Chapter 254: The Table Is Lying II

Half-time, 2-0. Kieran went off down the tunnel and came back with 2 Bovrils in paper cups. It tasted of salt and beef and the inside of a flask, and it was the only warm thing in the ground.

"Stan has the radio on in the kit room," he said. "Crawley are losing."

"Kieran."

"I am only saying what Stan said."

The second half went the way Sadler had drawn it. We did not chase a third.

We kept the ball and made them run for it, Kanté to Murphy to Pett and back again, and every minute of it was a minute their legs would not have back before Saturday.

tap. tap. tap of the ball across that tight surface. Kieran watched it roll true and breathed out through his nose.

2-0 was a result I could talk down. A tired side, off a long coach, on a cold night. I stood there with my Bovril going cold and caught myself hoping they would leave it at 2.

On 58 one of theirs, a yard late, went through the back of Mahrez 22 yards from goal. peep.

Mahrez got up, put the ball down himself, and waved Reece away from it.

"He has not scored one of them for us," Kieran said.

"He has not been let near one. Reece takes them."

"Reece is letting him, look."

Reece was. He walked off the ball with both hands up, laughing.

whip of the left foot. It went up over the wall and came down again as if somebody had thrown it, and their keeper put his fingertips to it and only helped it in. slap of the net. 3-0.

The boy ran the whole width of the pitch toward the Bovril End with his arms out wide.

"SAT-UR-DAY. TUES-DAY. RI-YAD MAH-REZ ALL THE WAY," 3,000 people sang under the roof. The name did not fit the tune, and they sang it again anyway.

3 was harder to talk down.

Sadler had 2 men stripped before the restart. Kanté off, Mahrez off, to a hand from everybody in the ground. On came Rowe and young Quinn.

In the big coat on the bench Vardy had not moved all night. He sat with his hood up and his arms folded and watched every ball. When the third went in he nodded once, to himself.

2 seats along from him sat Big Pete, who has been at this club longer than I have. He has spent the whole season watching 3 quicker men play in front of him, and he has trained every morning as if the shirt were still his.

"GET PETE ON," somebody shouted off the terrace. It went along the front of the Bovril End like a flame along a row of candles. "PETE. PETE. PETE."

"He will not do it," Kieran said. "The gaffer never picks off the terrace."

On 75 minutes Sadler turned to the bench and crooked a finger. Gray jogged off. 6 feet 4 of centre-forward stood up out of a tracksuit, and the noise for that was bigger than the noise for any of the goals.

"He is only resting Gray," Kieran said.

"I know what he is doing. Let them have it."

On 81 Pett reached the byline and hung a cross up at the far post. There were 2 defenders under it, and both of them were too tired to jump. thump of a forehead. smack of the net behind the keeper’s shoulder. 4-0.

Pete ran toward the Bovril End, then turned round looking for somebody to hug. Gray came off the bench in his coat and jumped on his back.

"BIG PETE. BIG PETE. BIG PETE." stamp-stamp-stamp on the terrace boards. On the bench Vardy was on his feet with his hood down, clapping above his head.

I found I was shouting the man’s name with cold Bovril all down my sleeve.

Kieran was writing on his bag.

"Goal difference," he said, not looking up. "That is plus 4 in one night. It might count, come the finish."

"Come the finish of what?"

He went red to the ears and did not answer me.

peep. peep. peeeep. The referee blew on 90 minutes dead. 4-0. In the far corner the 61 were still singing as their players walked over to them.

In the tunnel, with the boots clattering past us and the steam coming off the players’ shoulders, Kieran smoothed the bag flat against the wall.

"The other scores are in, boss. Stan had them off the radio." He put a finger at the bottom of a column. "We are 12th. 15th to 12th. And look here."

I looked. He had drawn a line under the 6th name on the bag and another under ours. He had written a number between them, and gone over it until the pencil nearly tore the paper.

"7 points off 6th," he said. "I done it 3 times, because I thought I had it wrong. I only went up the bag to see who was above us. And there is 21 games left, boss. 63 points. And we are 7 off."

19 years old, with sand on his knees and the league table on a seed bag. I had done that same sum on Saturday night, on my own, and shut it in a drawer.

Who else had done it? Stan had. How many more by Saturday?

"Is it wrong?" he said.

"No. It is right. Every figure on there is right."

"Then why do you look like I have dropped something?"

"Because the lads in that room have 21 games to play in 74 days, and I want them thinking about Saturday. Put it in your pocket. Do not show it to the players."

"I would not. I only showed you." He folded it along its old creases. "But it is only the table, boss. It was in me nan’s paper. I just added up."

Somebody else had added up as well.

Danny Vine was waiting at the end of the corridor, by the boardroom door, with his coat on and a notebook in his hand.

"4-0," he said. "Without your centre-forward."

"Carlisle were out on their feet, Danny. Third game in 8 days and a morning on a motorway. Write that. It is the fair thing to write."

"I will write that. I am writing something else as well." He turned the notebook round. Columns, neater than Kieran’s, and the same 7 at the foot of them with a ring drawn round it.

"You know what I am going to ask," he said.

"52, Danny. Same as August."

"You have 32."

"I can count."

"You will have 52 by Easter, the rate you are going. And then what? Do the lads have April off?"

"Then we will have done what we set out to do in our first year in this division. And I will buy you a drink."

He did not write that down. He looked at me for a while with the pen held still.

"I have known you 3 years," he said. "You have never told me a number you did not mean. So I am asking you. Is 52 the real one, or is it the one you give the paper?"

"It is the number that keeps us a League One club," I said. "I want us ready for the next thing before I ask to be let into it. I have seen what happens to clubs that go up before they are made for it. So have you."

"Fine. Then be careful in the summer. But you cannot tell a dressing room in February to aim for 17th, Sam. They will not do it. They are footballers."

"I know what they are."

The rest I kept to myself.

In the life I lived before this one, a club with a ground the size of ours won promotion out of this very division, at Wembley, in the May that was now 3 months off. I knew where that club stood 6 years later. It was a long way down.

"I am printing the sum tomorrow," Danny said. "That is me telling you. It is only adding up. Any man with the paper and a pencil can check it."

"I cannot stop a man adding up."

"No." He shut the notebook. "And I do not think you would. I think you did this sum before I did."

"Go and file, Danny."

He went, pulling his phone out of his coat before he had reached the stairs.

It was on the back page at 7 the next morning. Maureen had left it on my desk, folded open, on top of the post.

THE TABLE IS LYING · Gazette, Danny Vine "Tilbrook Town are 12th in League One this morning. Do not believe it. Last Thursday a 10-point deduction dropped Shorehaven United from 8th to 21st. 13 places, for 10 points. Nobody in this county stopped to ask what that says about the table. It says the whole middle of this division is standing on one stair. Last night 3 points lifted Tilbrook 3 places. They beat Carlisle United 4-0 with their leading scorer sat on the bench in a coat. They have taken 13 points from the last 15. 6th place has 39 points. Tilbrook have 32. That is 7 points, with 21 games to play. Those 21 games come in 74 days, every Saturday and every Tuesday to the end of April, for nearly every club in the division. Only one of those clubs took off 2 of its best players on the hour last night and scored again without them. The chairman told me the target is 52 points, the same as August. He will have them by Easter. I asked him what happens then. I am still waiting."

I had read it twice when the door opened without a knock.

In 3 years Sadler had knocked every single time, the morning after Bournemouth included. He came in with his cap on and his own copy rolled up in his fist, and he dropped it on my desk on top of mine. slap.

"Who told your mate he could count?"

"Nobody told him, Craig. The groundsman did the same sum on a seed bag the same night."

"Kieran?" He shut his eyes for a second. "God help us."

"Have they seen it?"

"Have they seen it." He took the cap off and turned it over in his hands. "Reece read it out in the canteen at half past 8, stood on a chair. Gray has cut the table out and stuck it inside his locker door. I have Mahrez asking Stan how many points Brentford have."

"And Stokes?"

"Stokes has not said a word about it. Stokes is 32."

"What did you tell them?"

"52. Same as you." He put the cap back on. "They nodded. Not one of them believed me."

He went to the door and stopped there with his back to me.

"They train at 10," he said. "It will not hold, Sam."