You Are the Quarry - A Derby Story

[LucMaugham]

You Are the Quarry - A Derby Story

An outline:

Lancaster-born Alan Lansbury is one of the most argumentative, stroppy, hard-nosed and politically incorrect people on the planet. After a lengthy but unremarkable playing career as a no-nonsense midfield enforcer, he ventured into non-league management and attained considerable success. The success proved ephemeral in large part due to his repulsive personality. In a bizarre twist of fate, he then became head teacher at a most bog-standard comprehensive in Derby. It is a job he thoroughly despises. He longs to leave the profession, but feels that his "true calling" will never come.

One day in June 2019, the city's football club experiences a meltdown to rival that of Chernobyl. The Football League, following a legal challenge from Middlesbrough concerning Financial Fair Play rules, revokes Derby's membership of the league and issues a fiat to owner Mel Morris telling him to sell up. He obliges. The FA agree to admit Derby into National League North for the forthcoming season, whilst imposing a strict transfer embargo and a 10-point deduction. All of Derby's managerial and playing staff leave Pride Park under a thick cloud of uncertainty. 

Derby County's new chairman, the self-made millionaire and lifelong Rams supporter Jon Aspinall, has the brilliant idea of handing the task of saving the club from extinction to Alan. The move sparks mass derision amongst the club's tired and disaffected supporters. 

Recognising Alan's managerial ability, but also the toxicity of his persona, Aspinall appoints the young, ambitious and urbane George Milburn as assistant manager. The move appears to be a disastrous one. Alan and George row constantly on account of their different social backgrounds, values, managerial styles and personalities. The club threatens to perish in the white heat of their clashes. Its survival depends on the pair finding some common ground and establishing an effective partnership, and, in particular, Alan adjusting to the rigours of professional management and the expectations of modern Britain. 

Class, politics, corruption and many other contemporary issues feature in what is, by my own admission, not at all a serious literary effort. I nonetheless hope that it meets with at least some degree of approval and enjoyment. As you can see, I am new to the forum. I felt inspired to try my hand at writing a Football Manager story after reading past contributions on this forum, namely CFuller's excellent "An Impossible Man", and I welcome any feedback. 

A few things to note before I begin:

This story will contain some strong language, mostly on Alan's part. Note also that I have altered several historical events for what I think are called "purposes of dramatisation". I will provide an update every two days or so, circumstances permitting. 

I hope you enjoy this story.

- Luc 

[CFuller]

Welcome to FMS, @LucMaugham.

Nice to see you were inspired by "An Impossible Man". It's always interesting when people write about politics and corruption in their FM stories (I'd recommend "Football Is A Business" by @jdoyle9293 if you haven't read that already) so I'll definitely be following this.

[LucMaugham]

Chapter One: From Despair to Where

 "Such are the days that shall be! But what are the deeds of today, In the days of the years we dwell in, that wear our lives away?"

 

It was a warm afternoon in the middle of June. Jon Aspinall got out of his Rolls Royce and locked it and looked up at Pride Park. There it stood, tall and proud, a cathedral, a point at which an ardent faithful foregathered, an unmistakable beacon of working-class pride. Dressed in black, as if off to a funeral, he took a sharp intake of breath and passed through reception and scaled several flights of stairs and soon arrived at an office. Inside was a desk crafted from the finest oak, smooth and solid, and on top of it rested a slew of documents and behind it stood a large, black chair. There was a quiet desolation about the place. He sat down and produced a pen and took it to the pile of papers before him. His first day, and quite the day it would prove.

Before long, a diminutive, thirty-something woman burst into the room. 

“Mr Aspinall, the press are ready for you.” 

Aspinall placed his pen inside his suit pocket and rose from his seat, and the pair strode down several corridors of routine before arriving at a cavernous room. The walls were a fine white. Rows and rows of chairs housed rows and rows of journalists. Ahead of them, a large desk, at which he and the woman seated themselves.

The woman began, “I’m Jane Shackleton, the club’s press officer. Mr Aspinall will read a brief, prepared statement. Thereafter, he will be happy to take questions from the floor.”

“This is my proudest moment,'' said Aspinall, who spoke in a coarse and broad Derbyshire accent. 

“To be here before you as chairman of Derby County Football Club, the club I have supported my whole life, is truly an honour. We have much work ahead of us, mind. Our expulsion from the English Football League and demotion to the National League North present several difficulties, not least the punitive points deduction and transfer embargo the FA have imposed upon us. I will move heaven and earth to get this club back to where it belongs. This requires prudent management of the club’s finances to ensure that the mistakes of the previous regime are not repeated. I will announce our new management team in a press conference tomorrow morning. I won’t take questions as Jane said I would. Anyhow, I have all the answers up here,” he said, tapping his temple to much sniggering from the assembled press. 
 

-----

 

At seven o'clock in the evening that same day, Alan Lansbury had finished enduring another day of niggling tedium in the teaching profession.

“And tell those pen-pushing ponces at the LEA to do one; the last bell went two hours ago and I’m off for a well-deserved pint!”

“For Christ’s sake, Alan,” an amused teacher replied. “Masterfully diplomatic, as ever.”

An hour later, Alan Lansbury strode briskly into the Wallace Arms. He went there in search of cheap relief, in the hope that his imbibing copious amounts of alcohol would deaden his red-faced exasperation. Little did he know that his life was about to change forever.

“Pint of bitter, ta,” he said to the barman, forking over a fistful of coins. 

After imbibing his pint, he went out for a cigarette and stood beside the entrance to the pub. He took from a dour, grey packet a Silk Cut and stuck it into his mouth and lit it up and started producing a thick, rueful haze of exhaustion. A man who looked like he had been to a funeral shot him an inquisitive glance before going inside, and a far younger man with a pink shirt and green tie followed shortly thereafter, before Alan went back inside.

As he strode back up to the bar, Alan caught the eyes of the two men. The barman was serving them for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, the older one, dressed in black from head to toe, spoke.

“Can I get you anything, mate?”

At this, the younger man looked bemused.

“Scotch. Double. Massive,” Alan replied.

The three sat at a table in the corner of the pub. It was a proper Derby pub, and a homely place. An open fire roared. Pictures of Roy McFarland and Kevin Hector and Brian Clough adorned the walls. The sound of excitable chatter suffused the room. 

“Who are you then?” Alan enquired.

“I’m Jon Aspinall, the new chairman of Derby County. You’re Alan Lansbury aren’t you? And aren’t you still wasting away teaching in that knife-addled drug haven of a comp in Normanton? The one I escaped from? What happened?”

Alan’s face contorted into an extremely dour expression and his brow furrowed. He took some time to respond, first taking a gulp of his drink.

“I want nothing to do with football management ever again. Not after those buggers at Long Eaton stitched me up.” 

“And I want the government to abolish corporation tax and throw every benefit scrounger in this country in a bloody gulag! Look, I want you to be the next manager of Derby County. Hear me out. You’re going to be our Maggie. You’re going to haul us out of this s***-ridden swamp that the nutters have left us in. We need a strong manager. You can't refuse. This will liberate you, renewed sense of purpose and all that.”

“Hang on. You’re the new chairman of Derby County, and you've got a vacancy? You ain’t winding me up are you? Why ask someone like me to take a Championship job?”

“So you haven’t heard the news, then,” the younger man interjected, with the slightest hint of contempt. 

“Yes, thanks for that, Will,” Aspinall continued. “Ignore the puffin. Basically, the situation is this. We’re up s*** creek in, well, a creaking, leaking boat. The club’s f*****. Morris overspent and overspent and now the EFL and the FA have booted us out the league citing financial irregularities and Mel Morris's dodgy stadium deal. We start next season in the National League North, lumbered with an embargo that means, for two years, we can only bring in free transfers and loans. We also need to balance the books, owing to our massive debt. Oh, and there's the small matter of a 10-point deduction. We need a hard taskmaster, someone who knows the level and can work within these constraints whilst keeping us competitive on the pitch.”

“I see,” said Alan. “Well, you’re right about the teaching. I hate it. The b*stards at the LEA don’t see what I have to put up with. And getting the place in shape is a Sisyphean task. Y'know, rolling the boulder up the hill again and again, and again and again the f*****g thing rolls back down and knocks you off your feet. It’s a bloody life sentence and I want out. To work for a club like Derby…”

“You can’t be serious, Jon!” said Will, who spoke with an upper-class accent. “You can’t just hand this ruffian the job without any due process, and especially not in a bloody pub!”

“And what would a jumped-up, toffee-nosed tosser like you know about running a f*****g football club?” Alan raged. “This ruffian played in over 500 professional games and has managed in over 150! I command respect, instil discipline and get solid results on crap budgets. Jon, I’d be delighted to take over the reins.”

Will went to interject again but Aspinall grabbed him by the arm and took him to one side. Alan watched on with a wry smile, and delved once again into his scotch. 

“Look, Will,” he said, “I know you’ve got concerns about the bloke. There’s something in what you say, although he’s less a ruffian and more a fat white version of Robert Mugabe.”

“Well what do we want him for, then? Have you not read Animal Farm or Nineteen Eighty-Four? Or read any history books on the USSR? Do you have any inkling at all as to what will happen if we entrust the club to this megalomaniac? The Stalin of the North? We’ll lose all control!”

“At least that posh school of yours taught you melodrama, if seemingly little else. He’s a Fiat 500, a stop gap, if you like. An acquaintance of mine was on the board at Long Eaton and recommended him. It's pure chance that we've bumped into him tonight. Glowing reference, three promotions, two cups, all on a budget. And he's by far the cheapest option. He’ll keep us ticking over for the first few seasons, get us up into League Two, after which we’ll have stabilised the finances and will be able to dump him for someone better.”

“Oh. When you put it like that… I’ll tell you something; I’ve an idea. It is risky, though. Do you know of A Very British Coup?”

As it happened, he didn't, but Aspinall at least knew what the word coup meant and had already thought of what Will was poised to propose. He broke into a wide grin before turning to Alan and passing him a piece of paper.

“Scribble on that and be in the Pride Park press room for nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said before leaving, with Will following closely behind.

And there Alan sat in utter stupefaction, not on account of the alcohol but because he couldn't quite process what had just happened. He'd begun the day a curmudgeonly teacher and ended it Derby County manager. All around him the excitable chatter refused to abate, his fellow punters oblivious to this momentous development. Thousands of Rams fans would get a very nasty shock come the morning.

Edited November 26, 2019 by LucMaugham

[LucMaugham]

21 hours ago, CFuller said:

Welcome to FMS, @LucMaugham.

Nice to see you were inspired by "An Impossible Man". It's always interesting when people write about politics and corruption in their FM stories (I'd recommend "Football Is A Business" by @jdoyle9293 if you haven't read that already) so I'll definitely be following this.

My apologies for the late reply, but thank you for the welcome, @CFuller. I will have a read of your recommendation. Yes, politics will be an important theme in this story, and a certain blonde buffoon might well appear at some stage!