.
Extract from the unedited transcript of the Chester Fans Trust Mid-Season Forum dated Wednesday, 1st February.
Those present include DoF, MD, first team manager, Board members (Bulldog, Sean, Ollie, Barnesy, Ruth), Club Secretary.
Not for distribution. NOT for distribution.
Club Secretary: Moving on... item two, review of transfer dealings.
Sean: On a point of order, Mister Chairman.
Club Secretary: Go ahead, Sean.
Sean: I call for a vote of no confidence in Director of Football Max Best.
Ollie: I second the motion.
Ruth: This isn't a Board meeting.
Sean: We can't wait that long. Most of the Board are here. Let's bin him off before he finishes wrecking the club.
MD: Sean, sit down. This is a place for discussion.
Sean: I vote we discuss binning him before he finishes wrecking the club.
Ollie: I second the motion.
Ruth: Oh, do grow up.
Club Secretary: He's right. Most of the Board are here. We could form a quorum.
MD: Joe!
Club Secretary: It's the statutes!
MD: You just like saying quorum.
Max Best: All right, guys. Take your best shot. Get a majority of people here to agree with you and I'll walk out right now.
MD: Max!
Best: I always said, if I can't even persuade half the fans, it's not going to work. Let's just check the rules. Sean, can women vote in this?
Sean: Of course.
Best: Ooh, Sean's gone woke, everyone! [Laughs.]
MD: Max, this is serious.
Best: Yep.
Club Secretary: A full vote? This is most irregular. I don't have ballot slips. We need pencils. Dozens and dozens of pencils.
MD: Don't worry about it. It won't come to that. Sean, what's on your mind?
Sean: Since Max Best came to the club, we've won one game. One game in the whole of January.
Best: Your Honour, I would like many other defeats to be taken into consideration.
MD: What?
Best: Every match Chester City and Chester FC lost since the day I was born. I'm to blame for those, too.
Sean: That's not... that's not what I'm saying. Don't try to make me look stupid. I'm saying he was brought in to make things better. But it's worse. You all know he's got his clients here. You can't be in charge of a club and be an agent to some of the players. That's what killed Oldham. And his clients aren't that good. Not worth having this drama about. He tells us Lyons is the best striker in the league, but he's scored, what, three goals? Two of those were easy headers from perfect crosses from a player who played one game and left because Max has shit relationships with agents. He wants to turn us into some kind of vegan club. That video he made! It was all over the Wrexham fan boards. They were pissing themselves. We're a laughing stock. Okay maybe we'd put up with a load of snowflake shit if he was scoring goals, but he isn't. He promised to play, but he hasn't played a minute. Last I heard, he was training with the goalkeepers! We all read the article - he chickened out of the match against our main rivals!
Best: Article? What article?
Sean: That article is full of shameful stuff. Not letting players shoot? Not letting parents attend games? I happen to know he released a good young player for playing sensible passes. In that piece it says, there's an actual football expert there who says, yeah Best has some tricks but he'll get found out and won't win another game. And he was right! They didn't. So even this so-called success of his was just smoke and mirrors, like the writer said. He promised us local signings but he's brought in a German dwarf, a Bible Basher who is also - shock - his client, and a deaf girl. Yell all you want, but she's deaf. She can't play to a high level.
Ollie: I agree with that.
Best: There's nothing on the Manchester Evening News website.
Sean: Everyone I talk to tells me he's erratic and nothing he does makes any sense. He winds people up. Employees are quitting or thinking about it. He has no sense of priority. He barely watches the first team, but he's off at youth tournaments which, I'm sorry, aren't that important. They're just not. And a couple of weeks ago he was watching Burnley instead of us! He's acting like the son of a billionaire who's bought a football team. He doesn't seem to realise we're in a hole and he's doing most of the digging.
Ollie: I second everything Sean said.
Best: And you do it very well.
Ollie: You think you're funny but you're not.
Best: I'd like to hear more about my bad relationships with agents, please.
Sean: Jack Litherland got himself a transfer to Solihull and the agent made sure it happened late in the day so that we couldn't get a replacement. See? Look at his face! He doesn't even deny it.
Best: The timing was certainly unfortunate, but I can't believe an agent would deliberately make himself unpopular with an entire club just to annoy one little guy.
Sean: Maybe he thinks you won't be around long.
Best: Ah, is that it?
MD: What do you mean, Max?
Best: Nothing.
Sean: So are we going to vote or what?
Ruth: We haven't heard the other side, you cretin. And we're going to be a vegan club? What are you blabbing on about?
MD: Max made a joke about it. We're not becoming a vegan club. Sean, if you'd like a serious discussion, can we stick to things that are real?
Best: To be fair, I did have oats for breakfast yesterday. It was quite filling.
MD: We could address the real points one at a time, maybe? Ian, you're in charge of the first team. Do you assign any blame to Max for performances since he arrived?
Ian Evans: I think Best does his job the way he plays. Very fast, takes big shots, somewhat indisciplined.
Sean: See?
Evans: But why would he be to blame for anything I do, Sean? The first team's my responsibility. End of.
Sean: I heard he made a substitution from up in the Director's Box.
Evans: What? What are you saying? That I'm not in charge of my team? Watch your mouth.
Best: He means when Trick Williams was hobbling on the other side of the pitch from you and I told Dean to check him out.
Evans: He'd done his quad! He'd done his quad, Sean! Is that what you talk about? That Ian Evans isn't in charge of his own team? That Ian Evans doesn't pick his own team? Is that what you tell each other?
Best: Ian, who's the best striker in this division?
Evans: Henri Lyons by a country mile.
Best: It's actually me, but you're close enough.
Unknown Fan 1: Then why don't you play?
Best: Problem with my registration. Paperwork stuff. We're going to London on Valentine's Day to sort it out.
Fan 1: Why haven't you told us?
Best: I wouldn't have played anyway. I've been working pretty hard.
Sean: Going to Burnley.
Best: Yes. And Rotherham. And Anglesey. And Swindon.
Unknown Fan 2: Can I say something?
MD: Please do.
Fan 2: My son is the goalkeeper for the Chester Knights. The disabled team. Max stayed with us the first weekend he was here and he was a lovely boy. He told all kinds of crazy stories and my son was very charmed. But I've been finding out those stories were true! That article confirmed he was the manager of a women's team in Manchester. They beat Manchester City! The writer of the article was the captain. I even emailed her to check!
Best: What's this article? Beth's article is out? Someone send it to me.
Fan 2: Anyway, we went to the tournament in Crewe. I'm sure you've seen clips of Max coaching that deaf girl. You can't believe what it was like in there. Talk about goosebumps! The atmosphere was like nothing else. He took a nobody and turned her into a superstar in ten minutes! And that's our Director of Football. I'm so proud when I think our head of football takes time to come and see my little boy play... I'm sorry, just give me a moment. I can tell you all now, we're the envy of the rest. Terry says everyone wants to come and play for us, now. Parents who turned us down before have done a 180. People are calling from Ellesmere, from Warrington. So no, Sean, we're not a laughing stock. We're the opposite.
Best: The Wizard of Oz had eleven writers? When did I say that? [Laughs.] She's shameless.
Bulldog: Me next, I suppose. The things I do... My son, T, is in the youth system. He's the one from the article everyone except Max Best has read. I think I've suffered from Max's craziness more than anyone here. I've had sleepless nights from being so stressed and angry. He's denied me one of the biggest joys in my life - watching my son play football and play it well. If this is a vote about wanting to slap Max Best in the face, I'm in. If this is a vote about cracking his head open in the alley outside, I'm probably still in. If this is a vote about football, what the hell are we even doing? With all due respect to Ian, when it comes to football the guy's on another level to anyone else here. Yeah, one coach quit because of him. And guess who's his biggest fan, now? The same coach. He thinks Max should be the next first team manager. Sean, you were trying to make training with the goalies seem like a bad thing. He's a winger. What does he know about goalies? Nothing. So he's learning. He wants to be better at his job. It's dim, even for you, to try to use that against him.
Best: The Munchkins! Don't tell me the whole thing is... It is! This is amazing.
MD: Max, can you read that later?
Best: Fine. Guys, listen. I appreciate the defence and everything but Sean's problem seems to be that other fans are laughing at us. I don't give a shit what other fans think. I only care what you think. It's just us. This time yesterday I was really happy. I thought I'd had a five-star January. We found a few little gems for the youth teams, we did well in two youth tournaments, we signed two big talents, we got the women's team financed and started, Jack and James had improved the first team.
MD: The sponsors loved the video.
Best: Right. Generally, there was a feeling that the numbers were going up, across the board. I'll be honest, now, the Jack Litherland fiasco was a gut punch. I felt sick. I've been curled up in a ball the whole day. And it's worse because we still had just enough time to fix it. If I'd been in the game longer, had more contacts, had a list of six left-backs who could come in and do a job for us, six clubs we could call late in the window... but I don't. Not yet. So yeah, not a good end to my day. But that's the last time anyone's going to do that to us. This time next year, we'll have talented young players in every position, in every age group. Agents can try to pull our pants down. Other clubs can try to take our players. We won't win every battle. But we'll always have a plan B. Plan B isn't loans and scrambling around to fill holes in the squad. Plan B is talent. We signed a nine-year-old. When's he going to make his debut? Ten years. That's the horizon, now. He's going to be a right-back, but I've told the coaches I want him to play twenty percent of his matches at left-back. Because a decade from now we might need him to fill in.
Unknown Fan 3: I play five-a-side and Sunday League and I've seen Max scouting at three of my matches. He said he'd scour Cheshire and he's doing that. He didn't sign me so maybe he's not as good a scout as he thinks, but he's fucking grinding like he said he would.
Best: Are you Jed Fry?
Fan 3: Yes.
Best: [Laughs.] You're not a striker, mate. Give it up.
Audience: [Jeers].
Fan 3: I am. No, really!
Best: Come on, be serious now. Drop to left-mid. There's that guy Rory. Let him go up front.
Fan 3: Rory's our best centre-back!
Best: Put Rick and Lucas at CB.
MD: Max, maybe we could get back to the topic.
Best: The topic was, what, the way Sean and Ollie know way more about football than me?
Audience: [Laughs.]
Best: All right, listen up. I'm not going anywhere. I just started. And it's been a good start, with one bump in the road. Sean and Ollie, I've been poking fun at you tonight but here's the thing - I plan to be here for years, but you'll still be Chester fans long after I'm gone. You can support your team any way you want, even if that means making weird allies and trying to get me out. I can take it. And Pascal and Youngster can take it, too. Your hate will inspire them. But I made a promise to the deaf player. I promised her that the Chester FC community would be right behind her, all the way. I promised her that in this stadium, in this city, she'd never have to defend her right to exist. So if you don't think this amazingly talented young girl deserves a chance to show what she can do, same as Tyson, same as Benny, then you need to step down from the Board.
Audience: [Cheers and yells.]
Best: Ian Evans Blue and White Army! Ian Evans Blue and White Army!
Audience: [Ear-splitting chanting.]
Audience: [Applauds itself.]
Club Secretary: Item three on the agenda. Bathrooms in the Harry McNally Terrace Not Cleaned Often Enough.
***
The Fans Forum cost me. I was already drained and exhausted when the Jack Litherland hammer blow fell. That pushed me into something like despair. Turning up at the Forum, smiling, wearing the mask of the uncaring, aloof boy genius, that pushed me over the edge into burnout. Being attacked by the morons didn't affect me much, but being defended by Chesterkid's mum and Bulldog was more than I could take. Why was that? No clue, but their interventions helped me find some reserve of resolve, one last reload, and I gave Sean and Ollie, the pricks, both barrels.
Chanting for Ian Evans was the natural extension of my emotional state and my whole 'We Are Us' mania, possibly influenced by the fact I was teamwork 20. Or maybe the whole thing was pure self-defence, and my scarred, scabbed psyche was simply lashing out in a crowd-friendly way. The plot Sean and Bradley Rymarquis had hatched had one big flaw - I was fucking incredible at crowd dynamics. Influence 20, bitch.
But it all came at a price. I was a natural introvert. I'd spent years alone, and while I couldn't help but get myself into conflict, I hated it. I hated every second of it. Since I'd become a player, my release valve had been playing. Running fast, smashing shots, winding up crowds. Brad had taken that away from me. Add in a large dollop of financial stress, the humiliation of being tricked, our slide towards relegation, and I was really struggling.
So I spent a few days in Henri's house in Darlington, only leaving to attend matches - solo - to grind for XP in case I ever felt like doing my job again.
Thursday morning I watched a season of Bojack Horseman - depressing as fuck, hit the spot. In the afternoon I finally started Catch-22 - incredible, a masterpiece, depressing as fuck, would read again. And that night I started going through Rolling Stone's top 500 albums, hoping to find new music to get enthusiastic about, mostly while lying flat on the floor, eating cheese slices. Nothing really spoke to me.
I tormented myself with worries. Was I so unlikeable that everyone would always turn against me? Was I so naive that the unscrupulous would always try to exploit me? Was there something wrong with me in my very core? Some fatal flaw that meant everything would always turn to shit?
It was this thought that stopped me scouting. What was the point bringing more talent to Chester if I got sacked and the Seans and the Ollies took over? If I wasn't there to stop the bullying and the banter, people like Trick Williams and D-Day would make my signings' lives miserable until they quit. I knew I should have used Playdar anyway, just in case, but I didn't feel like chasing beams of light. The tool had to serve me, not I the tool.
On Friday evening, I put on my cleanest hoodie and drove to Birmingham to watch West Bromwich Albion host Coventry City in the Championship.
The match was interesting in some ways, most notably because Coventry played a 3-4-2-1 formation I was sure I'd never seen before. I could imagine some use cases for having two CAMs, especially if the other team were heavily into man-marking. But even as I picked up a good chunk of XP, I was mostly thinking about the National League North league table.
Team
P
GD
Pts
Blyth Spartans
-24
Chester
-11
Leamington
-12
Bradford
-21
Kettering
-23
AFC Telford
-34