MOSS SIDE BARROW BOY PART FOURTEEN

As the season wore on it was clear that we were not only looking good for promotion, we were also living up to our billing as potential champions. With the possible exception of Millwall and their fabulously young side, there was just no one with the consistency to match us. Wolves had a decent team, but Dave Jones couldn’t muster a string of good results to raise their season. Gordon Strachan occasionally put together a run to put them within shouting distance, but as time passed the Scot became better known for his post-match interview rantings once more and an embarrassed Board eventually replaced him with Roland Nilsson. The truth was that this was not a difficult division for us. For every half-decent club, there were five or six plodders, the Walsalls and Gillinghams of this world who looked happy enough just to be playing at Maine Road. Moving into the match-intensive winter period, there was no stopping our acceleration towards the Premiership.

We even threatened to represent the Nationwide League in the Worthless Cup final for a time. Leeds visited Maine Road and were summarily despatched 4-1. This was perhaps my finest hour as City manager, in a campaign where there were many. Andreas Andersson scored a ridiculously easy double, making his marker Rio Ferdinand look like a clueless kid as opposed to the cream of England’s defence. Paulo Wanchope and Tonton Zola Moukoko got the others, and even a late consolation from Alan Smith couldn’t dampen our élan.

The semis pitted us against a tougher prospect altogether, Arsene Wenger’s runaway league leaders, Arsenal. In the first leg at Highbury, we sweated through a goalless first half before Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg put us 2-0 down early in the second. Against the run of play – we were being swamped, in all honesty – Mark Kerr conjured up an answer from almost nowhere. Collecting a deep pass from Tommi Gronlund, the young Scot weaved his way through the Gunners’ defence before slotting calmly past David Seaman. Had the score stayed like that, I would have been optimistic of our chances in the second leg. But they didn’t, and I wasn’t. In injury time, Dennis Bergkamp crafted one of his specials to make it 3-1 and mountainous. Facing the second leg as though at the foot of K2, I could only watch aghast as Gronlund was dismissed early on for attempting to remove Patrick Vieira’s legs from his body. The Finn was understandably barracked as he walked, collected an iron stare from Vinny, and no doubt cowered in the changing room as Arsenal took full advantage and won 2-0.

By Christmas, our line-up was starting to change considerably. You will remember me saying that Everton were interested in Eyal Berkovic, and that I was reasonably happy about letting him go for the right price. Once the Israeli international had recovered from his knee injury, he came back to the first team to discover that Moukoko had made himself almost indispensable in his absence. The 17-year old Swede simply couldn’t stop creating chances and scoring with aplomb, and I knew I had the makings of a fine midfield spine in him and Kerr. Nevertheless, to satisfy work permit requirements, I reinstalled Berkovic into the line-up, and sure enough the Toffees came around sniffing again.

One day in November, he strode into my office clutching a sheet of paper.

“I will have my bags packed as soon as you sign this,” he announced, handing me a faxed offer from Goodison Park. I was ready to give him some verbal, and my finger was twitching over the ‘Activate Vinny’ button, when I read the details. Walter Smith, clearly up for blowing the money he had recently received for players as part of the recent buyout, had offered us £3.8m for a player valued at £2.5m.

“Will this make you happy, Eyal?” I asked, and stared into his pathetically pleading face. It was that as much as the money that forced me into agreeing the price. Not really, it was just the money. I was more than happy to see the back of the big whinger, and besides I had the feeling that Moukoko was going to be a big star.

Soon afterwards, with the funds in the bank and £20k per week in wages saved, I received another bid from none other than Arsenal. Now, M Wenger is considered widely to be a fine wheeler-dealer in the market, but I had little idea what made him chug up £3.2m for Alf Inge Haaland. Perhaps it was an exercise in riling Roy Keane. Though I didn’t really want to see the defender go, I was no longer in a position to give him a regular game and felt that his performances hadn’t fully justified saying no to such a sum. The Norwegian was out, and Mr Bernstein, our illustrious Chairman, delighted himself over the blooming bank balance. I bet it wasn’t like this in the days of Alan Ball.

The Gunners hadn’t finished mauling our squad yet. Next in was a £3m offer for defender Steve Howey. The occasional English international was actually valued at £1.5m but I felt their price was too low for an established starter. Besides which, I didn’t have to sell, so I faxed back demanding £5m. That would soon get them off my back, I felt, and it did, for a week or two. For reasons I can only assume were to do with tax, Wenger soon came back with a bid for the required £5m, and because he’d made public his intentions there were similar faxes arriving from Chelsea and Leicester City. Crazy. In the meantime, Howey had grown increasingly unhappy since I turned Arsenal’s first offer down. This was to an extent understandable; after all, who wouldn’t like to play for one of the country’s biggest clubs? However the defender tempered his depression with a display of disgust over my decision to chop Berkovic, the only first-teamer to do so. This just riled me, so I had little reluctance in seeing the back of him.

These leavers did give me a small problem though. There was now a sizeable gap in defence, which I did not see as being solved by Australian Simon Colosimo. Instead my wanderings took me to Scotland, and a young defender taking his first faltering steps into the first team with Glasgow Rangers. Robert ‘Bob’ Malcolm was perhaps more a utility defender rather than a regular starter for now, but he would do, and after some bartering £1.3m brought the 21-year old wide-eyed to Manchester. For a more current addition to the line-up, I studied the series of transfer-listed players on www.sodoff.net. My chair nearly carried me backwards when I noticed that after falling out with the Atalanta coaching staff, Luigi Sala was available for £4m. He was exactly the sort of player I wanted. It so happened that Luca Befani was rustling him up the wrong sort of pasta over in Italy, and I convinced him to come to City after a quick visit to Don Antonio’s Pizzeria in Withington. The lads were only too happy to cook pasta according to Sala’s mama’s recipe, and we suddenly had an Italian international on our books.

I then made a further signing that gave me some misgivings for a while. Wanchope was out for a month, so in the sort of rush that £10m in the bank gives you (well, gives me, at any rate) I looked for a replacement. This took some time. Ajax were only interested in offers around £12m for their Swedish wonderboy, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and besides the striker had no intention of dropping a division to play in England. I did however arrange to put £500k in their bank in exchange for Jussi Kujala whilst I was there. The attacking midfielder, who could play in all positions, would be ideal for a regular spot on the bench, and he was only 18 too. Sporting wouldn’t let Marius Niculae go, for which I couldn’t blame them, We did at one point have a £9m bid accepted by Villareal for Martin Palermo, and for a time the city was awash with speculation fever about a top-class Argentine striker joining the club. It wasn’t to be. As luck would have it, Borussia Dortmund were looking for a strike partner for Amoruso, and guess who fit the bill? Strangely, Palermo was happier to go to the Bundesliga rather than the First Division.

Finally I was able to agree a fee of £5m with Mallorca for 25-year old forward Josemi. The Spaniard was impressing everyone and I felt he might give us more bite up front. He didn’t score once in any of his first six matches. Though he always played well, he couldn’t find the net until later in the season, which suggested I had made a serious error in my purchasing policy. Fortunately he became more prolific in later weeks, justifying his fee, my faith and making my decision easier to make in March when Blackburn tendered a £8.75m bid for Wanchope. This I sweated upon. The Costa Rican had been pulling in the highest ratings, hence the interest in him, and I suspected that we wouldn’t get much better for him. I negotiated Graeme Souness up to £10m, and as though he had Jack Walker still there writing the cheques, he agreed. My reluctance was tempered by the fact that we had arranged to sign Jon Macken on a Bosman in July. My admiration for Norwich’s Alex Notman was such that I agreed to give the Canaries £1m for his services come the summer.

One further signing, Lyon’s Marc Vivien-Foe became ours for £1.3m, and took over from Gronlund as the starting defensive midfielder. The Cameroon international had an excellent season providing the rock ahead of defence, and was one of those players who I felt would have little difficulty transferring to life in the big time.

Talking of which, we did indeed end up holding the league trophy in May. City ended up amassing 100 points, only four ahead of Millwall but with the pack trailing in our wake. A season-ending injury to Kerr in March set us back but there was little doubt that we were worth the money. In the FA Cup, we progressed nicely until the fifth round, when we had to travel to high-flying Middlesbrough and slunk out of there after a 2-0 drubbing. In the Team of the Year round up, five Blues collected awards – Daniel Andersson, our consistently impressive goalie; Stefan Selakovic the gifted right-winger; Kristian Bergstrom who excelled on the left; Mark Kerr, and Paulo Wanchope. It was disappointing not to see young Tonton get a mention, especially after he was the side’s top scorer with 37 golden goals. Oh well, he made do with being the Supporters’ Player of the Year instead. I was named Manager of the Year and celebrated with a trip to the Far East for the World Cup.

Or so I thought anyway. As I was packing my cases at my house in Didsbury, I heard a noise upstairs. Bloody burglars, I thought, and crept up with all the furtiveness a 15-stone middle-aged man could muster. Muffled sounds were coming from my study, and as I peered through the doorway, I could see exactly what was causing it. The Devil had booted up my PC and was checking out some of the more lurid websites available. They weren’t bookmarked, honest; he must have had his own list of links. In any case, having Satan glance through internet porn brought a whole new meaning to the term ‘horny’.

“All right Lucifer,” I said, relieved that it wasn’t a burglar.

“How do Tel son, have a seat,” he replied, going offline and booting up some football management game that I had probably endorsed at some point. “Thought I’d try to touch base with you before you left.”

“Nice of you to remember me,” I said, reaching for the whiskey bottle I kept in a filing cabinet. “Fancy a glass?”

“No ta, china, I’d only go too far and get drunk. I’m not too much fun when I’m sloshed. The last time it happened I think I caused some war in the Middle East. Can’t remember exactly”

“Best left then.” I unscrewed the bottle and took a long swig. When the Devil called, there was usually some trouble involved. “So, er, what can I do for you?”

“Well, like I said I just dropped in to congratulate you on a job well done.”

“Oh, you noticed then.”

“Course I did, I wouldn’t want to miss anything where my favourite son’s concerned. One of my associates operates as eyes for me, you might know him as…”

“Mick the Lips?” I suggested, thinking back to my shady agent.

“Not that nonce, Tel,” he said, looking genuinely offended. That is if a fallen angel with a permanent evil grin could ever be slighted. “I meant Stuart Pearce. He’s not called Psycho for nothing.”

“Nice one Satan,” I said, enjoying another hefty dram. “You certainly fooled me.”

“And now look at you. You’re successful, your team looks great and everyone likes old Tel again. Worked out pretty well on the whole, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, it was okay.”

“Don’t be so modest. I’m impressed. And it all started with a little nudge from yours truly.”

Hang on, I wanted to say, there’s the small matter of my coaching ability too. But I didn’t. I just thought it. Then I remembered that Satan was, of course, telepathic.

“Yeah you’re a good coach mate, and there’s no denying it.” His smile looked, if at all possible, eviller. “Which brings me onto a little something I have to ask you to do for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You recall when I got you Selakovic, you said you’d do me a favour in return someday?”

“Yeah, right.” I glanced down at the scotch bottle. It was three-quarters gone.

“It’s not much, Tel, just a cheesy quaver for a pal.”

“All right, so what are you after?”

“There’s another client of mine, a Signor Navarra in Italy, who’s in a spot of bother. He runs a small team in the lower divisions, and they need a bright new manager.”

“And you instantly thought of…”

“That’s right chum, you’re the man for the job, I thought. If there’s one bloke who could take this on, it’s my old mucker Tel.”

“So when do you want me start?”

“No time like the present, is there?”

“But I’ve got a World Cup to go to.”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that. The job actually involves you going back in time to July 2001 so you can catch it next summer anyway. Is that okay with you?”

“It’s a bit drastic…”

“Oh and one more thing. I almost forgot. If my head wasn’t screwed on Tel, I’d have left it in damnation. You have to change your ways.”

“That’s rich isn’t it? The Lord of Flies telling me to turn over a new leaf.”

“No, I mean you have to lose your memory, and take on a different body. To all intents and purposes you’ll be a different man altogether.”

I squirmed in my seat. At some point, I had drained the bottle, and the room was starting to spin.

“Can I say no?” I slurred.

“Course you can, no questions asked,” he grinned again, and the smile filled my entire vision.

The next thing I knew, I was much hotter. It was sunnier and I had a head that felt like Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy were discussing tactics inside it. My study had vanished, and I didn’t know where I was. Come to that, I couldn’t remember who I was either. I felt my face, but it didn’t seem familiar to me. Outside the window was a football stadium. On the entrance was scrawled a sign that meant nothing to me at all. It read ‘Dare il benvenuto a Frosinone Calcio’.