Chapter 265 - 7 In 8 I

I wanted it.

One game of Lenny Marsh’s, with my name in the first box. I knew which month I would have kept that game away from, and we were 12 days into it. Dev was still at the wall with his biro. All I had to do was say a date.

"I cannot have it, Lenny," I said.

Dev clipped the biro into his top pocket. snick.

"I gave every pick I had to Craig on Sunday morning," I said. "Every name on every sheet until June. If I take one back off you tonight, I have kept my word for 2 days."

"It is not a team sheet," Marsh said. "It is one game. It is mine to give."

"Then give it to the man who picks the games."

"He will spend it on the first Tuesday he can, to be kind to me." He lowered himself back onto the edge of the couch. "Craig has been kind to me since August. I am sick of kind."

"Then you do not know Craig as well as you think," Dev said.

Marsh laughed, once, and it turned into a wince when he shifted the knee. "You are a stubborn sod, chairman."

"I learned it off my captain."

"Then you tell him. Tell him you would not take it."

"You tell him, Lenny. I am not talking to Craig about who plays, and that includes you."

Lenny told him himself. I found out on the Saturday, when Sadler stopped me in the corridor by the boot room at 2 o’clock with the team sheet already signed in his hand.

"Lenny says you would not have his first game."

"I gave you mine."

"So now I have got one of his as well." He folded the sheet down the middle with his thumbnail. "I will keep it till I need a captain more than I need a centre-half."

He went off to hand the sheet in. Dev came the other way down the corridor with his clipboard against his chest.

"You will not like the back 4," he said.

"It is not mine to like."

"Pett, Maguire, Stokes, Rudd, Kanté, Murphy. Every minute against Bournemouth and every minute against Crawley. All 6 red." He turned the clipboard round so I could read the column. "Harker and Prentice in the middle. 2 of Doyle’s 18-year-olds at full-back. Rowe sat in front of them. Prentice has the armband."

He tapped another line with his pen. "Vardy plays. 265 minutes in 8 days. Craig took him off with 5 left on Tuesday so the wall would let him have today. 5 under the line."

Marsh came and sat beside me in the main stand in his club suit, the bad leg out straight into the aisle. 3 rows below us, 6 of Tuesday’s 11 sat behind the dugout in tracksuits.

"I have never once watched a game from up here," he said.

"How does it look?"

"Small. You can see every gap from up here."

A man in the row behind leaned over the back of my seat. "Tranmere, Mr Mercer. Top of this league in January, this lot."

"I know, Frank."

"Just so you know."

We were 1-0 up after 9 minutes. Braithwaite threw it out to Rowe, Rowe found Quinn, and Quinn flicked it round the corner first time with the outside of his boot.

Vardy hit it across the keeper on the run with his left foot. thwack, and the side netting bulged. He pointed at the sky, did not smile, and jogged back to the centre circle.

"VAR-DY! VAR-DY!"

"Look at him," Frank said. "You would think he had missed."

They were level by 22. A corner swung in, the boy at right-back went to the near post where there was nobody, and their centre-half met it unmarked. thup off the forehead, into the roof of the net.

The away end behind the far goal bounced on the old steps. thud, thud, thud of boots on concrete.

"TRAN-MERE! TRAN-MERE!"

"Who had the big lad?" Marsh said. "Somebody tell me who had the big lad."

On 41 their winger went past the boy at right-back and pulled it back, and their striker finished low. 1-2. The Bovril End went quiet. Even the bell stopped.

"Off the boy at right-back both times," Marsh said. "He will move Rowe across at half-time."

"How do you know?"

"Because I would."

At half-time Frank leaned over again. "Your young lads look frightened, Lenny."

"They are 18, Frank. They should be." Marsh did not turn round. "They will be better for it by the hour."

Sadler moved Rowe across. Their winger did not get past the boy again.

7 minutes after the restart Reece went down the right, checked inside, and clipped it to the back post with his left foot. Vardy took it on the volley before it bounced. crack, and the net jumped. 2-2.

He fetched the ball out of the goal himself. The Bovril End roared at him, and he did not look at them once.

"Now watch their legs," Marsh said.

"What am I looking for?"

"Their full-backs. They played on Tuesday as well. Look at the left one. He has stopped coming over halfway."

"And their midfield?"

"Standing off. 10 yards slower to every loose ball than at 3 o’clock." He pointed with his chin. "Your 18-year-olds are running past them now."

At the front of the Bovril End a lad cupped his hands round his mouth and started a song I had never heard. The terrace picked it up the third time round, and the bell found the beat.

"OH, THE TIDE IS COMING IN, THE TIDE IS COMING IN! FROM THE SEAWALL TO THE BOVRIL, THE TIDE IS COMING IN!"

"Who started that?" I said.

"Our Kelly’s lad," Frank said. "He has been working on it on the number 9 bus since Christmas. Drives his mother mad."

On 66 Reece cut in off the right and drove one through a defender’s legs. zip across the wet grass, inside the near post. 3-2.

Their centre-half rolled a back-pass on 74 that was 2 yards short, and Vardy had been running at it since it left the man’s boot. skid of the keeper’s studs. Vardy took it round him and walked it in.

A hat-trick. He walked back to halfway with his eyes on the grass. He did not smile.

"MER-CER’S BOY! MER-CER’S BOY!"

"Smile, Jamie!" Frank shouted. "Go on, son! Smile!"

"He will not, Frank," Marsh said. "He never has."

Kane came on for Mahrez with 14 left, and with 3 to go he hit the post from 15 yards. clang. It came back into the 6-yard box, and Gayle, on for Gray since the hour and fresh as a morning, tapped it in. 5-2.

Kane stood with his hands on his hips for a second, then ran to Gayle anyway.

"5!" Frank was on his feet behind me. "I have not seen us score 5 since I had hair!"

At the whistle Vardy asked the referee for the ball and walked off with it under his arm, past a Bovril End singing the tide song at him.

"You did not pick this one," I said to Marsh.

"They did not need me for this one." He got up, holding the seat in front, and waited for the knee. "When they need me, Craig will not have to ask."