by Chris Harris
Greg was absolutely loving it.
A man who earned well into seven figures per annum was now sprinting around Denham Phoenix FC like he was on day one of his first proper job, minimum wage, sleeves rolled up, filling in wherever he was needed, pulling pints, emptying bins, running supplies and enjoying every single second of it.
It was the last pre-season game, a big one, Lewes FC at home. Catherine had warned them the gate could be lively and she’d planned accordingly. They’d been budgeting for crowds of 200, maybe 250 once the season started, riding the wave of Dean’s marketing push. What they hadn’t budgeted for was seven hundred and fifty bodies turning up for a friendly, they’d hoped for 500 at a push.
A mixture of local Lewes curiosity, people sniffing around this new “rising club” practically on their doorstep, and the sort of hype that Dean’s campaign had somehow managed to whip into existence. It helped that it was a gorgeous evening too.
Denham’s bar situation was still basically laughable for a gate like this. There was a small bar inside, a proper wooden bar was about to be constructed, so temporarily, two bars on big trestle tables had been set up. Economical Tony had negotiated four extra temporary Portaloo’s for the season to augment the clubhouse’s.
Lewes FC were notorious for dreadful service and queues that seemed to last longer than the match itself, so Denham had promoted the whole thing as a queue-free experience, a no-nonsense, back to basics bar.
The “basics” bar was exactly that, lager, ale, tea, Coke, orange juice, and water.
The inside bar was given over entirely to food for the day, the whirring of microwaves, a symphony of profit.
Catherine had pointed out, if you have no commercial rival on the day, you do not need some of the wanky pretentious food Lewes FC were known for, but quality, quick, value for money and NO QUEUES!
Catherine had begged and borrowed as many microwaves as she could find, and cooked huge pots of proper, hearty food: pasta in rich sauce, curry, vegetarian curry. Three dishes. Big portions. Decent prices. It flew out, tasty and quick, so NOT non league.
At seven o’clock, forty five minutes before kick-off, Greg had to hotfooted it into Tesco in Lewes in what could only be described as a mercy dash, buying yet more beers and whatever else he could carry and fit in Big Mal’s SUV.
Then he became the runner. Filling in behind the bar. Shuttling food. Shifting crates. Holding together the sort of operation that normally collapses into chaos the second someone shouts, “Have you got any ketchup?”
Big Mal helped out, of course, they’d even borrowed a couple of bar staff from the Red Lion in the village. At one point there were twelve people doing catering and bar work, including 5 directors. There were little queues, a few minutes here and there, but nothing resembling disaster.
Partly because Catherine had been clever about it.
They’d advertised a “Happy Quarter Hour” in the middle of both halves, everything twenty-five per cent off, and it staggered demand just enough to stop the place from choking itself. It was organised chaos, but it was still organisation.
The ground was so packed Greg barely had time to clock it. He kept looking up and thinking, Christ, where have they all come from?
The match itself was predictable enough.
Denham scored in the first half, and the Lewes faithful immediately broke into choruses of The Wheels on the Bus, as if they couldn’t help themselves. Denham fans, the growing army of Denham fans, I should add, joined in with ironic gusto, turning it into something that sounded halfway between mockery and a football chant and a nursery rhyme that had been dragged into adulthood against its will, very much wrong footing the Lewes fans.
Pre-season ended with Denham on a ridiculous record: a 100% win rate, no goals conceded, and everyone still taking the piss out of Ed Stevens’ team.
They closed the bar at ten o’clock, and the board assembled to chew the fat over what had been an astonishingly successful evening’s service. Confidence was high. Spirits were higher. Whatever else could be said about Denham Phoenix FC, they had just pulled off the kind of operation most non-league clubs only manage in their dreams.
Catherine sat with the tills and receipts spread out in front of her, methodically totalling everything up while the others nursed drinks and replayed the night in bursts of laughter and disbelief.
“Right,” she said at last, looking up with that particular glint that meant numbers had turned into a story. “We’ve taken six grand.”
“And that,” she added, triumphantly, “is four and a half thousand profit.”
Greg struggled to get his head around figures like that. Not because he didn’t understand money, if anything, he understood it too well, but because his instinct was still to assume he’d bankroll the season and that would be that. Yet gate income and catering from pre-season alone had brought in nearly £ 18,000. It already looked as if the club, ridiculous as it sounded, was becoming practically self-sustaining. He knew that would not last for long and was only self-sustaining in fixed running costs, not development work, but even so, pretty amazing stuff.
The huge investment he was about to make in the 3G pitch, clubhouse and the stand suddenly didn’t feel like vanity. It felt structural. Like they were actually building something that could last.
With nobody needing to be up early for work, they all pitched in to tidy the clubhouse. Stacking chairs. Bagging rubbish. Wiping down sticky surfaces.
Economical Tony had already gone home. The rest were still in a loose circle when everyone’s phone buzzed at once.
A WhatsApp message. From Economical Tony.
‘Everything’s going brilliantly, but I think we’re going to have to have an extraordinary general meeting on Thursday to sign off on all the development plans. And we’re going to need to bring Ed in, because we’re becoming a laughing stock.’
That was the dampener, if ever there was one. Even on a night like this, football always found a way to reintroduce anxiety. Around midnight they drifted back to their various homes.
Greg’s head was still humming when he got into bed. He lay there in the dark, wide awake, replaying the evening. But Tony’s message kept looping back.
The wheels on the bus. Was it humiliating? Or was it exactly what Denham Phoenix FC should be doing, doubling down, saying to hell with it, we’ll do it our way, and if people want to laugh then let them laugh while we keep winning?
What was going on was incredible, so nobody wanted to upset the apple cart by challenging Ed Stevens about the style, the optics, the tone, not when pre-season had gone this well. The fear wasn’t that Ed was failing; it was that if anyone questioned him, he’d take umbrage, walk out, and blow up the whole momentum they’d built.
Greg reached for his phone and typed a quick message to Ed. ‘Could you attend Thursday’s EGM?’
Before the meeting, Greg knew he had to speak to Lucy. He needed one last set of ideas on financing the development, the 3G pitch, the stand, maybe a new clubhouse. They arranged a meeting on Wednesday evening.
Now that Lucy had a boyfriend, he told himself they could meet at the Red Lion, have a drink, talk numbers, go home like adults, which they accomplished for most of the evening. Lucy talked far more about her boyfriend than Greg expected. The excitement of it, the rush of a new relationship, poured out of her in a way that was oddly tender and slightly annoying.
But inevitably, almost predictably, the fact that it was “going well” didn’t stop her from spending the night with him.
The goodbye in the morning was underperformed in the usual way. A few polite words said in a tone that pretended none of it mattered. Greg smiled, kissed her on the cheek, and watched her leave.
And as he shut the door behind her, he made a quiet mental note: I can’t meet her in the pub again, boyfriend or no boyfriend.
It was the first board meeting they’d had where the preamble chit-chat wasn’t upbeat, today everyone spoke in slightly lower voices. Ed arrived with Dean and, in fairness, one of the many things about Ed was that he was a straight talking person. He walked in, nodded once, and got straight to it.
“Dean’s already told me what this meeting is for,” he said. “and I know it’s mainly about the club development. But I also know… I hear the wheels on the bus!” A ripple of discomfort moved around the table.
Ed continued, calm as anything.
“I want you to know I’ve discussed it with Dean, who is now head coach. My strategy from the start was to come in and suss this club out. New players, new environment. I’m a manager who builds from the back. You all know that. Maybe I should’ve explained it sooner, but my aim for pre-season was to establish a defensive mode. Get the fundamentals. See whether all the promises made to me about the club begin to materialise.”
He looked around the room. You could hear a pin drop, the anticipation….
“You’ve been a brilliant board to work with. And Dean’s kept me up to speed with the 3G pitch, the potential new clubhouse and the stand, and I can say, without any doubt whatsoever, I don’t want to be here for a season. I’m here for the long haul. This is the project of my life in non-league football.”
The room stayed still.
“And yes,” he said, “we’re going to play a defensive style, on the break. Because if we’re going to make this club as big as I think it can be, and fill that new stand, we need to rise up the divisions.”
Shoulders began to loosen.
“With your support, and the plans you’re putting forward, I know that’s going to happen. So rest assured, we’ll stay cautious because I want promotion. But we are going to begin to play a bit more expansively. Not overnight. But it’ll come. There’ll be times I park the bus because I want three points. But trust me, I know what I’m doing. I’ll bring in another couple of players. We’re still operating well below the budget levels you set.”
He glanced at Greg then, just briefly.
“Then we’ll start moving towards a more progressive style of football.”
Ed finished, simply.
“I can get you promotion. Together we can develop this club. But we’re not going to do that playing exhibition football. I hope you understand that.”
The table stayed quiet for a moment.
Then Big Mal stood up.
He walked around the table, stuck out his hand, and shook Ed’s firmly.
“That sounds brilliant, mate,” he said.
And just like that, the tension broke. One by one they rose from their seats and joined in congratulating Ed, who left the room. They were all pleased as punch, not for the pre-season results, but for avoiding a possible confrontation.
Greg hadn’t really had time to make the proper preparations for what was, in effect, the denouement of pre-season, the moment when he was supposed to stand in front of the board and explain, clearly and confidently, exactly what was happening with the development of Denham Phoenix FC. He’d always told himself that his slightly scatty approach to business was part of his charm and part of the reason ideas flowed. His own business was basically him, some managers, and a structure that bent informally around his brain.
But this wasn’t that. This was a collective effort. A shared investment. People had committed time, reputation, faith. As he sat there with a pile of plans and reports Economical Tony had painstakingly produced, Greg felt a rare flicker of guilt. All he’d brought to the meeting were papers. No preparation, he felt embarrassed, and for a man not normally prone to embarrassment, he felt himself going red. Especially as Catherine Brown stared at him with those intent, assessing eyes of hers, which he couldn’t work out if it was pity… or disdain.
Luckily, Economical Tony read the room. He always did. He leaned forward slightly, calmly took control, and started laying the plans and documents out for everyone in the way Greg should have done from the start.
“Right,” Tony said. “We’ll begin with the small but crucial wins. First up: the catering shed. That’s going to look fantastic. Rustic. Properly done, and it’s going up next week.”
“But on the bigger scale,” Tony continued, “the field is going to be divided into a 3G artificial pitch and, for now, two padel ball courts.” A few eyebrows went up at that, but nobody interrupted.
“We’re also going to extend the car park to the other side of the field. Parking is going to be absolutely crucial if we’re going to develop the ground properly. And we’re already talking to the local farmer about creating an overflow car park, what we have should be fine for this season, but does not allow for our projected growth.”
“I’ve been speaking to Greg about the big sticking point,” he said. “Whether we keep the clubhouse we’ve got and extend it, or whether we build a new one. But given the current state of the clubhouse, and bearing in mind we’ve got the land to do it, we’ve decided it’s actually more prudent, and more economical, long-term, to build a brand new two-tier clubhouse.”
Even Catherine leaned in slightly now.
“And upstairs,” Tony added, “we’ll have a commercial gym. That’s one of the key revenue streams. And the new clubhouse will be run and overseen by Big Mal.”
By now the room was silent again, the directors awestruck by the sheer ambition of Greg. They knew there were big plans afoot, but these were now unravelling; literally a million here, a million there, it’s Denham Phoenix FC ffs!
“The new stand will begin shortly,” Tony said. “We’re going to fence off that side of the pitch, and any very large gates will have to be ticketed, and limited to eight hundred, until the stand is built. But for the foreseeable future that won’t be an issue. Unless we go on a title run or have a cup draw that brings in a big crowd… and realistically, that’s not happening until Spring next year at the earliest. I think,”
Finally, Greg stood up and thanked Greg, if this didn’t impress Catherine Brown, nothing would.
“I spoke to Lucy last week,” he said. “We’ve sorted out a finance plan, and the total redevelopment cost is going to be somewhere between two and a half and three million pounds.” He played it down as coolly as he could, “It’s obviously an enormous amount of money for a club this size,” Greg went on, “but I genuinely believe, with us, as a group, we can make this fly.”
He gave a small, apologetic shrug, as if conceding it sounded too ambitious even for him. He pointed gently towards Dean.
“It looks like we’re going to be getting bigger gates than we anticipated, and that’s down to Dean’s work. So we need to grow properly. There’ll be growing pains, there always are,” he thought he was sounding great, “but the upside is enormous. Once these developments are done, we’ll have one of the best grounds and setups in the south of England, if not the whole of England. I beg all of you to not sit on our laurels, it’ll be great to have this sporting complex, but it’s up to us as a board to generate as much income as we possibly can into this club. To me if we do that, that will be the real success, making it self-sustained”
He looked around the table, meeting each person’s eye in turn.
“You know my view,” he said. “We build it right, pays for itself. We can be trailblazers for the whole of non-league football”
Greg felt embarrassed as the board clapped him, but the smile of approval from Catherine Brown meant everything, and he had even more to fuel his imagination when, as she said goodbye, before chasing after Charlie, she said, “you’re actually quite an amazing bloke” and winked at him. A compliment and a wink, the significance or insignificance of which he would be deliberating over for the foreseeable future.
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Welcome to Denham nr Lewes 