by Chris Harris
“What’s your vision for Denham Phoenix, Dean?” Greg asked the new player/director, sounding as purposeful and authoritative as his nature would allow.
In truth, to Greg, it felt weird talking like this. In his own business, it was him. People did what he wanted because that was what they were paid to do. With the board, you had to remember they were working for free, out of love for their positions and the club, and diplomacy was king.
It had almost been a shocking evening.
It was their first pre-season friendly, at home to Newhaven Town FC, a game they fully expected to win. And two interesting things came out of it.
Firstly, the bus was parked as expected. But there were also flashes of unexpected attacking flair. The expected safe 1–0 victory became a 5–0 drubbing.
Granted, Denham had only attacked five times. Newhaven had thrown about thirty-five attacks at them. But Denham were the ones who drew blood on all five of their five attacks.
The second thing was the attendance.
Last season, they’d averaged about eighty. It had peaked at around a hundred and ten towards the end, once the sense of promotion started to build. But this was a simple pre-season friendly. The sort of game where you normally expected a few die hards and somebody’s grandad to turn up with a folding chair.
Instead, there was a crowd of two hundred and fifty. Importantly, Catherine and Charlie behind the bar actually coped. Not without stress, and not without a little bit of help from Big Mal during the match, but they coped.
Afterwards, sitting in the Red Lion on a warm late summer evening, Greg went on.
“Can you explain to me why so many people turned up?”
Dean didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he unfurled his laptop from his case and turned it towards Greg.
He showed him the social media and marketing work he’d done.
Greg’s jaw dropped.
He knew the club had a Facebook page, normally stuck between sixty-eight and seventy followers. But now, inexplicably, it had nearly five hundred. Not only that, there was activity, comments, shares, people asking questions.
Dean had also set up a ProBoards discussion forum. A Til Tok account. An X account. A YouTube channel. All with signs of decent activity. It quickly became evident why.
Dean was a footballer, a YouTuber, and one of those rare people who could make TikTok work. He wasn’t just playing around with social media; he had a knack. As his output escalated, so did his followers, and so did his pay per click income. He made a very good living from it.
He was intelligent, too. He’d been assessing football since he was a boy. He understood the heart and soul of the game, but also the tactics and the operating systems, the mechanics most fans looked for someone to explain. Dean.
His following was huge.
As for his vision, Greg could literally feel his hands shaking , this was to intersperse his usual football content, based on the Premier League, the Championship and the top European leagues, with Denham in the Welex Waste Products Division Three.
The contrast, Dean explained, would create curiosity. A quirk. A running joke. A little cult project inside the bigger, predictable output.
Then, without further ado, Dean said:
“Look, I’m just going to do a quick five minute interview with you. To say what’s happened with promotion and what we’re doing at the club. Just a taster. Then leave me to do the rest.”
Greg watched him, amazed by the confidence and by how quickly and how easily it all seemed to have happened. He was a slick operator.
Then Dean casually dropped another fact, as if it was nothing. He’d rented a house in Denham. Greg was genuinely stunned at how much this guy had bought into it.
But Greg wasn’t stupid. He leaned forward.
“This is all great,” he said. “But what happens when you leave the club? You’re going to leave us high and dry.”
Dean took a sip of his drink, “I mean, for now, Greg, that’s down to you. Look, I’m a football obsessive. I was never good enough to make it in the big time, but I’ve been playing in the higher echelons of County Football and the lower echelons of the southern non league for fifteen years. I’ve probably got a couple of years left in the tank as a player, and once that’s over I just want to stay in football. Obviously, my career means I will be, but I don’t just mean hanging around it. I mean, properly staying in it. Hands-on experience.
I can go into coaching or management, but at the end of the day my preference is being involved in the day to day running of the football club and the football leagues. I’m not saying I’m just going to glue myself to Denham Phoenix FC. I may try and get a job within the Welex League, or in other football affiliates and bodies as well. But the one thing I can say to you with perfect clarity is this: I’ve now met all you guys on the board, and I think you’re all absolutely great.
I genuinely don’t think there’s another football club in the south of England with such a progressive board, with so much ambition, and I want to be part of it.
So I can say to you, Greg, as long as you’ve got ambition at this football club, I’ll always be here to do some clever things.”
“Well,” Greg said, raising his glass, “that’s a great news and a great result today though, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yeah,” Dean replied. “Ed gave everyone a right bollocking.”
Greg nearly spat his beer out as he realised what he’d just said. “What do you mean, it was 5-0 ?”
Dean laughed.
“Well, what you have to understand is that Ed has a system. I know it’s one that none of us really like, apart from the bus enthusiasts, but it’s a system that works. The reason he succeeds is because he sticks rigidly to that system. So obviously, because we were playing a relatively crap team today, we took it upon ourselves, especially as there was a big crowd, to go off-script, so to speak, and jazz it up a little bit and Ed went absolutely mental in the dressing room.”
Greg frowned.
“Yes, I understand the discipline. But surely you have to see why these players want to do that. You know, they want to play a more exciting brand of football.”
“No, you’re absolutely right, Greg,” Dean said. “At the end of the day you have to weigh it up. But there’s a big chasm between playing exciting football and success, the reason he never lasts at clubs very long is his over cautiousness, and this is the biggest and most complicated challenge of the board, is to somehow get him to step outside of his parking the bus mentality. Or rather, to park the bus, get off it, launch an attack, and maybe start to develop a plan B.
And this has always been the sticking point.
Because to be frank, clubs always say they ‘let him go’, but it’s generally because he’s walked, irreconcilable differences. The challenge is to make him adapt a little bit and turn the club into a team that not only wins but wins in a visually effective manner.
Because that’s generally the sticking point when he gets to the end of his contract.”
“Hey, look, Dean, I’ve really enjoyed this chat,” Greg said. “You’ve offered a proper overview of things. Let me mull it over, but would you like me to have a word with Ed? See if we can get you involved on the coaching side?”
Dean’s face lit up.
“Yeah, that would be amazing. Wow. That’s exactly the sort of thing I want to be doing.”
They finished their drinks and Dean left the pub in very high spirits. Greg satisfied that his last minute offer would not only tie Dean closer to the club but that he would be a perfect conduit between Ed and the board to, shall we say, pay a more ‘expressive form’ of football.
Not long after, Big Mal turned up, having finished up at the clubhouse at ten o’clock and heading over for a couple of pints. He’d already had a few, and Greg, still slightly intoxicated by the conversation with Dean, began explaining his vision for the club. He talked about marketing, reach, momentum.
To be fair, Big Mal wasn’t remotely interested. Instead, he did what he always did best: kept his old friend relaxed, buoyant, and flowing.
“So, how did the bar go with Cath and Charlie?” Greg asked.
“Oh, absolutely amazing,” Big Mal said. “It was so slick. No queues at all. I know she only did baguettes and sandwiches, but nearly everything sold out, and I mean nearly everything. She had loads prepared as well. I reckon she’ll be kicking on with some hot food by the start of the season.”
“She’s lovely, isn’t she, Catherine?” Greg blurted out, seemingly from nowhere.
Big Mal grinned.
“I’ve always thought you’ve got the hots for her, haven’t you, Greg?”
Greg went red, embarrassed that his little secret had slipped into the open.
“Yeah… I suppose I do have a bit of a thing for her,” he admitted. “But I’d never do anything about it. I respect her and Charlie too much.” That felt like the right thing to say, he thought to himself, although, of course, he didn’t really mean it. His feelings towards her were growing by the week, never encouraged, making it not only a crush, but an unrequited one, and that obviously made it a seemingly insurmountable challenge too. But one he had decided he needed the wise counsel of Big Mal with.
Saturday brought even more of a footballing shock.
The second pre-season friendly was away at Hastings United, a massive game for Denham. It had only been secured because of Economical Tony’s historical connections with some of the Hastings’ board members. Compared to Denham Phoenix FC, Hastings are a massive club. Two division above. Well resourced, well supported and expected to have a strong season.
It was Hastings’ first pre-season game, and they were fielding a new squad, some of whom had been quite expensively acquired. As a result, there was a healthy gate.
Bizarrely, there were also thirty or forty Denham fans in attendance. Quite how they had materialised was entirely beyond Greg.
The afternoon had a buoyant feel to it. People drinking. Catching up. Talking about what they’d been doing over the summer. There was a quiet sense of optimism in the air after a disappointing season at the Pilot Field.
By the end of the game, the jeering from the Hastings fans was loud and sustained.
It was hard to know whether they were jeering because their hyped new squad had just lost 1–0 to Denham Phoenix FC, or because they’d just endured a dreadful game of football, where Denham parked the bus and, true to form, scored from their single meaningful attack.
But from Greg’s point of view, none of that mattered. What mattered was that his little village team had gone toe to toe with a club a division above, a club expected to do very well and come away with a win.
With another game coming up on Tuesday against Whitehawk, two wins from two, and no goals conceded, Greg was really beginning to believe that a grand season lay ahead.
Every director turned up to the game, and all but Economical Tony returned to the Red Lion afterwards for drinks.
Greg briefly considered booking an evening elsewhere for food, something a little more “grown up” but he caught himself. That sort of thing could become a habit, and habits were dangerous. A football club board didn’t need to get too matey-matey. That was how people stopped challenging each other, and then eventually fell out for reasons no one could properly remember. Occasional drinks, though? That was fine. That was football culture.
He’d been thinking for ages about how to expand his non-existent romance with Catherine Brown. The only evidence of any affection towards him so far had been a single smile that had cost him eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds on an eco-stand.
But Greg had been thinking long and hard, and crucially, strategically about creating a regular source of exchange with her. He’d already tried earlier at the Pilot Field to get her to open up about how the catering had gone on Tuesday. He’d asked layered questions, trying to sound casual and interested, and he’d got the same answer he always got.
“Oh, it was all great, thanks Greg. No problems.”
But tonight the drinks were flowing, and Greg had decided it was time to play his trump card.
On the first date, no, it hadn’t even been a date, it had been an instruction, she had told him that a prerequisite for her joining the board was that she wanted to set up a Denham Phoenix Women FC.
In fairness, there had been no real discussion about funding beyond the basics: he’d lay on the facilities, kit, and the usual bits of infrastructure. But a team could be set up during the season. Players could be found. A routine could be worked out. Applications could be made to a league. It wasn’t impossible. Catherine would spear head it.
He hadn’t pressed her on it because, if he was honest, he wasn’t that bothered. To him it sounded like another headache.
But the board meetings had made one thing very clear: women’s football wasn’t a hobby for Catherine Brown. It was a passion.
And over the last few days, Greg had done something he hadn’t expected of himself; he’d been reading up on women’s football. The decline. The lengthy ban. The FA’s shame. The slow return. The sudden resurgence. The way the whole country now seemed to be waking up to what it had ignored for decades.
He’d also been thinking about his conversations with Dean, and he realised, being the sharp bloke that he was, that a women’s team might actually be a brilliant move for Denham Phoenix. It would cost him very little money, but add a huge amount of kudos, legitimacy, and marketing potential. It would make the club look like it belonged to the future instead of clinging to the past.
As night follows day, for the first time, he found himself sitting at a table with Catherine Brown informally talking shop, and astonishingly, she was pleasant. Warm, even. Actually engaged. The reading up worked wonders.
They talked properly. Not about finances or boring governance documents, but about women’s football: what it had meant, what it could mean, and what it might become at Denham Phoenix if they did it right.
So intense were their discussions that Greg didn’t even notice the evening beginning to break up.
Then Charlie appeared, calm and efficient, and whisked Catherine away, leaving Greg at the table with Big Mal and Lucy, the last two soldiers standing.
As was now becoming increasingly predictable, Greg woke up the next morning with Lucy. The usual coffee and de facto see you next time.
But even through the hangover haze, he remembered one thing clearly.
Next week, he was meeting Catherine Brown to discuss Denham Phoenix Women FC.
Next week, more pre season friendlies, a damp squib (I wonder why) the YouTube interview and Ed Stephens backstory as we delve further into the lives, loves and messes of Denham Phoenix FC.
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