by Chris Harris
As Greg arrived at the ground, he hadn’t expected to see the other board members already there. It was the first Tuesday evening training session of the season, and sure enough, the entire board had turned up. All of them. It still surprised him, these clever, busy people, all with lives and careers, happy to help him run a football club for free.
He knew, of course, there was another side to it. They liked the idea of a hobby club, something absorbing without real risk or liability. That was down to Greg. The dynamic worked well for everyone.
Greg had never fully understood non-league football governance before, but was picking it up pronto. Standing around the pitch on a warm evening, it was clear they were fully invested in the project. Greg admitted, with a flicker of honesty, that he would never give this much time to someone else’s club. The fact that they did probably said more about them than it did about him.
For a moment, everything felt charmed.
Then he noticed a man who didn’t quite fit.
Early thirties, well put together, confident in a way that made him stand out. Greg drifted over, assuming he was a player’s partner or perhaps a potential sponsor sounding things out. The man introduced himself as Dean Hardley. He was extraordinarily friendly and asked a lot of questions, not the vague, social kind, but detailed ones.
It wasn’t casual curiosity. It set off a small alertness in Greg.
Within minutes, it became clear why. Dean ran a marketing and communications firm. That explained the interest, or part of it. What didn’t make sense was what came next.
Dean wasn’t a partner. He wasn’t a spectator.
He was one of the new signings.
A centre-back, inspiringly nicknamed “Hardley” because opposition teams could hardly get a ball past him. And yes, he’d be delighted to fill the one remaining gap on the Denver Phoenix AFC board: media and marketing. For free.
“As a matter of principle,” Dean added, “I won’t take a wage for playing either. I’ve got a good business. Football’s for fitness and camaraderie. Clubs need all the money they can get, and I don’t need it.”
Dean wandered off to get changed, leaving Greg momentarily punch-drunk. In the space of a few minutes, everything had fallen into place, the final board position filled, media and marketing sorted, and a clear leader happy to work for nothing. Was it too good to be true? He had to keep pinching himself, everything was just going so well.
The rest of the board were there because this was their baby.What happened at Denham Phoenix FC would reflect on them all. Greg thought them a little too enthusiastic, but Catherine fixed him with her usual earnest intensity.
“It matters that the players and the manager know the board is behind them,” she said. “That the club moves as a single entity. It’s important we’re visible, that we see the players fighting for the club on the pitch and they see us fighting for it off the pitch.”
Much as it irritated him, she was right. She always had a way of grounding him just as he was starting to feel bullish. Catherine Brown was becoming a great leveller.
In those few training session hours on a warm summer evening, the season began to take shape. Ed Stephens ran defensive drills. Again and again they worked the same pattern: sit deep, absorb pressure, then break. Park the bus, then spring forward.
This was exactly what Ed had promised. Regimentation, organisation, a quiet season for the goalkeeper. What none of them had fully anticipated was the assistant coach and new midfielder.
Mo Ahmed.
Like Dean, pushing his mid-thirties but fit as a flea. For two hours he sprayed the ball to the wingers, who broke on the counter before sliding it into the feet of Junior Bents, last season’s top scorer. That was the system. Park the bus, get it to Mo, release the wings, feed Junior.
It was brutal in its economy. No wasted movement. No drama. Just precision.
“Fucking hell,” someone muttered.
In that moment, they realised this might not be a season of containment football alone. Goals felt baked into the structure. Discipline was there, but so was imagination.
The problem was how to stretch those thirty seconds of effortless fluency, flashes of instinct and freedom that create the goal across the remaining eighty-nine and a half minutes. Ed had promised the one-nils. The board’s job would be to encourage keeping the defence tight while finding a way to make it more than a blink and you’ll miss it spectacle.
Back at the clubhouse, Greg suggested the board adjourn to the Red Lion for beers. Catherine shut it down immediately.
“Oh no, Greg. I’ve laid on food and drink for the players.”
Normally they’d serve pie and chips or bangers and mash after matches, food no one in their right mind would choose and the quality so poor. Training nights had never bothered with catering at all.
“I’ve had a long chat with Ed about nutrition,” Catherine continued. “We’ve agreed a schedule for after training and matches, rehydration, nutrient replacement. It sounds posh, but it’s just about looking after the players. No more putting rubbish into them.”
“Very sensible,” Greg said, feeling himself shrink slightly. H eused to enjoy pints and banter with the players.
As the board joined the players, Economical Tony pulled Greg aside.
“If we want a cup run, or to really develop the club, we need to think about stands,” Tony said. “They’re not as expensive as people think.”
“Oh really?” Greg replied.
“Not the way I do it,” Tony said. “Next week I’ll take you to Whitehawk. Their stands are scaffolding. Cheap, solid, effectively permanent. If it all fizzles out in five years, you dismantle them and sell the scaffolding. The main cost is erection.”
Greg nodded. “We’ve talked about it. I also want to consider a proper main stand, maybe something environmentally friendly. Might appeal to the Lewes lot. The lefties.” Of course knowing Catherine Brown would think the world of him if it was environmentally, had nothing to do with it.
Tony smiled. “They won’t mind us looking. I know the board.”
“Good,” Greg said. “Keep it quiet for now. Let’s see how things go.”
Later, after taking a call, Greg realised how little time he’d had to think beyond survival. Part one of Denham Phoenix FC had been simple: escape the Sussex Leagues. At some point, he’d have to ask the board to take over day to day running so he could focus on strategy. He and Big Mal had dreamed about reaching the Welex Waste Products Division 3, but those dreams, for now, had been buried beneath operational chaos. Infrastructure now had to come first.
In the renovated clubhouse, Catherine’s handiwork obvious, the board sat with coffee instead of beer. Across the room, players rehydrated with sports drinks and bananas. Last season had ended in a sprawling piss-up. This one was starting on a very different footing.
Greg and Big Mal knew this was necessary. Still, there was a twinge of loss, the quiet grief of old habits giving way. It was quickly being overtaken by something else: momentum.
Later, as Ed addressed the squad with a whiteboard, Greg watched. Last season, Hilario Vincent would have been bantering at the bar. Now players stood silent, focused.
Ed handed out individual health regimes and slammed his hand on the table.
“If we’re getting promoted, we need fitness discipline,” he said. “You’ll weigh yourselves now. I’ll record it. Put on weight and you’re out.”
No hesitation.
“You’re paid to represent this club. You owe respect to the board and the fans. If you want casual non-league football, I respect that, but find yourself another club.”
There was no pushback. The players applauded.
In that moment, Greg understood how Ed Stephens won promotion everywhere he went.
What remained to be seen, as Economical Tony later observed, was why he also got sacked just as often.
As the night wound down, Greg hoped Catherine and Charlie might join him and Big Mal at the Red Lion. If he was honest, he hoped Catherine would. He was slowly realising how badly he’d misread her, assuming entitlement where none was owed. She’d noticed. She’d been offended.
Yet as her involvement deepened, so did his infatuation. On sleepless nights, he found himself clutching a pillow that had quietly become Catherine Brown.
The club was thriving. This part of his life wasn’t.
Perhaps, as with the club, it would require patience. Less flash. More humility. Maybe even leaving the Porsche at home.
That was a problem for another week.
Next time, in Part Six, the board is now complete, planning for a stand, a 3g and a women ‘s and under-18s team begins.
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