Chapter 303 - 23:00 I

Rudd showed him the next night, at Roots Hall, under the lights.

2,000 of ours filled the away end of a ground that had stood there since 1955. Kieran was in the front row, having come on the bus, crouched at the wall with his chin on the top of it, looking along their grass.

"Their grass is longer than ours, boss," he said. "Look at it. They have left it long to slow us down."

"Will it?"

"Not Charlie, boss. Charlie was out on it first for the warm-up, pressing it with his boot."

The referee blew, peep, and the drum behind Kieran started, boom, boom.

In the third minute their right winger took the ball on the halfway line and ran at Rudd, and Rudd met him side-on and took the ball off his toe, and the winger sat on the grass and looked at the referee. He did not try Rudd again all night.

Andy Robertson was on our bench in a tracksuit with a strapping on his calf, and he was on his feet for that tackle before anybody else on it.

On 34 minutes Rudd ran the touchline and put a cross onto Andre Gray’s head from the byline, and Gray headed it down, thump, and in off the bar.

"CHAR-LIE RUDD! CHAR-LIE RUDD!"

Kieran sang it with his scarf over his head.

Southend scored twice in the second half. The first came on the break while we had men forward looking for a second goal. The winner was a header from a corner with 6 minutes left, thwack, and the home end came down to the front to sing it at us.

"SHRIMPERS! SHRIMPERS! SHRIMPERS!"

"They are only Southend, boss," Kieran said, with his scarf in his fist. "Only Southend." He said it twice more on the way out to the bus.

We were out of the League Cup in the first round, 2-1.

After the whistle their manager came across to Sadler at the dugouts and shook his hand, and kept hold of it longer than people usually do, talking. I saw Sadler shake his head once.

"What did he want?" I said, when Sadler came past me to the tunnel.

"Pete. For the season." He did not stop walking. "I said no."

Rudd came off last, with his shirt in his hand. Sadler stopped him at the tunnel mouth.

"You showed me," Sadler said.

"Do I start Saturday?"

"Robertson starts Saturday. You showed me."

Rudd nodded and went down the tunnel, and I heard his studs on the concrete all the way to the dressing room, clack, clack, clack.

On the coach home I sat with Maureen, who had her calculator out on her knee before we had left the car park.

"Round 2 was another gate, home or away, and 45 per cent of it would have been ours," she said. "I was counting on that for the winter. It is not there now."

We drew with Birmingham at Marsh Road on the Saturday, 1-1, Jamie from 12 yards and their equaliser from a free kick on the edge of the box. A week later we lost 3-1 at Burnley. Riyad scored the best goal I saw all month, and we were never in the game.

Andy Robertson started both games at left-back. Rudd came on for the last 20 minutes at Burnley, and on the coach he went and sat next to Joe and asked what he should have done differently. Joe asked him what he had seen first.

Danny rang me on the Monday after Burnley. "Everybody in the town is asking me the same thing, Sam. Are you signing a striker?"

"If the club can pay his wages out of what it takes in."

"Can it?"

"Not yet."

He printed the rule on the Friday, on his back page.

Derby came to Marsh Road on the 24th and filled the away end, and we beat them 2-0. Riyad scored, and Harry headed the second from a corner. I watched their supporters go out through the away gate at the end, singing anyway.

On the Thursday after, the trust met in the church hall on Marsh Road. 240 of them came, and the chairs scraped for 5 minutes while they sat down, scrape, scrape.

Margaret had the new deed on the table at the front, with the solicitor from Chelmsford beside it, his reading glasses pushed up on his head.

"The share covers the ground, the name, the colours and the badge," Margaret told them. "The club cannot borrow a penny against any of it without the trust. Selling the training ground is a different matter, and that is not in the share. The chairman has asked for it to go in."

"What does that mean?" said a man by the radiator. "In English."

The solicitor took his glasses down. "It means I put a restriction on the title at the Land Registry. After that, nobody can sell that field, or any part of it, without the trust’s signature on the papers, whoever is chairman."

"Why does he want it?" said the man.

"Ask him," said Margaret.

"Because I stood in Millwall’s boardroom this month and heard what a developer wants to do with the land round their ground," I said.

"The field is where Robbie’s academy block goes, as soon as the money for it is in the bank. I want it to be there in 50 years."

A woman near the front stood up. "In 2010 this club owed my husband’s firm 4 months’ money. He got it in the end. From you."

She did not look away from me. "If the club had had a field to sell then, he would have had it sooner. One day there will not be a you, Mr Mercer."

"Then the trust decides," I said. "All of you, with the club’s books open on this table, instead of one man."

"That is what I am afraid of."

Doyle was on his feet. He banged the table with the flat of his hand, bang. "THAT FIELD IS WHERE MY LADS ARE GOING TO CHANGE, IN A ROOM WITH A DOOR ON IT. NOBODY SELLS IT. NOBODY."

"Sit down, Robbie," said 3 people at once, and he sat down.

Ted was in the front row, leaning on his stick. Margaret looked at him.

"It is a vote now, Ted."

"Then I am awake." He put his hand up first, and knocked his stick on the floor once, tap, so they could all hear it.

Kelly’s lad put his up second. "My little brother goes to the free Monday nights on that field," he said to the boy beside him.

201 for, 39 against. The woman near the front was one of the 39, and she left before the solicitor had his papers away.

"It will be on the title by the end of next week," Margaret said to me.

On the Saturday we drew 1-1 with Reading. Late on, Riyad’s ball from the byline ran through the 6-yard box untouched and out for a throw on the far side. 6 points from 5 games.

"WHERE ARE THE WINS, MERCER?" a man in a Tilbrook shirt shouted at me in the car park.

"Not in the wages yet."

"Then what are you doing about it?"

"Ask me on Tuesday morning."

The window closed at 11 o’clock on the Monday night.

By 9 that morning Kieran had carried the fax machine up from Priya’s desk to Margaret’s office, and Margaret had the League’s registration forms in a pile on the left of her desk.

The second phone line, which nobody ever used, had been plugged in and tested. trrring, it went, when Priya rang it from downstairs.

"It works," Margaret said into it, and put it down.

Sadler came in at 10 with his coat on and sat in the chair by the window.