Callum Harrington showed up at my door, all grin and sunshine, with hair way too slick for a Saturday afternoon. He had a paper bag from that fancy butcher’s on Kingsway in one hand and a chilled bottle poking out the top, the kind of stuff that costs more than my weekly shop.

  “Figured we’d upgrade from the frozen section,” he called out, pushing through the gate like he owned the place.

  “Yeah? Thought you lot didn’t eat red meat anymore,” I said, turning the sausages I’d already half-burnt. Last time, he’d brought chicken breast, and didn’t even care to season it. Baffling. Prem players committed culinary war crimes on a daily basis, and none had ever gotten any ban over it.

  He grinned. “We do. Just not this cheap crap you call food.”

  “Cheers, then,” I muttered, taking the bag. Inside were steaks thick enough to use as doorstops, wrapped in wax paper. He’d done it again, turning up pretending it was about family.

  He gave the garden a once-over, nodding at the fence. “Still holding up, this place,” he said, like he didn’t slip me cash every few months for ‘repairs.’

  “Yeah, she’s alright,” I muttered. “Roof’s got a leak, but then again, so do I.”

  He laughed. “You’re a proper old man now, J.”

  “Someone’s got to keep the family grounded,” I said. “Can’t have both Harringtons living in mansions.”

  He snorted, cracking open a bottle. For a moment it almost felt normal: two brothers, a bit of smoke in the air, pretending the past hadn’t gone sideways.

  Then he said, “Got Fulham away next week. They press high now. Manager’s mental about shape.”

  Ever since the sacking of Marco Silva after that disastrous 2026-2027 campaign, they slipped in Liam Manning, the kind of hire that makes you stare at your pint and wonder how things got this weird. Manning, barely forty, cut his teeth coaching youth, a bit of Belgium, League One scrapping, all the ‘future-manager’ tick-boxes. Yet somehow he’d landed a proper Premier League job route. It was like Bayern Munich going out and nicking Vincent Kompany from Burnley and then going on an invincible season right afterwards.

  I gave a noncommittal grunt, poking at the coals like they’d just two-footed me in stoppage time. He knew I didn’t like talking about football. Or at least he used to.

  He still found it in him to pester me despite knowing I had nothing to do with the conversation. “You’ve been watching again?”

  I shrugged and kept my eyes on the coals.

  He continued, “They’ve switched to that 3-4-2-1 thing. You’ve got some insights, surely?”

  That got me scrunching my nose. I hadn’t meant to care, but I’d watched Burnley’s last match, and I said before I could stop myself. “They overcommit the wing-backs. That’s the problem. Both bomb forward at once and the centre lads spread too wide. You leave the half-space empty, and if Edwards is decent with timing, he surely can slip in behind.”

  Callum tilted his head, grinning. “Yeah?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I shrugged, trying to look casual. “If it were me, I’d keep your six deeper. Let the press bait them, then clip one diagonal over the top when their full-back’s still halfway up the pitch. Sessegnon’s out of position way too often, but don’t quote me; check the stats on that. I ain’t a Prem gaffer; what do I know.”

  He was grinning now, that same grin he used to have when we’d knock a ball around in the garden and he’d nick every trick I showed him. “You been watching, then?”

  I looked away. “Old habits. Hard to scrub ‘em out.”

  He didn’t say anything for a bit, just took a long swig from the bottle and watched the smoke curl between us. Then, like it was nothing, he said, “You know your ban’s up, right?”

  I unwrapped one of those steaks and flipped it with the tongs. “Calendar’s not hard to read.”

  He shrugged. “Figured you didn’t check. You never checked the post, half the time.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just stabbed at the grill again.

  Then Callum added, still offhand, “You remember Mitch? Mitch Thompson.”

  I frowned. “The full-back who used to nick my shin pads?”

  He chuckled. “That’s the one. He’s running coaching development at Hungerford Town now, down in the Southern League, Tier 7, proper grafting club. They’re rebuilding the youth setup and need someone who knows their way around defenders who actually defend.”

  I poked at the coals. “Good for him.” Not really good for him, though. At least in Dunsvale you didn’t have to take the slow train from Reading every bloody morning and sit on it for thirty minutes watching some bloke pick his nose while pretending to read a newspaper.

  Callum ignored what I said. “He said he could get you in easy. Assistant coach, maybe head of defence if it goes well. Nothing fancy, but it’s a start.”

  “Get me in?” I said, half laughing. “Like it’s a nightclub?”

  He laughed. “Bit more mud, bit less music, but same idea. You walk in, they hand you a tracksuit, and you remember how to breathe again.”

  The steak sizzled.

  “Yeah,” I muttered at last. “Bet they’d love to have a disgraced ex-defender teaching the kids how to lose a game honestly.”

  Callum gave a little scoff, shaking his head. “See, this is what does my head in, J. Nobody reads the game like you do and not have a footballing job. Half the armchair analysts you see on social media couldn’t see a half-space if it bit ‘em, and you’re sitting here flipping steaks like you’re allergic to football.”

  I didn’t look up. “Flipping steaks pays bills, you know.”

  He snorted. “Barely. C’mon, you don’t lose anything trying. Just a weekend’s worth of time, yeah? Mitch says it’s low-pressure, proper local setup. And don’t think I don’t know you’ve been firing up Football Management Sim again.”

  I turned the steaks around the fourth time.

  Callum elbowed me as he kept that infuriating grin on him. “You could show those kids what a real defender looks like before VAR ruined the art.”

  I didn’t answer, and Callum at least had the tact to drift the story back to safer things like Mum’s knee and the new kitchen he was getting put in. By the time the sun dipped behind the estate roofs, the grill had gone cold and the beer warm. Callum got up, clapped me on the shoulder, and said something about texting Mitch for me. I told him not to bother, knowing he would anyway.

  He left in that loud car of his, taillights flashing red down the cul-de-sac. I stayed out back until the echo of a match on someone’s telly a few gardens over started carrying through the fences. Then I went inside.

  The place smelled like the smoke from the barbecue earlier, plus cheap lager. I sat there a while, staring at the telly remote, then at the laptop on the table. A couple clicks later, Football Management Sim was booting up.

  New save. Team: Dunsvale Town.

  They’d dropped two divisions since my ban. Figures.