Football Crazy Read Free Page B

track suit, replaced the gold medallion round his neck, then carefully combed his hair in the mirror. He checked a couple of times with the Ron Atkinson photos on the wall to ensure he had it just right, as he always did.
    The door opened and the occupant of the other half of the portakabin, George Fearnley, the club secretary, came in. George had been with the club for more years than he cared to remember, back to the days when they'd had a decent team, and was Frogley Town through and through.
    During his time at Offal Road George had seen eighteen managers come and go, some of them good, some of them not so good, some of them downright bad. As far as the coaching side of a manager's duties was concerned George judged Donny to be the second most ill-equipped that the club had ever had, being only marginally better than Gianfranco Floriano, the Italian they'd once had who couldn't speak a word of English. In their wisdom the Town board of directors had reckoned that Floriano's reputed coaching skills overrode the language barrier, as he would soon learn English. What they didn't reckon with was that within a week of taking up his position the Italian would be rendered blind when a large piece of masonry fell from the crumbling grandstand and hit him on the head, and that following this, and despite neither being able to talk to or see his players, Floriano had insisted on seeing out his two year contract with the aid of an interpreter and a guide dog. As the guide dog appeared to have an almost pathological aversion to footballers and often bit the Town's players, quite often putting them on the injury list, this new arrangement had proved to be less than satisfactory.
    Donny now turned to George, annoyed at the intrusion. “Haven't you ever heard of knocking, George? You might be the club secretary but that doesn't give you the right to just barge in here unannounced. I mean I could have been conducting delicate transfer negotiations for all you know, I could have been buying a new player.”
    “ The board have stopped you buying any more players, Donny,” George pointed out.
    “ All right then, I could have been selling a player.”
    “ Who to, the slaughterhouse?”
    “ Oh very funny I'm sure. Proper comedian, aren't you. Well you'll soon be laughing on the other side of your face. Because you're going to see a big improvement in our performances this season. My word are you. And for two very good reasons. One, thanks to my coaching the lads have got much more close ball control than they had last season; a lot more skill on the ball, if you like.”
    At that moment, as if on cue, a football came crashing through the window and ricocheted round the walls before coming to rest at Donny's feet. George almost managed to keep his face straight.
    Donny was unabashed. “You can smile, George. The lads will get there. There's many a slip between cup and saucer.”
    “ Right,” said George, by now well accustomed to Donny's butchered metaphors. He went on, “And the other reason we're going to see a big improvement this season?”
    Donny smirked. He was going to enjoy this. He was fully aware that George didn't think much of his managerial skills, but this would show him, this would put him in his place. He puffed out his chest and announced, “I am going to take a mistress.”
    George wasn't sure he'd heard right. “A what?”
    “ Tell me George, what have Big Ron Atkinson, Malcolm Allison and Tommy Docherty all got in common?”
    “ They all got the sack. And you're going to be joining them if....”
    Donny cut him short. “They have all had mistresses. And at the time they had a mistress they all won the FA Cup. They all got a result in the big one.” He got to his feet to enlarge on his idea. “You see George my theory is that me not having a mistress is the one thing that's stopping me from achieving my full potential as a manager. I’m not exactly sure why, but obviously it has something to do with having