Chapter 114: Another Encounter With Millwall Part 1
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The match between Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace was over. Thanks to the home team’s resurgence of Rebrov and prevailing 2:1 over the rival after much difficulty, their distance to the relegation zone had widened.
After the match, almost all the Nottingham media widely covered the match. All Forest players became heroes, especially Rebrov, whom the media praised to the skies. The media hailed him for regaining his status as a Premier League player.
And what about Tony Twain who directed all that? The photograph of him seeking out Rebrov, and their private conversation on the field during the halftime break, had already made the news headlines. At the post-match interview, the reporters asked Rebrov, who was elected to be the match’s best player for the first time, about what his manager said to him during the halftime on the field.
Rebrov smiled and said, “Nothing much, he just told me to pull back from my position and allow myself to play for me. After that, I saw the world from a completely different perspective.”
“…This is Tony Twain. He has the ability to turn something rotten into something miraculous. I agree with the TV commentator during the match who said he was a magician. Look at Collymore’s Forest team, and then take a look at Tony Twain’s Forest team. All the players are the same players as before, but the team is completely different. We obtained the crucial three points and restored our morale. Listen to the cheers inside the City Ground, the Nottingham Forest is gradually waking up!”
The moving tram gently rocked, and the carriage was empty inside except for a few old men who were having a shut-eye. The tram was traveling through the suburbs of Nottingham. Almost no car horns could be heard outside, and even the pedestrians were scarce. It was early Sunday morning, and Tang En was sitting on Hucknall-bound tram. Outside was the quiet countryside. He looked outside and then looked at the inside. A passenger on the opposite side held up this morning’s newspaper and was totally engrossed reading it. On the page facing Tang En was his own picture and a bold headline:
“Tony Twain Returns!”
Seeing this, Tang En softly chuckled. It sounded like “Superman Returns.” He had returned to the front page top headline, and the feeling of being worshipped and focused on was quite nice.
On this quiet morning, the inside of this empty tram was completely different from the impressive atmosphere of the City Ground yesterday. Twain leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes to relish the match that had just passed.
I am back again, and this time I will never leave easily.
With a silvery sound of a bell, the tram stopped rocking. Tang En opened his eyes and saw the steeple of the church on the hillside. He had arrived at his destination.
Tang En stepped down from the tram, gave his body a stretch and walked toward the church.
He had not been there for a while since the one time he was there in the summer. In the twinkling of an eye, half a year had passed. He was no longer that unemployed manager Tony Twain who was at a loss and unable to see his way forward.
Because of Gavin, he had decided to stay in the Forest team and wait for the opportunity to return to the City Ground technical area. Now he was back and had led the team to victory again. So, he returned to here again.
For him, the cemetery behind the gray masonry church was the starting point of another journey. And when he was about to stride forward, he should come back here to reaffirm his direction.
Even though it seemed to look quite close by, there was still some uphill distance from the tram stop to the church. Tang En bought a bouquet of lilies from a lonely flower shop on the street and thought about it as he held the flowers in his hand. Then he asked the florist for a card, pulled out his pen and wrote:
–to the most loyal Nottingham Forest fan, the eternal supporter of George Wood: Gavin Bernard.
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There was a group of children kicking a ball in the green area in front of the church. Several of them wore the red Forest team jerseys. They yelled and clamored for the ball. When someone shot a football in between two piles of clothes, they would imitate all kinds of celebratory actions that the football stars would do.
As a child, Tang En often played this way too. However, it was not on such a good lawn, but on an embankment used to dry grains in the sun back home. They would take schoolbags, bricks, old shoes, clothes, baskets … In short, everything that could be moved to build the goal. And then a group of children would chase a worn-out ball on the embankment. From Tang En’s current point of view, even when someone from that group had shot the best “star player” shot, it was actually a sorry sight, but everyone played happily. Next to the embankment was a pond used to raise ducks, where people would often accidentally kick the football into the pond. Even though he played badly, Tang En, a good swimmer, would always be that person who retrieved the ball from the pond every time.
In high school, he went to a boarding school in the city, where there were no shabby embankments and ponds. There was a specialized field, but Tang En had already stopped playing football. He only watched others play from the sidelines. He was the same in college. Until now, he was used to standing on the sidelines to watch others play, and even found a completely different pleasure and sense of accomplishment in it than from personally playing football.
Tang En lingered for a little while around these lovely children before continuing forward. He went around the deserted church and turned to the little path in the woods.
The cemetery was even lonelier than the church. Surrounded by the dense woods, it seemed that the temperature was one or two degrees lower than the outside. Tang En tightly bundled up his coat and went straight to Gavin’s grave.
He was surprised when he saw a bouquet of lilies in front of the tombstone. Water droplets were still on the fresh petals. Whoever had left it there was obviously just here. Tang En looked up and around at the cemetery and did not see anyone.
He looked down and noticed a card was also similarly in the bouquet, so he picked it up. There was only a line on it:
To Gavin.
There was no dedication and Gavin’s name was misspelled. Looking at that crooked handwriting which still looked inferior to a grade school student’s handwriting, Tang En smiled.
He put the bouquet back down and carefully placed his bouquet beside it. After this, he pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket and prepared to take a puff. The lighter was clicked on, but he watched the leaping flames in a daze instead. Then he took the cigarette out of his mouth and slide it back into the cigarette case.
He had forgotten that there was a child next to him.
So, he squatted down again and looked at the small line of inscription at the bottom of the tombstone.
When Michael had said to him at the bar, “Tony, I’m not going to see the game tomorrow. I will not go to one again,” his face was calm as if he was talking about someone else who was completely unrelated to him. At that time, Tang En thought something must have died in his heart, even to the point that … he no longer loved football but hated football instead. Because football took away his beloved son.
That day when Michael told him here that he was going to America, Tang En was more convinced that this was the case. Michael hated football and wanted to flee from football.
But when he later saw the fine line of inscription at the bottom of the tombstone, all the impressions that Michael had left him with were instantly flipped.
He loved his son so much, and he also loved football so deeply. He must bury this love deep in his heart, then lock it away, and never touch it again, whether it be someone else or him.
Tang En swept away the dead leaves fallen in front of the tombstone. He then stood up and turned to leave from this humble little headstone.
The Forest team would start training again this afternoon. Three days later, on December 17th, in London, on the southern bank of the Thames, at the Den, they would play in the EFL Cup quarter final match and face their opponent—Millwall
To Tang En, it was a match that they absolutely could not lose!
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Back at the club’s training ground in the afternoon, Tang En went to see the reserve team before the team’s training. At the sidelines of the reserve team’s training ground, he saw Gareth Taylor, who had seen him, too. From the expression in his eyes, he still looked as if he was unwilling to comply with the young manager himself.
But it doesn’t matter … Kid, if you refuse to comply, then so be it. I just need you to score for me.
He beckoned to Taylor, and the reserve coach called the big guy over.
Tang En looked Taylor, who stood in front of him and was slightly taller than he was, and then turned to go, “Follow me.”
Taylor did not move, “Where to?”
Tang En made a half turn before he turned to look at Taylor, then turned back again, and extended his two fingers, “I’m not in a good mood, so I’ll give you two choices: first, don’t ask and just follow me; or second, you’ll continue to stay here until the transfer market opens in winter. Make your choice.”
After he had spoken, Tang En never glanced at the stunned big guy again. He just turned around and walked away.
Taylor did not expect Twain to so firmly walk away. He stood rooted to the ground for a moment. The reserve team coach lightly patted him, “You’re still not following him?”
Taylor stirred as if he had woken up from a dream and ran to catch up and then followed silently behind Twain. Both men walked to the sidelines of the First Team training ground. The players were already on the field getting ready to warm up at this time.
Tang En stopped at the sidelines, and Taylor had the self-awareness to just run to the training ground, and he never dared to ask the stony-faced manager another word again.
The players were not surprised that Taylor had returned to the team. Now that the forward line was short of players, it was only a matter of course that Taylor, who had repeatedly scored goals in the reserve team, would return.
Walker just walked past when he saw Twain standing on the sidelines with his lips tightly pursed.
“Des, look at his training performance. If it is possible, put him on the team’s main list. We will play the 4-5-1 formation, defense and offense. He’s an important player. Have the team practice this formation and tactics these next two days.” Tang En said to Walker when he saw him walking past.
Walker nodded and went back when he saw that Twain was moody. When he returned to the training ground, he blew his whistle and shouted, “All right, lads! Start training. Don’t think you can have an easier time now just because you have won a match! Buckle up, from now on you’ll have to pay the debt you owe for the first four months! You have to use all you have to pay back!”
When he heard Walker shout and looked at the players who were startled, a smile emerged on Tang En’s face.
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In fact, with Nottingham Forest’s poor performance in the league, it was truly amazing that they could surmount all the difficulties along the way to advance to the quarter finals of the EFL Cup. Collymore was not completely worthless. At the very least, Tang En could thank him for having led the team and persisted to this point.
Originally a week ago, when the Forest team had just changed their manager, all the major bookmakers were not very optimistic about Nottingham Forest team’s odds of winning for this away match. But after Twain had led the team to defeat Crystal Palace which capped his perfect return, the bookmakers immediately adjusted the odds.
Among them, William Hill PLC, the leading bookmaker in United Kingdom, had the most representative odds.
Although the Forest team had won a match which made a lot of people feel optimistic about the team again, it only slightly improved the visiting team odds of winning when they considered that this was their away game and the team had a new manager. Their situation was not stable yet.
From the original 3 to 1 odds, the Forest team’s odds of winning on an away match became 2.1 to 1.
Tang En did not bet on football, and he also did not like to bet on football. But it was still possible to get a general understanding of the current situation from the odds of the sports betting that had been perfectly integrated into English football. To put it bluntly, although the team had just won a match, there were still many people who did not think that they could beat Millwall in an away match. By the way, the odds of winning the EFL Cup for Nottingham Forest were only a little higher than their current rival Millwall, according to the major bookmakers.
What did the high payout of the odds mean? That meant that the bookmakers and the public were not confident in them.
For example, in a match where the two participating teams were the home team, Manchester United and the visiting team was an amateur team which could not even afford the hotel costs and heavily laden with debt. Then the odds of the home team winning were 1.1 to 1, and the odds of the visiting team winning was 11 to 1. The former’s odds were low because Manchester United’s strength was too strong, and they were almost certain to win the match. In order not to lose money in the payout, the bookmakers gave these odds, and everyone knew that this result was easy to come by. Although one invested money, £100 to buy, one could only earn a profit of £10. Although the earning was less and cost more, it was stable and there was no loss. The latter’s odds were high. Even if one were to put in £100, one could gain £1,100 if that team won. But the probability of such a result was very low. So, a team with high odds represented that people were not confident in it.
This EFL Cup quarter final match was actually the least attractive of the four matches. What was the point of a match between two League One teams? In the other three matches, there were two matches with Premier League teams battling against each other, and there was also one match in which one of the participating teams was the most popular Arsenal team who always played beautifully.
Besides their respective fans, who would pay attention to this quarter final match?
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A cup of fragrant black tea was placed on the table by the window. It was cloudy and dark outside the window, and it looked as if it would rain at any moment. But this did not affect the relaxed mood of the person, who was enjoying this cup of tea while being engrossed in the newspaper and putting his leg up to lean against the couch. If the weather had been nice, this would have been a wonderful afternoon tea time.
He put down the newspaper, stretched himself, leaned over the couch to take the cup of black tea and turned his head to look out the window. Leisurely as if he were an ordinary tourist, he and the people who were busily walking around him in the noisy lobby where he was, were in two completely different parallel spaces.
For the Nottingham Forest manager Tony Twain, this was a rare pre-game leisure time.
