I almost laughed out loud. The numbers told a story, and it was a tragedy. Player Management 14.
This was a man who knew how to handle players, who understood the delicate ecosystem of a dressing room. Discipline 15. He commanded respect.
But Motivation 3? Tactical Knowledge 6? Youth Development 4?
He was a man who had given up. He was running on fumes, his passion for the game extinguished by decades of defeats and disappointments. He was a leader who had lost the will to lead.
He hadn't shouted a single instruction all game. His only contribution had been to occasionally cup his hands around his mouth and yell, "For f's sake, lads!" at no one in particular. He was a ghost on the touchline, a monument to despair.
The final whistle blew. The score was 7-0. The Newton Heath Tilers celebrated a routine victory. The players of The Railway Arms just looked at the ground, their shoulders slumped in familiar defeat. They didn't even bother with a post-match debrief. They just trudged off the pitch, their faces blank, already thinking about the pint they were going to have to drown their sorrows.
Frankie Morrison didn't move. He just stood there, staring out at the empty, muddy pitch, a lone, defeated figure. This was my moment. The Football Manager equivalent of applying for a job at a club that's just been relegated. It was now or never.
My heart was pounding as I walked over to him. My social awkwardness, my imposter syndrome, all of it was screaming at me to turn back. But the image of my own PA of 165 was burned into my mind. If I couldn't even talk to a broken-down Sunday league manager, what hope did I have of ever reaching that potential?
"Tough result, gaffer," I said, my voice steadier than I expected.
Frankie turned his head slowly, his eyes, a pale, washed-out blue, appraising me with weary suspicion. He took a long drag from his roll-up. "You a reporter? Come to have a laugh at the circus?"
"No. Nothing like that. I'm Danny. I live locally. I just… I watch a lot of football."
"Then you must be a masochist, watching this shower," he grunted, gesturing at his retreating players with his cigarette.
"I don't think they're that bad," I said. It was a lie, but it was a strategic lie.
Frankie let out a short, harsh laugh that turned into a hacking cough. "Not that bad? Son, a team of one-legged badgers could give us a game. We're not a football team. We're a support group for men with terrible life choices."
"Your keeper," I pressed on, my confidence growing. "He's got good reflexes. And your striker, the big lad. He knows where the goal is. He's just not getting any service."
Frankie looked at me properly for the first time, a flicker of surprise in his tired eyes. "You've been watching us?"
"I've seen a few of your games," I said, which was technically true. "I think there's something to work with here. You've got a couple of decent players. They just need organizing. They need a system."
He took another drag from his cigarette, the end glowing orange in the fading light.
"A system? Son, I've tried every system. 4-4-2, 4-3-3, I even tried playing with five at the back once. We lost 10-0. It doesn't matter what system you use when the players can't pass the ball five yards."
"It's not about the formation," I said, the words tumbling out of me, the same words I'd typed a thousand times on forums. "It's about the roles. The instructions. You're playing a high defensive line with slow centre-backs. You're asking your only creative midfielder to play as a holding player. You're not playing to their strengths."
I had my notebook in my hand, and without thinking, I opened it to a blank page and started sketching out a formation, my pen flying across the paper.
"Look, if you played a deeper line, a simple 4-4-1-1, with the big lad dropping off the front to link the play, and told your wingers to stay wide and get crosses in… you'd be more solid at the back, and you'd create better chances."
I held the notebook out to him. He stared at my frantic scribbles, his brow furrowed. He saw a formation. I saw the culmination of my system's data, a tactical solution tailored to the specific, miserable attributes of his squad.
He looked from the notebook to my face, his expression unreadable. "You've thought about this a lot, haven't you, son?"
"It's what I do," I said simply.
He was silent for a long time, the only sound the wind whistling across the empty field. He finished his cigarette, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it under his heel.
"I'm quitting," he said, his voice flat. "I've had enough. Forty years of this. My wife wants to go on a cruise. I'm done. The pub's pulling the sponsorship at the end of the season anyway. The team's going to fold."
My heart sank. I was too late. My perfect lost cause was about to be lost for good.
"Don't quit," I said, the words coming out with a desperate urgency that surprised me. "Let me help. For free. No strings attached. I'll be your assistant. I'll run the training sessions. I'll help with the tactics. You can just… oversee things. What have you got to lose?"
Frankie stared at me, a long, hard stare.
He was looking for the catch. In the world of Sunday league football, nobody did anything for free. But all he saw was a skinny, twenty-six-year-old bloke with a cheap jacket, a notebook full of crazy scribbles, and a desperate, almost insane sincerity in his eyes.
He let out a long, weary sigh, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of forty years of defeats. "We train on Tuesdays. Platt Fields. Seven o'clock. Don't be late."
He turned and walked away without another word, leaving me standing alone on the touchline, the notebook still open in my hand.
I looked down at the formation I had drawn. It was a mess of arrows and circles, a desperate plan for a desperate team. But it was a plan. And I had a team. Or, at least, I had a foot in the door of the worst team in the league.
I hadn't gained a single point of XP. But I had a training session to plan. And for the first time in my life, it wasn't for a team of digital shadows on a computer screen. It was for real.
I was terrified. And I had never been happier.