by Chris Harris
In the end, Greg and Catherine met on Sunday morning for coffee at Heaven is a Percolator. Shortly afterwards, Economical Tony joined them. The three of them felt culpable for the current situation. They were the ones most closely involved with the 3G project, and the three whom Big Mal had relentlessly challenged about the shower situation.
Economical Tony sat, drawing slowly on his coffee, showing the difference between options. Solutions. Short, term solutions.
As he had gone to bed the previous night, Greg had no idea how they were going to get out of the situation. But now there were two options on the table.
Economical Tony naturally went for the cheapest. His idea was basically to manage the existing facilities. He had done the maths and the research. Fifty to sixty percent of customers would use the showers, and full capacity would equate to roughly a thousand users a week. His plan involved staging the booking system so the padel boards and the 3G sessions would all finish at different times. Combined with a more effective boiler, improved water heating, and stronger pumps, he believed it would suffice. Just a few thousand quid and what Economical Tony called “a good, solid booking system.”
The alternative was to hire a modular shower unit containing eight showers. That would cost £700 a week, around £30,000 in total until the new clubhouse was built.
Economical Tony decried the idea as madness. Why spend that kind of money when there was a system that could make the current setup work?
But Catherine and Greg reasoned with him that no system in practice would actually work. Showers had to be there on demand, not through some half, baked scheme where people were forced to wait around according to booking slots. The complaints and bad feedback would pour in and they would lose bookings.
It might cost £30,000, they argued, but they could easily lose £100,000 worth of business if the experience was poor.
As with everything with Economical Tony, the moment you framed the argument in terms of economic loss, he was always the first to rethink and capitulate.
Through his connections in the building trade, the modular unit was arranged and due to be delivered the very next day.
Greg felt he couldn’t have done any more. Big Mal had been absolutely right, but as far as Greg was concerned, he had now found a solution.
And so he asked Big Mal to meet him at the Red Lion for Sunday lunch.
Yesterday’s celebrations had been a damp squib, and Greg fancied bouncing back with some beers and a Sunday roast with his best friend.
Big Mal agreed to the rendezvous but added that he could pop round to Greg’s house first, just so they could get everything sorted and out of the way. Greg liked the idea. It was so Big Mal. Mal just wanted life to be easy, and anything ugly had to be dealt with head, on. In many ways it was a way of doing things Greg really admired.
But by eleven o’clock they were having a flaming row at Greg’s house.
Greg had only just got back from the coffee shop and was about to get changed when Mal turned up early. His face was literally quivering, and he launched into a scathing attack immediately.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, treating me like that after all we’ve been through together? I helped you build this club. And now all these clever people come here, doing this, that and the other, and I’m just a useful pen manager, someone to clean the boots.
“I smoothed over all the problems. Do you think those matchdays pulled themselves off on their own? No. It’s me liaising with the supporters’ club and all the volunteers. You wouldn’t have a matchday without me.
“I’ve said to you for months you’ve got to sort the showers out and you’ve just ignored me. You’re all so bloody high and mighty. So pious about everything you do at this club and how groundbreaking it all is, but ultimately you don’t give a shit about me, do you?”
Greg was riled up by this.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he shot back. “I’d do anything for you, you know I would. We all agreed we fucked up with this and we’ve immediately got a solution. There’s going to be no shower problems at all. So I don’t know why you’re feeling like this.”
But that only wound Big Mal up further.
“You just don’t get it, do you? You’re so stuck up your own arse with your success and all your money, trying to get Catherine into bed. You’ve forgotten what this club was all about when we first started it, before everyone came in to help.
“This used to be the Denham Phoenix Football Club. Started from absolutely nothing. And now I’m left feeling like some second, rate operative while you go around playing Mr Big. You know I struggle with day to day organisational stuff. That’s why I sold the business to you in the first place.
“You’ve done pretty well out of that, haven’t you?” Greg snapped back, “you turned it into a terrible business. I picked it up off you, paid you the going rate and turned it round. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Oh, we’re being like that now, are we?” Mal retorted. “Oh, it’s all coming out now, isn’t it? You really are a fucking wanker, aren’t you?”
With that he stormed off.
“Trust me, you’re never seeing me down here again. I’m going to let everyone know exactly how you’ve treated me. Your sense of priorities. Me, me, me. Greg, Greg, Greg. That’s all it’s about, isn’t it?”
He slammed the door as he left, a tear in his eye.
Greg felt absolutely indignant. He had no idea what the hell had just happened or what he’d done to deserve it.
He phoned Catherine Brown.
He would never normally do that. But she just felt like someone who had control of everything. Someone calm. Someone sensible.
As he dialled the number he realised something else, too. They might not be in a relationship, but he felt that she was someone he needed. In the middle of a battle, without Big Mal she had become his go, to.
The table for two was already booked at the Red Lion.
Instead of Big Mal sitting opposite him, Greg now found himself sitting with Catherine Brown.
He heard exactly what he didn’t want to hear.
As Catherine explained to him, everything Mal had said was pretty much spot on.
His sense of priorities had gone awry.
Everything Greg was doing for the football club was amazing. The transformation of it, the success of it, the building of the infrastructure, his relationship with the supporters, all of it was bang on.
But at the end of the day he had applied too much business logic to the club and not enough personal logic.
Yes, he integrated well with the supporters’ group and everyone around the club. But the fact that his best friend had ended up feeling sidelined meant something had gone wrong.
Mal had every right to feel the way he did.
It was something Greg needed to reflect on.
Greg was moving into his fourth, maybe fifth, lager of the afternoon.
Normally on a Sunday he drank weak lager. But the way he felt now, he needed his confidence and self, esteem boosted. The best way to do that, he told himself, was strong continental lager. It normally made him feel more bullish.
But this time it just made him feel even more miserable. Before he began slurring and getting sentimental he walked Catherine home.
A Sunday evening spent contemplating his navel did little to help.
By Monday he felt more himself, it was beginning to dawn on him how much better the start of the week was after a sober Sunday.
In fact, he felt quite pleased with himself. He’d acted quickly to sort the situation, but it soon became clear he hadn’t thought it through properly.
Economical Tony returned with the update, the showers had been sorted. On the surface, it sounded like a success. But in reality, it still meant good old Big Mal was now expected to be the one, man solution. Eighty, four hours a week as caretaker, meeting, greeting, administering, cleaning, and handling every other job that needed doing. There was no real provision for any of it, in his absence.
The board had been so focused on how impressive the new pitches looked that they hadn’t given the slightest consideration to how the place would actually operate. The showers were just one part of a much bigger issue.
But now it felt different. The luck that had always carried him through seemed to be running out. In the past, whenever something was needed, someone would step in, almost by chance, and take it on. That pattern had quietly built the board. Now, suddenly, they had 3G pitches, expensive, impressive, and completely under, resourced.
The numbers didn’t stack up. Even on a temporary basis, £700 a week, £3,000 a month, for the shower facilities, it was obvious they would also need at least two full, time staff just to manage and maintain everything properly.
Looking back, there had been plenty of people around the club who might have stepped up if they’d been asked earlier. Instead, everyone had assumed Big Mal would somehow handle it all.
Greg realised, of course, that the responsibility now sat with him. The only realistic option was to bring in help, employ a couple of people and temporarily divide responsibilities among the other board members.
But just as that realisation set in, the mood darkened further, on and off the pitch.
Their luck had finally run out.
Glen Nelson twisted his ankle, ironically, after a night out in a Brighton nightclub, and with no other striker available, the team was left exposed. They needed someone who could step in for four to six weeks while he recovered.
As Greg said to Ed Stephens though, it wasn’t just about recovery time anymore. There were other concerns, fitness, discipline, reliability. They couldn’t afford to depend on someone who might not be able to deliver when it mattered.
Everything, all at once, felt like it was catching up with him.
Back, to, back defeats that week saw Denham Phoenix FC exit both the FA Trophy on Tuesday night and the FA Cup on Saturday, two away games that would threaten to drain the brilliant momentum of the season.
The trips, to St Albans and Dagenham and Redbridge meant nearly seven hours in the car. With Big Mal, his travelling buddy in a strop, Catherine Brown suggested she accompany him. Bingo!
Greg, however, was not in the mood to mess that up again, now being in a good space with her. No flirting or showing off, it wasn’t the vibe anyway. If anything, he did the opposite. Quietly, and almost unintentionally, his honesty began to rebuild his standing with her. As he spoke more openly about the current messy situation, and how he’d ended up in it, she started to listen differently.
When the conversation shifted towards her appearance on “Dragon’s Den”, Greg’s previous preparation paid off. He had done his research on the programme and handled Catherine Brown’s questions with calm confidence. He felt like a gymnast smashing a routine for 10/10.
At one point, he was tempted to say, “Don’t worry, if you don’t get investment, I’ll fund it myself.” But recent experience had taught him something important, money, on its own, was not always the answer.
Yet she, too, had her own complications. She was trying to extricate herself from the garden centre but remained tied to it through a sense of moral obligation to her two full time staff. It wasn’t as simple as walking away.
Somewhere during the long car journeys, hours spent reflecting, recalculating, and rethinking, an idea began to take shape.
Greg suggested that the young woman and young man who were already running the coffee franchise might be the solution. If they were willing, they could take on the full range of responsibilities linked to the new 3G pitches. It was easily a full, time role for two people, especially if they were open to working later hours.
Catherine immediately saw the potential.
In fact, he went further.
If they were going to be on, site anyway, why not relocate the coffee shop into the clubhouse? They could serve drinks, teas, and coffees to customers using the facilities, creating a more joined, up, self, sustaining operation.
For once, it felt like a practical idea, one that might actually work.
They both felt, in a quiet, unspoken way, that they had got off the hook. For now at least, their various conundrums had loosened their grip.
When they arrived back in Denham, they agreed to go out for dinner at the Lion. Travel had taken its toll, they were both slightly ruffled, worn down by the long journeys and the emotional weight of the past few days. A couple of drinks in, the fatigue hit them properly.
They ate, talked lightly, and let the tension drain away.
Afterwards, Greg walked her home.
At the door, she kissed him on the cheek. As she pulled away, she wrapped him in a full, unexpected bear hug, warm, genuine, and lingering just long enough to matter. It was the kind of moment Greg would carry with him for weeks.
By 10 p.m., he was home.
Not long after, he sent a message to Big Mal:
“Hey Big Mal,
I’ve been such a prick.
I’ve taken people for granted this season, especially you. I’ve looked to you like a father figure, and I feel ashamed of how I’ve handled things. I let everything run away without properly thinking about what you were carrying.
I just assumed you’d do everything. That was not only moronic, it was unfair. And I’m sorry
You know Cath’s problems at the garden centre, she is going to leave, set up in the clubhouse, until the new one is built, and, if they agree, the two full time staff will perform all of the 3g chores.
I also want to offer you the role of Chairman, and ask you to come back onto the board. You’re a respected and popular figure, more than you probably realise.
If you’re willing, I’d be incredibly grateful for you to continue what you’ve always done so well, keeping an eye on things, meeting people, and being the presence you are.
There’s no pressure, if it’s not something you want, I completely understand. But I wanted to say this properly.
I’m sorry. And I’d really like you back.”
Five minutes later, the reply came.
A single thumbs, up emoji.
Big Mal was not a man for many words, especially in moments like this. But that simple gesture meant everything to Greg.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, he slept properly. The weight of the week, the stress, the mistakes, the uncertainty, finally eased. He drifted off, cuddling his Catherine Brown pillow.
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