The Ace of Spades

[tenthreeleader]

cf, always nice to know you are reading along and even nicer to hear from you here. Greatly appreciated. Mr Smith, welcome and thank you for your kindness!

___

Wade was sat across from Terry at the dinner table. His visage certainly seemed to be lighter than it had been in recent days.

There was probably more than one reason for that. Yes, the Spireites had won and that had lifted Terry’s mood. So Kerri had been correct about the effect a win would have on his son’s morale.

The other thing, however, was that Wade’s academy team had trained together for the first time. That was fun, certainly, and that was probably a greater reason for the boy’s ear-to-ear grin.

“I’ll be in that eleven in no time,” he promised, taking a forkful of green beans from his plate and shoveling them into his mouth.

When Wade was a small boy, Terry had told him that Frank Lampard liked to eat green beans and even after Wade had figured out his father’s lame attempt to bolster his eating habits, he still ate them.

“That’s good to hear,” Terry said. “You think you can just show up and play?”

“There are good players there,” Wade said. “But I’m better.”

Terry knew that self-confidence is always good to see in a young player. However, cockiness is not.

“And how do you know you’re better?” he asked.

“Look, Dad, I know what you’re trying to do. But honestly, I control the ball better at feet than anyone else at my position and they don’t have anyone who can pass the ball like I can.”

He took a long drink of milk. “And I know who I have to thank for that, of course.”

Wade’s sudden streak of diplomacy was both pleasing and surprising to Terry.

“Well, I want you to be confident, or else this academy team isn’t going to work out for you,” he finally said. He turned to his daughter.

“And, my dear, how was your day?”

“We had a shooting contest,” she said. “Accuracy and placement.”

“And, how did you do?”

Dana shrugged.

“I won,” she said.

Wade’s eyes flashed for a moment, but a quick glance from his father put the boy back in his place.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Terry asked.

“It’s Wade’s day,” Dana replied, eating a forkful of mash.

She didn’t complain. She never did. Terry was grateful that his daughter seemed to enjoy one of the few things he could cook well.

Not for the first time, he marveled at his daughter’s grace. Wade was a typical young lad when it came to those sorts of things – all bluster and verve – but, as always, Dana was different.

Not for the first time, Terry thought of Alison when he looked at her. There was so much of her sweet mother in Dana, and Terry always smiled when he made the comparison.

There were no issues in that relationship. Terry was far more concerned, however, with his relationship with his son.

##

[cerion knowles]

oh my... this is my first post here and I just wanted to say that this is such a good fm story and also a wonderful piece of literature , keep on the great work man

[tenthreeleader]

Thanks very much and welcome!

___

Chesterfield (2-0-0, 3^rd) v Morecambe (0-1-1, 19^th) – League Two Match Day #3

Terry had some thinking to do as he headed to the ground with the kids.

Wade seemed so up and down. He really seemed to like Kerri – but Terry couldn’t put his finger on why he didn’t seem to share his son’s enthusiasm for the woman who was trying so hard to help his family.

Dana – well, she was Dana. Neutral to the last and gracious to a fault, she wouldn’t have complained if she were being waterboarded. She would say whatever needed to be said and it would be the right thing.

Terry thought back to the comment Wade had recently made about him seeing Alison in his daughter’s face. He thought it might be true, and if it were true, he needed to do something about it.

The racing of his mind almost detracted from his match preparation, and that wasn’t a good thing in the slightest.

Morecambe were asking for it. They had stated slowly and were coming to the B2Net Stadium as decided underdogs. Terry knew that a solid performance would get three points. The problem was in how to carry over the positive momentum from the Stevenage match to make sure it happened.

He was at home, which meant a wider pitch and 4-4-2. These players were a natural 4-4-2 side anyway, so Terry lined them up in a way that was sure to make them comfortable:

Chesterfield (4-4-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Bennett

DR – Hunt

DC – Breckin

DC – Page

ML – Morris

MC – Cuvelier

MC – Allott

MR – Mattis

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

Terry hadn’t been best pleased with the run-up to the match, in which manager Sammy McIlroy had publicly fingered Mattis as a weak link in Terry’s side.

His retort in the press had been sharp – that McIlroy needed to keep his eyes on his own bobber – and he had called the midfielder into his office for a chat after the papers had hit the newsstands.

As a new arrival, Mattis had felt a bit uncomfortable anyway, but to be called out in such a way really hurt. Terry’s words were simple: Sammy McIlroy isn’t your manager. I am. Now, I want you to go out there and do a job.

Whereupon, Mattis did, lashing home the first goal of the match ten minutes thanks to a superb cross from fellow new arrival Craig Davies, and putting the now-famous “shush” finger to his lips aimed at the Morecambe bench.

He was a man on a mission. So was Davies, who was getting an extended run in the first team.

Terry’s side were rampant in the first half, but couldn’t break through again until the 37^th minute when Cuvelier stole a loose ball just inside the halfway line and fed Talbot. One striker squared for the other, Davies split the centre of defence and scored easily.

From the ensuing kickoff, Cuvelier stole the ball and fed ahead to Talbot. This time, the striker drew the ball to his right and brought his defender over to him across his partner.

That meant Morecambe skipper Jim Bentley had to switch assignments to mark Davies. Only he was ball-watching.

It was a simple thing for Talbot to again feed his strike partner, and the Spireites had scored twice in 52 seconds.

With a 3-0 lead at halftime and the team playing brilliantly, Terry elected to keep the foot to the gas for the second 45 minutes.

“No sitting back for this team,” he had declared, and the players seemed to take him at his word.

Morecambe’s second half was only slightly better than its first. Keeper Laurie Walker booted the ball up the park on a goal kick in 67 minutes only to see it strike the head of Cuvelier. The loanee nodded it fiercely forward – and since Morecambe were playing an offside trap, their line was high. Davies simply raced behind the central defenders, rounded Walker and made it 4-0 thanks to the easiest goal he could hope to score.

For long stretches of the second half, Terry didn’t have to leave his seat.

If only parenthood were so easy.

Chesterfield 4 (Dwayne Mattis 10; Craig Davies 37, 38, 76)

Morecambe 0

A – 6,284, B2Net Stadium, Chesterfield

Man of the Match – Craig Davies, Chesterfield (9.7 MR)

##

[tenthreeleader]

“So, will you take the kids while we’re away this week?”

Terry could hardly believe the sound of his own voice. Here he was, voluntarily giving up control of the thing that mattered most in his life – access to his children.

He felt, in a way, like he was surrendering to Kerri.

Not surprisingly, she didn’t see it that way.

“Terry, if you’re comfortable with me using your Christian name, I could do that,” she replied. “I just want to make sure you are comfortable.”

“The kids like you,” he replied. “I’m not going to stand in the way of that. They need a positive influence in their lives that isn’t me.”

“They need a positive influence that’s female, we’ve been over that,” Kerri replied. “But, if I do too much more of this for you, I’m going to need to file a report with my supervisors.”

“I understand,” Terry answered.

“Perhaps not fully,” Kerri countered. “You see, I’m supposed to find nannies for children, not be one myself. I don’t know how well this will go over.”

“Of course,” Terry said. “I should have known. If you wish to excuse yourself, I don’t want to stand in your way.”

“It’s not that,” Kerri answered. “I like the kids too. They are kind and respectful. You taught them well.”

“I don’t know how much I had to do with it.”

Kerri’s expression was first cross, and then soft. “Terry, false modesty does not become you,” she said. “You know how much fans hate it in players – well, kids hate it from parents. You’ve done well with these two.”

“So,” Terry said, looking down at the floor for a moment before resuming his line of questioning.

“Yes?”

“Do you think you can help me with Wade?”

That in itself was a stunning admission. For Terry to admit he really didn’t know how to handle his own son took some doing. Yet, he didn’t. The boy was all over the board and sometimes it felt like he liked Kerri better then he liked his own dad.

“Wade likes the newness of the arrangement, and I think he likes having a woman around the house,” Kerri said.

“If I can help with him, I will.”

“And what of your supervisors?”

“Let me worry about that,” Kerri answered. “You just go to Aldershot and get three points.”

##

[mark wilson27]

Some good results there. Hopefully you'll keep this good run going. Ps sorry if I've just cursed it for ya

[tenthreeleader]

Geez, Mark, thanks!

___

Aldershot Town (1-2-0, 17^th place) v Chesterfield (3-0-0, 2^nd place) – League Two Match Day #4

If there was one thing Terry could respect, it was Aldershot Town’s new motto.

As he entered the venerable old Recreation Ground with his players, he noted the club’s logo, with its motto at the bottom: “The Rising Phoenix.”

Created after the original Aldershot FC became the first team in thirty years to fold during a season in 1992, Aldershot Town completed a remarkable rise similar to that of the old Rushden and Diamonds, moving from the Isthmian League Third Division to League Two in just under twenty seasons.

The club had enjoyed five promotions and was used to success – but had started solidly lower-mid-table this year and Terry intended to keep them there.

While he could appreciate the personal metaphor of rising from the ashes, he also didn’t like losing and was in no mood to contemplate it, even on the road.

There was an air of intensity about Terry as he prepared the team for the match.

“Get these guys on their backs and keep them there,” Terry urged before giving the team to Tommy for the tactical talk. “You’re playing well, it’s down to you to keep that going.”

Chesterfield (4-4-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Bennett

DR – Hunt

DC – Breckin ©

DC – Page

ML – Morris

MR – Mattis

MC – Cuvelier

MC – Allott

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

The match began and immediately things went wrong for the Spireites.

Bennett gave away an utterly silly penalty just two minutes into the match, tripping winger Wade Small just inside the Chesterfield box. The youngster looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and cover himself up as striker Marvin Morgan gleefully sent Lee the wrong way from the spot to start the match the wrong way for the visitors.

Through the rest of the half, Terry’s team looked a lot better. To their credit, they didn’t panic – at least not while in possession – and Davies skimmed the top of Ross Kitteridge’s crossbar just ten minutes after the goal.

Unfortunately, Talbot wound up in the book soon afterward for another silly foul, grabbing a fistful of full back Ben Hird’s shirt when he was fully thirty yards from goal. Premiership referee Steve Tanner had really had no choice – and he had gotten both calls right, booking Bennett for his foul on the penalty and then booking Craig Davies moments later for a late challenge.

Terry sat glowering on the bench. When his players had the ball at their feet they looked like world beaters but when they didn’t they looked like an undisciplined mob.

Three cards and a penalty in less than twenty minutes showed a team that was rattled mentally if not physically, and that was a real concern as the half rolled on.

Aldershot’s Anthony Straker barely missed in 21 minutes and Ian Morris got himself crocked before half to give Terry yet another reason for concern as Tanner blew for halftime.

“All right, I’m glad you got that out of your systems,” he said, pacing back and forth across the front of the visitors’ changing room. “I think you made about as many mistakes as you could make in one half of football and by some miracle you’re only a goal down. For God’s sake, concentrate out there!”

Talbot showed his understanding of the message by missing an open side of the goal just a minute after the second half kickoff, but at least there was intent in Terry’s team.

Two minutes later, Cuvelier was jockeying for position in the Aldershot box when he went to ground courtesy of the aggressively named Manny Panther. Tanner evened up the penalties and Talbot evened up the game from the spot.

With the game back on level terms, Chesterfield evened out its play. Bennett atoned for his error early in the match by whipping in a perfect cross in 56 minutes that Davies rose to meet, soaring over the defender Chris Bush. He headed home to put Chesterfield ahead 2-1, sending the bench into a frenzy and even putting a smile on Terry’s face for the first time in the entire match.

Yet, as soon as the smiles had come, they had gone. Bennett, who was clearly having an up-and-down game, whiffed on a square ball from Ngo Baheng – playing Small onside at the same time, and the winger made no mistake in equalizing for Aldershot not two minutes after Davies had put his team ahead.

Terry leaned back hard in the dugout, banging his head on the back wall in frustration.

“Easy, Terry, you’ve only one head,” Tommy said, trying to restore some levity to the situation. Terry saw nothing funny about it.

“We’ve given away two goals,” the manager said. “We have to do something about that.”

Or, more accurately, Bennett had given away two goals.

Aldershot Town 2 (Marvin Morgan 3 pen, Wade Small 58)

Chesterfield 2 (Talbot 48 pen, Davies 56)

A – 3,374, The Recreation Ground, Aldershot

Man of the Match – Wade Small, Aldershot (8.2)

##

[tenthreeleader]

Coming home was as Terry thought it would be. Kerri was still sat on the couch, in the same position she had been in when he returned from the Reading match.

That match, however, had been played in the evening. This time, after a lunchtime kickoff, he returned home from Hampshire in the early evening hours.

The trip north had been a bit quiet. The players had reflected on two points dropped rather than a point gained, and there was much to be said for that.

Terry’s mood in the changing room hadn’t been malicious, but it hadn’t been happy, either. He also couldn’t be too hard on the young Bennett, getting his first taste of regular first-team action. At age twenty, confidence was still an important consideration for the Middlesbrough loanee.

That said, he had had a shocking game. Terry thought back to the words of the famous American baseball manager Casey Stengel, who had once said “I don’t like those guys who score two runs and let in three.”

Bennett had accounted for one goal but had been culpable for two against. Those numbers weren’t good for a starting full back.

Yet, Terry hadn’t had much choice but to play him. Morris, another loanee, was the only other realistic option at left back while Gregor Robertson was still on the way back from his broken leg suffered the season before. It was those two or no one. The squad wasn’t deep enough to afford the luxury of three.

Those things were weighing on Terry’s mind as he opened the door to his apartment.

“Hi, Terry,” Kerri said, looking up from the television. She and Dana were watching it together.

Perhaps coincidentally, the movie they enjoyed was called “Tangled”. It was a Pixar-like redo of the old Rapunzel fairy tale, and the ladies appeared to be enjoying it.

Wade, who would rather have had teeth pulled than watch a ‘girl’ movie, was off in a corner playing FIFA 10. He acknowledged his father’s presence before anyone else in the room – a pleasant surprise to Terry.

“Too bad you couldn’t hold that lead, Dad,” he said by way of greeting.

“Yeah,” Terry grunted, tossing his kit bag into the front closet and hanging his suit bag much more carefully from a rack inside the door. “How did you kids do today?”

“We won a practice match,” Wade said. “I was a substitute.”

“You got on the park and above all you won, that’s what matters,” Terry said. “Dana?”

“Hmm?” She was still engrossed in the movie.

“They won, Terry,” Kerri said with a smile. “Looks like the only one in the house who didn’t win today was you!”

Terry frowned at first, but then saw the expression on Kerri’s face. She was fitting in well. The kids were giggling, meaning the only curmudgeon in the room was Dad.

As usual.

Kerri would have some talking to do, with her supervisor.

Terry didn’t like the idea. But the kids came first.

##

[tenthreeleader]

“You know they are probably going to get upset at you for taking an emotional interest in your work,” Terry said.

He and Kerri were sat in the stadium coffee shop. She had stopped by to see him after the morning training session the following Monday, which was both good and bad.

The training session was, to Terry’s mind, not excessive. To his players, on the other hand, it was something rather more than they were expecting.

Now that the team was out of the League Cup, the club was in a stretch of fixtures with no matches at midweek. The regular Saturday football – and only the Saturday football – meant competition for places was starting to become keen.

After the traditional Sunday away, Terry had brought his players back to the ground to celebrate the first of September by running them ragged.

He wasn’t at all happy with the way they had performed for large stretches of the Aldershot match and by the time the session was done, the players knew it.

Terry’s hard edge was starting to serve him well.

The easiest thing for a young, inexperienced manager to do is to buddy up with his players, to try to convince them that they should like him because he’s not far removed from being ‘one of the boys’.

Not so with Terry Christian.

He didn’t care if he was liked. He didn’t care if he failed at his job, as long as he did that job his way.

After having seen the things he had seen – well, whinging footballers just didn’t matter very much.

By the time the training session was over, Terry had re-asserted himself and shown his players that a lack of results – real or perceived – was going to have consequences.

Yet, here was Kerri, having a coffee with him, trying to look right through that exterior and into the man himself.

“Yes, I’m aware of that,” she said. “The point of the matter is that I enjoy the children and they seem to enjoy me.”

“Enough to risk a potential sanction?” Terry asked.

“Honestly, Terry … that decision is up to me,” she replied.

“To a point,” he answered.

“There’s the football manager talking,” Kerri said. “Always needs to be the one in charge.”

“They are my children, Kerri,” Terry answered, sounding stiff and this time, meaning to.

They locked eyes for a moment, in identical poses across the table.

Both sat with their elbows on the table, with mugs of coffee held between their hands, right under their chins. It was a staredown.

Terry’s blue eyes locked with Kerri’s brown, and neither said anything for a long moment. Terry was not going to bend.

He couldn’t.

Those children were his world. If Kerri wanted to be around them, she needed to respect that.

Yet, she didn’t cave in.

##

[tenthreeleader]

They sat, staring. Terry finally lifted his cup to his lips and took a sip of the hot beverage, but didn’t drop his gaze.

“You realize, Terry, that we’re going to sit here staring at each other all day,” Kerri finally said.

“In matters that are important to me, I have all day,” he replied.

His voice was plain and he would brook no argument. It was a test of wills.

Kerri finally realized that without Terry’s buy-in, none of what she was coming to enjoy could continue.

So, she dropped her eyes.

“This is under protest,” she said, again smiling at him.

“I just don’t want to see you in trouble on my account,” Terry said.

“Or your children’s.”

“Touché.”

“I’ll go see Mr. Wilkerson tomorrow,” Kerri said. “That should be a difficult visit, but one I think I can manage.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

“Ms. Glascoe. Please come in. Be seated.”

Kerri entered the office of Bryce Wilkerson and did as she was asked. She sat and looked at him.

Whenever she looked at her boss, she thought of the bank manager Mr. Potter from the Frank Capra classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”.

Only he was about twenty years younger.

You’d have thought that a man running a charitable agency wouldn’t be such a stuffed shirt. However, Wilkerson was exactly that, which was why Kerri knew the conversation was going to be uncomfortable.

In the movie, Potter was a mean person. He was the perfect foil for Jimmy Stewart’s famous character of George Bailey.

Wilkerson wasn’t mean.

But he was the boss, and he had a job to do.

“Ms. Glascoe, I’m led to understand that you have forgotten a key portion of your job description in the matter of Terry Christian.”

She swallowed hard. She had thought it might be difficult but this was a horrific start.

“That would be one way to put it,” Kerri replied. “Another way to put it might be that I have found a solution in the form of my own person.”

“I’ll decide how it’s put,” Wilkerson replied smoothly. “That’s my job. Yours is to provide counseling services without complicating things for either yourself, this office, or most importantly, our clients.”

“I’m aware of that,” Kerri replied, trying to match her boss’ smoothness.

“You’ll have your opportunity when I’m finished,” Wilkerson said. “I’ve been through Mr. Christian’s file and it does not appear as though you seriously interviewed any other candidate but yourself, and there’s no record of any interview of that nature in this file.”

She looked at him, waiting for his okay to speak. Finding none, she simply sat in silence.

“Our procedure indicates that this needs to be done,” Wilkerson said. “You failed to do so. Now, that said, it is entirely possible that you might be the best person for the job. But procedures are in place for a reason, and one of those reasons is to protect this office from potential exposure and risk in the event an arrangement is not satisfactory to all parties.”

She looked at him, trying not to become red-faced through either embarrassment or anger. A red haze seemed to be seeping into her field of vision from the outsides of her eyes, working inward to the center.

She was already feeling warm. This wasn’t embarrassment she was feeling.

It was anger. She could hold her tongue no longer.

“Mr. Wilkerson…” she began.

“I’m not finished,” he said. “I should sack you for this.”

“No need,” Kerri said, rising from her seat. “I’m giving my notice.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

“You what?”

Terry could hardly believe his ears.

Kerri was sat across from him in the apartment’s living room, the children flanking their father on the couch. Wade’s eyes, for a change, were as big as dinner plates.

“I quit,” she said. “That should relieve you of all your difficulties.”

“My difficulties?” Terry was aghast. “I don’t have any difficulties, you do. You just left your job!”

“I have an insurance settlement and I won a wrongful death action after I lost my husband,” Kerri replied. “I don’t really need that job – at least, not for awhile. I took it to keep myself active and above all to keep myself grounded in the aftermath of my own situation.”

She locked eyes with Terry. This time, she was not backing down.

“All right, then, Kerri, let’s have this discussion as a group. Clearly, my children like and appreciate you. Clearly, I think you’ve done a fine job to this point. But how do you feel?”

She laughed, with a tinge near to sarcasm in her voice.

“How do you think I feel, Terry?” she asked.

“Silly question, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s over now,” Kerri said. “If you want, I’ll be happy to look after these wonderful children while you’re away.”

Terry knew that the issue was settled from the moment his children had reacted to the news of Kerri’s leave-taking from her job.

Dana sat silently, her chin cupped in one of her hands. Wade sat with his arms crossed on the couch, his now-customary expression of defiance firmly stretched across his face.

“Kerri, I appreciate what you’ve done,” Terry finally said. “It is a sacrifice, and I understand that. I have no objection provided the children don’t.”

Dana, as Terry expected, provided the words that pushed her father over the top.

“I feel responsible for this,” she said.

“You would,” Wade replied.

“Wade, that’s enough,” Terry snapped. “Kerri has left her job, partially because of you children. I’ll not have that decision treated with disrespect. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” Wade answered, though his arms had not moved from their interlocked position in front of his chest.

Terry decided to challenge his son.

“You like Kerri. So why are you behaving this way?”

“It’s time we just did this,” he replied. “Talk is talk. We want this and you need to see that.”

“That’s no excuse for demeaning your sister,” Terry answered. “I’ll not have you talk like that.”

Now Kerri spoke.

“Wade, please,” she said.

He calmed down.

##

[TwinsFan86]

Again, another excellent post.

Wade’s eyes, for change, were as big as dinner plates.

Were I not reading this in public, I would have laughed reading this line.

[tenthreeleader]

TwinsFan, thank you for your comment. Your handle grabbed my attention, being a Minnesotan myself. Is that a baseball reference?

___

Chesterfield (3-1-0, 3^rd place) v Wycombe (2-0-2, 13^th place) – League Two Match Day #5

Terry’s biggest decision before the game was what to do about Bennett.

The Middlesbrough loanee had a world of ability but his inconsistent streak was something his Premiership club wanted Terry to figure out instead of having to do it by themselves.

When he was good, he was very, very good. When he wasn’t? Well, he was loaned.

Terry and Tommy talked in the manager’s office as the team arrived in dribs and drabs for the match. It was good to be at home for this one. He wanted a home crowd to hopefully restore some confidence in his players after that disappointing, and less than acceptable, result against Aldershot.

In Wycombe, he saw a decent opponent but one that, on their day, his team should beat.

In the end, he decided to stick with his young full back:

Chesterfield (4-4-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Bennett

DC – Breckin

DC – Page

DR – Hunt

ML – Morris

MC – Niven

MC – Allott

MR – Mattis

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

It didn’t take long for the Spireites to make their mark on the match. Talbot went right by a challenge from onetime Reading defender Alan Bennett to barely miss the mark just five minutes into the match.

That led to a pair of early corners – the second of which was finished by Davies in eight minutes to get the home team off to a flying start.

Terry simply nodded with satisfaction on the bench while giving the non-verbal signal that he expected the good fortune to continue.

Continue, it did. The level-headed approach paid off again just nine minutes later – only this time it was Talbot taking a pass from Derek Niven – on a play which had been started by a highly intelligent pass from Chesterfield's Bennett – and smashing a low shot home for a two-goal lead.

This time, Terry simply looked at Tommy and winked. His expression didn’t change at all.

His players now wondering what they had to do to satisfy their manager, the game resumed.

A formational change by Wycombe to 4-5-1 brought a wan smile from Terry, two goals to the good inside the first twenty minutes. It didn’t matter.

In 25 minutes, Davies took a lead ball wide into the Wycombe box and squared for the late-arriving Talbot – and again he didn’t miss, sending the faithful into raptures and putting Chesterfield ahead by three goals to nil.

Terry couldn’t hold back any longer – he finally stood and applauded the flying start made by his men.

That was wonderful to see. However, his players then relaxed.

Some of that was to be expected. But for the outright burial of an opponent that Terry wanted to see, it wasn’t optimal.

His team controlled the match, but Terry’s face told the story.

“You really want to bury them, don’t you?” Tommy asked.

“I want this team to bury them,” Terry answered. “I want us to play hard, score goals and not concede. It’s the best thing that could happen to them.”

It was comfortable after that, but it was not the same.

Bennett had a strong game, but from the moment Terry stood on the touchline, the side’s offensive demeanor had faded away.

Still, it was comprehensive. So, Terry couldn’t complain.

Chesterfield 3 (Davies 8, Talbot 17, 25)

Wycombe 0

A – 6.236, B2Net Stadium, Chesterfield

Man of the Match – Drew Talbot, Chesterfield (MR 8.8)

##

[mark wilson27]

A good win against Wycombe, keep it up sir

[TwinsFan86]

10-3, yes, its a Minnesota reference. I was born there, but we moved when I was 2, and I eventually adopted MN teams as my home teams since I didn't have any here in Alaska.

Nice complete victory there. Hope the team can continue to meet Terry's high expectations.

[Lainedil]

This is, by far, my favourite story, Tenthree. Please keep the updates coming!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you, gentlemen! Lainedil, thank you for the kind words and welcome to the forum!

___

Not that he would have wanted to complain anyway, but the main point of the match had been realized. His players had won and won well.

The lingering issues with respect from his players were still there, though, and one of those issues was about to return to full fitness.

Jack Lester, who had been injured in the friendly against the reserves, was about ready to return to training. The strike force of Talbot and Davies had been going great guns and Terry wasn’t in a hurry to change up his eleven, but a goalscorer of Lester’s ability didn’t come to a League Two club every day.

The issue, as it had been with some others, was one of motivation.

Lester thought himself too good for Terry, who was learning to swallow a bit of pride when dealing with the man.

He was the boss. He was paid to be the boss. But he needed Lester motivated so he could be viable on the pitch when he was fully fit.

Terry had long since given up trying to understand how a group of players containing exactly zero men with Premiership experience could hold the attitudes they held about a person who had been where he had been and done what he had done.

What should have mattered to them was that they now all played on a team that was second to Gillingham only due to having scored two less goals than the Gills. There were a few reasons for that – one being their own hard work and the other being that their manager put them in positions where they could succeed.

Ten-man Gillingham had ground out a 1-1 home draw against Oxford so their former two-point lead over the Spireites had evaporated to nothing.

Lester evidently couldn’t see that. He wanted to be managed by a big name.

So, Terry asked the 35-year old striker at training what he wanted to do with his life.

“Go into management,” he had said.

Terry looked at him like he had just been struck by lightning.

“Well, then perhaps you would want to look around and see how man-management works,” he said.

“Already have,” Lester said with the air of a man who had it all figured out.

“You might learn something from it,” Terry said, tossing a ball to his striker’s feet to start training.

Lester didn’t get the hint.

# #

[Lainedil]

Cheers, 10-3.

Mark/Raptor (my brother) says hello, btw ;-)

[tenthreeleader]

Well, thank you very much! And do please greet your brother for me. One of the titans of the forum, for sure!

___

Despite the worries and issues, the club was second in League Two on goal difference. So when Terry took the kids home to Leicester for a long weekend after the Wycombe match, he could do so with a sense of contentment.

He hadn’t been home in six weeks. So it was good to sit in his own chair again, good to be in familiar surroundings again, and it was good for the kids to see their friends.

It was also good to get away from the issues with Kerri.

He didn’t mind her as a person, but he thought her decision to leave her job was rash. He was a cautious man by nature – and given his past, that shouldn’t have surprised anyone – and he wouldn’t have left a job while there was life left in it.

Kerri hadn’t done that, and Terry felt that was to her detriment.

Still, though, he had nothing to say about it as far as her personal issues went. All he could do was look after his children, and since Kerri was actually more available than before due to leaving her job there wasn’t anything he could say about it.

But as he sat with his feet up watching the Premiership Monday night match, he couldn’t stop thinking about what was happening.

In a way, he was moving on.

Part of him didn’t like that. It still bothered him when he knew it was raining in Leicester because it was raining on Alison’s grave.

That thought was totally unreasonable and he knew it, but still he couldn’t help it.

He had checked in at the cemetery after dropping off the children to play with their mates, and was pleased to see that everything was in order.

It seemed that not a blade of grass had been misplaced, and he had had the opportunity to have his customary one-sided conversation with his beloved late wife.

He felt better after doing it. He always did.

For now, though, he was once again alone.

It seemed to suit him. He hadn’t had the opportunity to be alone with his own thoughts in some time, and that was a place he suddenly wanted to be.

He held a cold beer in his hand while he watched Spurs doing battle with Liverpool. He watched Dalglish manage his side and thought back to that pleasant day at Anfield when his afternoon with the Reds’ youth team had given him a renewed sense of purpose.

The kids were gone for the night. Terry turned out the living room light to watch the football, and leaned back luxuriously in his chair.

He took a long pull from the bottle, finishing the contents as he did. Belching, he leaned back and watched a few minutes more of the match.

He looked above the television – and renewed eye contact with his favorite picture from his wedding.

Sighing, Terry reached down to the carton on the floor to the right of his chair, pulling a second beverage from the case. He downed it.

And then another.

And then another.

Maybe being alone wasn’t such a good thing after all.

##

[noah08]

One of my favorite stories on the forums. Good job, can't wait to read more!

[tenthreeleader]

Thank you very much! This is a fun tale to write.

___

He woke, still in the chair, in a cold sweat. It was nearly noon.

It had been all he could do not to call Rishe, the only friend he had whom he knew was in town, simply to settle himself down.

He had drank far too much, thought far too much, and cried, he felt, not nearly enough. Though he was trying to move on and trying to live, everyone has setbacks.

Terry’s had happened to be quite large.

Holding his aching head in his hands, he was jolted into full awareness by the ringing of his mobile phone. The sound of its too-loud ringtone seemed to drill into his sensitive skull like a steel peg.

Nearly in self-defence, he answered the phone.

“Yeah,” he groaned, and he soon remembered that he needed to turn down the call volume as well.

“Terry, it’s Kerri,” he heard, without it fully registering at first. “Just checking to see how you’re doing.”

He thought for a moment, trying to compose his thoughts.

“Saw something I shouldn’t have seen last night,” he said. “It didn’t go well.”

“And what would that be?”

“A family picture.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line, but gamely, Kerri tried to put it to rest.

“Bad night?” she asked.

“The worst.”

“Today is a new day, Terry,” she said. “I had my share of bad nights after Paul died.”

“They aren’t easy.”

“What did you do about it?” she asked. “Nightmares? Didn’t sleep?”

“If you must know, my head’s a foot thick at the moment.”

“You can’t make that a habit,” she remonstrated. “It’s not good for you or for the kids.”

“The kids aren’t here,” he said.

At that, she reacted.

“Where are they?”

“Sleeping over with friends, they’re fine,” Terry replied. “Believe me, had they been here I’d never have done what I did last night.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. Terry’s eyes flashed with anger.

“How dare you,” he began.

She wouldn’t be put off. “Hear me out,” she said. “It’s that place, Terry. Too many bad memories, too easy to slide back to where you were. It doesn’t surprise me that you did what you did.”

“So I should leave Leicester?”

“No, Terry,” she said. “You should leave that torture chamber, and you should take those pictures down from your walls.”

# #

[TwinsFan86]

I get the distinct impression that Terry is not going to take that very well.

[tenthreeleader]

He is reacting, shall we say, negatively.

___

They had been back in Chesterfield two days before Terry spoke to her.

He was angry. He felt he had a right to be.

How could she talk to him like that? Supposedly, she liked him and she wanted to be around his kids. Why she would even suggest he’d drink himself nearly blind in front of them made him wild with anger.

He loved those children. He would do anything for them. Could she not see that?

Could she not leave well enough alone? What was her game?

Terry was also trying to prepare his players for their coming match at Oxford United and to put it mildly, he was distracted.

That was unfortunate. The match would be between the second and fourth-placed teams in League Two, with both teams entering the contest unbeaten in the league. A solitary extra draw for United meant they would kick off on eleven points compared to Chesterfield’s thirteen.

There was a lot to think about. There was a lot to plan. There was video to review.

And all the while, Terry felt a growing sense of anger.

Kerri was a mother too – in fact, sometimes he wondered what she did with her own child when she was watching Terry’s. To the best of his knowledge, the children had never met each other. Couldn’t she see how hurtful such a comment really was?

Who made her the authority on parenting, anyway?

The issue was still on his mind when he left the ground on that Thursday afternoon to head home.

The children would have returned from school, Terry thought, and would probably be immersed in homework before dinner.

That was one of Terry’s rules and both the children had accepted it – homework came first.

He was walking to his car when he heard Kerri’s voice asking him to stop.

He turned toward her, the dismay evident on his face.

“Terry, I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” she said by way of greeting.

“If you must know, I’m not best pleased,” he answered. “But I think you know that.”

“It wasn’t me that got drunk,” she said.

“It wasn’t me that misrepresented why it happened,” Terry countered.

“There’s no good reason for it to have happened in the first place,” Kerri replied, “but that’s not the reason I wanted to talk with you.”

Terry knew what was coming next.

Only he was wrong.

“I want your assurance that you won’t drink any more around your children or I’ll have to revisit our arrangement,” she said.

Now Terry got angry. He wasn’t aware that Kerri was suddenly a representative of the Temperance League.

“I wasn’t drinking around my children,” he said. “I was drinking by myself. Now, that’s not a lot better and I admit that, but I will not have you misrepresent my meaning or my intentions again.”

“Your children need you,” she said. “They need you sober. What you did was a bad idea and any therapist or grief counselor will tell you that.”

Terry could see the train coming.

He knew that the children liked Kerri. He knew they wouldn’t react well to a change in their relationship.

It was emotional blackmail.

##

[ScottleeSV]

I read half of this on Christmas Eve (the depressing half), then dribs and drabs since. Although it almost ruined my Christmas, still a very very good story Good effort.

[tenthreeleader]

Well, I never intended to wreck anyone's Yuletide. But still, I'm glad you like the work! Perhaps a disclaimer is in order for the next work I write

___

Oxford United (3-2-0, 4^th place) v Chesterfield (4-1-0, 2^nd place) – League Two Match Day #6

So this was what a ‘big match’ felt like from a manager’s point of view.

Still scowling over Kerri’s words from earlier in the week, Terry had had to accede to her request – mainly because he couldn’t find anyone else to be with the kids while the squad traveled to the Kassam Stadium.

He was in a poor frame of mind the night before the match, and his mood had hardly improved at the team breakfast the next day.

It got so bad that Tommy finally cornered him before the team got on the coach. He knew what was going on. He had warned Terry indirectly about drinking before he took the Chesterfield job, but he knew his friend had come a long way since then.

“Look, Terry, you can’t let her get under your skin like that,” he said.

“Bit late for that, I’m afraid,” Terry replied, pulling on his light jacket. There would be a bit of a breeze during the match with a chance of rain, and the temperatures were starting their inexorable march toward fall. No more good weather for this team until the spring.

“It’s affecting the team,” Tommy said. “They think you’re angry with them. They’re hesitant.”

“Well, I’m not and I’ve told them that,” Terry replied.

“You have to sell them on that,” his deputy said. “Trust me on that. They see how upset you are and it’s upsetting them.”

As a result, Terry had some bodywork to do with his team before sending them out for the two versus four clash. He did his best, and then sent them out, once again, in their new alignment:

Chesterfield (4-3-1-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Bennett

DC – Breckin

DC – Page

DR – Hunt

MC – Cuvelier

MC – Morris

MC – Allott

AMC – Whitaker

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

Oxford was led by Tom Craddock, a onetime Middlesbrough performer most recently noted for scoring a bag of goals for Luton Town last season.

Chris Wilder put his team out in a 4-3-3 formation that made no secret of his team’s aggressive intent. The Kassam Stadium pitch was narrow, though, which Terry felt would play to the strengths of his own midfield. He felt 4-3-1-2 was only slightly less aggressive in response.

Craddock got the first good chance of the match in sixteen minutes, getting his head to a free kick and nodding just over the bar to Lee’s relief, not to mention Terry’s.

It took nearly half an hour for the Spireites to carve out their first decent opportunity, but even then it didn’t wind up on target as Talbot couldn’t get past the challenge of defender Jake Wright in time to fire at goal.

Page wound up in the referee’s book for a challenge on Craddock right before halftime and as it began to rain, Oxford’s Nicky Travis couldn’t steer a long shot on target as a drab first half came to an end.

Terry thought his message had gotten through to the players, but they weren’t playing with anything like the spark he had seen in recent matches.

Some words of reassurance and sympathy at halftime didn’t hurt, but Davies steering a free header embarrassingly wide of an open side of Ryan Clarke’s goal not two minutes after the restart didn’t help.

Matt Green’s diving header found its way into the fortunate Lee’s breadbasket a few minutes later, but the Spireites’ number one had to be much quicker when young midfielder Josh Dawkin burst between Hunt and Page for a good scoring chance in 58 minutes.

That finally brought Chesterfield to life, and it got Terry off the bench. He wasn’t sure which had happened first but hoped it was the latter.

Davies stung Clarke’s palms with a rising drive just after the hour that the keeper turned behind for a rare visitors’ corner, which wound up on the foot of Bennett not six yards from goal.

The youngster missed it, to his red-faced manager’s amazement, and only moments later Davies had been robbed by Clarke again as the tide of the match seemed to flow in Chesterfield’s direction.

Just after that miss, Terry went to his bench, replacing the exhausted Morris and the pedestrian Allott with Niven and Mattis.

Talbot won a corner soon after, and then wound up with a shot in traffic from the ensuing set piece, with Clarke again equal to the task.

It wasn’t going according to plan, even though the visitors were comparatively rampant. Mattis had to go off for treatment after a challenge from Simon Clist, and stepped back on just in time to see Bennett make the same challenge on Oxford’s substitute striker Matt Green.

Referee Dean Whitestone went to his cards – and produced straight red, to Bennett’s amazement, the Spireites’ consternation and Terry’s fury.

With one minute of regular time and three minutes of added time to play, Chesterfield were suddenly very much on the back foot, and even though they weathered the storm, Terry now had to assume his loanee full back was going to be out of action for awhile.

That made him even angrier as the coach headed home.

Oxford United 0

Chesterfield 0 (Joe Bennett s/o 89)

A – 6,764, The Kassam Stadium, Oxford

Man of the Match – Anthony Tonkin, Oxford (MR 7.4)

##

[tenthreeleader]

Terry’s return home had been a cool one.

Kerri was there and the children seemed as content as ever – which should have been expected. Terry would have been incandescent if Kerri had let on about the disagreement between them so when the children said goodbye to her, they had done so with the growing sense of comfort they were starting to embrace.

Dana noticed, though, that Terry did not greet their caretaker when he walked into the apartment.

Displaying her usual sense of tact, though, Dana waited to discuss the issue until after Kerri had left.

“What happened?” she asked.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” Terry asked, beginning to put his travel gear and clothes away as he spoke.

“Between you and Kerri. You hardly looked at each other and didn’t speak.”

“We had a disagreement,” Terry said. “That’s between us for the time being.”

“What is? The disagreement, or you telling us that?”

“The disagreement.” Terry was suddenly alarmed at his daughter’s ability to parse words.

“I’m sure you’ll get round to telling us about it, won’t you?” she asked.

For the first time, Terry was upset at his daughter’s tone. He had had to deal with Wade’s petulance on more than one occasion through the years but this was the first time Dana had ever challenged him in such a fashion.

“Yes. I will,” he said, frowning as he hung up his jacket.

He looked at Dana for some sort of expression that would clue him in as to her mood. He found none.

“Dana, did Kerri tell you something about what we talked about?” he finally asked. There was really no sense in waiting to ask the question.

She shook her head. “No, but she was sad the whole time she was here,” she said. “We don’t like seeing her sad. We’ve seen you sad too much too and we want you both to be happy.”

Terry sighed. “Kerri and I had a disagreement over something that happened while you kids were on your sleepover last weekend,” he said.

“We saw your empties, Dad,” Wade chimed in. “If she was mad at you for that, then that’s good, because so are we.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

Terry really didn’t feel like he had a friend at that time.

His team was playing well but he wondered if his children had been turned against him.

Of all the unfair things, he mused as he arrived for Monday morning training.

Saturday’s late results had been kind to his team. Gillingham had lost for the first time all season late in the day, putting the Spireites top on goal difference.

The issue for Terry, though, was what was going to happen to Bennett.

The youngster had been devastated after leaving the pitch following his sending off, and Terry had been simply upset. A nearly identical challenge had put Mattis into treatment and had gone completely unpunished by the match official, but when Bennett had tackled aggressively, he had had to go.

This meant a decision on discipline by the FA and to Terry’s mind, a decision made by people who hadn’t been on or near a football pitch in far too long.

The team was in training when Terry’s phone buzzed with a text message. Standing in a corner of the training pitch watching his charges go through their paces, he pulled the phone out of his pocket.

The message was from Hubbard.

“Three-match ban for Bennett,” it read. “Hope you have a plan.”

Terry swore, and loudly. In the first place, Hubbard had bristled when Terry wanted to bring in more players before the season began and Gregor Robertson was still in the final stages of therapy for his broken leg. He wouldn’t be ready to train for a few weeks yet.

That left Morris at left full back. And no one else.

Terry liked Morris in the midfield, for his superior ability to put in a cross. That would now leave Ouattara as the left wing player. And no one else.

It meant Terry would have to think about 4-2-3-1, 4-3-1-2 and possibly even 4-5-1 to deal with his shortages on the wings and God forbid anything should happen to Morris.

The injustice of it all was what Terry thought about first, as he watched Bennett training. He would have to find a way to tell the lad about his sentence before the press did, which was never a good thing.

So he called the boy over and gave him the news in person. Bennett took it like you might expect.

He was not a happy bunny.

“Never even a sending off,” he insisted.

“I know, we appealed the ban on your behalf and they just increased it,” Terry said. “I’d love to see one of those bastards whine if they were ever under the cosh like you were.”

Then he gave his real message.

“I’m not happy you were in that situation in the first place, Joe,” Terry said. “I know you were trying to win the ball but you gave the referee reason to doubt by making your challenge as robust as you did. I want consistency from referees too but you need to be mindful of that next time you challenge. Know the situation. I know you can do that.”

Bennett looked crestfallen but knew that Terry had his best interests in mind.

Terry was going to have to figure out how to defeat Port Vale, the new fourth-placed club in the league after the weekend’s matches, without a player he was coming to regard as integral to his team’s chances.

That was different than saying ‘key player’ such as Breckin or Mattis or Davies. There was no one on the roster even remotely as able to do the job as well as Bennett when his head was right.

Now all that was thrown away for three weeks. As Bennett headed back to training with a sullen expression on his face, Terry was left to remark that that was indeed modern football.

##

[SJFunk]

Yesterday was the first time I've been on these forums in god knows how long. This is the first story I started reading, and well as you can tell. I'm engrossed in the storyline.

It's a great read. Although I have been wondering about one thing.... When are the four Aces going to re-unite. That's got to be on the cards.. (No pun intended on that).

[mcglede]

Great point SJ - must admit I;ve been engrossed in this but never saw the potential for that angle - good plot thickener.

[tenthreeleader]

Now if I told you the answer to that question it would be a bit of a spoiler, wouldn't it? But thank you both for reading and for following closely enough to ask the question.

It's fair to say that at this stage of the story the "Aces" have a double meaning -- yes, four close friends but the actual Ace of Spades doubling as an omen for the incident that defines Terry Christian's life.

The Aces are important to Terry for more reasons than one.

___

To have his own children angry at him, though, was the living end.

If they thought it was some sort of intervention they were performing they had another guess coming. Terry was no alcoholic and he knew it.

He was simply a man to whom life had dealt a bad hand at one time. He was still dealing with it.

Of course it hadn’t always been that way, but it was real, long-term adversity he was trying to handle now, compounded by the pressures of a new job that demanded instant success and instant results. A man needed to unwind under those circumstances.

So it was that Terry made special time to attend Wade’s first match with the academy side on that following Thursday.

His son’s match day looked familiar to Terry. When he got up for school that morning he looked like the very image of his father – uncommunicative, almost glowering with menace.

His attitude was more direct than Terry’s, as had been well established – but in terms of physical appearance on match day, the two were almost identical.

Alison had learned that Terry needed a wide berth in the buildup to a match when the team was at home. As much as he adored her, he needed a place to call his own before the big day.

Wade had eaten breakfast in a virtual shell, so Terry simply talked with Dana while the boy placed himself in the emotional zone so many players know.

Once the match started, though, Terry saw a player who both was and was not like him.

Wade had an excellent eye for a pass, just like Terry. He had an intuitive ability to read the play and put the ball where it needed to go.

He was brought on half an hour into the match as a replacement for a talented but slower central midfielder who, at least for now, was playing ahead of him.

Like a race car whose driver has revved the engine while standing on the brake, Wade entered the match at a sprint. Terry smiled at the mental image of smoke pouring from underneath the boy’s boots.

He was raring to go. That was good.

He was also reckless. That was not.

Immediately, Wade lofted a thirty-yard through ball to a striker who had timed his run well. The resulting shot went over the bar but Wade’s team looked infinitely more dangerous in a very short period of time.

Then he showed his reckless side, somehow earning only a yellow card for a wild challenge that somehow won the ball but left his mark in a heap on the ground.

Terry stood sharply when his son went in with a leg raised and couldn’t help but yell.

“That’s not how I taught you, Wade!” he screamed. “Use your head!”

Realizing that he wasn’t the coach of this group, Terry sat back down somewhat sheepishly, but Wade’s actual coach was saying the same thing, with about as much fervor. There was no sense going off half-cocked in an academy match and Wade certainly needed to learn patience.

Wade’s play was at a higher level than most of his mates, but was also shockingly undisciplined at times. Terry frowned as he watched his son take risk after risk, even when on a yellow card.

Finally, his coach removed him from the match midway through the second half. Terry would have done the same thing, and since the league allowed free substitutions at his age level, it seemed the prudent thing to do.

However, without him in the team, his mates soon sagged back to their previous staid form. They drew 2-2, with both goals coming when Wade was on the pitch.

The players retreated to their changing room to get a team talk from their coach and prepare to go home. Terry stood outside the door, and another parent approached him.

“You’re Terry Christian, aren’t you?” the man said.

He nodded.

“Your boy’s a thug,” the man said, and Terry gave him a shocked expression in reply.

“You ‘eard me,” the man replied. “He nicked my boy with that tackle and it was dirty play.”

“He had a leg up,” Terry said. “He was rightly carded for it. I’m not defending his action but I will not argue with you.”

“I will argue with you. I’m not done yet,” the man answered.

“Yes, you are,” Terry said. “The referee handled the issue on the field and his coach and I will handle the issue with my son.”

The man doubled his fist.

##

[TwinsFan86]

The sad thing is that I knew of parents like that at my baseball games growing up.

I hope Terry takes his head off!

[tenthreeleader]

He isn't what you'd call pleased .. but Terry does keep a cool head.

___

By this time, a steward had stepped between the two men.

Thankfully, Terry hadn’t changed his position. He was still standing against the outside wall of the changing room, his hands crossed in front of his chest.

Had the man struck him, he could have hurt Terry badly. He was making no attempt to defend himself.

He couldn’t. With people watching, the manager of Chesterfield FC getting into a fist fight would have been disastrous. Despite his anger at the world at that moment, Terry kept his head.

He was starting to wonder when things would ever turn for the better. As he did, the door to the changing room opened and players began to appear.

Wade was first. The man lunged at him.

Terry couldn’t ignore that. He jumped between Wade and his would-be assailant, wrapping the flailing man’s arms tightly to his body in a surprisingly powerful bear hug.

“You could have broken his leg!” the man screamed. Terry almost couldn’t hold him and the steward had to finally help restore order to the situation.

Wade wasn’t helpful. “If I’d have wanted to break his leg, I would have,” he snarled. “Big man you are, coming to beat up a young boy.”

Terry called back over his shoulder for Wade to keep silent, while the man was led away by the match stewards.

He then turned to face his son.

“This will never happen again,” he said in a level tone, his face red. “Do you hear me, Wade Thomas Christian? This will never happen again!”

With that, he grabbed his son by the upper arm – he wanted to grab him by the ear but decided against it – and hauled him off to the car park. Wade’s petulance had driven his father to the edge.

“You were an embarrassment,” Terry said as he started to drive home. “I won’t have that kind of behavior from my son and I won’t let you play on this team if anything like that sort of play is ever repeated. Do I make myself clear?”

Wade sat, sullenly, in the front passenger seat.

He was waiting for the moment his father caved in. It always came, sooner or later. His love for the children would overpower any perceived need for discipline.

Only this time, the cave-in didn’t come.

“You’re unhappy with me over what happened last weekend,” he said, not even looking forward. “Fine. Be unhappy. I’m unhappy with you over how you embarrassed yourself and your team today. So, we’re even.”

They drove on for a few minutes.

“And another thing,” Terry said. “Had I not been standing there today when you came out of the changing room, you’d have gotten a beating for how you played today. Now, that is wrong and I will seek sanctions against that person but you need to ask yourself if that is really the way you want to play this game. If it is, I’ll know next time I see you play and I will remove you from the academy team. You can play Sunday league football all your life and break as many legs as you want. The choice is yours.”

Stone silence reigned in the vehicle for the rest of the way home.

##

[tenthreeleader]

Chesterfield (4-2-0, 2^nd place) v Port Vale (3-3-0, 4^th place) – League Two Match Day #7

About the only positive in Terry’s life at that moment was that his Spireites were yet to lose in the league.

However, Port Vale presented a difficult and potentially physical challenge.

Also unbeaten in the league, they presented a tough test – sturdy, strong and direct as you might expect a smaller League Two side to be.

It was almost a relief for Terry to arrive in the changing room to write his XI on the wipeboard. Even if his players didn’t always think so, he was in charge in that room.

Chesterfield (4-3-1-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Morris

DR – Hunt

DC- Breckin ©

DC – Page

MC – Cuvelier

MC – Niven

MC – Allott

AMC – Whitaker

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

Longtime lower-league veteran Justin Richards was the man of the moment for Port Vale. The former Stevenage, Woking, Kidderminster, Cheltenham and Oxford man already had banged home four goals in six matches and he was the prime mover for the visitors.

Despite Terry’s confidence in his team, Port Vale’s Marc Richards carved out the first good chance of the match only seven minutes into the proceedings by ballooning a header over Lee’s crossbar. The keeper then stopped Richards at feet just two minutes later, which had the home faithful buzzing.

Davies wound up getting booked and Lee had to save from Richards on a free kick in fifteen minutes as the home team put absolutely no pressure on their visitors from the start of the match.

Talbot, in 26 minutes, had the first good chance for the Spireites but his pass from Davies went astray when he was shoulder-barged in the area just as he passed the ball.

The home fans screamed for a penalty but Premiership referee Mark Halsey was unimpressed. Terry saw it as a 50-50 call, but noted that his top priority was to calm down Niven, who risked a booking for a vociferous protest.

As halftime approached the visitors again pushed forward, with Sean Rigg barely missing from a corner in added time.

That set the tone for Terry’s halftime team talk, which centered around concentration and improved effort in the second half. Only he wasn’t quite that gentle.

The exact phrase he used was “pull your heads out of your arses”.

Richards, who had been crocked in a collision with Breckin just before halftime, left at the interval in favor of player/assistant manager Geoff Horsfield of Birmingham fame.

The first thing the 37-year old striker did was tee up Louis Dodds with a square ball that Breckin couldn’t cut out, leaving the latter with the simplest of finishes six minutes after the restart.

The B2Net Stadium crowd was silent as the home team faced real adversity. Terry changed the Spireites’ mentality to a more attacking bent and eleven minutes later Hunt’s low cross found the boot of Davies who steered it home to get Chesterfield back on terms.

Able to breathe a little more easily now, the Spireites poured forward, confidence restored by their equalizing goal.

Keeper Stuart Tomlinson pushed away another effort from Davies a few minutes later and the crowd seemed willing to urge on their heroes to a second goal.

After seventy minutes, Terry went to the bench and brought on Mattis for Allott – and the veteran Lester for the first time all season to replace Whitaker behind the strikers.

It took Lester three minutes to make an impact – unfortunately, it was against Tomlinson’s crossbar with a crushing volley that was just inches too tall.

From a Morris corner, defender Lee Collins pushed the ball forward under duress – but hit it directly to Davies, whose first-time volley beat Tomlinson to his short post in 76 minutes, giving Chesterfield its first lead of the contest.

Terry brought on Ouattara in place of the knackered Cuvelier and went to four wide across the middle, with Lester something of a defensive liability in the midfield. Oh, well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Mattis made a quick impact as well, sending Davies away with a perfect through ball seven minutes from time. Defender Matthew Lowton did the only thing he could do – he reached out, grabbed a handful of shirt, and got himself sent off for a professional foul.

That gave the excellent Davies a little more room to maneuver, and when he worked a 1-2 with Lester moments after the sending off, he waved the veteran by him to watch him try his luck.

Lester didn’t miss.

Chesterfield 3 (Craig Davies 62, 78, Jack Lester 83)

Port Vale 1 (Louis Dodds 51, Matthew Lowton s/o 82)

A – 5,590, B2Net Stadium, Chesterfield

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

##

[tenthreeleader]

There had been a lot to like about the second half. In the end, the players had done what was necessary after a slow start.

Terry also got some credit for a tactical adjustment – switching to shorter passes after Dodds’ goal instead of the team’s favoured direct style of play.

The result was a more incisive Chesterfield side that made better use of the natural triangles in the 4-3-1-2 alignment. His players had done a surprisingly good job of moving the ball instead of simply lumping it.

He had eased up on the team on the touchline as well, and that too had paid dividends. Gaining a reputation as a hard man on the bench, Terry was starting to learn when to stop cracking the whip. That can mean a lot to a temperamental group of men such as a football team, and they had responded well.

He hadn’t shown any outward sign of emotion when Port Vale had gone ahead. He had simply made a hand signal to change his team’s tactics. They had then proceeded to carve up their opposition.

So it was that when Terry sat in his office after the match, the players finishing their plunge pools and post-match routines were talking happily among themselves.

They had done well, they knew it, and had been appropriately rewarded on the scoreboard.

There was also no second-guessing.

Terry had heard whispers after earlier matches though he was never able to place the talkers – but he had a good idea of who they might be.

One of them, he was pretty certain, was Morgan. Frozen out of the eleven because of the productive starts of Talbot and Davies, he was starting to get frustrated. When his chances did come, he didn’t seem able to take any of them.

And now, Lester was available for selection, which made his problem even worse.

Casey Stengel, whose quotations Terry was starting to admire, had said that the secret of managing was to keep the five players on the team who hate you away from the five who are undecided. There was an element of truth in that.

As he was starting to get to know his players, Terry was figuring out who was still undecided. Obviously the players not getting regular time could be counted on that list.

However, Terry had a great relationship with his captain, Breckin, and players like Davies and Talbot got on well with him because his tactics had helped showcase their talents.

In short, it was starting to come together. As he listened, Terry smiled.

He then looked up to see Hubbard standing in his doorway.

“Terry, we have to talk,” he said.

##

[BuffaloPhil]

Hope this isn't dead, been my favourite current story on here

[tenthreeleader]

No, not dead ... I have big plans for this story. I have been spending the last ten days or so working on plot points while doing a bit of work on Rat Pack. They tend to go in cycles with me. Thanks for reading along!

___

The Spireites’ chairman entered Terry’s office and closed the door.

He sat. Terry didn’t need to invite him. Hubbard just did what he wanted.

“We’ve received a complaint about you after your son’s academy match,” Hubbard said.

Terry shrugged.

“I expected that,” he said. “I defended Wade when a man lunged at him outside the changing rooms. I expect he’s the hothead that is complaining.”

“That’s not what the complaint said, though I expect that isn’t surprising to you,” Hubbard replied. “He said your son played recklessly, endangered his son as his opponent and said you condoned his actions and accosted his son.”

Terry was furious at the lies, but managed to hold his temper.

“Nope,” Terry answered. “You can ask Wade about that. He’ll tell you what I told him. Or ask the stewards. They were there. And I never went near his kid.”

“I have to be assured that you were appropriate in your actions as a representative of Chesterfield FC,” Hubbard said. “You understand, of course.”

“Of course,” Terry answered. “I’m telling you, I didn’t touch the man until he made a lunge at my son. Then it was my responsibility to act.”

“Did you strike him?”

“No.”

“Did you approach his son?”

“I told you once and won’t tell you again. No.” Now Terry was starting to see red.

“Are there witnesses who would verify that?”

“I should certainly hope so, but by the time it was all over I was leading Wade to the car. I didn’t have time to check for any witnesses.”

“Right now the police are trying to decide if there is enough evidence to give you a charge to answer,” Hubbard said. “If you are telling the truth, the club will assist you.”

“If I am telling the truth?” Terry asked. His facial expression hadn’t changed but his internal thermometer was starting to peak. “Would there be a reason why I wouldn’t?”

“Not if you’re innocent, no,” Hubbard replied. “But you know I have to ask the question.”

“So where’s my support now?” Terry asked.

“In the form of me being in your office to get your side of the incident,” Hubbard said. He was being patient, but now both men’s hackles were starting to rise.

“Look, I understand why you’re here,” Terry said. “You’re protecting the club and you need to do that. However, I could use a little help from you because if there’s been a complaint filed I’m sure this idiot has gone to the press.”

“That’s the other reason I’m here,” Hubbard said. “They are outside waiting for a statement.”

Terry’s emotions started to spill over. He had already been hammered by the press when Alison had died. He wasn’t about to go out and face them again in a matter concerning his son.

“And?” he asked.

“I will handle it for you,” Hubbard said. “I know how you feel about the press reporting on your personal life. I needed your side of the story.”

“Just tell them I’ll be exonerated, because I will be. I was protecting my son.”

“Stay in here awhile,” Hubbard advised. “They may still hang around waiting for you but I’ll do the best I can to shoo them off.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

They waited. For more than one reason.

Hubbard said what he had to say, but the press had a chance to dig their claws into the fallen hero Terry Christian once again, and it was an opportunity they weren’t about to miss.

Pre and post-match interviews were one thing. They had to stick to business or Terry had every right to throw them out of the ground.

Now, though, there was something juicy. There was something scandalous. They were on the prowl.

Terry was ready for it, but he still didn’t care for the line of questioning.

“I’m only going to say this once,” he said, as he strode to his car. The newsies followed in a pack, which was not unusual behavior for them.

“The complaint is, to say the least, fanciful. It is, to say the most, slander. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a family to return to.”

They didn’t seem terribly interested in moving, which annoyed Terry greatly. Had he done what he was thinking of doing, he’d really have had a charge to answer but at least there would have been dead journalists lying on the tarmac.

Instead, he simply dialed a number on his phone, and soon three club security guards arrived to clear the press out of the way.

His face hadn’t changed expression. Had it done so, the press would have gotten him sacked.

The worst had happened. Chesterfield’s manager had been accused of attacking a child. That was news.

That was real trouble.

That was sickening.

##

[mark wilson27]

Loving the story Tenthree, you know I will continue to follow and see how far you can get Chesterfield

[edgar555]

I've only ever read two FM Stories. Rat Pack was the first, this the second. 10-3 you are a top writer my man. Loving this and looking forward to more.

[tenthreeleader]

Edgar, thank you so much! It does inspire me to see that people are reading and enjoying -- always has. I appreciate your kind words.

___

He tried to lay low, but Terry knew that until a decision was made by the police, going on the road was going to be sheer hell.

For his part, Hubbard had acted admirably.

Understanding his manager’s frustration, he hadn’t lashed out when Terry’s anger had started to boil over. The wrath of the wrongly accused is fierce indeed, and Terry’s genuine attitude had made it easier for the chairman to defend one of his most important employees.

Terry was also very gentle around Wade, who saw the issue his reckless play had indirectly caused for his father. Despite the boy’s fierce independence and changing attitudes, he was genuinely sorry for what he had done – now on more than one front.

He could see the strain his father was now under, and as the team prepared for its next match, he laid low around the house.

Dana, on the other hand, was as supportive as ever.

The Tuesday following the Port Vale match, Terry was sat in the stand to watch his daughter play. The difference between the two Christian children was remarkable.

Dana began the game in the same position her brother played, in the centre of midfield. Early on in the contest, however, her coach shifted her forward to play off the strikers as an attacking central midfielder.

Within ten minutes of the move, Dana had supplied both her strikers with inch-perfect passes that wound up in the net. Terry couldn’t help but grin and sat back with an expression of satisfaction on his face.

They were the sorts of passes Terry himself used to make and as he watched his daughter boss the midfield in her game, he remarked at how far ahead of her classmates she seemed to be.

She played the game with intelligence as well as with passion. Wade played the game as though seeing through a red haze, and the difference between the two was marked.

Dana’s coach removed her from the game midway through the second half with the score seven-nil and threatening to get out even farther out of hand. She hadn’t scored a goal – but she had been on the providing end of five and had put in a dazzling shift.

She jogged off the pitch and caught her father’s eye as he applauded her.

She waved.

Soon the match was over and this time Terry waited outside his daughter’s changing room.

Word quickly spread that he was in the ground and before long a pair of photographers had arrived with two print reporters huffing and puffing behind them.

Dana emerged and accepted a hug from her father, taking his right hand as they headed for the car park.

One of the journos started to ask a question but Dana shifted to Terry’s left, interposing herself between the reporters and her father.

“Leave my dad alone,” she snapped. “You vultures.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

Stockport County (3-0-4, 13^th place) v Chesterfield - (5-2-0, 2^nd place) – League Two Match Day #8

Terry had been glad for his daughter’s simple display of loyalty and affection.

He had thought about it all the way to the road match against Stockport County the following day.

His team was very much in-form and the way County played seemed to favour Terry’s 4-4-2. He liked his team’s chances.

He wasn’t so thrilled, though, about the jeers and whistles he received when his team had arrived at Edgeley Park.

The Stockport fans seemed decent enough but some of them, like football fans everywhere, seemed more interested in rushing to judgment than in dealing with actual facts.

Of course, they didn’t know the facts yet, and Terry was confident that witnesses would exonerate him.

However, some people make up their minds based on what they want to believe, and he was mindful of it.

He told his players to try to avoid the distractions and simply win a match for the supporters, who had traveled in some numbers to watch the team play:

Chesterfield (4-4-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Morris

DC – Breckin

DC – Page

DR – Hunt

ML – Allott

MC – Cuvelier

MC – Whitaker

MR – Mattis

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

Of course, Bennett was out of the lineup, serving his suspension, which meant a place for Allott on the left side of midfield, preferred to Ouatarra.

The clubs lined up in identical formations and the match kicked off. Three minutes in, Chesterfield got its first corner. Less than a minute later, after making a complete hash of it, Lee had bailed out the visitors with a scrambling save against striker Colin Larkin.

Two minutes later, he did it again, but in twelve minutes even he couldn’t stop Adam Griffin from hammering home his first goal of the season from a ridiculous distance to the keeper’s left. It was a thunderbolt, an unstoppable shot that simply put an exclamation point on a powerful start from the home team.

Davies tried to reply immediately, but screwed a shot wide about a minute after Griffin’s goal. The effort had been there but the application had been sorely lacking.

It was then Talbot’s turn to miss, contriving to shoot over after a wonderful square ball from Mattis in nineteen minutes.

Tommy looked at Terry on the bench, and saw his friend looking ill at ease.

“We’re better than they are,” Tommy said. “Surely you can see that.”

“I see one shot that’s gone in for them and none for us,” Terry replied. “In fairness we should have at least one, but we don’t.”

“Relax. Let them do their work,” Tommy advised. “No need to get wound up yet.”

Welsh keeper Owain fon Williams kept Chesterfield at bay with some ease for the rest of the half and Terry got a chance to ask a few questions of his players at halftime. None of the questions contained four letters, though, so as hair-dryer treatments went, it was one set on ‘low’.

Mattis hadn’t been very good in the first half, so Terry brought on Ouattara in a rare halftime substitution. He immediately tested fon Williams with a header three minutes after the restart with success equal to all of his teammates.

Lee put Terry’s heart in his throat when he dropped a corner in 53 minutes, but the keeper recovered enough of his composure to bravely smother the ball and start a counter. Chesterfield were sputtering badly.

Just after the hour, Terry got Lester up and running on the sidelines. He looked up just in time to see Ouattara square for Whitaker, and to see the midfielder score from almost exactly the same spot on the park as Griffin had to get Chesterfield on terms.

The match moved on. Davies made a bid to put Chesterfield ahead in 73 minutes but fon Williams had the answer – as Terry went to Lester in place of Allott, moving Davies to midfield, and bringing on Niven in place of the knackered Whitaker.

Lester stole the ball from Mansour Assoumani six minutes after his introduction, and missed an open side of fon Williams’ goal.

“I will be a son-of-a-bitch,” Terry said matter-of-factly to Tommy as he watched the veteran head back up the park. Terry’s old friend simply smiled.

Moments later, Cuvelier picked off a bad lead pass and sent Lester away again on the right. This time, the striker brought the ball into the area and rounded the keeper. He didn’t miss.

Three minutes later, he was on target again, converting a wonderful cross from the excellent Ouattara, turning a side-foot volley past the helpless fon Williams to help Chesterfield sew up three points away from home.

The wags in the stand were silent. Terry had had his win. In more ways than one.

Stockport County 1 (Adam Griffin 12)

Chesterfield 3 (Danny Whitaker 63, Jack Lester 82, 84)

A – 3,982, Edgeley Park, Stockport

Man of the Match – Jack Lester, Chesterfield (MR 8.5)

##

[mark wilson27]

Very good result there Tenthree, keep up the performances lads

[Dr. Hook]

Excellent Story! I am enjoying it a great deal and looking forward to the next installment

[tenthreeleader]

There was one other person Terry needed to talk to. She had been strangely silent since the story had broken.

Kerri had reached out to the kids after the incident, and especially to Wade, but not to Terry.

In a way, he understood that.

He had always felt a bit of a pariah and so it wasn’t surprising to him that she should avoid him.

That was okay. It wasn’t like he had feelings for her or anything.

She was good for the kids and good to the kids. That mattered a lot.

She was also colder than the inside of a freezer door.

So it was that when she came to the house the Monday following the match, with a young one in tow, that Terry took notice.

“Children, I’d like you to meet Max,” she said, and a boy aged seven years stepped shyly from behind his mother’s raincoat.

Terry processed what was happening. In all the time he had known Kerri she had only mentioned her son a few times – so this was quite a decision on her part.

“Hello,” Dana said with her usual cheery smile. “If you’re staying for awhile, come and watch the telly!”

Max looked up at his mother and she nodded approvingly. Slowly, shyly, he walked up to Dana and sat on the opposite end of the couch from her.

He was tall and slender, with dark brown hair and eyes. The hair seemed to wave, while the eyes … well, they were fixed on the big-screen television on the apartment wall.

“Hello, Terry,” Kerri said. She snapped him out of his thought pattern – there really was a Glascoe familt after all – and he turned his attention to her.

“Hello,” he answered. “What a fine lad you’ve got there.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I just wanted to know if you’re doing all right.”

“As well as can be expected,” he said. “I just don’t need all the garbage that is coming with life right now.”

She looked at him with pity. She saw him as a strong, but flawed, man.

Some of those flaws would disappear away over time, because they were flaws brought about by a broken heart. She wondered how long the process would take, but knew from her own experience that sooner or later, it would happen.

“I can’t believe the coverage it got,” she said. “The press is so irresponsible.”

“They talk about their rights but not their responsibilities,” Terry said, beginning to show his anger again. “But I’d rather concentrate on you and your family. I’m glad you brought him over.”

“He doesn’t spend as much time round other children as I wish he could,” she admitted. “He doesn’t make a lot of friends in school. He has some of the same issues as I do. We both miss Brian.”

Her eyes glistened momentarily and she wiped away tears.

He had never seen her show emotion before. She had always been the icy, silent type but this was almost like looking at a completely different person.

It was Terry’s turn to look on with pity. As kind as Kerri had been, she was hurting too and Terry had been almost blind enough to miss it.

He motioned to chairs in a small conversation nook to the right of the apartment door. The children were sat on the couch watching television, and for the moment were occupied.

“Tell me, Kerri,” Terry said. “Are you all right?”

##

[lenimoz]

Wow... just wow! First story to read after coming to this forum after a lot of time... but you do a fantastic job!

I hope you will continue soon...

[tenthreeleader]

Then here you go!

___

“I came over here to ask about you, not the other way round.”

Kerri’s expression had assumed its former shade of quiet control. It was almost as though she was angry at herself for showing emotion, and Terry was quick to note it. For a change.

“First things first,” Terry insisted. “Are you all right?”

She sighed heavily, her shoulders and chest rising to full expansion before she let out the air with an audible “whoosh”.

“I’m just having a bad day,” she said, smoothing a lock of her long hair away from her eyes. Apropos of nothing, Terry could tell where Max had gotten his hair color – it was almost surely from mom.

“Well, let’s see if we can help with that,” he replied, and a smile crossed his face for the first time in what seemed like forever.

She looked at him with surprise.

“All right,” she finally said, as she recovered from her sense of shock.

“I’m not a monster, I’m not a lush, and I’m not a bad person,” Terry said. “But I think you know these things.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just that…”

“…it’s not like me,” he said, finishing her sentence.

“Right. I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

“I know.”

She looked at him with a guarded expression.

“It’s just that you guard yourself so closely,” she said. “Nobody except the kids can get inside.”

“Defense mechanism,” he said, telling Kerri nothing she didn’t already know. “But if I am going to heal, I need to come out of the shell a little bit, don’t you think?”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Yes, I do think,” she said. “What would you like to do? I mean, that would help me?”

“Well, how about ordering in dinner and letting you and Max relax for a bit?”

Her brown eyes suddenly grew very large.

“Yes, Terry. That would be lovely. I think we’d like that quite a lot.”

Terry reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone.

“Good. Then it’s done,” he said. “Take off your coat and stay awhile.”

##

[tenthreeleader]

Chesterfield (6-2-0, 1^st place) v Barnet (2-3-3 14^th place) – League Two Match Day #9

Terry was looking forward to some home cooking.

Getting away from tactics and alignments he didn’t feel played to the strengths of his team, he was happy to line up his players in their traditional 4-4-2 with two wingers – though with a twist.

Tommy and Crossley had both insisted that the formation be narrow since the 14^th-placed Barnet side had had some real trouble dealing with pressure through the middle in their last few matches.

Reluctantly, Terry had agreed, but still he was happy that the players were in their preferred alignment.

Chesterfield (4-4-2)

GK – Lee

DL – Morris

DC – Breckin

DC – Page

DR – Hunt

ML – Ouattara

MC – Cuvelier

MC – Niven

MR – Mattis

ST – Talbot

ST – Davies

Talbot and Davies were practically salivating just before kickoff. Motivated strikers are of course a big bonus for any manager to see and Terry was well satisfied as the match kicked off.

Yet there seemed to be something missing.

Ouattara, who was becoming a fan favourite due to his slashing runs down the left wing, couldn’t seem to find his stroke when it came to crossing the ball. He wasn’t wide enough and kept overshooting his targets.

It was the same with Mattis on the right. The team was still trying to play a crossing game while comparatively bunched up in the centre of the park, so Terry got up and started to yell for Cuvelier and Niven to get more involved.

The focus of the attack was supposed to be up the middle. It wasn’t happening that way.

To make matters worse, Barnet’s Danny Kelly got his team onto the board first, whistling an unstoppable shot past the diving Lee twenty-five minutes into the match.

Something was dreadfully wrong.

Terry’s team didn’t respond.

At halftime, he had had no choice but to light them up, as it were – he saw no passion. Instead, he saw a fat and sassy team that was waiting for the inevitable break that would yet turn things their way.

A little of that was a good thing. Too much of it could be deadly.

Talbot had been, to be kind, a pedestrian in the first half and Terry removed his playmaker in favour of Lester at halftime. The extra spark, Terry thought, would do the team good.

It did nothing of the sort.

On the hour, he spread out the formation, turning to Tommy with an angry expression.

“From now on we concentrate on what we’re good at instead of what the other team is bad at,” he said.

Tommy said nothing, choosing instead to gauge his friend’s temper. Finding it boiling, he leaned back in his chair and watched the proceedings.

The team picked up its play with twenty minutes to play and that gave reason for hope. Lester crashed a shot off the right post in 73 minutes and that at least got the crowd into the match, but despite dominating possession, a goal was never on the cards.

Barnet parked the bus for the last ten minutes, daring the Spireites to break them down.

They couldn’t. It was never close.

Chesterfield 0

Barnet 1 (Danny Kelly 25)

A – 4,754, B2Net Stadium, Chesterfield

Man of the Match – Darren Dennehy, Barnet (MR 8.2)

##

[tenthreeleader]

That hadn’t been so bad.

The day with Kerri and Max had been quite pleasant, actually. Dana had taken the boy under her wing, as it were, and Wade had avoided antagonizing him. That in itself had meant a lot.

Wade’s second academy match had been played the day after the Barnet match, and it wasn’t surprising that a crowd of journalists had come out to watch Terry watch his son play.

He was in a bad mood anyway, Terry was, and he had had to sit virtually alone in the stand – the other parents understandably didn’t want to come near him. The Spireites had dropped out of pole position after the Barnet debacle and he was in no mood to talk about it just yet.

Yet, he wasn’t alone in the stand.

For the first time, Kerri was with him.

“I think you could use the support, and not have to be alone,” she had said.

“You’re going to get dragged into a place you probably don’t want to go,” Terry replied. “Journalists can be a mean bunch of people, especially when they think they’re on to something.”

Yet, he had acceded, and she sat next to him while watching Wade’s efforts on the pitch.

On the way to the ground, Terry had reminded Wade – gently – that he needed to keep his temper under control. Midway through the match, that was exactly what he had done.

He had played well within himself, as it were. He also wasn’t quite the same player.

That didn’t surprise Terry. Nobody expected him to play with the abandon he had shown in his first match but it did seem like there was an element missing from the boy’s game.

He played well, he played smart, and his passes were as incisive as they had been the game before – but he didn’t dominate the midfield as he had when he was out the first time.

He had to learn to adjust.

No one would go near him that first day. Now, with a more sedate Wade Christian on the pitch, the opposition soon began to take liberties.

His team led 2-0 when the halftime whistle blew and a boy who looked rather disaffected headed to the changing room for instructions.

When he emerged, he was the same player. And he still wasn’t happy.

Fifteen minutes from time, Wade came deep for the ball and started the play back toward the opponent’s goal. As he reached the center circle, he was brought down – hard—from behind, by one of the opposition’s backtracking strikers.

In a flash, Wade was on his feet, a look of pure malice in his eyes. He looked at the striker, who was in the process of receiving a card – and he did nothing.

He turned his back and headed behind the ball to take the free kick.

The match ended 3-0, and Wade had done well.

Yet he really hadn’t been himself.

Terry knew it, and as he and Kerri waited for Wade outside the changing room door, he knew that the right balance had yet to be found.

##

[Jibby123]

Blimey.

Only up to post #28, but have to shoot. Bookmarked for later.

[tenthreeleader]

Not sure if that's good or bad But thanks for reading!

____

“I did it your way,” Wade said. “Almost got my leg broken, too.”

“You did it the right way,” Terry said, trying to remain patient. “And if you had played today like you played your first match, maybe you would have been hurt. As often as not in this game, you do get what you deserve.”

“I have to be aggressive,” he said. “I can’t play like you want me to play.”

“Then you will have a difficult future in the game, if you have one at all,” Terry said calmly. “Look, do you want to be like some player who has supreme talent, like a Carlos Tevez, but who can’t be coached because he won’t listen to anyone but himself and his agent?”

“I’d take his money,” Wade shot back immediately. “And so would you.”

“But look at him now,” Terry said. “Who wants Tevez now? Who wants the disruption? Sure, he may go someplace big and play for awhile but who wants to wear out their welcome everywhere they go?”

Yet he wasn’t done.

“And, my money is just fine, thank you. It means I work now because I choose to, and it means you’re in an academy to play football. And I got that money because I was a disciplined player. You seem to forget where I’ve been and what I’ve done.”

“I know. And you seem to forget what I need to be,” Wade said.

Yes, Terry’s son was back.

##