their player registrations transferred to rival clubs. Either way, there weren’t enough registered players to produce a side and the local branch of the Football Association suspended the Mad Dogs first team from its league after they failed to put out a team for three consecutive matches.
The death of the youth teams was even more spectacular. With rumours of more attacks, no parent would send their kid out in a Mad Dogs kit, and twenty teams – from table-topping under-seventeens to giggly under-nine girls – vanished overnight.
All that remained were the two Sunday sides: veteran players and gangsters, reinforced by the most loyal talent from the first team and the senior youth squads.
There were eight grass and two all-weather pitches in the park where the Mad Dogs trained. Tuesday-night training usually attracted fifty adults and up to a hundred kids, but tonight’s meeting had an air of desperation. Fewer than two dozen men gathered around the burned-out clubhouse, and several of those were Sasha’s goons dressed in suits rather than football kit.
Drizzle spiralled in the floodlit air, whilst the van that had once ferried the first team between matches was parked on the edge of the pitch with its rear doors open so that people could toss in their coats and dry kit for after training.
‘Thanks for coming, son,’ Sasha said, hugging Bruce with genuine affection as he stepped up to the wooden bench. ‘I really appreciate you sticking by us.’
‘No worries boss,’ Bruce said, as he pulled a notepad from the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms and passed it over. ‘We came straight from the flat. That’s a list of everyone arriving and leaving at the hard front up till five this afternoon.’
‘Good man,’ Sasha said, then turned to James. James lacked Bruce’s talent with a football, so he only got a pat on the shoulder and a thank you.
‘Incoming,’ Savvas shouted from a few metres away, as he spotted a man walking across one of the unlit pitches.
Although it seemed unlikely that the Slasher Boys would launch another attack with the Mad Dogs on high alert, everyone was aware of the war and Sasha had armed lookouts just in case.
‘Hold still,’ Savvas shouted ferociously as the man came nearer.
The man stopped walking and raised his hands in the air. ‘It’s me, Chris Jones.’
‘Chrissie,’ Sasha purred fondly as he waved the man forward.
James didn’t know who it was and asked Wheels, who’d turned out dressed for football in order to win back some of the credibility he’d lost with Sasha.
‘He’s a local councillor,’ Wheels explained in a whisper. ‘He coached Mad Dogs under-fourteens and both his boys play – or at least played – for the club.’
‘What can I do for you, councillor?’ Sasha asked, as he embraced the balding man warmly. ‘Any chance of seeing your boy Marcus in a Mad Dogs shirt? We could use his height at the back.’
The councillor smiled awkwardly. ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Sasha. Everyone has been talking: the council, some of the players’ parents and the old first-team boys. We’ve got some of the best pitches in the country in this park. Mad Dogs was probably the biggest club in the area from under-sevens right up to county league.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get it back,’ Sasha grinned. ‘Insurance is trying to wrangle out of paying for the clubhouse, but I’ve got my lawyer on it. Once the publicity dies down, the players will start coming back.’
‘Maybe,’ the councillor said uncertainly, ‘but the council owns these pitches and we want to see them used. We don’t want players drifting back in a few years’ time when our kids have grown up; we want to see football on these pitches next week.’
Sasha sounded put out. ‘Then tell ’em to put their kit on and come here to play.’
The councillor cleared his throat and tried not to sound nervous. ‘Sasha, you’ve done a magnificent job supporting youth football in this community, but your erm … your reputation has become a millstone. With a new chairman and committee, Mad Dogs FC could be back on its feet within—’
Sasha grabbed the councillor by his lapels and butted him in the face.
‘You bloody what?’ Sasha shouted, as the councillor stumbled back with blood spewing out of his nose.
‘Be reasonable,’ the councillor begged, shielding his face as Sasha closed him down and punched him in the face.
‘This is my club,’ Sasha screamed. ‘I’ve lived across the street my whole life. Before I started Mad Dogs the grass was