

Not that this mattered, mind you.

It’s just that I spend so much time thinking about it.

Finally, though, it was time for pre-season training to begin. Such as it was.

I had the team run sprints as our first drill, which drew howls of derision and waves of sarcasm from my wholly-volunteer unit.

Polite and not-so-polite suggestions that the manager should join his troops in running ‘line sprints’ were greeted with the same reply.

“I’m getting paid twice as much as you. Now, run.”

It was hardly worth explaining to them that one reason why we conceded so many goals, especially late on in matches, was because we just weren’t in condition by comparison to our full-time opponents.

They should have been able to figure it out, but when I saw Robinson react to his first sprint series of the new season by bending himself over a trash can, I had to react.

“I didn’t see you in the pubs in the close season so I don’t expect to see you puking up your lunches now,” I snapped. “What part of being a real footballer does not appeal to you?”

“Not getting paid,” Kinsella cracked, from the rear of the team’s circle.

I smiled.

“Okay, I’ll grant you that,” I said. “But come on, lads, do you really want this season to go like the last one? How about winning a game or two before the season ends? I think you can do that.”

I looked across the group of players now gathered in a circle around me, and saw Flood helping Robinson steady himself. The defender hadn’t said he was any the worse for wear when the training began, but clearly he was quite a ways from game shape.

Most of them looked that way. They were an amateur side, after all.

It was sad. All the grandiose thoughts of improvement on the part of our holdovers from last season seemed light years away.

The new arrivals looked ready to play. They had come to training looking to impress, but I couldn’t tell a one of them that their places in this eleven were virtually assured from the moment they walked through the stadium gates.

The cleverest of them could figure it out now. We had reached a tipping point.

##

[tenthreeleader]

“Well, yes, I like you.”

Alana sat across a table from me at Curry’s and we were having a little heart-to-heart. Or what passed for it, anyway.

Nora was off duty, thankfully, so I could have a conversation without worrying as to whether it was being rated or not.

“So what’s with all this promising to call me and then not doing it?” I asked. “Eventually I get to the point where I stop waiting.”

“It’s complicated,” she explained.

“It usually is.”

“I’m still seeing Eamon from time to time.”

“I think this conversation is quickly drawing to a close,” I said, taking a long drink of my Guinness.”

“No, Matt, it’s not like that. He’s the father of my children, I have to see him from time to time.”

“Why didn’t you mention you had more than one?”

“I didn’t know if you’d care, frankly.”

“I made time for you,” I answered. “Sometimes you took it and sometimes you didn’t. I wouldn’t have minded knowing.”

“Well, let me put it this way,” she said. “I have this history around town, so when I mention things about my wee ones to people they tend to run away.”

“So you ran away from me?” I asked.

“Everyone else runs away from me,” she continued.

“But you run away and then you run back,” I said. “It’s frustrating and frankly it drives me nuts. I need to have some idea of where you stand.”

“I do what I can,” she said, somewhat cryptically. “It’s up to you whether that’s good enough.”

“This is making my head hurt,” I said. “Look, do you want to see me socially or do you not?”

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“Yes or no is not complicated,” I answered, trying one last time to be patient.

“You don’t understand,” she said sadly.

I shook my head.

“No, in this case I guess I don’t,” I said. “I want to know, yes or no, whether I should keep making exceptions for you if you aren’t going to follow through. I like you, and I’d like to see you if you can get up the nerve to see me if that is what you want to do. But the only person who can follow through is you. I’ve been knocked around too many times in my life to invest any more emotional energy if I can’t be sure it’s going to the right place.”

“I’ve had issues like that too,” she reminded me.

“But running and hiding from them doesn’t help either of us,” I said.

I rose to leave.

“Think it over, Alana. Don’t answer me yet. But when you do decide to answer, I’ll be here.”

I left, feeling an inch tall, but with at least some of my self-respect still intact.

##

[tenthreeleader]

I moved to Newbridge. That might or might not have been a good idea.

From the point of view of my job it wasn’t a big deal. Somewhat to my own surprise, I was actually successful at it. I was a good little headhunter, as the phrase goes, and my bosses noticed.

They also gave me a bit of leeway in terms of my personal schedule. That allowed me to move to Newbridge and try to set up something a little more palatable in terms of my second job as well.

I also waited for my phone to ring. It didn’t, but that didn’t surprise me. I had work to do anyway, and I noticed a curious thing with each move I made that involved the senior squad.

Every time I’d release a player from the prior year’s club, someone would remark about how brilliant an idea that was.

Suddenly, I got an idea as to why no one showed up for our games. Evidently people hated the entire team.

It also explained why the players didn’t often make appearances at Curry’s.

A little research in the public records section at Newbridge Town Hall didn’t turn up any allegations of axe-murdering, armed robbery or orgasm donation among my players, but I think it all boiled down to this: they just weren’t very good footballers and people were tired of watching them.

Amazingly enough.

So, the new free signings I brought in to replace the old free signings were greeted, almost to the man, with delight. The interest in the town seemed to be growing as the pre-season training schedule continued, Robinson kept down more and more of his dinners, and we started to look like a half-decent team. At least, as long as we were facing ourselves in intra-squad scrimmages.

We still had to raise our opinions of ourselves, though. For example, one of our scrimmages went to penalties after I insisted one day that all these guys play until we found a winner.

Horgan rammed home the winning penalty and then declared that it was his biggest thrill in football. I thought he was kidding, but he claimed he was serious.

We really do need to raise our goals.

I’ve got goals, but I don’t dare tell the squad yet. I want us to win at least one of our first five league matches. I’d love that for the players’ confidence.

I’d also like to see us to win a cup match of any kind. When you go oh-for-2009 in terms of your victory total, anything that raises morale or maybe even gets us an extra home gate (such as it is) certainly helps the cause.

And finally, I’d like to see us go part-time. The caliber of player we’d attract would improve dramatically, which brings me to the point of this soliloquy.

[tenthreeleader]

Two weeks into pre-season training, I attended a tryout match for forty players unaffiliated with any Irish club.

The players trained for the managers and scouts assembled prior to the match in case they didn’t get a fair chance to showcase their skills in the match.

I noted that there were several players who would look even better than all the others in our colors, and it didn’t take me long to sense that.

One player stood head and shoulders above the rest, literally as well as figuratively.

I say figuratively because he was good. I say literally because he stood six-foot-seven.

Clive Delaney played 14 matches for Sligo Rovers in the Premier Division last year, scoring once, but was rather inexplicably released at the end of the season and could not find a club.

So he was in the tryout game – and dominating. There was just no way I was going to let him leave the ground without making an offer, and I sort of expected the answer I got.

Which was, in a word, ‘no’.

“You want a club, we’re willing to be a club, and you know you can leave whenever the hell you want because you aren’t being paid,” I reminded him.

“I know that, and it’s still no,” he said. “Someone in this country will pay me.”

“I have no doubt of that, but will they play you week in week out like you can play here?”

“I don’t want to have to find a job,” he explained. “I want football to be my job. I’m sorry.”

Well, I couldn’t really argue about that but I did have a parting shot for him.

“If you don’t have a club in three weeks or so I’m going to be calling you again,” I said. “I have to look out for my organization too and I know you can help us.”

“Fair enough but the answer will be the same.”

He couldn’t know that and we both knew that.

[ScottleeSV]

Wouldn't it be something if you pulled a promotion out of the bag this season? If players like Delaney drop expectations late in the pre-season, you never know.

Well done on winning an award for the story.

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks for the kind comments ... we'll see about results this season. The squad needed a total overhaul, and even with all the new players in I think Matt will be fortunate to win a third of his games this season.

___

That said, we did attract even more players in the close season.

The Kildare Reclamation Project did nab another player out of that trial match – 20 year old striker Ger Cheevers, who played nine matches for non-league Salthill last season and who looks like he can find the back of the net.

That gives me two half-decent strikers and gives me a better partner for Winter – which means it doesn’t have to be Flood.

Unfortunately for me, Floody was then promptly voted Fans’ Player of the Year, which means benching the fan favorite isn’t going to go over very well.

It also meant a slightly larger following for him at Curry’s, which was good for him. Some guys have all the luck. The fans do like him.

Those fans we have, that is. We weren’t selling season tickets, so when Nakov announced at a January AGM that the club had turned a profit of 425,000 Euros, which amounted to a rather stupendous 828 percent of turnover, it caused a bit of a stir in Newbridge.

Of course, a fair amount of that money was Nakov’s, but it did beg the question as to why some of it couldn’t be spent to pay players.

Or the manager, for that matter. Except I seemed to be the only one thinking along those lines.

While all that controversy flared about town, I snagged 16-year old Scottish midfielder Richard McIntosh on, obviously, a free transfer.

The lad had come up through the St. Johnstone system and had had SPL facilities at his disposal for training prior to his release at the new year. It didn’t take us long to find him, as he actually showed up on one of our scouting reports.

That in itself was a minor miracle, but I wasn’t about to say anything.

The growth in our numbers on the back line allowed me to release both Kevin Cotter and Fergus Foley, two of the rarely-do-wells from last season. Still, even though they weren’t especially good footballers, I hated the thought of releasing them.

That brought the number of imports to nine, and the number of departures to ten. It was like getting a whole new team.

And frankly, even though we had accomplished something meaningful with that group of players, the overwhelming majority of them simply were not good enough.

However, it was soon time to stop the talking and start playing again. Non-league Garda FC was our first test in our first friendly and it was time to see if all these new players could actually jell.

##

[tenthreeleader]

29 January 2010 – Kildare County v Garda FC – Friendly #1

It didn’t seem like my team, somehow.

That was for two reasons. First, we had so many new faces out there.

Second, because we were far enough ahead to make me wonder whether it was really my new group of players I was watching.

Winter had been sensational. In his first game in the shirt, he had scored a hat trick and had driven our non-league opposition to distraction.

He was too quick for Garda, that was obvious. It had taken him just under ninety seconds to open his account with us – though, of course, it will be much more satisfying if he scores when it matters – but the start had been quick and thunderous.

Garda equalized through defending that was frankly comical. Two new defenders – Fagan and Roche – had collided while chasing a loose ball that the new keeper, Davies, had already called for.

The defenders fell like ninepins and I watched in horror as Davies then backed off the ball for striker John Murphy to collect and slot home.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, before uttering an exceptionally rude word.

Bishop had his head in his hands. It was only a friendly but it was one of the most ridiculous goals either of us had ever seen. It was that bad.

I had to watch my language. There were only a very few people who cared to show up for the match and just about anything said on either bench was audible from a frighteningly long distance away.

Yet Winter overcame a lot of that embarrassment. He scored a second goal before halftime and a third three minutes after the restart.

We had possession, we were incisive and we were rampant after the little bit of high comedy had died down.

“You know, if we don’t trip over our own feet again we might be good value,” I said to Bishop, and my deputy simply smiled.

“Never know, Matt,” he said with a wan expression. “It’ll take some time for these lads to jell as you know, but never underestimate the chance for a catastrophic error.”

As I spoke, Winter took a great little feed from one of our youth promotees, midfielder Declan Young, and turned a fourth goal home just inside the hour.

That was much better. It was almost enough to outweigh the colossal error we had made at the back – reminding those who cared to show up that we were still very much an amateur side.

Kildare County 4 (Ryan Winter 2, 35, 48, 59)

Garda FC 1 (John Murphy 11)

A – 26 (yes, that’s right) – Station Road, Kildare

Man of the Match – Ryan Winter, Kildare County (9.8)

##

[tenthreeleader]

“You’re kidding me, right? You have got to be kidding me.”

Alana wasn’t kidding. And I was absolutely mystified.

We were standing in the stadium car park after the match. It was empty. Since there were just over two dozen people in attendance, it wasn’t as though there was much of a traffic jam to leave.

“I’m serious,” she said. “Don’t call me again.”

“May I ask why?” I asked.

“Well, when you leaned out of your car after the match, do you know who I was standing with?”

“No, and frankly I didn’t care,” I said. “You were the one who said you wanted me to greet you.”

“I was standing with Eamon,” she spat. “We were talking about our children. Do you know how much trouble you caused for me?”

“No,” I answered.

“That’s the trouble with you, you don’t think,” she spat.

I don’t often see red, but I was seeing it right then. The lights of the stadium were shut off right at that moment and her face went from being bathed in yellow light to framed in shadow in a split second.

“You didn’t think, and you caused me trouble,” she repeated.

I interrupted. Blinking to adjust to the change in light, I went over the top.

“Now you listen to me, missy,” I snarled.

She started to interject but I simply raised my voice and overpowered her.

“You will not lecture me. I accept no censure and I will accept no criticism whatever for being a gentleman and trying to be supportive of you on one of those rare occasions when I actually get to talk with you. Do you hear me?”

“You caused me trouble –“

“I said … do you hear me?”

I locked eyes with her and all the pain I had ever felt in relationships was now pressed right behind my eyeballs. It made my head hurt.

“You don’t think and you don’t listen,” she said.

“I am through being pigeonholed and I am through being told that my opinion doesn’t matter,” I said, my voice now cold and hard as steel.

“I will go where I want and I will greet whom I want. And I will tell you this: one of those people will no longer be you.”

She looked at me, a wild-eyed expression in her eyes. I supposed it matched mine.

“Don’t call me again,” she repeated.

I turned my back.

“Get out of my sight,” I replied. “Nobody talks to me like that and gets away with it.”

I strode to my car and slammed the door behind me. I roared off into the street – dreadfully hurt but with my dignity more or less intact.

##

[tenthreeleader]

1 February 2010 – Kildare County v St. Kevin’s – Friendly #2

I remained angry. In fact, I still can’t remember the last time I had been so angry for so long.

I wanted my players to take my frustration out on St. Kevin’s, but obviously it wasn’t the time or place to tell them that.

Still, there was no doubt that I was a very angry man as the match kicked off. I had a different gear, as it were. This match wasn’t for fun, at least not for me, and I frankly didn’t care who knew it.

“There’s a rain cloud over your head,” Bishop said in a feeble attempt at humor.

“And it’s hailing,” I said. “Mind that you don’t get caught under it.”

Chastised, Bishop sat down.

Meanwhile, we set out strongly again, though with a different first eleven out there. I started the eleven who finished the first friendly to try to get everyone some early match action. That meant Winter, who had netted four times just a few days before, wasn’t on the park so the couple of dozen people who bothered to attend were left scratching their collective heads.

Not that it mattered. I’ve got a team to prepare for the season and I really don’t care what anyone thinks about how I do it. Frankly, I am starting to wonder if anyone’s going to care at all.

Half an hour into the match, defender Kenny McDonald managed to catch up to our new arrival, Ger Cheevers, and tackled him. Unfortunately, it was an American football tackle, and doubly unfortunately for McDonald, it happened about five feet to the left of the penalty spot.

So, referee Tomas Connolly picked up the ball and moved it five feet to the right, from where Place smashed it home to put us ahead.

Eight minutes later we were celebrating again courtesy of another new arrival, Marc Kenny. The veteran calmly slotted home off a scramble in front of the visitors’ goal to make it 2-0 to us in 38 minutes and we went to the break with the manager still glowering but two goals to the good.

Cheevers was quite effective for us on both sides of the interval. He earned us that penalty before the break and got us another one in the second half as McDonald fouled him again early on in the second half, earning us a spot kick and getting himself sent off for a second bookable offense in the process.

In all, sort of the Blue Max of screwups, I guess. Place powered home from the spot again to make it 3-0 and that allowed me to start my substitution pattern with few worries.

Eventually I brought Winter on and that got warm applause from the few fans who were still there to watch. Perhaps they were just clapping to keep their hands warm, as it was starting to get a bit chilly even for the first of February.

Winter didn’t disappoint. Curran played a neat little ball forward for the striker, who showed a terrific turn of pace and powered home gleefully from fifteen yards to get himself on the scoresheet and remind one and all (oh, okay, one and a few) who the top dog in Newbridge really was.

I can’t wait to see him paired with Cheevers. That should be fun.

Meanwhile, we blew them away. That was enough even to make a frustrated, angry man smile.

Kildare County 4 (Place pen 30, pen 54; Kenny 38, Winter 90+2)

St. Kevin’s 0 (as in none, McDonald s/o 53)

A – 29, Station Road, Kildare

Man of the Match – Bernard Brennan, Kildare County (8.5)

# # #

[Mark Snellink]

Who are these people, and why have they stolen those Kildare shirts?

Glad to see this still alive, and producing some results no less

[tenthreeleader]

Well, two things, Mark: First, I've swapped out eight first-team places with new signings and second, I'm playing non-league opposition in the friendlies

___

I had a decision to make.

The arrival of Cheevers gave me five strikers I could actually utilize on the park. Winter and Cheevers will positively be two of them.

Place takes an excellent penalty for our level of football, has some pace and above all can stay onside without tripping over his own feet. There’s also the young David Tracey, who can finish pretty well for a player at this level as well.

Don’t tell anyone, but I’m starting to not hate our strike force. That’s a big thing for me to admit.

And then there’s Flood. The young man with the ravishing girl friend has now got to earn a place in the team. He knows it too.

He can’t finish worth a damn (at least not on the field, as far as I know) but he’s the fastest pace striker we have and if we want to open up the park for Winter, he’s a good option to help do that.

He can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a football, though. So I’ve got a decision to make.

As the players gathered for training the day after the St. Kevin’s match, I listed the squads on a bulletin board outside my office. The players filed past it every day on the way to the changing room so they could read anything I had to tell them before the training proper began.

I made some changes after the St. Kevin’s match. Kevin Cotter and Fergus Foley were released, due to the larger numbers of frankly better players I’ve got available on the back line. Besides, if the plague strikes the club any time this season, it’s not like they’re going far away.

So their names weren’t on the list.

And Flood’s name was with the reserves.

He walked past, looked at the sheet, and headed to training with a frown on his face.

##

[Mark Snellink]

Jealousy is an ugly thing, sir.

[tenthreeleader]

Ain't it just, Mark?

___

3 February 2010 – Kildare County v Blackrock – Friendly #3

Rumors were flying and this time I wondered if they might actually come true.

The Stockport County job may be available at the end of the season and Gary Ablett may not be the man to keep it. I am not sure whether that’s good or not, but it is what it is.

County are 19th in League One at the present moment, only two points above the drop zone and one of just five clubs in that division who haven’t breached double figures in victories in 32 games. They’ve got nine, but also fourteen defeats.

The thought of managing at Edgeley Park attracts me, especially since the papers there have brought up my name more than once. I’ve also had the chance to remind the rather impatient Nakov that I’m not actively looking for another position.

The job in Dublin is going well. However, if I get the opportunity to manage in League One I’m going to jump at it.

However, County have had the same problems we’ve had here in Ireland, though on a somewhat larger scale. They entered administration last April and are still in it, which means the playing squad is made up of a lot of loan players and is threadbare.

A group there called the ‘2015 Group’ is trying to buy the club to save it financially. Hopefully they succeed.

However, the Hatters also have about 3,000 season ticket holders. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever managed in front of that many people.

Before our match tonight against non-league Blackrock, Nakov posted the season ticket figures for the season. He may as well have just named names.

He sold twelve season tickets. A dozen. Less than a baker’s dozen.

It’s comforting to know that I can have a larger playing squad than my club’s season ticket base. That way if we’re playing badly and they try to jump us, we can probably hold them off until the cops arrive.

There weren’t many more than that in the ground tonight to watch us play – I actually counted noses and found nineteen people in the stands – and they saw us play quite poorly.

Defender Paul Byrne bailed us out seven minutes into the match, though, tripping Tracey to the ground about two strides inside the penalty area, and Hastings confidently dispatched the penalty to get us off to a strong start.

However, that was really as good as it got for a long time. The dominance of our performance against St. Kevin’s was a thing of the past, and it wasn’t until Curran snaked home a long shot in 64 minutes that we could count ourselves reasonably secure.

Statistically, we dominated. They didn’t have a single shot on target and their physical conditioning was appalling. However, we didn’t force the play, we didn’t recycle our advantage in position – in short, we didn’t even look like we wanted to be there.

And through it all, Flood was one of the nineteen in the stands. He sat right behind our bench, glowering.

That’s too bad.

Kildare County 2 (Hastings pen 7, Curran 64)

Blackrock 0

A – 19 (seriously), Station Road, Newbridge

Man of the Match – Gordon Curran, Kildare County (MR 7.3)

# #

[gavrenwick]

It’s comforting to know that I can have a larger playing squad than my club’s season ticket base. That way if we’re playing badly and they try to jump us, we can probably hold them off until the cops arrive.

Coolest quote ever If I may say so.

[tenthreeleader]

Why, thank you, sir

___

“All I want to know is why I can’t make your team anymore.”

“Look, it’s not permanent,” I said. Flood was sat across from me in my small office and unfortunately, he was also between me and the door. That meant I had to answer him if I wanted to go get lunch.

Which I did.

It was a Saturday morning and we had an afternoon kickabout scheduled to work out the kinks after the Blackrock match. Flood was still listed with the reserves – and I honestly do have four strikers who I think are better than he is.

That’s what I told him. He didn’t believe it.

“Look, you know the first team isn’t encased in stone,” I told him. “Look at what we did at the end of last season when I came here. Hell, I made six promotions from the reserves for the first match we played.”

He said nothing in reply.

“There is every chance for you to play your way into the first team,” I said. “But right now, who am I going to move for you? Winter’s got something like six goals and Cheevers is a good player for this club. You need to show me that you’re better than either of those two.”

I could see the steam rising out of his ears. No player with any sense of pride likes being told he’s not good enough. Yet, that was exactly what I was telling Flood.

“I will prove it to you,” he said, rising to leave. “I’ll be back for training. Right now I’m going to get a bite to eat. I’ll greet Nora for you.”

He spun on his heel and left. Sighing, I turned back to my computer and got my first look at our fixture list for the coming season.

It’s bloody. Unfortunately, we have to play everyone in our league.

As I absorbed the information on the screen, Nakov stuck his head into my office. It was turning into a perfect day.

“Matt, there is a woman here to see you,” he said. “She said her name is Alana.”

I spun toward the owner and gave him an angry expression.

“Mr. Nakov, will you please tell her to go away?” I asked. “I’d really appreciate it.”

# #

[tenthreeleader]

6 February 2010 – Kildare County v Freebooters – Friendly #4

Flood did what he said he’d do.

He greeted Nora for me, and then he, or someone, started whispering.

That has never really bothered me. The team’s fan base is too small to worry about a whispering campaign because our season ticket holders could gather in a circle and play the old ‘telephone’ game without changing the message.

“Hey, did you hear about Flood? He’s not playing because the manager wants his girl friend. Pass it on.”

“I heard it was because he’s pants.”

“Don’t you believe it. Pass it on.”

So we arrived at the stadium for our fourth of five scheduled friendlies with a bit of discord on my hands. I’ve gotten rid of most of the squad from a season ago that I don’t think can help us, so the discord was kept to a minimum.

The holdovers from last year know they are here because I think they can do a job for us, so they don’t say much. The new guys know they’re here because they’re better than the people I got rid of, so they don’t say much.

However, there’s a bit of an undertone that I have to get rid of, and I’ll do that. Or perhaps I’ll ask Nakov to do it for me. He seems like the sort that doesn’t take any sort of guff either.

We were a tired bunch as we took the pitch tonight. It was our third friendly in six nights and that means we have some sore legs to deal with. It’s good for us, though – good for conditioning and it’s good to have to play through a match when you’re tired.

Freebooters weren’t anything special – if they were, they’d be in our league – but what we found is that we really don’t play well when we’re falling all over ourselves.

I mean, we do that ordinarily, but not because we’re tired. This time we did it through fatigue.

We carved them open with some ease, but our finishing was sadly lacking. It didn’t help that Winter started the game on the bench, so Cheevers and Place were our up-front tandem.

I think Cheevers is a good player at this level. He’s good with the ball at his feet. Unfortunately, Place isn’t, so my strike depth is pretty much two players – Cheevers and Winter.

We dominated the first half but went to the changing room scoreless, a situation that I wanted to see rectified in the second half but didn’t want to push too hard to obtain.

The players were tired. Pushing hard would only lead to the risk of injury, and I had to balance that against the desire to get this team some victories for the sake of its confidence. Failure to come through against a non-league opponent at home wouldn’t help much.

So I sent them back out for the second half, but pulled Place in favor of Winter. It was time to see my first choice strike pairing play like it, tired or not.

Thankfully for us, they did. Winter was the provider this time, sliding a great little ball to Cheevers between the center halves and allowing our newest striker to slot home in 76 minutes.

Freebooters were just as tired as we were. Having conceded, they folded like a house of cards. They never threatened us and I knew they wouldn’t. We needed to score, though, and we did.

There’s a lot to be said for scoring when you need to. Oh, never mind. I need to get Nora off my mind.

Kildare County 1 (Ger Cheevers 76)

Freebooters 0

A – 22 (yes, you read it right), Station Road, Newbridge

Man of the Match – Anthony Robinson, Kildare County (7.3)

##

[fergalb]

This is a fantastic storyline 10-3 really enjoying it! Make sure to try it on with Nora though won't you? She sounds like a stunner.

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks, fergal! Glad to have you along for the ride! Nora's a looker, all right, but she's standing by her man ...

___

Before the couple dozen people who had come to the match had even gone, Flood was asking about his restoration to the first team.

I don’t mind players asking about that sort of thing, as long as they’re respectful about it. From my point of view, even though none of us are on the payroll, there is a certain measure of respect I’m entitled to as the designated person who picks the team.

After the match, I mentioned to the players that I’m adding two more friendlies after we finish our five freebies with the match against Drumcondra. We’ll play against ourselves – the more cynical in town might say playing with ourselves – as the first team faces the reserves, and we’ve also added a match against Ballina before we face Monaghan United in our opening match.

In between we’ll have a couple of weeks away with only light training as the players get their legs ready for the long grind of the upcoming season. Since we can’t get away from that season, we may as well prepare for it.

The Drumcondra friendly will make four matchees in eight days. While I applaud Bishop for his hard work in setting up the schedule, I do wish he hadn’t scheduled the matches quite so close together. We can actually use a little time away.

Unfortunately for me, Coffy’s is now a no-fly zone since I sent Flood to the reserves. I got to know a few people in that place during the close season and not being around them – hell, not being around people - is starting to get a bit annoying.

I’m still angry with Alana as well. I don’t know what on earth possessed her to treat me the way she did, and I really don’t know what sort of hold this Eamon character had over her to elicit such a strong reaction as I merely greeted her after a match.

Some guys are like that, I guess. God’s gift. Must be nice.

Getting a bit tired of having nothing to do in the evenings, I headed to a different pub after the match.

The players went to Coffy’s. The manager went to drink alone.

Or, at least I thought I did. About an hour before close, Bishop stuck his head into the place I visited, a nice little place called The Vaults.

It was nice because it was dark and the Guinness seemed to flow more freely than in other places. The hired help also didn’t ask personal questions, so there was that to consider too.

“Matt, I wondered where we’d find you,” he said, advancing to my table and sitting right down.

“We?” I asked. “Are you trailing someone along behind you, or are you one of the Three Little Pigs? Wee, wee, wee all the way home?”

“Well, okay, not ‘we’,” he said. “It’s not good to drink alone, but it’s worse to stay in your apartment all the time. It’s good that you’re out.”

“Just angry at how this whole thing with Flood went,” I said. “For crying out loud, he’s not good enough. We don’t draw enough paying customers to our matches for people to see that, but this town is so parochial that people just won’t see it.”

Our waiter brought a cold beer for Ian. He took a long pull and looked at me.

“Matt, you have to remember that no matter how much you want to win, this is still the town’s club. No matter what Nakov says. You dropped a fan favourite to the reserves. That isn’t going to sit well, whether he’s good enough or not. You need to understand that.”

“I do, and I’m taking heat for it,” I said. “As you have already noticed, I’m doing my drinking alone these days.”

“You just withdrew,” he said. “From a community standpoint that isn’t good.”

“Well, what would you have me do? Go back into Coffy’s and get myself slaughtered?”

“You could make an appearance,” he said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could get beaten up and have a pool cue rammed up my arse?”

“Besides that.”

“Other than that, I can’t think of a thing.” I was starting to feel the alcohol.

“Matt, it’s not the worst thing in the world. But right now you’re being seen as the guy who benched their favourite and then ran away. That isn’t good, especially if we start the season losing.”

“When we start the season losing, you mean. We’re still all amateurs and even though we’ve done well in friendlies, when the opposition are paid mercenaries I don’t see us winning much. I like their spirit but we just aren’t good enough to compete.”

“Then you’ll really need to be around,” he said. “These players are yours now. This team is yours now. Defend it, or we’ve got real problems.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

8 February 2010 – Kildare County v Drumcondra – Friendly #5

Defend, indeed.

With a new resolve on my part to be better in the community with my players, we took to the park against Drumcondra looking to make a mark with the people of Newbridge.

Only the people of Newbridge weren’t there.

I counted them as the match began, our last regularly scheduled friendly before we ramped up for the start of the season.

I counted fourteen, to be exact.

It was ridiculous. It’s clear that the people of this town care nothing for their team. Or perhaps they care nothing for the half-decent lot of players I’ve brought in to replace the group who lost thirty-odd times on the spin last season.

Cheevers earned a golf clap for a wonderfully taken goal just eight minutes into the match, as he strode around the Drumcondra defense and placed a perfectly-taken effort past keeper Darragh Murray.

I was quite pleased with his effort and his work rate. He looked like he really wanted to be out there, and this counted for much.

It got better, as Paul Place made it two-nil to us just after the half hour, taking a very nice little lead from Marc Kenny and burying it past Murray to his left. We really looked wonderful.

Seven minutes later, we were on the penalty spot as Cheevers was hauled down by his shirt when trying to spin and shoot. Hastings converted that effort as well, and inside of 40 minutes we were three goals to the good.

We even held the lead until half time, and there wasn’t much I could say to the players. There wasn’t much that really needed to be said.

We weren’t letting them have the ball, we weren’t letting them move with it on those rare occasions when they took it from us, and when we got it back we were carving them open on the counterattack.

Playing our third match in five days, I took the foot off the collective gas in the second half and decided to see how these players could hold a lead. The answer was, quite well.

In the second half, Drumcondra had the ball for about three-quarters of the session. They only broke through once, through their young striker Kevin O’Sullivan, eighteen minutes from time.

We had done the damage, it was more than enough, and we coasted to victory. It was a win that frankly, professional teams should expect.

Amateur teams, not so much.

We looked good. We looked like we wanted to play. And in short, it was a shame that no one cared to watch us.

This time I did head off to Coffy’s. I had a message I wanted to send.

Kildare County 3 (Cheevers 8, Place 32, Hastings pen 39)

Drumcondra 1 (Kevin O’Sullivan 72)

A – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Man of the Match – Darren Nash, Kildare County (7.6)

##

[Sense3]

Such a good story.

wonder how this thing with Flood going on

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, Sense ... nice to have you aboard!

___

“Well, how about that win, Nora?”

I went right after the red-headed barmaid at Curry’s brushing past Flood to sit on the same barstool I occupied in better days.

“What win?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What win. The one you and about 300 people around town missed this evening.”

Flood had watched the match from the stands but since he had no responsibilities after the match since he hadn’t played, he had managed to beat me to the bar.

“It wasn’t a bad game,” he offered. “Wish I could have played in it.”

“I do too,” I said, as Nora gave me a Guinness under the watchful eye of her boy friend. “All you need to do is earn your place.”

“Which I’ll get to do in two weeks’ time, isn’t that right?” he asked.

“Possibly,” I allowed. “You’ll get your opportunity.”

Before leaving the changing room I had informed the first team that their next scheduled friendly would indeed be against their own reserves, two weeks’ hence. They were going to get a week to rest their legs and work on their conditioning on a reduced schedule, and then they would, if you will, have at each other.

Flood couldn’t wait. He had something to prove, and he didn’t care who knew it.

For her own part, though, Nora seemed to be as nonplussed as she could be. I was a paying customer, after all, and even though I wasn’t giving her boy friend everything he asked for in terms of his squad place, I was still worthy of her attention. We had gotten on fairly well, and that was certainly worth something.

I thought I could catch a glimpse of a smile on her face as we talked. Flood, on the other hand, sat brooding. I really couldn’t blame him.

We talked freely, and as we did, Alana walked into the bar.

##

[tenthreeleader]

“Hello, Matt,” she said coolly, heading to a table opposite the bar.

I watched her walk away. That was not unpleasant, even if the part of her body I was watching reminded me of her attitude.

“I told you to avoid her, didn’t I, then?” Nora asked, placing another drink down on the bar for me.

“You did,” I said, raising my glass to her. “And thanks for that. Took me a bit to realize what you meant, but you were right.”

“She’s unbalanced,” Nora said. “I don’t usually say that about other people but in her case it’s surely true.”

Alana attracted male visitors. She always did. I was pleased, in this case, that one of them was not me.

She had come to see me after being so cruel in the car park, but I had sent her away. I was in no mood to deal with shenanigans from any woman at that point. I had had enough.

But she sat there, one fellow after another coming to her table to say hello, and she kept looking at me. It was pretty unnerving.

Flood, ever helpful, decided to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong.

“You need a good woman, don’t you, Matt?” he asked.

“Every man does,” I answered. “And my name’s not Matt.”

“Then what is it?”

“You know what it is,” I said.

“If you think I’m calling you ‘boss’ when neither of us makes Euro number one from this club, you are bloody daft,” he said.

I stared at him.

“I’m in charge of this club,” I said. “And if you want to have a place on the first team I suggest you do as I tell you. The only reason you’re still on the club’s books is because I still think you can be good enough to hold a place. But being an ass isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“You’re on a power trip!”

“I’m the bloody manager,” I retorted. Meanwhile, Nora looked on in shock. “And since none of us is getting paid, maybe you should try to understand why it is we’re all here. You and me both.”

“I know why I’m here, it’s because I want to play football,” he said. “I haven’t yet figured out why you’re here.”

“Well, then let me clue you in,” I said. “I’m here because I’ve been given the responsibility of making sure that when you play football you don’t embarrass yourself.”

That was pretty plain. I was getting tired of his mouth, but I made one more attempt to help him see reason.

“You can play, or you can’t,” I said. “Believe it or not I have had training in this capacity. I did help keep this club up last year, and you had a role in that as well. Now, we can either end this conversation civilly and you can show me what you’re made of when the reserves play the first team, or you can keep running your mouth and I’ll cancel your agreement. It’s up to you.”

His eyes hot, Flood put down his beer and walked out of the pub.

##

[tenthreeleader]

22 February 2010 – Kildare County v Kildare County Reserves – Friendly #6

I would have hoped Nora would show up to watch her boy friend’s vindication.

She wasn’t there. In fact, the match drew nary a soul.

I had never seen that before. But then, why should anyone want to watch the match when all we were doing was settling bragging rights within our own squad?

Obviously, Bishop was not with me on the bench – he was handling the reserves and they were stoked up to make their best impression from the get-go.

Talking with the senior players before the match, I informed them in not so gentle terms that there was a reason they were in the room they were in, and that there was a reason the other team was in the room it was in.

“I expect you to win and win well,” I said. “You were selected. They weren’t. We’re all teammates but you’re here because I think you’re better than they are. Now, don’t get anybody hurt but show them who’s boss and we’ll laugh about it at training tomorrow. Okay? Now do it.”

So they headed out, and the only player on either team wearing a hard game face was of course Flood. That shouldn’t have been surprising. The chip on his shoulder is now big enough to be carried by two men.

He lined up for the kickoff and from the opening whistle he was running around like a madman. I wondered, for a moment, about what he’d do if he actually scored, but like so many other great moments in history, there was anticlimax almost from the kickoff.

Flood went up for a header at the edge of the first team’s box but forgot the first rule of flight: takeoffs must always equal landings.

He had the takeoff part down pat. Landing, not so much.

He fell flat on his chest, God only knowing where he thought his feet should have gone. As near as I could tell, no one had touched him on the way down but now there he was, rolling on the ground clutching his chest.

Clearly the wind had been knocked out of him, but as the physios arrived to look him over, all they had to do was lift his shirt to see that something else was wrong.

They saw a growing area of discoloration on his chest, which wasn’t good no matter what I thought of him personally. I strode out to take a look with Bishop at my side.

He didn’t even have an angry expression on his face. It was rather one of fear, as he fought for breath.

The physios had already signaled for a stretcher, which wasn’t good. I could see an area of discolouration on the right side of his chest.

“I’m willing to bet he’s fractured ribs and maybe even collapsed a lung,” I heard. It was a heavy blow.

Such an injury meant weeks and weeks on the sidelines. From a purely narcissistic point of view it relieved me of a lot of difficulties, but I was honestly more concerned for Flood’s well-being than for anything else.

The stretcher bearers were quick and while Flood was given oxygen and carried off the park, it was rather unfortunate that there was no one there to clap him off.

So the players did it. I thought it was a lovely gesture.

As the ambulance roared off to the hospital, I watched with more than a little disgust as Shane McGee put the reserves ahead five minutes after the injury.

Bishop had done a lovely job directing the attack on the senior squad and the only question now was how we would react.

McGee had been a youth product who was looking for a way to the first team. His path is blocked by David Tracey, another youth product who now stepped to the forefront.

The 17-year old curled in a pair of wonderful goals before the break, leaving reserve keeper Keith Traynor with no chance on either effort. So we went to the half ahead 2-1, or trailing 2-1 depending on how you looked at it, and with a shortened bench due to the need to populate the first team’s opposition, I simply told those in the room to hang tough for another 45 minutes and to keep impressing.

Tracey did, finishing his hat trick nine minutes after the restart, while the reserves flailed away looking for a second goal. They never found it, and the advantage to the end of the match was that there was even less trouble than usual in getting out of the car park after it was done.

Kildare County 3 (David Tracey 26, 32, 54)

Kildare County Reserves 1 (Shane McGee 7)

A – 0 (as in zilch), Station Road, Newbridge

Man of the Match – David Tracey, Kildare County (9.5)

##

[ScottleeSV]

You've got a hell of a penchant for inventing attractive women. As much as Nora is the flavour of the day right now though (among your readers), I wonder if two years from now we'll be seeing posts like this - "Divorce Nora! You know you want to be with DCI O'Flaherty!"

Good luck for The Unwanted in 2011. Love these pub shennanigans.

[tenthreeleader]

One of these days I'm going to create a character who's already married when the story begins. But what fun would that be? Thanks for your kind words.

___

“Mr. Flood is in recovery. You can’t see him for about half an hour yet.”

“May I ask the extent of his injuries?”

The nurse, who obviously hadn’t been to the match either, looked at a chart. “I can’t tell you due to privacy restrictions,” she said smoothly.

“I’m his manager,” I said. “He was hurt playing football for Kildare County tonight.”

“You’ll have to ask his doctor,” she said, not willing to budge. I supposed I could see the wisdom in that.

So there was a reluctant half-hour of waiting – and at that time, Nora showed up.

We shared a greeting, and she sat in the chair opposite me in the waiting room.

“What have you heard?” she asked.

“Nothing, they won’t tell me,” I said.

“Well, he texted me before they sedated him,” Nora said. “Asked me to meet him here. He said he fractured ribs and they have to inflate his right lung. He’s in a lot of pain.”

I shook my head. I’ve broken a few bones in my life but thankfully never those near any vital organs. I could only imagine his pain.

“He also asked me to tell you he didn’t want to see you, if you were here,” Nora said.

I reacted.

“Come again?”

“He said he didn’t want to see you,” Nora repeated. “I think that’s pretty plain.”

“But I’m his manager.”

“But not his friend,” Nora said. “Look, Matt, I’m trying to be kind. Please, go.”

“Not until I hear from the doctor,” I said. “I do have a need to know.”

Just then, the door to the intensive care ward opened and a man stepped out wearing a long lab coat. I figured he would be the most likely person to approach.

“How is Fran Flood?” I asked.

“Who wants to know?” he replied. Lovely bedside manner, that one.

“His manager,” I said, and motioned to Nora. “And his girl friend.”

“Well, from a professional standpoint, then, I can tell you that he’s fractured two ribs and we had to reinflate his lung,” the doctor said. “Beyond that you’d have to get it from him.” The words seemed familiar.

I nodded. “Thank you,” I replied. I motioned to Nora.

“Ms. McCarthy would like to see him when it’s permitted.”

“And you wouldn’t?” he asked.

I sighed. “I would, but it seems that not everyone in this conversation is welcome with Mr. Flood,” I said, now turning to leave.

“Good night, all.”

##