by Chris Harris
Lucy Lockart felt like her world had been turned upside down with the arrival of Michael Hall on the board.
In her mid-thirties, she was still, defiantly, a party girl. She still socialised with the big mid-management crowd around the Lewes pubs, although she was now effectively freelance, where they could just about pull off being young and cool, albeit with increasingly raised eyebrows from younger drinkers. Relationships weren’t for them. Sleeping around, focusing on careers, and partying well into the night, that was, still, their creed.
Every year the group dwindled. One by one they began to tire of the lifestyle and started craving “geriatric pregnancies” and a more settled existence. To the remainers in the group it was the ultimate sell-out. When they were all together again for big occasions, to the consternation of the party girls, the conversations were more about childcare than getting drunk and men
Since joining the board she had still been having her occasional Saturday nights drinking locally with the older football crowd, sleeping with Greg Lyons but she mainly partied weekends with the old crowd, and a couple of brief relationships on the side. Relationships, for Lucy, were things that lasted a month at most before the energy, the lust and the excitement wore off. After that they became dull obligations.
Michael Hall had often been in those same pubs, had observed Lucy from when she left college and joined the office workers cabal in Lewes, over fifteen years ago.
He belonged to the middle-aged cluster of executives who also didn’t quite want to grow up, though their rebellion came with better wine and quieter corners of the pub. Although Michael had certainly noticed Lucy, and, if he were honest, rather fancied her, the twenty-year age gap and the parade of younger men she seemed to attract kept him firmly in the realm of polite admiration.
As Lucy left the pub with another man she had conquered, Michael would head home and sit at his laptop, tapping away on internet dating sites, scrolling through an endless gallery of women photographed beside dogs, holding glasses of wine, or standing in front of holiday sunsets.
Michael, for his part, was simply surprised by how friendly she had become towards him. Mid-fifties, but single all his life, apart from sporadic and a couple of longer term relationships, he had kept himself fit and not brought down by the rigours of parenthood. He was in good shape.
He had no romantic intentions at all. One of the reasons he had joined the board was precisely because he was single and looking for something to fill the empty stretches of his life. Football administration, spreadsheets and meetings felt like a sage option as he headed into later middle age.
Unlike many older men who might secretly imagine something more when befriended by a younger woman, Michael was simply pleased that someone like Lucy, young, sharp, and undeniably attractive, would bother taking an interest in what he had to say.
But as Lucy handled the club’s finances, and Michael had taken responsibility for the administration. Their work overlapped constantly.
During his first month on the board he had to get on top of the figures and systems quickly. Those meant occasional evenings going through paperwork together, sometimes at his house in Lewes, sometimes at hers, spreadsheets spread across tables, laptops open, coffee turning slowly into wine.
By the end of it they found themselves messaging every couple of days, checking up on some detail or another. A quick question about the accounts became a ten-minute chat. Ten minutes became half an hour. Soon they were talking about things that had nothing to do with the club at all—books, travel, the oddities of the other board members.
Lucy found herself laughing more in those quiet evenings than she ever did shouting across a crowded pub.
And Michael, sitting with his tea and his slightly crooked spreadsheets, began to feel that curious warmth that comes when companionship sneaks up on you.
Greg Lyons arrived at the Denham Phoenix ground early on Monday morning. From the car park he could see the new 3G pitch spread across the old adjacent field. For a moment he simply stood there, hands in the pockets of his coat, absorbing the quiet transformation of a place that only months before had been a field.
The final machines were moving across the new pitch, brushing rubber crumb deep into the surface so the turf stood upright like thick grass. A pitch that could be played on every day of the year. A pitch that earned money.
Beyond it the padel board courts. It struck him how quickly it had all seemed to happen. It was due to be completed by the end of the week.
Meanwhile Michael’s booking system was quietly beginning to materialise. It was due to go live on Saturday afternoon when the 3g pitch was due to be officially opened. By Big Mal. Dean had suggested, for marketing purposes, a celebrity has been maybe an idea, but Greg sentimentally wanted his great friend to mark the occasion.
For two weeks Lucy and Michael had been surrounded by documents, diagrams, and booking schedules that mapped out the future use of the new facilities.
They approached, and bonded, over the project the way an engineer might approach a machine. Every element had to connect: online booking systems, payment gateways, floodlight controls, gate access codes, insurance schedules, maintenance plans. The padel board courts and 3G pitch were not simply new facilities; they were the core of a new financial model that would help Denham Phoenix FC thrive. As they became friendlier and more enchanted with each other, so did they feel the need to impress the other with the skills they could bring to the table to create an envious booking and administrative system.
Greg returned on Wednesday evening, he had been to the away fixture versus Bognor Regis in the Sussex Senior Cup on Tuesday, another victory, 0-2 and 7 goals in three games for Glenn Nelson.
The 3G pitch now looked complete. The white lines had been painted onto the surface and the various goals stood in place beneath the tall netting that surrounded the pitch. From the touchline the artificial turf looked almost impossibly even, every fibre standing upright in the afternoon light. It now looked like a football facility ready to be used.
The padel board courts had advanced just as quickly. The glass walls were now fully installed, turning the steel frames into enclosed arenas that reflected the sky and surrounding buildings. The sand-coloured playing surfaces had been brushed smooth, and the nets were stretched tight across the middle of each court. Workers moved between them with ladders and toolboxes, making final adjustments that would soon disappear into the background once the games began.
The board all met at midday on the Saturday. There had been a lot of anticipation, as you would expect. Economical Tony wanted to take everyone around the facility so that they could see and understand how it all worked. Apart from anything else, he had put in a hell of a lot of effort and wanted to show it off.
That was not difficult to do. For everyone else, the site had simply been a brown piece of land filled with heavy plant machinery. Then, almost overnight, it seemed to turn green. Suddenly there was new turf, fencing going up, screens appearing, and all sorts of unfamiliar materials being delivered. But walking around the completed project properly, seeing it up close, was something else entirely.
It was now tangible and incredibly impressive. The quality was obvious everywhere you looked. This had been no bodge job. It was a really smart new facility, clean, modern and thoughtfully built. In fact, it made the rest of the club look a little dated by comparison.
As Greg quipped while they were walking around, “It’s just as well we’re building our new stand and clubhouse, isn’t it?”
The moment he said it he realised it sounded a bit cocky, and he quickly apologised.
Back in the clubhouse, Lucy and Michael explained how all the administration and booking systems were going to work. Dean then talked through the marketing he had already been doing.
Initially, he said, they were bound to attract a lot of casual bookings. There were plenty of clubs, organisations and five-a-side groups who were always keen to try out new facilities. Everything was set to go live at 3 pm that day.
The real objective, however, was to attract regular users.
This was where Greg’s business brain came in. He had instructed Dean to offer an introductory deal: half-price pitch hire for any group that booked more than six sessions. The idea was simple: get people in, get them used to the facility, and turn them into regulars, gather momentum and income.
The financial projections were encouraging. The facility would cost around £25,000 a year to maintain, but there was no reason why it could not generate well in excess of £250,000 a year in clear profit if the pitches were fully booked.
And once the schedule was consistently full, they could gradually raise the rates. At maximum capacity, Greg believed the facility could eventually generate as much as £350,000 a year.
It had been a massive team effort. Anyone driving past the football club on the country lane could not help doing a double take. On the edge of a quiet little village stood this striking new complex.
It looked slightly out of place.
But it also looked quality and classy.
Greg had only expected a couple of initial bookings when the set up went live. By 3.10 pm there were six bookings and Glenn Nelson had already grabbed a brace. He wanted to give Catherine a great big hug, a great leveller, great business brain but can’t get the girl, it humbled him. Deep down, Catherine wanted to at least give him a recognition of the landmark bookings, but instead poured the compliments on Lucy and Michael for the success of the booking system, and Greg and Economical Tony for their part.
George spread the news to the sceptical supporters group, football fans are a negative lot, and by the smile on everybody’s faces, the importance to the club was not lost.
There were no more bookings during the game or goals either leaving Greg a little flat.
Therefore the Supporters Club arranged an impromptu celebratory party in the clubhouse to mark the opening and initial bookings of the 3G pitch. About thirty of them were there, along with the board and some of the players, staying on for drinks.
But it was a strange atmosphere. Something wasn’t quite right. Everyone should have been celebrating a huge step forward for the club, yet somehow the evening felt flat.
You could always gauge how an evening was going to go by the mood of Big Mal. His moods were generally upbeat, but tonight he was quietly furious.
As he said earlier to Piotr, “It’s all well and good them banging on about all these bookings, and it’s brilliant, but how the hell do they think that changing room is going to cope with up to a thousand showers a week? It’s quite beyond me.”
Piotr was very sympathetic and completely understood the problem that no one else seemed to care about. Big Mal had been badgering everyone on the board about how the changing facilities would need to be upgraded to cope with the influx of customers using the 3G, but it had continued to fall on deaf ears.
He was normally a laid back man and would normally take the view that once it all went tits up they would simply get on and deal with it. But he was effectively in charge of the ground in an unofficial role, and he knew he would be the one who felt responsible when things started failing.
He wasn’t someone who usually got stressed. But watching everyone enjoying themselves and having a great time that noght, while knowing that when the facility opened for customers a week on Monday he would be the one picking up all the slack, and it was seriously getting to him. If the changing rooms weren’t up to scratch, and they wouldn’t be, he knew the complaints would come straight to him.
The more they drank and laughed, the angrier he became.
Greg was talking to Dean at the bar when Big Mal approached him.
“OK Greg, I’m off. Let me rephrase that, properly off” he said. “No one’s listened to me about those showers and how inadequate they are. If you think I’m going to be the one picking up all the grief and all the complaints about it, forget it. I’ve told you all there’s going to be a problem. You’ve al ignored me. So I’m sorry – I’m going to resign. This has been so unfair on me, I expected better from you Greg”
And he walked out.
Greg was dumbfounded.
Dean had only ever known Big Mal as the jovial Mr Fix-It around the place. Seeing him so disconsolate, he ran after him. Greg would have done the same, but he knew Big Mal well enough to realise it was pointless at that.
“Look Dean,” Mal said when he caught up with him, “I appreciate you coming after me, but there’s really no point. I don’t want to resign. I love this football club. But at the end of the day I’m not going to be taken for granted – and I have been. So you guys need to get together and sort something out, because the last thing I want to do is resign, but I feel my position here is untenable”
Greg knew he would calm down and later texted him. ‘Totally get it, we’ll talk tomorrow.’ But Greg had misread the room big time.
#Football #Non League #Content Creation #Football Serial #Denham Phoenix FC
Welcome to Denham nr Lewes 