[FM15] Malone Again, Naturally

[tenthreeleader]

Well, let's just say he might soon.

___

With the trip to Brighton and the south of England coming on top of a very heavy early season fixture list, we got to fly this time, to cut down on tired legs and enable us to prepare for the Second Round Capital One Cup tie against Brentford a few nights hence.

I do worry about how the string of early games, made more hectic by Cup success, will affect us. The board wants the third round in the League Cup so we’ll need to look sharp, especially at home, against a Championship opponent.

As we boarded the plane, I mused to myself that I still don’t have exactly the right feel for the chemistry of this group as yet. I suppose it will take more than six friendlies and a couple of early-season matches to determine it all for sure, but finding which combinations of players work best with others is something I have to get right and quickly.

I know I like us a lot better with Chung-Yong and Hall on the wings. The problem I have is finding places for Moxey, Tierney when he’s healthy again and McNaughton to play – three good left-sided players and only one spot for them.

On the flight, Spooner approached me and sat down beside me as soon as the pilot had turned off the seat belt light.

“Well, Bobby, you sure did well for yourself,” he said, and I gave him a puzzled look.

“How so?”

“You haven’t seen The Star, have you?”

“I try to miss it on a daily basis.”

“That woman you were photographed with the other night? Amanda Caldwell? She’s a Star Babe. You made the papers, my friend.”

The Star’s equivalent of the famous “Page Three Girls” in the rival Sun, there are generally two reasons a model earns that particular distinction in the newspaper. I had tried my hardest not to notice them at the event.

“Bloody hell,” I sighed. “I had no idea. It’s not like she’s like Lacey Banghard or anything.”

“Of course you didn’t know and neither did the media staff,” Spooner said. “There were two pictures in the paper today. One of them was Miss Caldwell with you. The other one wasn’t. Shall we say, the more salacious picture was a reprise of an earlier edition, and Lacey has nothing on this girl. At all.”

“Well, I guess I wait and see now,” I said. “Hopefully nobody really cares.”

“As long as you’re dreaming, Bobby, would you like a pony? She’s a bit popular on Twitter, shall we say,” Spooner said, showing himself to be a social media expert as well as a decent assistant manager.

“Lovely,” I said. “But I’ve got other things to worry about, such as how we get a result when we get to Brighton.”

“You have such a one-track mind,” he answered, smiling as he headed back to his seat.

As we landed, I got an e-mail.

“Nice picture,” the note said. The e-mail came from Kim Pickering’s address.

I sighed, and put away my phone.

# # #

[oche balboa]

Really enjoying this

[chesterfan2]

Can I second that, Oche? This is probably the story I'm looking forward to updates in most, 10-3, good work.

[oche balboa]

You can and there are 3-4 good stories at the moment

The standard is better again

[tenthreeleader]

Very glad to see that people are enjoying the work. This is fun to write, the FM15 engine is easy to work with from a storywriting standpoint and the results, for the moment, are good too.

__

23 August 2014 – Brighton and Hove Albion (1-1-1, 13^th place) v Bolton Wanderers (2-1-0, 3^rd place)

Championship Game Day #4 – American Express Community Stadium, Brighton

The burghers of Brighton and Hove came out in force to support their team. I wish we had had a similar level of support for our home opener, but I guess you can’t have everything.

Depending on who you talk to, it’s either the Falmer Stadium, for where it’s located, or “The AMEX” if you’re a corporate type. For me, it was simply the place today’s match was to be played and that was all that really mattered.

I wanted to see us play a better match and so the stall I set out was charged with doing that job, and quickly. Some changes were rung – but Mason kept his place.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán (captain), McNaughton, Ream, Tierney, Moxey, Medo, Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Hall, Mason, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, Vermijl, Wheater, Feeney, Vela, C. Davies, Clough.

I wish I could say it started well. It did not.

I liked the full backs from an offensive standpoint, but Brighton played us every bit as tough as Boro had. And twenty-one minutes into the match, we were behind as we let them out of jail from deep in their end. It turned into a full-fledged jailbreak as Rohan Ince fed their Spanish fullback, Bruno. Tierney, starting at centre-half, was too far up the pitch to be of help, hanging his partner, Ream, squarely out to dry.

With Sam Baldock coming up on the left, Ream was presented with a choice. He elected to play Bruno, who simply slid the ball left to the onrushing Baldock. The striker beat Bodgán for his first goal for the club.

Twelve minutes later, though, we made our own breakthrough and it came from the wings. Chung-Yong tightroped down the right flank and threaded a nice little ball ahead to Mark Davies, and the playmaker chipped ahead to Mason, played onside by defender Glen Rea. Mason then scored his sixth goal of the season past David Stockdale and made it look easy.

That got us to halftime and I wasn’t completely dissatisfied with how we had played. The players didn’t need a kick up the backside, they needed encouragement and they got it.

Especially Beckford, who had come close twice in the first half only to be denied. He responded by starting us on the right foot in the second half. The striker pounded home an effort from the top of the eighteen after a great through ball from Medo three minutes after the restart. His first touch had been perfect, and necessary, to make the goal happen.

Our first lead of the match was well received by the players, who proceeded to pour on the pressure. We got a third when Moxey found Hall down the left. His first attempt to cross for Chung-Yong at the far post got headed right back to him so he tried again – and this time defender Lewis Dunk put through his own goal in 66 minutes instead of doing what he really wanted to do, which was head over. I had to give him credit, though – unfortunately for him, it was a dynamite finish.

Then, we relaxed. Bad idea.

Tierney continued his unfortunately torrid day by bringing down Paddy McCourt in the area right where referee Kevin Wright could see it. Danny Holla sent Bodgán the wrong way from the spot and again, poor defending had handed the home team a lifeline.

For me, though, the true test came now – could we hold the lead away from home in a match of moderate importance?

Happily, the answer was yes. The players stood tall and I let ten of the eleven men who had started the match finish it – rare enough for me.

Vela was our only substitution of the match and the resulting win meant that much of the squad would be fresh for the League Cup visit of Brentford at midweek.

Brighton 2 (Sam Baldock 21, Danny Holla pen 74)

Bolton Wanderers 3 (Mason 33, Beckford 48, Lewis Dunk o/g 66)

H/T: 1-1

A – 28,217, American Express Community Stadium, Brighton

Man of the Match – Jermaine Beckford, Bolton (MR 8.3)

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

At least things are going well for Bobby on the field! Class as usual keep up the great work legend!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, sir! As for "legend", I'm not so sure about that! Bit of a short entry today, but more coming soon.

___

I was the butt of a few very quiet and very well-placed jokes at the Monday training session.

After the Star fiasco, a few players wanted to know how far they could push the boss, and when it came to this particular issue, the answer was ‘not very’. They ran extra laps after morning session for their indiscretion, and I expect never to have to broach this issue again on my training pitch.

However, I wasn’t immune from harsher criticism. That’s because, as I feared, Holly got to me as well. Sure enough, my ex-wife’s missive arrived in my e-mail before the morning was out.

“Who knew you’d be out with someone who could dribble three things at the same time if she was a footballer?” she chirped.

“With respect, who knew that was any of your damned business?” I answered. I had had enough, and it hadn’t taken long.

Thankfully, though, I could return to afternoon training and get away from it all for a bit. On the training ground, the happy sounds of a winning team greeted me and it sounded great.

“What a complete clot you are…”

“That’s not what your mum said.”

“Hey, who was that I saw you with at Café Bistro t’other night?”

“It is too my bloody business! How the hell am I s’posed ta keep you on the straight and narrow if you keep dating birds with konks like that?”

“Yeah, you’re on your tod there, I see.”

“Look out, mate. I think he heard you.”

You couldn’t help but smile. We’ve been playing well enough, even if we don’t get five stars every week, so the trick now is to make the good feeling last as long as possible.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

She still looked wonderful, but she was angry and I guess I couldn’t understand why.

Well, not so much angry as hurt. But then, she had turned me down, not the other way around.

“Miss Pickering, good morning,” I said, smiling at her on my way to Gartside’s office. I was to meet with the management team and she had sent me an e-mail summons after training.

“Mr. Malone,” she responded. She didn’t look at me. I couldn’t resist.

“Look, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“It depends on the question.” That didn’t sound good. She still wasn’t looking at me.

She wasn’t going to put me off that easily, especially when I meant no malice.

“I just want to know what I did to offend you. If we’re to have a working relationship I need to understand what I did wrong.”

“You were with … that woman,” she said. “And really, that’s all I care to say about it. You may go right in, Mr. Malone.”

“Very well,” I said, closing myself off to her in an emotional sense. I had posed for a picture, and as the Americans say, both Kim Pickering and Amanda Caldwell had made a Federal case out of it.

I knocked at Gartside’s door and opened it. Closing the door behind me, I saw a group of senior managers who needed my attention for a few minutes while I talked about football matters.

“You’ve certainly become quite the star man,” Gartside said as I sat down.

“Wasn’t of my making or my doing,” I said. “If anyone’s upset about it, I suggest our commercial department screen contest entrants a bit better in future. It has already caused me some personal difficulty and I’d not care to repeat it. Now, what may I do for you?”

At that, Vaughan blushed and Gartside raised his eyebrows, but I had made my point. Vaughan spoke.

“Bobby, we need to get some idea of how you propose to play certain young players, so we can begin appropriate promotion,” he said. “As you know, it’s important to the club to show the fans we are building for the future.”

“Of course,” I said. “For me, the three young players who are most likely to make a significant impact are Rob Hall, Zach Clough and Marnick Vermijl. However, with injuries and streaks, you never know. I can’t be held to these things, because my job is to pick the best eleven with the best chance to win each match.”

“But if you had to choose.” That was Vaughan, and it wasn’t a question.

“I would choose the best eleven.”

“Bobby, no one is trying to pin you down here,” Gartside said. “We just want to know where you feel we should direct our efforts. There’s no need to be defensive.”

“I’m not, honestly,” I said, feeling a bit trapped by the conversation. “What I’m trying to avoid is that if I give a big push to Clough or Hall for whatever reason and they don’t make the grade while the club spends money to promote them, I don’t want anyone coming back to me saying ‘I think the manager’s a bit thick’. The reason someone wouldn’t make the grade is because I need the best eleven I can play every week to give us the best chance to win matches. Then we can get back in the Premier League like we all want. Does that work for everyone?”

Nobody said anything, so I sat at the table and waited for the next question. I decided to try and help.

“Frankly, I’d promote them as a group,” I finally said. “There’s no sense in promoting individual players for the reason I’ve just stated, but unless one of the young guys turns out to be a superstar, it might save everyone a lot of time and effort.”

Vaughan sat in his place, twisting his pen between his fingertips. He didn’t look happy, but then, he had just been told his business after he had tried to tell me mine. You know what they say about karma.

I was finally dismissed from the meeting by my boss and I headed back outside to run the Pickering Gauntlet on my way back downstairs to the football side of the business.

She looked at me coolly, her ice-blue eyes trying to bore a hole through mine. I shook my head and addressed her.

“You could have saved yourself a lot of aggravation by simply saying ‘yes’ when I asked you out for a coffee,” I said, closing the outer office doors behind me as I left.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

Arriving downstairs at my offices, I spoke with my PA, Dell Kingsley. The silver-haired receptionist had a message for me.

“Miss Caldwell has contacted the office twice this afternoon to apologize to you,” she said. “What would you like done with any further messages?”

“Completely inappropriate on company time,” I said. “Please give her my regards and tell her that I hold no ill feelings toward her.”

“And if she asks for a return call, which she has also done twice?”

“Give me the number. I’ll decide what to do about that when I’m not here, if anything.”

She did as I asked, and smiled at me almost with a sense of pity.

“Bobby, I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said. “I’d be bent out of shape over it too if I were you.”

“There’s nothing to be done about it now,” I said. “I think I lost a friend over it already. Let’s make sure the number stays at only one, shall we?”

I then headed into my office to figure out a team sheet for Brentford.

This is an important match for the board, which wants the Third Round out of the youngsters. That seems reasonable, but I’ll give the youngsters Bogdán in goal just to provide a little extra steel. Being at home, we should be favoured to advance.

Lonergan has done well when called upon but Bogdán seems to have ironed out the issues he faced in the friendlies. I want to see him in a Cup tie now.

The issue now is what to do with Mason, the hottest scorer I have. He needs to play and with six goals already he deserves to play, but I’d rather he play with fresh legs in the league when we travel to Elland Road.

I’ve realized now that my initial read on the player was completely, and unalterably, wrong. I didn’t rate him at first but now I can see why he’s here. Used properly, the boy can tear up this league and that’s something I found out almost by accident. So, shame on me.

Mason’s was the first name I wrote down on the sheet. After picking ten more, I headed home.

There, I picked up my phone and made a call.

“Ms. Caldwell, this is Bobby Malone,” I said, when my call was answered. “Thank you for reaching out to me. I want you to know I’m okay with what happened but there were some repercussions for me personally that I hope the newspaper you posed for doesn’t see fit to report.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” she repeated. “But thank you for calling. I had a nice time at the event and even with all this, it was very nice to meet you. I’m a West Midlands girl myself.”

“That’s nice,” I replied. “Good people there.”

“I grew up supporting Villa,” she laughed, and my heart sank in yet another ‘here we go again’ sort of way.

“Well, I won’t hold that against you,” I said. I might well have said “that can be cured at birth now” but I didn’t want to cause even more trouble for myself. A rare bit of discretion, that.

“I’d like to make it up to you,” she said, almost blurting out the words.

“Second City Derbies come from birth,” I replied.

She laughed. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, how about we meet for a coffee someplace quiet?”

I thought about Kim Pickering and her response to me, and I wasted no time.

“That would be lovely, Miss Caldwell.”

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Pickering >>>>>>>>>>> Caldwell!!

[tenthreeleader]

I have written down your vote, Becks!

___

26 August 2014 - Bolton Wanderers (2^nd place Championship) v Brentford (10^th place Championship)

Capital One Cup Second Round – Macron Stadium, Bolton

In the end, it was a cup tie. As such, I had to prioritize between that and the league, and as such the Cup got a bit of a short shrift.

That said, the Bees were as shorthanded as we were, having also played at midweek.

I indulged myself with Miss Caldwell the evening after we talked, and she was as good as her word. There was no malice in the young lady, and for her to admit that she fancied a Blue was probably as difficult as admitting she wanted a good case of scurvy.

But the coffee had been very nice. She picked a very quiet café on the outskirts of the downtown and I bought the beverages.

The whole idea was to do it without being seen, since I surely didn’t need the aggravation that the tabloid press could have created – and she knew that if it happened again, we might not talk again. As in, ever.

It went very well. For a divorced man such as myself, it felt nice – though it wasn’t like Sam Baldwin singing “Back in the Saddle Again” in Sleepless in Seattle – and not being judged by anyone for having made the attempt certainly felt nice as well.

A few other things happened which nobody else saw that night, and that was a very good thing.

Those thoughts were in the back of my mind as we took the pitch. It was a mixed bag of players, but definitely young.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, Vermijl, Wheater (captain), Mills, Tierney, Trotter, Danns, Vela, Hall, Mason, Clough. Subs: Lonergan, McNaughton, Moxey, Ream, Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Beckford.

We didn’t start well. We struggled to find our feet and after a bit of defending for which we may become infamous if we aren’t careful, we conceded just after twenty minutes.

It started with the most innocent of crosses, as Bees skipper Kevin O’Connor whipped in an effort from the right wing which found the midst of our packed defence. So it was doubly annoying when those four gentlemen couldn’t get our lines cleared, the loose ball falling at the feet of Tommy Smith for the simplest of finishes in 21 minutes.

Our answer was not long in coming, though, in fact less than two minutes.

It was directly up Route One – but it was on the floor, with four beautifully played balls in a row from Wheater to Trotter to Vela to Clough – and to that man, Mason, who got the ball with a defender on his inside shoulder seventeen yards from goal. No matter, as he scored yet again to get us level.

It stayed 1-1 until halftime and we were being played to a dead standstill by the visitors. So, the players got the ‘do it for the fans’ talk even though the fans had decided to miss this match by the thousands.

We started the second half much better than the first, with Clough providing for Trotter down the left, and when his lead ball for Hall found the winger just short of the byline, it would take a special cross indeed to make something out of it all. Yet that’s just what happened – and instead of finding the head of Danns, it found the unfortunate French defender Raphael Calvet, who had no option but to turn the ball into his own goal – the second straight game someone had scored on our behalf wearing the opposing colours.

It was a wonderful break and we grabbed the chance with both hands, holding Brentford at bay with some ease.

Chung-Yong and Beckford came on for Danns and Mason with twenty-five minutes to go and when Tierney went off for McNaughton fourteen minutes from time, things looked very good with a strong defensive group on the pitch.

But then Vermijl limped off after a kick in the calf two minutes after McNaughton came on, and I got the signal he could not continue. Ten men.

The problem was that even though I could still put four defenders out there with Wheater, Mills, Trotter and McNaughton, I couldn’t put four midfielders out there since Clough, now trapped on the pitch, couldn’t play any position in midfield and neither could Beckford.

So, it became a race against time – us trying to kill it and Brentford trying to preserve it to exploit our weakened state. Clough drew the short straw, dropping into central midfield but it wasn’t at that spot where we were exposed.

Sadly, it was at the back, and it showed when Alan McCormack found Spanish striker Jota completely unmarked with a diagonal pass to his left. McNaughton was nowhere to be found, and there was certainly no defender to mark the wide-open Alex Pritchard, who gleefully volleyed home Jota’s perfect cross ten minutes from time to get them level.

It was going to be a difficult finish. Suddenly they were all over us and it was looking fairly difficult to find a goal from this group given the way we were suddenly playing.

In the end, we couldn’t get a corner defended either. Pritchard returned the favour, floating a good ball to the edge our six with Jota getting his head on it in the middle of a mob of players, heading the ball into the ground and over the despairing lunge of Bogdán to give them the lead, and eventually send us out.

Three goals. Three ugly defensive errors. Two while we were trying to close out the match. There was no excuse for any of it.

Those present whistled us off the pitch. We deserved it, and the post-match conversation was not pleasant for anyone.

Bolton Wanderers 2 (Mason 23, Raphaël Calvet o/g 48)

Brentford 3 (Tommy Smith 21, Alex Pritchard 80, Jota 90)

H/T: 1-1

A – 13,105, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Jota, Brentford (MR 8.1)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“Unacceptable. I don’t care what level it is, I don’t care what competition it is, coughing up two goals in the last ten minutes – at home – to go out of a Cup competition is just not acceptable.”

If I had thought the post-match conversation with the players was difficult, it was nothing compared to the interrogation I got from the press.

“You had to finish with ten,” King said. “Any regrets about that last substitution before Vermijl’s injury?”

“The last substitution was like-for-like for a fullback, McNaughton,” I said. “We had four defenders out there at the end. We would have preferred to finish with eleven, but sometimes these things happen in football. Tactically, we wanted to make the final switch and of course Vermijl didn’t hurt himself on purpose. But that’s as may be. We have to hold that lead, even with ten, and it’s really just that simple.”

You didn’t have the right people out there to hold the lead after the injury,” he continued. “Do you bear any of the blame for that?”

“We would have had the right group out there with eleven players, which makes us a victim of circumstance in that regard. But again, these are professional players and they need to understand that closing out the match at home, even with ten, should be a given. They understand that now. Ten or eleven, it shouldn’t have made a difference.”

“David Wheater said there were words in the changing room after the match.”

“David Wheater is right,” I said, making a mental note to remind my vice-captain that what is said in the changing room stays there. “There were words. And I spoke every one of them. If that issue we saw tonight is ever repeated, people are going to lose their places and that’s not a threat, it’s a promise. The key to understanding all this is how the players respond to the challenge I gave them. They were not pleased with themselves, which tells me they understand that professional players need to close out the match.”

“Do you feel you’re giving Brentford enough credit?” In terms of the line of questioning, this was not going as I had hoped.

“They deserve credit for coming back,” I said. “But we let them do it. For some reason, the things we had done all night with eleven players we suddenly could not do with ten. The errors came in basic marking and there’s no excuse for that. We still had four defenders out there and four people who could have played midfield positions better than they did. They needed to get men marked.”

“This is the club’s first loss with you in charge,” I was reminded. “Are you being too hard on these players?”

“We expect to win. That is what professionals do. I know that what I saw in the room from these players is a determination that this won’t happen again.”

With that, I headed back to the room with final instructions for the next day’s training.

And the next day, King wrote what he thought. I hate when reporters do that, at least those who don’t know what they’re talking about.

King did, to a point. He wrote that we collapsed – which was correct. He also wrote that I had been caught with my managerial trousers down – which was not.

Sometimes, you get hit with the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate in this game. Vermijl’s injury did that.

I didn’t put our remaining ten players in the best position to hold the lead and the players doubled down by not performing. If I’m culpable, it’s in the positioning I had us hold with ten men, not with us going down to ten.

I’ll learn from it. And the players should, too.

# # #

[chesterfan2]

At least you didn't say 'We can now concentrate on the league' in the press conference, or did you ?

[tenthreeleader]

Let me put it this way .. no manager I've ever written, from Rob Rigdway to Phil Sharp to Jeff Jarvis to Matt Livingston to Bobby Malone would be caught DEAD saying such a thing

One of the reasons Malone reacted this way was due to failure to reach board expectations, and the fact that this was one of the most galling losses I've ever had playing FM also colors the manager's reaction.

___

“My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.” – Rodney Dangerfield

“Football widows” is a term more commonly used in America than anywhere else about a different game, but I could understand why some women feel like they have taken second place to the national game of virtually every other country in the world.

Not so Amanda, it seems. We had a nice enough time together before the Brentford match but with me having a football club to run that was ostensibly trying to win a few matches, there wasn’t a lot of time for relationship building. Yet she said she didn’t mind.

For those who demand unflinching loyalty and commitment to club from the manager – which is to say, every single fan I’ve ever been aware of – that’s okay. For me, though, being married to my job is now the way I roll.

The game is hard on relationships. And, relationships can be hard on the game.

I saw Amanda again, quietly, the evening before we hit the road again. This time, it was for dinner, and she’s quite easy to look at.

She’s a model and also a trained nurse before she went into her other career and as such, I could understand people wanting to stay an extra night in hospital just to look at her even if they aren’t sick. I think I’ve mentioned that she’s an eyeful.

I could get used to her, in fact. That would not be a difficult decision at all.

That said, the furor from the newspaper picture died down a bit and that was a good thing because after the Cup tie I had some pretty disappointed board members. Gartside sent me a commiserating “rough luck” message after the match but we both knew the club wanted to spin a few extra pounds by reaching the later rounds if at all possible.

Early in my tenure, bad results like the Brentford match are embarrassing and not good for job security. It was a match we really needed to win, as strange as that might seem, because too many more results like it will mean I’ll have all the time I want for spending around Amanda Caldwell.

I tried to avoid Kim Pickering, as well. That was a bit odd, given the little sparks that seemed to fly from her in my direction only a few days previously. But I thought it was for the best. She seemed easily offended, to be fair, and that was not an ideal circumstance for me to be around especially with a fellow club employee.

As a result, it was a good thing to be able to concentrate on a trip to Yorkshire to face Leeds. The expectation of focus from the players at training was a given after the nature of the Brentford loss and thankfully for the players, they gave it to me.

Spooner does most of the nuts and bolts work with training, but the more I get to know the squad the more likely I am to take on certain parts of that training myself.

I already handle the strikers personally and so far that has been a good thing. Right now I’m just staying out of Mason’s way because he’s in form, and that’s also a good thing.

But the message I really want to send to these players is that a high level of play and concentration is the minimum expectation. We’re going to lose matches from time to time and that’s a given. But if there are breakdowns and capitulations like we saw against Brentford, that’s something I have to nip in the bud.

The loss itself isn’t the issue. How the loss came about is something that can’t be repeated.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

30 August 2014 – Leeds United (2-0-2, 12^th place) v Bolton Wanderers (3-1-0, 2^nd place)

Championship Match Day #5 – Elland Road, Leeds

From the moment we got off the coach, we were on a business trip.

I made that abundantly clear to the players at the team breakfast and again as we pulled into the lot. Had the battle been purely one of history and logos, our stylized Red Rose of Lancaster would have been at full odds with Leeds’ White Rose of York.

Thankfully, it wasn’t that bad – the “War of the Roses” is generally our neighbours Manchester United against Leeds – but the 50-mile trip east on the M62 was still plenty time enough to think about the task at hand.

I wanted a better performance, and I wanted us to take out some frustration on the club from the other side of the Pennines.

I hardly needed to remind them of what they were likely to face. But I did anyway. We managers are funny like that.

“Clubs have been bunching the midfield on us the last couple of games to try to slow the direct game down. When you see that, and I’ll probably see it before you do, we’ll get wide. Play with width and let Chung-Yong and Rob get the ball into the box. Be patient. It will come for you if you just stick to your plan. Watch how they focus their defence. If they collapse on the ball, we’ll make them wish they hadn’t. If they play us wide across the middle of the park, we’ll use our pace and make them wish they hadn’t. Play our game. Now, hands in and let’s go.”

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, McNaughton, Wheater, Ream, Moxey, Medo, M. Davies, Chung-Yong, Hall, Mason, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, Mills, Feeney, Vela, Danns, C. Davies, Clough.

It was a full-blooded game. It took only two minutes for referee Keith Hill to make a stamp on the match, booking Wheater for a challenge on Mirko Antenucci that looked fair to me.

I was upset about my central defender potentially having to play 88 minutes on a yellow card, but was somewhat mollified just three minutes later when McNaughton beat his man to the inside and was heavily bundled off the ball by Alex Mowatt. Hill put us on the spot, and Moxey rifled a perfectly-taken penalty past Marco Silvestri to get us off to a flyer on the road.

United had had something of an apathetic start, splitting their first four matches, and we were loaded for bear. Manager Darko Milanic stacked the middle, playing his group in a 4-1-2-1-2 that, like Boro, ceded the wide areas of the field to us.

Chung-Yong, seeing it too on his first foray up the park, looked at me. I merely nodded. He did the rest.

Playing from behind, Leeds used their compact setup to try to bore a hole through the centre of our back line, without success. We held them off for the first half hour and virtually everything they had was from distance.

As the first half wound down, we got a set piece about forty yards from goal on the right and Medo hooked it toward a group of players massed in the middle of the Leeds penalty area.

Chung-Yong headed the ball down and to his left, with his back to goal. He spun, picked up his own header and beat keeper Silvestri to his right post from a sharp angle to the keeper’s left. It was a very bad goal to concede – virtually any keeper playing a correct angle could have stopped the shot. But Silvestri didn’t and you could see Leeds sag.

Five minutes later, we had the ball in their net again. Moxey, who is a real weapon on long throws, found Chung-Yong in the left side of the Leeds area. He hooked the ball toward goal where Mason headed on to his right – and there was the Yankee Doodle himself, Ream, to reverse the ball with a looping header over the despairing reach of Silvestri for 3-0 to in in 40 minutes.

We were flying, smelled blood, all that sort of thing – and we still were not done.

Wheater found Mark Davies, who found Chung-Yong, who found Beckford’s forehead, and the Jamaican buried the ball as the clock shifted over into first half stoppage time.

Four-nil to us at halftime. There was really no better way to respond except with a fifth, and we hadn’t time for that. The ovation the squad got at halftime was raucous, along with a sharp admonishment that their levels of performance had better not drop in the second half.

And they didn’t. Leeds started fouling in frustration because they couldn’t stop us, and Hall handed four cards to them in fifteen minutes in the second half. We were getting a rise out of them, the crowd was very restless, and even on-loan Paraguyan substitute Brian Montenegro’s goal nineteen minutes from time did little to lift the home team’s spirits.

Liam Feeney, who I brought on as a replacement for the nicked Chung-Yong just after the hour, closed us out for the day by finding Mason up the middle, only to see the striker return the ball to him with a lovely little chip timed perfectly for his charging run.

Again, SIlvestri did not play the angle well, and Feeney beat him with a rising shot to the far side, again from a sharp angle, in 82 minutes. Of course, those kinds of shots don’t go in if you don’t take them, and Feeney celebrated a great breakaway goal with the kind of celebration usually reserved for much closer matches.

Then, with the match in injury time, veteran Stephen Warnock did something really silly. He capped an afternoon of frustration for Leeds by scything down Feeney as he was trying to make a back pass to McNaughton. Four goals down, in injury time, that’s something you just don’t do, and referee Hall showed him a second yellow card.

In the grander scheme of things, it meant nothing. The match was already won. But Milanic had words with his player as he headed up the tunnel. Presumably something had been said on the bench when Leeds started accumulating cards, but the player shot back at his manager while still on the park.

The fans whistled loudly, the argument went on for a few highly tense moments, and then the match was over.

This one was never close. We left Elland Road on top of the Championship thanks to three points that were very richly deserved.

Leeds United 1 (Brian Montenegro 71; Stephen Warnock s/o 90+2)

Bolton Wanderers 5 (Moxey pen 5; Chung-Yong 35; Ream 40; Beckford 45; Feeney 82)

H/T – 0-4

A – 27,191, Elland Road, Leeds

Man of the Match – Lee Chung-Yong, Bolton (MR 9.3)

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Another storming away win! I would bet on Bobby winning promotion in his first managerial job!

[tenthreeleader]

I'm well pleased with the start, Becks. But to be fair, this save was started 'pre-patch', when high scores were the rule rather than the exception. Bolton will have to undergo a transformation of sorts to keep this run of form going!

___

After all the talk about possibly losing Mark Davies to Fulham, in the end, there were no bids for any of my players as the August window closed.

That was fine with me – the squad I have is plenty big enough for the job I have to do. In fact, as Gartside reminded me as part of the September board meeting, it’s probably too big, and may well have to be culled.

I’m sure that player sales will probably be on offer for January, especially the club’s position is such that they become even more necessary than they probably already are.

However, the story from Leeds may just be getting started, where some reporter asked Warnock what he thought about being sent off. Instead, he went off on his manager in print, and today’s news was that he had been fined and transfer-listed.

Darko Milanic evidently won’t take that from any player, and neither will any manager worth his salt.

Even me. I have my first want-away player, and after his performance on Saturday, it’s really too bad.

Chung-Yong asked to see me the Monday after the Leeds match and said his agent told him the club was about to receive an offer for his services from Leicester City and they both wanted me to take it. Of course, the transfer window being closed made the whole conversation moot, but try telling that to a player who wants to leave.

“In the first place, I’m not happy you are here for several reasons,” I said. “First, because I do not care to be told, by any player, which bids I must or must not accept. You aren’t in charge here. I am. Now, that said, if a bid that matches your valuation comes in, I will take it and I will tell you why.”

He looked at me blankly.

“If people want to play at a higher level, I really oughtn’t stand in their way if they get the chance,” I said. “That’s fair to you. But second, and more importantly, nobody walks into this room and tells me they don’t want to play for this club and then just leaves. We are top of our league at the moment, on a good run of form of which you have been a key part, and what seems to matter to you this morning instead is you. My responsibility is to your teammates and to this club and I intend to honor it.”

He looked at me, an expression of surprise on his face.

“There are players behind you on the depth chart who want to play. They will now get that chance. That will be all.”

He got up and left, closing the door softly behind him. Shaking my head, I returned to reading my scouting reports.

It was a huge risk for me to take. For crying out loud, the man had been brilliant against Leeds and when he’s out there playing well, we are a much, much better team. But he approached me the wrong way. But now, if he wants to go, I’ll accommodate him. It’s not fair to his teammates otherwise.

So, he’ll have to go. It’s just a question of when. And as for testing my patience? Well, let’s just say it’s not a good idea.

However, I did take notes for the “Handling Professional Players” segment of my licence training. This would evidently not include “Tying Disgruntled Player’s Parts In Knots” as far as I can tell. It may not be the UEFA-prescribed way to handle ‘player power’, but I have 25 senior squad members and probably fifty professionals to think about in addition to Lee Chung-Yong.

Meeting with the board on September 1 was another fun experience. At least this time, Kim Pickering looked at me without looking like she’d slit my throat if I turned my back. A violent place, emotionally speaking.

She was cordial and polite, and that was a step in the right direction. Gartside’s message, though, was that we had to find £2 million just to stay in line with Financial Fair Play rules. If we don’t start drawing a few more fans to the Macron, there’s only one place to get the savings.

Lee Chung-Yong, please pick up the courtesy phone.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

For all King’s bluster about our performance in the Cup, the Bolton News then had to come back out to the ground to cover the story of yours truly receiving the Manager of the Month award for August.

Edging out former England manager Steve McClaren of Derby and Tony Mowbray of Wolves, our unbeaten start to the Championship slate had grabbed some attention in the form of a personal award for me.

Individually, Mason was third in the Player of the Month voting, despite leading the league in goal scoring. Fulham’s Cauley Woodrow was the winner there, and Hall was just edged out by Brentford’s James Tarnowski for the young player gong. Tarnowski had had an entirely nondescript game against us in the Cup but had gotten off to a decent enough start in the league calendar.

When the photographers arrived I held the trophy in one arm, smiled pretty for them and then handed the bauble to Dell to take back to my office, where I would then have to find a place for it. Those things were even farther from my mind when I looked at the assembled group in front of me as the photographers took their snaps.

Kim Pickering stood behind the photographers in all her glory and was evidently wanting a word.

“Never rains, but it pours,” I said to myself. “Let’s see. Holly’s angry that I was in the newspaper with Amanda, who I didn’t know was either a Star Babe or a Villa supporter, Kim’s mad that I was in the newspaper with Amanda, and if anyone gives me any stick about any of this I’m liable to start throat-punching. There. That about covers it.”

Before I headed off to training, I gave the young lady the time she was evidently seeking.

“Bobby, I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t treat you well, and I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”

I looked down at her, blond hair swaying ever so gently in the light early afternoon breeze, and couldn’t help myself. She seemed contrite, and being the idiot that I am, I let her off the hook.

“Of course,” I said. “I really don’t want you upset with me. I think you’re a nice person and I want a good relationship.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then smiled. “I’d like to take you up on that coffee, if you don’t mind.”

I thought about a meme I had seen on the internet that morning. It read: “The person responsible for stopping me doing stupid s**t has been sacked.”

# # #

[chesterfan2]

Don't do it Bobby ! It's a trap !

[DavidBeckham]

The thing about this version of FM is that players get unhappy/ask for moves more often! Frustrating but adds realism to the game!

[tenthreeleader]

Bobby smells a rat, the poor devil. And yes, this version of the game does tend to drive managers nuts with players wanting to leave. Sigh.

___

It was a good time for a break. Thankfully, the schedule gave us one.

With international weekends to deal with, a number of players headed out for a week with their national teams.

Ream, unfortunately, went with the USA, which got its heads handed to them 6-2 by Argentina thanks to a Leo Messi hat trick. Beckford went with Jamaica and scored twice in a 3-1 win at home against something called the Turks and Caicos Islands. Medo and Sierra Leone beat Botswana 3-0 and Davies scored Wales’ goal in its 1-1 stalemate with Armenia. It was his first goal for country and he was described as being pretty well chuffed about it.

And want-away Chung-Yong played the full ninety as South Korea drew Kuwait 1-1. I didn’t have the heart to tell him South Korea is much further east than Leicester.

Young midfielder Tom Walker left for a month’s loan at Hednesford Town which he could use for his development. Coppell keeps trying to lighten the wage load too by loaning some of our other prospects but so far can’t shift some of the bigger earners who aren’t ready for the first team as yet.

Bogdán and Danns played for Hungary and Guyana respectively, as Bolton’s squad made a good showing in the second part of the international sequence. For Danns, it was his first-ever cap so he and Davies really both had things to celebrate.

There was also quite the internationally significant match played on the 8^th September as the United States sent its u-20 team to Shiroudi. That’s in Iran. So were their hosts, and the Yanks emerged 3-0 winners thanks in part to two late goals. Would have been quite the match to watch, and last I heard no one had been taken hostage.

The board also took a suggestion from Vaughan to make the Rotherham match, our second one back after the break, as a ‘fan day’. I was the type of player who thought every day should be fan day, but evidently it took real thinking for our guys to come up with that.

Anyhow, half price for kids. Such a deal! With two matches at home right after the international break, the schedule favours us and with a number of key players finally getting to rest a little bit, I’m optimistic about our chances to keep winning.

Oh, and that coffee with Kim Pickering went well. Very well, in fact.

She apologized again, which is something women never do to me. Between Kim and Amanda, it had now happened twice within a single week. I was wondering if I smelled good or something.

But then she opened up a little bit to me. She had followed my career closely and wanted to get to know me better if it was appropriate. She felt very badly when Amanda had put her arm around me in the picture and reacted badly.

And she, in her way, was every bit as nice as my new friend Miss Caldwell. That was both good and bad.

It was good in that I need friends, especially as attractive as those two are. It was bad in that it was probably not wise to have them both at the same time.

What a problem to have to have.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

13 September 2014 – Bolton Wanderers (4-1-0, 2^nd place) v Sheffield Wednesday (1-1-3, 20^th place)

Championship Match Day #6 – Macron Stadium, Bolton

Our status at the top of the Championship lasted until Fulham’s match at Reading, which the Cottagers won by a 2-1 score. They vaulted us into the top spot with 18 points, but with our match in hand, we could overtake them with a win against the Championship’s worst defensive club.

This fact wasn’t lost on us when we gathered at the Whites Hotel for the pre-match session on the Friday. This match was important enough for us to gather the team – even at home – to stay together the night before the match.

There are some clubs who take this approach almost as a religion. Last season, Southampton even went so far as to bring mattresses tailored to each player with them on the road, to replace the mattresses in the club’s away hotels.

Club staff would arrive a day early to make sure each room was perfectly cleaned, the club chef would arrive a day early to make sure the food was perfect, and even the pillow cases and sheets were washed and ironed by club staff in exactly the same manner.

If we could afford that, I’d do it in a second. But since we can’t, having the players stay in the team hotel at home is the next best thing.

Hopefully, it will lead to a closer-knit squad, which is the reason I’m doing it. But the extra time with the team allowed me to re-emphasize a few home truths before the match.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, McNaughton, Wheater (captain), Mills, Tierney, Trotter, Hall, M. Davies, Moxey, Mason, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, Vermijl, Ream, Vela, Dervite, C Davies, Clough.

One of those truths was that I wanted a fast start. At home, we haven’t been nearly as sharp in attack as we have been on the road, and that has frankly been a mystery to me.

Evidently, it’s going to take a better Sherlock than I am to figure it out, because the Owls stacked the midfield against us and tried to stop us high up the park. They got great support from their full backs as well and we had the devil’s own time trying to find space for the vast majority of the first half.

In fact, they were even able to counter us, which was pretty annoying. The book on how to play us is starting to make its way around the league – play five wide or make us go the long way round.

They chose the former, and with people we could have used out of the eleven (koff koff … Chung-Yong … koff koff) we had a hard time finding our way through.

The official line on Lee was that he was still recovering from international exertions, and to an extent he was, but he and I both knew why he had been held not only out of the eleven but out of the eighteen. You don’t want to play here, you don’t have to play here.

Moving Hall from the left to the right with Lee out of the lineup was an adjustment for him, but I liked our shape better because Lee’s preferred method of individual play is to cut inside. He’s a natural inside forward, and our heat maps showed that, but the way I want my wingers to play is like wingers, and Hall’s better at that. That’s why they’re called “wingers”.

Anyhow, the Owls’ leaky defence had little trouble holding us back, and it seemed like some of the players needed a little rust knocked off of them.

At halftime, the rust got knocked off.

“There’s a football team in this room somewhere, and I’m looking for it,” I said, as the players were seated for their halftime breaks and sustenance. Really, gentlemen, this isn’t good enough. We aren’t getting the ball wide, we aren’t getting the ball into space, we aren’t moving off the ball. You’ve had two weeks off, would you prefer running in training since we aren’t doing it here?”

The looks I received in return were a bit disconcerting – not because the players were angry but because deep down they knew I was right.

But to be fair to them, Wednesday were doing what they set out to do. As José Mourinho might have said, they “were not playing to win the game”, which is what someone often says about the opponent they should be thrashing but aren’t.

That said, we had to find a breakthrough and in front of a home crowd which had seen us lose in gut-wrenching fashion the last time we had played in front of them, it was good to do that sooner rather than later.

We started better at least, and Beckford rattled the crossbar six minutes after the restart with a rasping drive from about twenty yards that had the keeper well beaten but not the keeper’s best friend.

The chances started to come a little more frequently after that and finally on the hour, we found one that found the net. Moxey, who has already meant so much to us this season, was the provider down the left, putting in a perfect cross from the boundary of the byline and the eighteen that found an unmarked Hall at the back post, with a finish he almost literally could not miss. He didn’t, and we had the goal we needed.

Forced to come out of their shell a bit, our visitors were a little more active, but as the match ticked past 75 minutes I wondered how well we would protect this lead.

I held a substitution back this time, perhaps a bit gunshy from the Brentford Cup tie, but Mark Davies solved all our problems for us eleven minutes from time.

We broke out with numbers from a Wednesday foray and it was one of the substitutes, Vela, who found him cruising outside the penalty area. After holding up the ball to wait for help, Vela found him with a very intelligent square ball, timing his teammate’s run to perfection. With a terrific first-time touch, Mark threaded the needle from range, somehow finding the lower left corner of the goal to secure the points and finish what had been a markedly better second half performance.

It wasn’t a goal glut by any stretch of the imagination, but it was certainly a solid performance – which put us back on top of the table.

Bolton Wanderers 2 (Hall 60; M. Davies 79)

Sheffield Wednesday 0

H/T – 0-0

A – 22,490, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Mark Davies, Bolton (MR 8.3)

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Solid win and back at the top! Also loved how you dropped Chung-Yong! Team >>>>>>>> Individual

..and I'm still on Pickering's side!

[mark wilson27]

As with all your work sir, this is top class. Good to see you getting Bolton up towards the top, hopefully you haven't got the amount of debt running in the club as they do in real life

Didn't realise that I hadn't placed this in the archives, it has been duly added now sir

[tenthreeleader]

Gentlemen, thank you. A calculated risk to drop Chung-Yong (mainly because I wanted to see what it would to do his morale). We were a bit fortunate. And Mark, thank you for all you do for FMS!

___

“Hey, I found your nose. It was in my business.” - Anonymous

“Yes, Holly, I’d like to have Blake with me after the game Tuesday night. He’ll be the guest of the club, and you and Darin are welcome too.”

“It’s not your night.”

“I realize that. But it’s fan night, there are extra things going on for kids, and besides, the boy might have fun. Is there something wrong with that idea?”

“Of course not.”

“Then, what’s the problem?”

“I don’t care for how you’re conducting yourself. Neither does Darin.”

“Darin has nothing to say about it, and if I were not such a nice man, I’d say neither do you,” I replied. “And if you’re going to say that my posing for a picture that wound up in a newspaper without my knowledge or consent, even if it’s entirely innocent, is a bad thing I’d ask you to please adjust your reception if you catch my meaning.”

If only she knew.

“That’s not funny, Bobby.”

I took a deep breath. “Neither is this unwanted, and out of bounds, criticism of my life. So, what’ll it be? I’ve been very good about you wanting Blake on the weekends, and of course while we’re away, I can’t have him with me at all and you know that. It’s a weeknight, and it would be fun for him.”

“I’ll ask Darin,” she said.

“Again, Darin has nothing to say about it,” I said. “If you’re going to hide behind him, I’ll go back to court and try to get my rights changed. I’ve been completely punctual, I’ve never missed a payment to you and never would, and what I’m not getting in return is cooperation.”

“Threats don’t look good on you,” she said.

“Then don’t make me threaten.”

“Sure, make it my fault.” This was the way our conversations usually went these days, and it was starting to frost my shorts.

“Holly, I guess I don’t understand the hostility,” I said. “We both want what’s best for Blake, and if I’m any sort of dad at all, which I think I am, I’m going to tell you straight up that I love my son and I want time with him. Surely reasonable people can make accommodations with each other?”

She evidently had to think that one through, and I wondered what was going on in her head that could cause her to hate me so.

I settled on Darin. There’s really no better way for an insecure guy to make himself feel better than to tear down someone else. So it seemed to me that the guy who thought himself the second coming of Jeremy Clarkson might have a few needs in the feel-good department.

“With you it’s always football, football, football with Blake,” she said.

“It is my job, and as you know it’s a pretty intensive one at times,” I said. “Right now, if I’m going to have time with him, that’s the way it has to be. But I see your point.”

“I don’t want to drive him up the road all the way to Bolton on a night when he should be rested for school the next day,” she said. Now there was a point.

“All right,” I sighed. “You win.”

Again.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

16 September 2014 - Bolton Wanderers (5-1-0, 1^st place) v Rotherham (0-2-4 24^th place)

Championship Match Day #7 – Macron Stadium, Bolton

The Millers are in a world of hurt.

Freshly promoted from League One last season, they have found life in the Championship to be ridiculously difficult in the first month of the season.

The oddsmakers made them 1000-1 shots to win the league this season, so it’s not terribly surprising that earning just two draws from their first six matches has left them rooted to the bottom of the table. And, for the second straight match we would play the worst defence in the Championship on our own ground.

They had conceded fifteen times in those six matches, a record that doubtless had fans and coaches alike concerned for the immediate future.

On the night at the stadium that was made special for kids, I wanted to start a young lineup just to keep things fresh and the board satisfied. It was a match we were expected to win comfortably, and my thought all day as we prepared for the match was that I should show some faith in the squad players.

My other thought was that I was pretty upset with my ex, but I managed to put all that aside for a time. We had a streak to continue, and that was more important while I was at the ground.

We met as a team in the morning, and while the hustle and bustle of workday Bolton moved around us, including at the Middlebrook Retail Park adjacent to the stadium, we went about our business.

While I liked the idea of youth, there were also veterans who needed to play, and this match gave me the opportunity to do that.

Playing an evening match on a weekday makes for a very long day, though, and the players started to show their edge late in the afternoon. They wanted to get out there and play, which is the disadvantage of playing a night fixture.

But finally, we were ready, and as the kids filed in at half price for Fan Day with their parents, we took the pitch to Katy Perry’s “Roar”, fitting enough for the youngsters in attendance. For me, it was a bit camp, but you can’t have everything.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán: Vermijl, Mills, Wheater (captain), Ream, Medo, Chung-Yong, M. Davies, Hall, C. Davies, Clough. Subs: Lonergan, McNaughton, Dervite, Moxey, Vela, Mason, Beckford.

The kids were excited and the place had a different atmosphere, I had to admit that. There usually is when that number of youngsters are about, and so my hope was to start them off with something to cheer about.

So, thank goodness for Craig Davies, who capitalized on his recent good form for country by translating it to his club. He turned in Hall’s cross from the left and home with exactly 55 seconds on the clock. You couldn’t have asked for better, and the kids screamed with delight as we took the lead.

The carnival atmosphere continued as we put pressure on the Rotherham goal throughout the first half. They were in a purely defensive 4-5-1, as Wednesday had been, and were quite content to look for opportunities to counter. We dominated possession, as you would have expected us to do, but for me the killer was always going to be finding a way to score a second.

Davies did that for us too, just after the half hour. He took a truly wonderful lead ball from Medo in the center of the park, brought the ball to ground with a terrific first touch, squared up, and scored from fifteen yards in 32 minutes. It was 2-nil to us and we were looking very good value for the fans’ half-price tickets.

We were so good, in fact, that I slipped up at halftime and didn’t really say much to the players. They were in the mood to be praised, and I misjudged the mood of the squad. I expected us to be in the driving seat and they expected to be praised for it.

As such, our second half wasn’t nearly as good as our first. That was disappointing to me, since I expected the players to pick up where they left off. Funny thing, expectations. Sometimes they work in strange ways, especially when they aren’t clearly communicated.

We suffered another injury in the centre of midfield too, as Medo went out with what I was told was a strained thigh after stretching like Plasticman for a ball headed over his head. I suppose I shouldn’t have wondered.

That said, we were still never under threat from Rotherham, which managed only four attempts for the match, only troubling Bogdán twice – and that, hardly at all. He didn’t have to make a difficult save in the entire ninety minutes – meaning we cruised, and kept our spot atop the Championship.

The run continues.

Bolton Wanderers 2 (Craig Davies 1, 32)

Rotherham 0

H/T – 2-0

A – 24,032, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Craig Davies, Bolton (MR 8.8)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

As I gave the players a ‘well done’ after the match which seemed to lift their spirits, I checked the other scores and got my eyebrows raised a bit.

Derby, now under Steve McClaren, is making some real noise. They thrashed Stuart Pearce’s Forest 5-0 tonight at the City Ground before a crowd over 30,000 – which were not happy in the slightest. Chris Martin scored four times including once from the spot in a truly dreadful effort for the home team.

The Rams and Fulham are both quite strong sides – and we play them in consecutive matches later this month.

Fulham is recently relegated from the Premiership after the debacle of last season which saw even the great Felix Magath unable to keep them in the top flight. Derby was spectacularly bad in the top flight a few years back but has made steady progress toward trying to get back. Their fast start indicates that this might be their year.

But we do get them back-to-back, and if we’re still unbeaten after that stretch I’ll know we might have something special on our hands here. We may not be hitting on all cylinders offensively, but we’ve kept two clean sheets in a row – yes, against weaker opposition – and defensively we look better.

As such, we are doing better than I had any reasonable right to expect at the start of the season. Unbeaten in our first seven in the league is a nice place to be.

King was pretty perfunctory in his post-match conversation with me – it sounded like he had expected us to win too, judging by the tone of his questioning – and as I finished with the press I got a text from Gartside inviting me to the Hall of Fame Suite on the mezzanine for a drink. That’s another nice place to be.

It’s second in the club’s pantheon of suites, behind only the Platinum Suite, but that runs nearly the whole length of the pitch and was too big for the kind of quiet celebration Mr. Davies had in mind.

The attendance had been decent – 2,000 fans better than the previous match, though still not a sellout, and it was on a Tuesday instead of the traditional Saturday. So perhaps Vaughan’s decision to hold the special event on an odd night paid more dividends than I gave him credit for. And that gave the money men a little reason to smile.

I figure it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Gartside starts selling players out from under me, especially if we’re doing well enough where we can absorb a little hit to the playing staff, so soirées like tonight’s were good to have while the getting was good.

The board was there, as were some of the local sponsors. The Macron representative was even there, and even though we hadn’t been televised, a fair number of websites and publications are starting to cover us since we’re winning. So there was plenty of product placement to keep them happy.

“Bobby, fine job tonight,” the chairman said, as a waiter arrived to take my drinks order. I tried a Bank Top Dark Mild and found it to be more than satisfactory, tipping the waiter a fiver for his trouble.

“Thank you,” I replied, taking a second pull from the glass and looking out over the pitch, which now was being watered down by the grounds crew. “The boys did well.”

“It’s a lovely run we’re on, Bobby,” Davies said, approaching from the opposite direction, hand extended. “This kind of play will make people start to talk. That’s good for the club.”

“And good for me,” I thought to myself, shaking his hand and enjoying my bosses’ favour. That sort of thing can be fleeting in this business too.

But for now, it was simply time to enjoy being unbeaten in seven. And it was then that a third person joined the conversation.

“Congratulations, Bobby,” Kim said, standing beside her boss, the chairman. “It’s fun to come to the ground when things are going this well, yeah?”

I smiled. “Credit the players,” I said. “They deserve it.”

“So do you,” she said, as Gartside and Davies excused themselves. They left and we were standing alone by a large bay window that overlooked the pitch.

She then shocked me by giving me a hug, in a room full of people. She felt wonderful, but as they say, it wasn’t the time or the place.

Gartside and Davies had their backs turned so that was a good thing, but she blushed a bright red as she dropped her embrace.

“I’m sorry, Bobby,” she said quickly, smoothing down her outfit as she stepped away. “I couldn’t resist and I got a little carried away. I’ve been a fan of the club for such a long time, and I haven’t been this excited since we were in the UEFA Cup.”

I took a deep breath. If ever the ball was in my court, it surely was now. These days, the UEFA Cup wasn’t anything to get really excited about, but Kim Pickering certainly was.

I looked at my e-mail again, perhaps a bit forlornly. I hadn’t heard from Amanda Caldwell in nearly a week, despite repeated texts and e-mails. I wondered where she was, whether she was still interested in me, and any of the host of other things that men who say they aren’t insecure but really are think from time to time.

“Kim,” I finally said, “we need to talk. Openly and honestly. I’m in a quandary and if this goes any further, I will need your understanding. And I think you know what I mean.”

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

It’s another stretch of three matches in eight days for us. The extra eight matches in the Championship schedule are a pretty significant pain in the rear end for us but it could be worse. We could still be in the League Cup.

That’s the problem Derby faces when they come here in ten days’ time. They will have a Third Round cup tie at home to Arsenal three days before they play us, and that will hopefully soften them up a bit. Yes, the board is disappointed that we are out of the competition, but we don’t have to play next midweek. Derby will have to.

In the meantime, we are getting ready for our trip to Molineux to take on Wolves. The home team is newly-promoted back to the Championship after being in the Premiership just a few short years ago, and Kenny Jackett has them headed in the right direction. Right now they are 16^th and have a pair of wins to their credit so things look okay for them in the early days.

Of course, we’re looking to keep our own run going and I personally am looking for another hug from that very nice young lady upstairs.

Which is what I talked with her about. I told her what happened between me and Amanda, and I want everything above board so the wrong things don’t get said.

The last thing I want is my name in the papers for the wrong reason. To cite the most famous example of why, Sven-Goran Eriksson’s entanglement with Faria Alam and their whole issue with Mark Palios and the FA took quite a long time to settle down. I haven’t risen to that level yet, if you’ll pardon the expression, and have frankly no intention of doing so.

There are reasons for that, and one of them is named Blake Malone. I can’t afford the issues that being seen as a playboy might have on my visitation with my son. Holly can be merciless and I don’t need the aggro. In short, I can’t screw this up, and I need understanding on that front.

I had a bit of a reputation before Holly and I were married -- nothing I had to live down, mind you, but I was quietly famous among teammates for liking to have fun. I can't dance worth a lick but liked to have fun when the situation was appropriate in a nightclub -- for me, it was all part of growing up.

I also need to concentrate on my job. Doing it well is going to build a reputation for me and hopefully, get Bolton promoted someday. You know those nerds who don’t seem to do anything but sit and watch video and have no life outside of the game? Some of those people are the best at what they do, and there’s a reason for that.

My hope was that Kim would understand that. She is insecure, in that the other person with whom I’ve been linked is rather famous. Or, as Kim said it, “As of this morning, Amanda has 176,000 more Twitter followers than I’ve got. And don’t get me started on her Instagram.”

“Followers don’t matter, unless they’re the ones you want to have,” I said. That made her smile.

But above all, I asked her to be patient. She thought she knew why, but when we were done talking, she knew it was for more than one reason.

And, I also informed Gartside that I was now seeing his PA socially.

“I thought you weren’t interested in that sort of thing,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” I admitted. “Now, that’s not to say it’s headed anywhere, but it won’t affect how I do my job.”

“You must see that it doesn’t,” he said. “And we both know that. All I’m interested in for the moment is that neither of you are harassing the other. We can’t have that and you know it.”

“Of course,” I said. “And it is most certainly not the case here.”

“Please see that it stays that way,” he said.

With that, I retreated to the training ground, which was a place I could forget about the personal life and concentrate on the professional life I wanted and needed.

# # #

[Simply Perfect]

Finally catching up with this and not sure why I haven't until now. Up until about 18 months ago, I lived about half a mile from Euxton Lane. One of my colleagues had a meeting with Bolton to stop them from retrieving footballs that they'd kicked on to the railway.

[DavidBeckham]

Holly and Darin are so irritating, poor Bobby

[tenthreeleader]

SP, great to have you along! When they were in the Premiership, I never really got into Bolton as a club but this may well be one of those cases where I adopt a club after spending some time around it. I expect Euxton Lane is quite an interesting place.

And Becks, thanks for your readership as always. Holly and Darin hit Bobby below the belt with distressing regularity

___

20 September 14 – Wolverhampton Wanderers (2-2-3, 16^th place) v Bolton Wanderers (6-1-0, 1^st place)

Championship Match Day #8 – Molineux, Wolverhampton

It’s only 88 miles from Bolton to Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, so we planned for an easy Saturday away.

Breakfast was at seven sharp, with bus call an hour later. By 10:00 we were ensconced in the visiting dressing room at this beautiful stadium, just across the A4150 from the University of Wolverhampton.

Molineux has been home to the club since 1889, but was renovated from top to bottom starting in 1991.

I grew up with a healthy antipathy toward Wolves, being a Birmingham lad. I used to love winning a good West Midlands Derby but even though I bore no love for the club, their ground was something else again.

A quick walk of the ground by the team upon arrival showed a fast track and with a good weather day expected, we could count on a fast game – good for the way we like to play.

I looked up into the two-tiered Stan Cullis Stand and saw the split phrase “THIS IS OUR LOVE / AND IT KNOWS NO DIVISION” across the façade of the upper deck and smiled. Today would be fun, I thought.

The players thought so too. We were going well, the defence was antiseptic – and then the match started.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán: Vermijl, Mills, Wheater (captain), Tierney, Ream, Feeney, M. Davies, Moxey, Mason, C. Davies. Subs: Lonergan, Dervite, McNaughton, Hall, Danns, Beckford, Clough.

The eleven was different in a couple of ways. I’m still trying to find out where Moxey does us the most good, whether at full back or on the left side of midfield. He’s been great in both places and it’s a tough choice.

Feeney also got a start today, and Craig Davies got a start in a place I haven’t used him – leading the line.

In all his previous action for me, he had played in the hole behind the front striker, and he’s had the most success paired with Beckford. But he has been in good form lately and I wanted his legs and enthusiasm out there so Jermaine could get a breather.

We started slowly. Very slowly, in fact, as the home team took it right to us, thankfully spurning both possession and good scoring chances at the last for about the first fifteen minutes. I felt we were riding our luck.

On our first real foray into the Wolves half, we made something happen. It was Ream who did the work, chugging up in a box-to-box sort of role that really isn’t called for in my tactic, but I appreciated his effort. I further appreciated his 1-2 with Vermijl that found space down the right.

The on-loan United man then slid the ball back to Ream at the top of the left edge of the Wolves’ area, and when the defence rather inexplicably collapsed onto him, slid the ball right back onto the run of the full back on the right. Now in a great deal of space, Vermijl crossed into the six, where Moxey had crashed in to volley home with his right foot in 19 minutes.

We hardly deserved it, but we were ahead. And then Wolves really took it to us.

They held possession not just for moments but for minutes. We fouled them in inopportune areas. And if Bakary Sako could have hit a cow’s arse with a banjo, they might have scored on any one of the three free kicks we gave them just outside our penalty area in the first half.

We led at half, but in the process had graduated from “hardly deserved to lead” to “in no way deserved to lead”. That wasn’t exactly progress.

I kept things calm at half but still informed the team that I wasn’t happy with how we were playing. Both the Davieses took that to heart, but when the second half began, neither were anywhere to be found.

It was clear that Craig wasn’t completely comfortable with his position and that was my fault for not putting him in a position to succeed. It was clearer still that Mark seemed to have lost his motivation after I told him in the changing room that he needed to clear the gunk out of his engine and lead us on the pitch.

I even took us out of the 4-1-3-2 and dropped a second midfielder back to create a countering 4-2-3-1 alignment and get us more men behind the ball. We were playing very poorly, Wolves were playing very well, and I could sense something bad was about to happen.

To make matters worse, both my central defenders wound up in referee Scott Mathieson’s book, and Sako continued his afternoon of frustration by putting two more free kicks over Bodgán’s crossbar. We’ve now received twelve cards this season and Matt Mills has somehow contrived to get four of them, leaving him one short of a suspension.

It soon got worse, though, as Wolves finally got the equalizer their play deserved when Tommy Rowe fed the ball ahead to Nouha Dicko.

One of Wolves’ Malian strikers, Sako, had had a horrible day. Their other, Dicko, now produced a marvelous turn-and-shoot that arrowed into the top left corner of the goal in 71 minutes. It was an artfully placed shot that might wind up Goal of the Month, sadly enough for us. Anyhow, they were level, their crowd was into the match and I turned to Spooner.

“We need better,” I said, and thought back to my West Midlands derby days. “I’ll be damned if we get run off this pitch.”

I got up, yelled at the team to show a little passion, and moved us back to 4-1-3-2. Things improved almost immediately.

Hall, who had played a lot of football and so was rested for as long as possible, came on eight minutes from time. He lofted a ball into the box that Wolves substitute Leon Clarke hoofed as far as he could. The ball found Mills’ head at the halfway line and the defender’s effort wound up at the foot of Neil Danns. His lead ball hit Hall in space just outside the Wolves’ area, and the winger looked up to find Mason on a diagonal run into the box.

It was over that quickly. Three minutes from time, Mason did it again, and after a bit of added time, we were in a hell of a big hurry to get out of Molineux.

It had been a near-run thing. We hadn’t played well – at all – and we still had found a way to win. This place is beautiful, but it’s even prettier when I leave it with three points in my back pocket.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 (Nouha Dicko 72)

Bolton Wanderers 2 (Moxey 19, Mason 87)

H/T: 0-1

A - 27,056, Molineux, Wolverhampton

Man of the Match – Nouha Dicko, Wolves (MR 7.8)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

I came right out and said it after the game. I thought we were damned lucky to win.

The press told me that Tony Mowbray, who for some reason isn’t keen on me, had said we were fortunate. I replied that Tony Mowbray, for whom I hold no particular animus, was right. Let’s see how he handles that.

“Wolves deserved much more than they got today,” I said. “Adam Bogdán was very good and the Mason boy certainly knows when to stick his nose in there, doesn’t he? I’d like to think that this team is dangerous until the very end of the match.”

“Was this a smash-and-grab, then?” I was asked.

“I don’t see any other way to phrase it,” I admitted. “I told the team after the match that we’re going to have to be much, much better in our next two matches because they’re very important and we’re playing two excellent teams who can really damage us if we aren’t sharp. I think they got that message.”

“Yet in the end, it’s three more points.” That was King, ever-prescient.

“It is,” I smiled. “It’s a funny game like that. I’m sure down the road we’ll have a game where we dominate and get nothing out of it. That’s football.”

With that, I noted that Mowbray had not invited me to share any beverages after the match, which smacked of poor sportsmanship. If he’s got it in for me, he’s certainly showing it in all the right ways. So we got on the coach and went home.

Not that I need a beverage, mind you. It’s just the principle of it all.

But when I led the team off the coach at the Macron just before six, this time it was a bit different. Kim was waiting for me by the players’ gate. I wasn’t used to that.

Amanda still hadn’t returned any of my texts or e-mails. Kim was there. That told me all I needed to know.

Also, Holly, Darin and Blake were there for our scheduled drop-off. Sunday and Monday were going to be my days with the boy, but this was the first time someone else had actually been present during the transfer.

I waited for my staff to exit the coach and had a quick word with Spooner about training – I wanted the players who had taken part in the match to have Sunday off in case part of their lethargy was simply due to tired legs – and then headed to the players’ entry door.

Blake ran to me, which I’m sure annoyed Darin to no end. I scooped him up and swung him around in the air, while he giggled and swung his legs wildly.

“Hey, mate,” I said, hugging him to me while the staff and players passed behind us and into the stadium. A small crowd of well-wishers, wives and girl friends was there to welcome us home so the lot wasn’t entirely empty. “Big boy!”

“Hi, Daddy!” he exclaimed, wrapping his arms around my neck. “What are we going to do tomorrow?”

“I thought we’d sleep in, have a nice breakfast and go to the cinema, what do you think about that?”

His grin and wild nods of agreement indicated that not only was my son excited, he was frankly up for whatever was on the agenda.

I nodded to Darin and Holly and advanced to Kim, who smiled at the reaction her appearance had given me.

“Hi, there,” I smiled, and she hugged me as best she could considering I had my arms full of squirming son at the same time. “Thanks for coming out!”

“You certainly get around,” Darin spat. “Star Babe, now this lady, you really play the field.”

This drew a reaction not only from me and Kim, but surprisingly, also from Spooner, who was now approaching.

“Leave off, mate,” he said, crossing behind me to the door. “Quit being a prat.”

“You’ve got nothin’ to do with this, and I’m not your bloody mate,” he called over my shoulder, and for a moment he looked like he was ready to have a go at my assistant manager, which would have been very bad on a number of fronts.

“Darin, mind yourself,” I said, firmly. “I’ll call security and you’ll be evicted. And if you make one move toward any of my staff I’ll have you arrested, and it’ll make the papers. Am I clear on this?”

He stopped, as suddenly as if someone had punched him in the solar plexus. His face returned to its normal color and he took a deep breath.

“Of course, Bobby,” he said. “My apologies to the lady.” He turned to my ex-wife and extended his hand.

“We’ll be off now,” Holly said, trying to make the whole event sound as normal as possible.

“You already are,” Kim said. She couldn’t resist. Even as funny as the line was, I didn’t want to start a fight and absolutely couldn’t afford one in front of Blake.

“Kim, please,” I finally said. “Let’s go inside and get things squared away so we can go home. Would you like to come over for a coffee?”

“I’d love to,” she smiled. Blake looked up at her and smiled, evidently recognizing her from the last time he had visited the ground.

The three of us walked together into the stadium and Holly and Darin walked in the opposite direction. That seemed natural, somehow, and I didn’t mind that a bit.

# # #

[chesterfan2]

As Lenin might have said ... "RESULT!"

[DavidBeckham]

Champions bag three points when they aren't at their best. KUTGW legend!

[TwinsFan86]

Another excellent story, sir. I'll be following along.

[tenthreeleader]

My cup runneth over Thanks, fellows! This is a fun story to write and as with Rat Pack before it, ideas are starting to flow.

___

For once, I get to say “I told you so”. I wish I didn’t have to in this particular case.

Goalkeeper Lee Grant, who has been ever-present for Derby this season, did in fact play at midweek against Arsenal in the Cup, and suffered a fractured skull which will keep him out for three months.

As such, 19-year old Jonathan Mitchell played a full half in Derby’s surprisingly credible 1-nil defeat, did well by all accounts, and will almost certainly start against us. In terms of experience, their problem in goals is profound.

After Mitchell, 22-year old Kelle Roos is next in line out of five potential replacements. Roos is the oldest, and aside from Mitchell’s single half against Arsenal, none of them has played so much as a moment with the first team.

We get them at home. The stars seem aligned, and that’s fine with me. I’m looking for a much better performance than I got against Wolves and that will be easier to get if Derby is having problems in goals.

If that sounds bad, I’m sorry, but my job depends on getting points for Bolton Wanderers Football Club and if that means turning the screws, then that’s what it means. I’m sure Steve McClaren would do the same thing to me if he had to.

Derby has won only one of its last five matches overall, but they’ve got a weapon we have to account for in Chris Martin, who leads the league with seven goals. He’s got one more than Mason, so the match may well come down to those two.

We also got good news from the injury front ourselves, which may lead to bad news later on. Spearing and Pratley are back in training, and that certainly helps, but the problems I have in the center of midfield are pretty profound.

Right now we have eight players who can play two open positions. The players who aren’t playing are grumbling, and I don’t blame them, but the way the club was set up before I arrived was to play with three central midfielders at a time.

My alignment cuts that number to two. That means people like Josh Vela and Neil Danns aren’t getting the time they want and I expect to hear about it soon.

But at least for a day, I forgot about all those things, since Blake had a day off from school and was with me and with Kim. That was very nice.

She came over for that coffee after the match and we spent into the early evening just watching television. Finally, she left and I got some time with Blake that had nothing to do with football.

As bad as things have been recently with his mother and her new husband, I had to admit that Holly had a point. Especially during the season, Blake’s relationship with me centers a bit too much around football.

He needs a dad. So on the Sunday, he got what he needed from me. We watched DVDs, we played games, we even colored in books together. His was better work than mine.

And for a day at least, I got to forget about Financial Fair Play, complaining players, demanding fans and media, and concentrate on what’s important in life.

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

28 September 2014 – Bolton Wanderers (7-1-0, 1^st place) v Derby County (5-2-1, 3^rd place)

Championship Match Day #9 – Macron Stadium, Bolton

There was plenty of reason for optimism.

Derby is a strong side, in the Premier League as recently as two years ago, and even though they were epically bad at that time, they’ve certainly snapped out of it since. They are second in the league in goal scoring to us.

Positively for us, they have known defensive deficiencies and it was very likely we’d see a teenager in goals for them. Neither of us have been playing especially well so it was a chance for us to get healthy.

At least, so we thought.

Bolton Wanderers (4-1-3-2): Bogdán, McNaughton, Dervite, Wheater (captain), Moxey, Ream, Danns, M.Davies, Hall, Mason, Beckford. Subs: Lonergan, Vermijl, Mills, Trotter, Chung-Yong, C. Davies, Clough.

The whole of the defence in terms of game plan was detailed to dealing with Chris Martin. So imagine my surprise, shock and anger in watching Bogdán fishing the ball out of his net after only seven minutes.

Craig Forsyth started it, with a strong run down the left and a good cross – not a great one – into the box for Martin. It was too strong. Wheater headed the ball away but headed over it – into the ground and straight back to Martin, who beat Bogdán to put them ahead.

As good as Wheater has been, that was an horrific play and it left his keeper hung out to dry.

Sadly for us, that wasn’t the first time it happened. Just after the half hour, we gave them a free kick on the left about forty yards from goal. Paul Coults took it, and my entire defence stood and watched Ryan Shotton run onto it for an absolutely free header that gave Bogdán less than no chance. 2-nil in 32 minutes.

That brought me up and off the bench, to the touchline as we tried to regain our composure to kick off. We hadn’t been behind by two goals all season, and none of us liked the feeling.

So imagine the consternation when they made it 3-nil less than sixty seconds later. Hall surrendered another free kick on our left side, their right, and again Coults took it. This ball sailed over the wall and onto Bogdán – who couldn’t hold it.

He spilled the ball, and again the defence simply stood there. Martin ran onto it, shot again – and was denied by a great save at feet by Bogdán, desperately scrambling to retain possession. Sadly, there was still no one there to handle the rebound so Martin simply steered it home to put us three goals down, at home, in 33 minutes.

The crowd was shocked after the first goal, buzzing after the second and howling after the third. In that regard, they matched me.

Three-nil down with just over half an hour on the clock, at home. My mind was spinning. There was nothing we could do. They were rampant, they were in our passing lanes, they were so much the better side it was ridiculous.

The crowd, after its negative reaction, was stunned into silence. The Derby fans were screaming and singing and who could blame them?

“Quit ball-watching!” I screamed. It seemed to break the spell my defenders were under and managed to wake up the crowd. Nobody had heard me raise my voice on the touchline before and now … well, as they say, there’s a first time for everything.

The players should have expected a roasting for the way they had started, but then I started to encourage and cajole them. We haven’t been shut out this season and I wasn’t about to let them quit on themselves.

Five minutes from halftime, we showed some life. Bogdán hit a tremendous goal kick which traveled to just in front of the Derby box before being headed by defender Zak Whitbread. It only went as far as Mark Davies, though, and he found Danns down the right.

Danns, a player who has already told me he wants to play more and started today in place of the want-away Lee Chung-Yong, found Mason in the right side of the box, who conveniently had Whitbread tucked on his inside shoulder. The loanee didn’t miss, giving us a lifeline five minutes from the break.

That brought the crowd into the match and we piled forward as the half came to an end. Danns again tried to find Hall on a ball into the box that was too tall for Mason, but a defender clattered him to the floor. While we yelled for a penalty, Moxey never stopped playing. He picked up the rebound at the left and put his usual useful ball right back into the box. That ball found Mason and he gleefully volleyed home for his tenth goal of the season in the last minute of the half.

We had a match again, and while I piled on the defense for its shoddy work and on Bogdán for a howler for their third goal, I reminded the players that finding two more goals was certainly not beyond the capabilities of this team and sent them out for the second half.

Eight minutes after the restart, we were level, courtesy of a wonderful free kick from 25 yards taken by Dean Moxey. He struck the ball sweetly and at head-height, so the centre of the wall flinched. The ball had just enough carry to not decapitate anyone on the opposing team, and with the keeper Mitchell well and truly stranded by his own defence for a change, we were back to blank paper at a highly unlikely 3-3.

One player who did seem like he had nothing left in him was Beckford, and that was surprising. The knock on Jermaine is that sometimes he mails it in, and today was sadly one of those days.

I got him out of there on the hour and put on the goal-starved Zach Clough on the hour, hoping for a bit of youthful magic. He rewarded me by putting a fizzer of a shot just inside the right post in 68 minutes – only to see his fellow teenager Mitchell claw the ball away with a save worthy of any first-team keeper in the league.

After six goals in 53 minutes, the remainder of the game wasn’t anywhere near like the beginning had been. The teams were spent. And we can’t wait to go to Pride Park for the rematch.

Bolton Wanderers 3 (Mason 40, 45; Moxey 53)

Derby County 3 (Chris Martin 7, 33; Ryan Shotton 32)

H/T: 2-3

A – 21,748, Macron Stadium, Bolton

Man of the Match – Joe Mason, Bolton (MR 8.8)

# # #

[TwinsFan86]

Great comeback there to save a point!

[tenthreeleader]

“Definitely a point gained, given how we started,” I told King. I was ebullient, but really shouldn’t have been.

“Yes, but three goals conceded in 33 minutes must be alarming.”

“It’s mortifying,” I said. “We’ve done that to other clubs but it hasn’t been done to us until today, so we have a job on to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Your defence could have been cast in stone for a good part of the first half,” he said. I couldn’t argue.

“We weren’t very good, I will admit that,” I said. “We did tighten up at the back after that, thankfully, but as we have played better in our own half over the last month I’m not prepared to throw all of them under the bus just yet.”

“So how do you fix this?”

“Let’s stay positive, shall we?” I asked. “We came back from three goals down to get a draw and I for one am pretty well chuffed about that. We knew these matches against Derby and Fulham were going to be difficult but we have the first one out of the way and have a point in the account. Now we worry about Fulham. But yes, we do have work to do and it involves our defenders being more active when the ball is in our eighteen. We did a lot of standing around on their goals.”

“Will Adam Bogdán keep his place after his error?”

I was hoping he wouldn’t ask that question. Adam has been like the ‘Little Girl with the Curl’ – when he’s been good, he’s been very, very good but when he’s been bad, or out of position, we’ve suffered for it. Their third goal should never have happened and it was a total team effort.

“Andy Lonergan is a good keeper and he’ll be ready if called upon,” I said. “Adam knows that and he knows he has to work hard every match and every day in training to keep his spot. That said, he’s human and he made a mistake that cost us a goal.”

Adam is my number one, and he knows it. But I can’t afford him making mistakes like that and he knows that too. In that regard, Brandon King had read my mind.

Leaving the ground, I walked through the car park to my vehicle, deep in thought. I climbed inside my Jaguar F-Type and started the engine. As I did, my phone buzzed. Staying parked, because nobody wants a ticket for driving while on the phone, I checked my messages.

It was from Kim. “Dinner?” she asked. I smiled.

“Come on over, we’ll order in,” I answered. Feeling a bit better, I shifted the car into gear and drove home.

# # #

All things considered, it was a very nice night.

Aww, hell. Who am I kidding? It was perfect.

I ordered in from Star City on Thicketford Road and waited for my company to arrive. The food got there just before she did.

Which, actually, was the first part of the evening’s perfection. As I uncovered the food, the doorbell rang and I let her in. She looked fantastic.

Her long, curly blonde hair was tucked in the same neat pony tail as I had seen in the exercise room, and her blouse and matching skirt flattered her wonderfully.

“Hello,” she said softly, handing me a bottle of wine. “Thanks for the invite!”

Her voice turned playful. “How do I look?” she giggled.

I stood aside to let her in. “I don’t know, I can’t look past your eyes,” I joked, and she flushed a bright shade of red. She entered my house, and headed toward the sitting room down a single step.

In my place, the kitchen is on the immediate left after you enter, with a dining area attached above the sitting room/conversation area, which is set into the floor at the centre. A large bay window still further ahead offers a view of Bolton, with the master bedroom and bath to the right. It’s a corner apartment in a well-heeled complex, and I like it a lot. Now I just need to see how long I can keep it.

“How was the time with Blake?” she asked.

“Very nice, thank you for asking.” I smiled at her and pulled two wine glasses out from a cupboard, moving to a drawer for a corkscrew.

“He’s a cute little man.”

“Must have got that from his mum,” I laughed, and she gave me a cross look.

“Don’t you dare, Bobby Malone,” she said. “What would your father say if he heard you say that?”

I put down the corkscrew and looked at her for a long moment. I thought it through.

“You know, nobody ever talks to me about my dad.”

Her face took on a look of alarm.

“Bobby, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …”

“No, it’s all right, Kim. I meant that in a good way.”

I popped the cork from the wine bottle and poured two glasses, handing her one. “I think people don’t even want to approach me about it because of how it all happened. It’s sad, because I have no brothers or sisters, and really nobody to talk to about him.”

“Let me help you with the food,” she offered, crossing behind me and into the kitchen to assist.

“I guess I’ve felt alone,” I blurted.

I was surprised that those words were coming out of my mouth. I had never let such thoughts pass my lips before.

“If I may venture some friendly criticism, you tend to give off that aura.”

She gave me a soft but still dazzling smile, and helped set the table, carrying food and plates as she passed.

“How so?”

“Well, you carry off the role of the loner quite well,” she replied. “And what I’m trying to tell you is that it’s time to stop doing it. It’s not good for you and if you don’t mind my saying so, it’s not good for Blake, either.”

Her concern for my son was both apparent and touching.

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“I do indeed,” she said, moving to me. “And I think you have a good idea of what the first one might be.”

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Great comeback against Derby, but the comeback by Kim was even better

[tenthreeleader]

Sometimes good things happen to good people, Becks!

___

I was glad we had the Sunday off, for more than one reason.

The wine was good. Kim was even better.

My plan for a quiet evening at home had turned instead into one rather a bit more raucous than I had supposed possible when it started.

It also meant I had to make another personal statement to the chairman, but I didn’t mind that at all. Bosses don’t need to know everything.

She woke with her head tucked into the crook of my arm. So neat and tidy when she arrived, her hair was now as delightfully rumpled as her clothing, which was haphazardly strewn about the master bedroom, mingled with my own.

If I had wanted to be crude about it, I’d have said we ended a losing streak. Since I don’t, I simply thought about what a lucky man I was for a change.

Yet, part of it was something deeper. I felt good about that as I watched Kim wake up in my arms. It was very nice.

She’s been good to me. She’s been good to my son. If she wanted to be better to me, I thought it might not be the worst thing in the world to let her try.

We talked quietly for a few minutes as she woke up slowly. Our conversation centered on whether we were really going to go through with it after what had happened the night before, and perhaps amazingly, she didn’t run away screaming at the idea.

That meant a lot. It had been three years since my divorce and I guess I hadn’t realized that trying to keep a stoic exterior was really a bad idea. She had showed me that in more ways than one.

When we were done talking she slowly, happily, rose from the bed like Aphrodite from the foam and headed into the bath to take her morning shower. That was an amazing sight.

What was a little more difficult was the text exchange I had with Gartside while Kim and I ate breakfast.

On my end, it wasn’t anything like “Hi, Phil, I just slept with your PA”. That would have triggered a very quick invitation to pick up my P45, along with my head, on my way out the door. Instead, I was more tactful.

“I know I said I wasn’t looking, but Kim Pickering and I have started a relationship,” I texted him. “Please let me know if this creates any difficulties that I have not foreseen. It is not my intention to reflect negatively on the club through a workplace relationship.”

After a few minutes, my phone buzzed.

“With respect, I thought this might happen,” he said. That wasn’t exactly positive. “I understand your desire to avoid impropriety but you must know I will expect you both to be the model of decorum while on the club’s time and property. I will make this clear to Kim as well when I see her on Monday.”

Wordlessly, I showed Kim my phone and she giggled.

“That sounds like Mr. Gartside,” she said. As she looked at the screen, I received another text message. It was from Amanda Caldwell.

“Hey, Bobby! How about a night on the town, handsome?” she texted. Kim’s eyes grew wide and then very narrow as she looked at me. Evidently, she wanted to be back, and had picked exactly the wrong time to announce her intentions.

“Did I make a mistake last night?” Kim asked.

Instead, I simply smiled back at her. “How about you answer her?” I asked. “But be nice.”

I handed her my phone. That melted her icy expression, and she thought for a moment before responding.

“Bobby is taken, thank you very much,” she wrote. “Enjoy your Sunday. I know I’ll enjoy spending mine with him. Kim Pickering.”

She hit the ‘send’ button and we enjoyed our Sunday very much indeed.

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

That was some brilliant skill by Bobby to prevent a potential conflict with Kim!

[Harryseaess]

Just thought I'd post to say I'm still following along, this is really enjoyable to read.

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks very much, gents ... just took a bit of time to play ahead and write some more. Glad you are all enjoying the read!

___

1 October 2014 – Fulham (7-0-2, 2^nd place) v Bolton Wanderers (7-2-0, 1^st place)

Championship Match Day #10 – Craven Cottage, London

The capital is always a fun place to travel, but I’ve always thought that in the higher leagues, it provides an advantage for those teams who play there.

This season, there are six Premiership clubs that are based in London – Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham, QPR, Crystal Palace and Spurs. There are three more in the Championship – Charlton, Millwall and Fulham, with two more nearby in Watford and Reading.

Those clubs have travel advantages over ours. When they play big matches against each other, their players can sleep in their own beds for longer, they have fewer coach miles on them, and it’s not as much of a disruption to play on the road. Those are all nice things.

The rest of us just have to get on with it. That said, I enjoyed the trip more than I otherwise might have, because once the work was done I had the opportunity to share a few moments with Kim on the phone. That was very enjoyable. It made me feel nearly human.

With only a few days separating the Derby match from this one, there wasn’t a lot of time for media pressure or buildup. And as such, the hype being done for the top-of-the-table clash, there really was nothing else for it but to get out there and play.

Fulham is still a Premiership-level side in my mind, even if they don’t have the current divisional pedigree, so we knew we were in for a difficult day at the office despite riding a nine-match unbeaten streak in the league.

The players were all business at the hotel as we met for breakfast and a short meeting to discuss the Cottagers before heading to the ground. It’s one of my favourite grounds due to its unique location, layout and Archibald Leitch design. Should a player somehow manage to clear the roof of the Riverside Stand with a clearance, the ball has a half-decent chance of winding up in the Thames. Makes it a bit hard for the ball boys.

But as we dressed for the match, I had a decision to make. All the way from London, I was flirting with the idea of giving Lonergan his shot, but in a very big game. There were other changes in the XI that I had in mind, due to playing two games on a short schedule, but the question in my mind all the way to filling out the team sheet was who was going to be in goals.

“Sometimes, you have to take a chance,” I mused.

Bolton Wanderers (4-2-3-1): Lonergan, Vermijl, Wheater (Captain), Mills, Moxey, Medo, Chung-Yong, Trotter, Hall, Mason, C. Davies. Subs: Bogdán, McNaughton, Vela, Ream, Danns, Feeney, Beckford.

I was actually taking two chances. I told Bogdán before the match that I was thinking of sitting him and he said he understood but didn’t like it. I told him I didn’t like it either, if he caught my drift, and he said he did. Then I pulled the trigger.

The other thing I did was change our alignment. I added a second holding midfielder in place of a striker and started us inviting them on so we could counter. I wanted to switch everything up because the entire league had seen us in 4-1-3-2 and I thought the element of surprise might help us in a match as big as this one.

Mason kept his place, but in a different role. This time he played as a shadow striker behind Craig Davies, flanked by Hall and Chung-Yong. Medo and Trotter were the two holders in front of the back four and Lonergan.

I let the Fulham bench absorb that bit of chicanery as we kicked off to start the match. We met their strength with a solid counter with Davies shooting over the bar six minutes into the match.

Unfortunately, we were too clever by half, as the home team piled on and drew first blood in fifteen minutes through Brian Ruíz. It was a better goal than we had conceded against Derby, though, a real cracker of a drive from twenty yards that beat Lonergan to the top right corner of his goal. Nothing to be done about that.

But the players hung in there, and less than ten minutes later we were level. It came through Mason, who stole a square ball high up the park and made a straight-ahead feed to Davies. It was a classic counter, with his strike was low, along the floor and into the far corner of Gábor Kíraly’s goal.

It seems that whatever role I put Mason in, he finds a way to shine. We then took over the match for the remainder of the first half. The counter was working beautifully and we were generating not just chances, but explosive ones. We were in the ascendancy as we approached the end of the first half.

They worked the ball into our end in the last minute, though, and then picked up a huge break. Wheater was accused of pushing into Ruíz on an entry ball into our box. The attacker made it look good, sprawling to the ground in the sight of referee Lee Probert, who was trailing the play and gave the penalty.

When I say “accused”, I actually mean “tried and convicted” because Probert’s opinion was the only one that mattered.

Mine certainly didn’t, as I gave the fourth official an earful. Ruíz took the ball out of Lonergan’s hands, which nobody in our colours cared for, and had the ball placed on the spot before referee Probert had even turned to him.

“Look at that,” I fumed to Spooner as I retook my seat in the dugout. Ruíz sent Lonergan the wrong way from the spot to give them a wholly undeserved 2-1 lead at intermission.

Several of my players remonstrated with Probert at the halftime whistle and I had to go onto the pitch to get them separated. I was seeing plenty of passion, which I liked, but I would have liked yellow cards for dissent a lot less.

“I’ll handle this, gentlemen,” I told the players, shooing them ahead of me to the tunnel at the cottage corner of the stadium. I then had a quiet and quick word with Probert as I headed to the tunnel myself.

“He made it look good, Lee,” was all I said, before I jogged away.

Probert’s words, “No, he didn’t, Bobby,” bounced off my back as I went to tend to my angry players.

I told them the result would come since, with the exception of one error by my defence and another by the referee, we had been much the better side in the first half.

By the numbers, we should have been blowing them out. By the scoreboard, obviously we were not.

In the second half, the good chances continued to flow even as Fulham dropped back a bit to protect the lead. They didn’t have the high-intensity of the first half in terms of their attack and we were left to rue squandered opportunities in front of goal by both Hall and Mason.

Then they hit us again, and they did it in the way we had. They caught us with both full backs forward and hit us on the counter, with numbers. We couldn’t get everyone covered and Ross McCormack was sent in by the ever-present Ruíz, and one v one against Lonergan the keeper couldn’t stop him.

That was big trouble. After that, the Cottagers simply sat in their shell and dared us to find a way through. We could not.

Our frustration mounted, the chances we did generate were either spurned or snuffed out at the defence, and even a change to 4-3-3 at the end of the match couldn’t find us a way through.

It was over. The unbeaten string was gone, Fulham had vaulted us to the top of the table – and we left the pitch beaten, but with a sense of injustice.

Fulham 3 (Brian Ruíz 15, pen 45; Ross McCormack 60)

Bolton Wanderers 1 (C. Davies 24)

H/T: 2-1

A – 23,758, Craven Cottage, London

Man of the Match: Brian Ruíz, Fulham (MR 9.0)

# # #

[tenthreeleader]

“I wish,” I told the press, “that the penalty had not changed the game. I felt we were more than good enough to win today.”

The numbers showed it. We had 24 attempts at goal away from home with eight on target to their 12 and five. We had more possession. We were the better side for vast swaths of the match.

Yet we were going home in second place, and there was little we could do about that. It stung, because even though we had been dominant, we had also been wasteful.

“Do you feel it was a penalty?”

“I think it’s a foul that on another day isn’t a foul,” I said. “Lee Probert has a hard job. I get that. But in a top of the table game, I wish it had been more clear-cut because to me, anyway, it certainly wasn’t. But he called it and we had to deal with it. We played the second half differently because we started it trailing instead of 1-1 and maybe things turn out differently if we play that way.”

“David Wheater really looked upset when you took him off.”

“Well, the penalty affected him, didn’t it?” I said. “Here’s a fellow going up for a header and he’s judged to have pushed the player. The referee can’t see the contact because he’s trailing, the player goes down and the official calls what he sees, which is a player on the ground in our area. I can see why he gave the penalty but obviously I wish he hadn’t because there was really not much in it for me. David took that to heart and unfortunately it may have affected his play because he was really upset. He felt he hurt the team when the truth of the matter is that he was simply defending.”

I was riding the ragged edge on officiating comments and I knew it. But I was going to defend my vice-captain.

Thankfully, the press let it go at that, King had nothing to add, and I headed back to the changing rooms to meet Kenny Jackett for a glass of wine.

He’s trying to bring his team back to the Premiership after the disaster of a season ago. Brought in to replace Felix Magath, who had replaced René Meulensteen, he’s the club’s third manager in less than a year.

But now he’s top, and was gracious to the team he had defeated. He could afford to be.

“Sometimes you don’t always play your best and win anyway,” he said. “It will be a good struggle between our clubs.”

“Thank you,” I replied, raising my glass. “I look forward to another chance to play you.”

“As you should, Bobby,” he laughed. “If I were you I’d want the same thing.”

I couldn’t argue, so I simply smiled in return. Heading back to the coach as a losing manager for the very first time, my head and heart burned in equal measure. We were going to have a long ride home to think about this, and maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world.

Silently, the players filed onto the coach, finished with their cooldowns and plunge pools. The physio staff was there to apply ice and heat to the players where appropriate, as we started for home.

I plugged a set of Bose headphones into my phone and turned on my music for the ride home. Behind me, Spooner was already downloading match video for Saturday’s match at home to Bournemouth. We’ll need to be better to keep pace. I allowed myself a few moments of relaxation before turning to my deputy and asking what he had seen.

As I did, I got two texts from Bolton. The first was from Gartside, commiserating but expressing disappointment at the loss. That was to be expected. “Of course,” I texted back.

The second was from Kim, asking me if I needed her comfort that evening.

“Of course,” I texted back, for an entirely different reason.

# # #

[DavidBeckham]

Unlucky with the defeat there but at least it was Fulham away. You can make it up at home!

[chesterfan2]

Very topical 10-3, bringing James McClean's completely admirable stance on why he does not wear a poppy, into the story. Woven in to good effect. Carry on, carry on.

[FudgeandLove]

Really good read and kudos for taking on Bolton.

[tenthreeleader]

cf, thank you very much. My research for the story showed McClean having an issue during the match against Bolton so I thought I'd address it too. Wherever I can, I like to mix in the real world with my writing. It happens a couple of times in Rat Pack as well.

___

FudgeandLove, first off welcome to the forums, and second, thank you for the kind words. It's always good to know that after all this time an old guy can still attract new readers. Enjoy the story!

___

“Yes, I thought it was dirty.”

The media, ever vigilant in its search for controversy, had found some, but this time they didn’t have to look very hard. I was a willing source.

“Joe Mason hasn’t played in a month and in a match we’re leading by four goals, he gets taken out five minutes from time in his injured ankle,” I said. “You tell me there’s nothing in that, I’m going to tell you that you’re full of something.”

“Is that the way Wigan play?”

“I wish it wasn’t, but it sure looks like it,” I said, “I think Uwe Rösler needs to do a bit of soul-searching instead of challenging me in the technical area. There was no point in what Kvist did. I’m sure he’s a decent enough lad but really, this is the kind of thing football is trying to get rid of. Joe is angry and upset because he’s just come back from injury and I don’t blame him. I understand playing hard until the final whistle but honestly, there’s no need to go in on an ankle like that, not when the match is decided.”

“Your thoughts on McClean and not wearing a poppy.”

“That’s up to the player and his club,” I immediately responded. “I’m not going to get involved in that. It’s an emotional issue and that’s all I’m going to say.”

“You’re holding the lead now and Fulham are chasing you again,” a Captain Obvious said. “Surely that pleases you.”

“Yes,” I said. I wasn’t really in the mood to wax poetic about the Cottagers.

The media saw that, and returned the conversation to where the juiciest quotes might be found – which was Mason.

“Does the Mason injury ruin the win for you?”

“No, beating the club’s rival is always good, and the lads are pleased as well they should be,” I answered. “We get some time off now to heal up and that’s good for us, especially in Joe’s case. We just need people to get healthy, especially up front. We’ve had trouble there in recent matches and for me, it can’t come soon enough.”

I then headed back to the trainers’ room, where Mason sat sullenly once more upon Leather’s table.

“This one doesn’t look quite as bad, Bobby,” the chief physio said to my surprise and Mason’s pleasure. “It’s a bad twist. Joe’s going to need most of the international break to put this right but there’s no structural damage. At worst, it’s a mild sprain and probably not even that.”

He slapped Mason on the shoulder. “You’re lucky, young man,” he said, and Mason just grinned at him. “You’ll need to stay off it for a few days to let everything settle down but after that you’ll be right as rain.”

With that, I went to the directors’ suite for a well-earned reception and dinner with Kim. The mood was good – and I was leaving for Madrid in the morning.

UEFA waits for no man.

# # #

[dap1987]

Wow! I've just spent 2 days in work reading this story and its pure brilliance!

The side story of real life is unbelievable and I'm hooked like a 45 year old woman reading 50 Shades of Grey, and even better that it is mixed with football!!

Great start to the season and keep it going

(I am a little gutted i am up to date and not knowing when the next installment will be)