Over the moon at the end of the day!

Craig Winless stomped off down the tunnel. The fearsome, inspiring roar he’d experienced when he first took charge that August day had been replaced by boos that blew round the emptying stands like so many lost lottery tickets. His luck had run out.

Rain lashed at the stands deterring all but the hungriest seagulls. He could read the signs, his endgame was finally arriving. Last week, after the Leicester City debacle, he had been immediately sought out by board member Vesneva Nomonilef and reassured that he believed that the club was headed in the right direction and the last five defeats were merely a blip. Now though Nomonilef had his back to him and was talking to the owner, shady oligarch , Makya Andropov who was studiously ignoring him.

The players seemed suddenly carefree as though they had been told something at the final whistle that was being kept from him. Sergo Testosterone the peacock vain Italian winger didn’t even listen to his post match post pep talk but talked on his phone while a coaching assistant administered beeswax to his skin .

Winless was no more reassured by twitter where the death threats which usually punctuated his timeline where now being replaced by the news that Ladbrokes had stopped taking bets that he would be the next premier league manager to be sacked.

His agent Andy Deal was on the phone within the hour. “Perhaps I should just fucking quit!” Said Craig desperately. “They all hate me.”

“Hang in their buddy, if you quit now before you are sacked we will lose the £2 million pound pay off.”

He sleepwalked through the week wandering round the training ground approaching groups of staff or players who changed the subject whenever he neared. The tabloids made his head into various vegetables for no reason at all other than to publicly bully.

What were they waiting for? Tiny Cardigani to become free from his duties at AC Miragio Probably.

And on Saturday morning he was still “in charge”.

For the big cup game against Grimthorpe rovers, Wayne Cashley pronounced himself injured, Emanuel Adabadday cited family reasons and Testosterone didn’t even bother texting an excuse.

In the dressing room it was just kids and old stagers getting a rare game. The axe hung heavy. To make up a squad he named himself as sub. All 16 stone and 46 years of him.

He gave a churchillian speech and went out to his dug out, hoping against hope that maybe he could turn it around.

At half time they were 4 down.

With ten minutes left it was 7-0, he stripped ready and his number, 97, was held up on a lighted board. Andy Deal looked on in horror from the stands, he was risking everything!! But he felt the need to love football once more, to love the team he’d always supported but never played for, to put everything right to himself.

Then it happened, “Winless receives the ball in his own half out wide, goes past one, goes past two and oh what a goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He curls into the top corner!”

Craig wheeled away, evading players nearly thirty years younger than himself, a hysterical grinning whirligig, he carried on wheeling , past the bench full of sullen tracksuits, down the tunnel and past Nomonileff, Andropov and the rest of their cronies, past Andy Deal who was trying to stop him and into the street outside still wearing his kit. He hopped on a tube train, still screaming and got home 37 minutes later, desperately panting, having sustained his own cry of “gooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll” all the way. What a way to go out.

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