An Exhibition Game
An Exhibition Game
Twain was aware that this match had been planned by the club, but he had forgotten all about it now that he had changed jobs.
The friendly match against the England national team was nothing more than one of the many celebrations that had been planned. The club also intended to hold a parade to showcase the various jerseys that had been worn by Forest players over the past century. They were also going to have an exhibition to display all their past accolades, a reunion of their ex-players and staff members, and much more. It was going to be a grand celebration.
Twain was supposed to be one of the focal points during the celebrations, but now that he had left Forest, he no longer had any role to play in the celebrations, even though half of the accolades that Nottingham Forest earned over the years had been won under his guidance.
Twain was not in the least excited about returning to Nottingham. He did not know how the Nottingham Forest fans would view his departure.
The reason why he did not go public with the truth behind his departure was that he did not want to burn his bridges and make his relationship with Evan turn sour. It was not like he left Forest due to a personal feud with Evan. He left Forest simply because of conflicting ideals.
Another reason was that it was a resignation. There was no need to blow things out of proportion.
Unfortunately, the fans would not be able to see things from his perspective. In their minds, Tony Twain was the ambassador of Nottingham Forest. Now that this ambassador had left, their entire world had come crashing down on them. Twain was well aware that there would be people who would not forgive him for his actions.
All he could do was manage a wry smile.
Why was such a match planned? Destiny must be playing with him.
※※※
"A match against the England team?" John looked at Bill.
The new season was approaching, and Burns' Forest bar was starting to get lively once again. There was an increasing number of people who visited the bar to have a drink and chat. Business appeared to be booming.
"Have you forgotten about it?" Bill looked excitedly at his friend of many years. "To celebrate the completion of the new stadium, our team will be playing in a match against the England national team."
"That's interesting." John was being evasive with his response.
"It's not just interesting. It's very interesting!" Bill waved his fists in the air. "I have to get back at Twain for what he did!"
"You are still complaining about that?" John thought Bill was being a fool. That incident had happened over a month ago, and here Bill was still harping over it. "Tony must have had his reasons."
"Who cares about his reasons?" Bill shouted in a shrill voice that sounded like a hysterical woman's. "F*ck! He betrayed us all!"
Bill's comments were met with agreement from some people around them.
John opened his mouth and wanted to speak, but he eventually decided to leave them alone. He lifted his wine glass and walked towards the bar counter. He then placed his glass before Kenny Burns.
"One more glass, Kenny."
Burns wordlessly refilled his glass.
"They have forgotten about all the glory that Tony brought to this city, even though it has barely been a month," John muttered under his breath.
"There are people who like him and also people who hate him. These are words that will always hold true, now and into the future." Burns' smiled in a way that a philosopher would.
"I don't really feel like watching that match now. I can't bear to watch those people who used to stand up for him in the past chastise him now. I think Tony will be heartbroken to see that too." John was in low spirits.
"And that's all the more reason for you to go watch the match in person," Burns spurred him on. "You have to let him know that there are people who understand him."
John coughed once. "Actually, I was even more furious than Bill when I first learned that he was leaving. Bill was the one who calmed me down. How did things become like this?"
"Maybe they are so mad because of the 'indifference' that Tony has displayed towards Nottingham Forest?" Burns said as he continued to wipe the wine glasses that he would not stop wiping for another 100 years.
John froze for a moment, and then he remembered. Tony had not brought up the name 'Nottingham Forest' ever since he resigned. It was as though he had never coached the team in his 11 years as a manager. Perhaps it was this 'indifference' that angered Bill and the other fans.
However, John knew very well that Tony wasn't being indifferent. His feelings were just complicated. Nottingham Forest was a team that he managed for 11 years; how could he possibly forget about it? Yet, he couldn't possibly keep mentioning the team after he left because it would have brought immense pressure onto the new manager, and that would not have helped the team as they embarked on their new journey. He was trying to weaken the influence that he had over the team. He was the one who groomed most of the players in the Forest team. The moment he said something to the press, the players would prioritize his opinion first, even though he was no longer in Wilford. How could Martin O'Neill possibly manage the team properly if the players would rather listen to Tony than him?
Sadly, not everyone understood that.
He turned around to look at the people who were discussing the words that they would put on their banners to mock Twain. More doubt began forming in his mind as he watched. It was doubt that he had thought about for many days, and it was a doubt for which he had no answer.
Why did Tony choose to leave if he knew this was going to happen? What exactly was it that he couldn't solve and had to choose to leave instead? Many things had happened during the past 11 years. Twain even made it through a heart disease crisis. Why couldn't he make it past his 12th year in charge of Forest?
※※※
"Some say that the reason behind Tony's resignation was due to his conflict with Allan Adams. But I must say this, haven't the two of them always been at loggerheads with each other? Didn't they manage to get by just fine for so many years? Why did he choose to resign now? Don't tell me those men in suits have never thought about how the fans would feel?"
"What will happen to Nottingham Forest now that he has washed his hands clean of us? Is he going to be happy watching as our performance dips?"
"I know he must have had his reasons, but I don't think it's a big enough reason to justify his resignation. He has a lot more influence and power in this club than what other managers would get at other clubs."
"If he wanted to leave, he could have chosen to leave after this season ended. Why did he leave when we just achieved the Treble? I really can't describe my feelings back then. It was just like being tickled by someone, then getting slapped twice by that same person a while later…"
Even now, there were still fans who continued to leave comments expressing their views towards Twain's departure on the article that had been published on Nottingham Forest's official website, which wrote about Tony Twain's decision to not resign his managerial contract with the club.
Most of the comments written on the article were comments that would make Twain upset.
This was perhaps something that Nottingham Forest Football Club wished to see the most. They quickly held a press conference to announce that they had failed to sign a new contract with Twain, and their actions highlighted how forthcoming they were with the whole situation. Naturally, the public would then think that the blame for the whole incident was on Twain since he had been evasive about the situation the whole time, whereas Nottingham Forest was just like an innocent girl who was lamenting about what she had gone through.
Twain had never had a good image from the viewpoint of the masses, and not many people liked him. In the past, people defended him because they were all on the same side, but now that they were on different sides, it was only natural that he would get a lot more criticism and animosity from others.
Neither Evan nor Allan wanted to be blamed for the departure of their most successful manager. Obviously, the only way they could avoid being blamed was to point the finger at the man who had never had a good reputation or image in his life thus far.
He was the one who wanted to leave. They gave him the best contract a manager could get in the whole of England, but he did not want it and was hell-bent on leaving.
To ordinary people, Twain's decision to leave Forest was hard to comprehend. However, when had Tony Twain been 'ordinary'? The way he saw things was bound to be different. If one were to judge him based on how an ordinary person would see and do things, then the only conclusion that one would get would be that he was a 'lunatic'. This was also why Twain was known as a 'madman' and a 'manager with an attitude' to the masses. He was destined to be someone who most people would never come to understand.
※※※
Nottingham Forest had five pre-season friendly matches planned for the summer. The match against the England national team was to be held in the middle of these five matches, and it would be the very first match played at Forest's new stadium.
The match was supposed to be just a 'show'. The England national team would certainly not practice for several days for such a match, and many of the players on the national team were also players who had been brought together at the last minute. The national team could not even get most of the players who played at the World Cup previously to turn up for the friendly.
Such a match bore no value to Forest in their preparations for the new season.
Yet, the match garnered massive attention when Nottingham Forest changed its manager, and when their ex-manager Tony Twain became the new manager of the England national team.
Numerous media outlets would be coming down to Clifton, southwest of Nottingham, to report on the match.
Evan Doughty must have been brimming with excitement now because Nottingham Forest's new stadium had just been given free publicity thanks to Tony Twain, and it looked like the publicity would be much more effective and influential as compared to the promotional events that he had planned earlier.
Martin O'Neill, the new manager of Nottingham Forest, had his own thoughts regarding the friendly match against the England national team. His team had not performed well in the two friendly matches that they had played in so far, resulting in one loss and one draw. They had yet to win, and the media was already starting to question O'Neill's abilities as a manager. He desperately longed to attain a victory and reduce the pressure that was on his shoulders.
The England national team would not be playing their best players. This was the chance to boost his team's confidence.
There was one other reason that prompted O'Neill to feel like he had to win the friendly match against the England national team.
The current manager of the England national team was Tony Twain, and this match would be the very first, and possibly the last, face-off between Forest's current and ex-managers.
O'Neill needed to attain a victory to make people forget about the name Tony Twain.
It had been close to a month since O'Neill took over as the new manager of Forest, and he had come to understand how big of an influence Tony Twain had over the entire team. Defeating Twain would be a good way to show the media and the players that he was their new boss.
"It's just some useless match, but the head is being so serious with his preparations…" Some of the players were distracted as O'Neill conveyed his tactics to the team.
"It's always good to treat everything seriously."
"But you get nervous when you get serious."
The players began whispering among themselves.
"If our boss was here, I think most of the players playing in the match would be from the youth team. He'd tell them to play however they liked because it didn't matter anyway."
Someone instantly raised his finger to his lips to signal the speaker to shut up.
The word 'boss' was one that nobody wanted to bring up. They referred to Martin O'Neill as their 'head' and not their 'boss'. In Nottingham Forest, only special managers can be referred to as the 'boss', and Tony Twain was a special manager.
Tony Twain was a forbidden name that could not be brought up in Nottingham Forest now. Nobody forced the players to not bring up his name, but it was an unspoken rule that all the players abided by.
O'Neill heard whispers coming from the players. He lifted his head to look at them.
The whispers vanished instantly.
O'Neill did not try to figure out where the whispers were coming from. Instead, he continued explaining his tactics to the team.
The players kept quiet for a moment before they leaned towards each other and began whispering among themselves once again.
"Hey, how do you think the fans will treat the boss when he returns? I've been hearing that a lot of people resent him…"
"Don't you resent him?"
"Me? Hmm… At the start, I did resent him a little, but I've thought it through now. Players can transfer to another club, so why can't the manager?"
"That does not sound convincing."
"Shut up."
"To me… Honestly, I don't know what the boss was thinking. I think I'll feel a mixture of emotions when I see him. I still can't get used to the head yet. I don't feel at ease when there's no one in the locker room to yell at us."
"I don't care what you guys think. I miss the boss quite a bit, so I'm very happy to be able to see him again. Maybe I'll hug him too." The player who said these words was Pepe.
"Do you all think the boss has a chance of coming back to manage us?" Bale asked a question, and all the whispers disappeared in an instant.
Some of the players pretended not to hear him, while others looked at Bale curiously.
Bale shrugged, "All right. Pretend I never asked."
Wood was the only player who did not join in the discussion when his teammates were whispering among themselves. He stared at O'Neill the whole time. It was as though he was focused on listening to the tactics that O'Neill was explaining to them.
But in truth, Wood's mind was in complete disarray. He tried his best not to listen to the words being exchanged by his teammates, but they still managed to find their way into his ears, and his memories of that man were brought up forcefully.
That man sent him home and encouraged him to attend school. That man was even more childish than he was. When that man met his mother for the very first time, he suddenly felt like there would come a day where he would lose his mother, and that ignited a sense of danger within him. When he had lost all hope in himself, the man opened a new door for him by leaving him a note and asking him to find him. When he encountered the very first failure of his life and was intent on giving up, that man grabbed him by the collar and told him not to give up and not to admit defeat, otherwise, he was destined to be a delinquent for the rest of his life…
If someone were to write an autobiography for George Wood, two-thirds of the book would mention that man's name. That man was just his manager, but in his heart, that man was just like a father to him. Wood has never experienced fatherly love in his entire life, but he managed to experience bits of it through his time with Tony Twain.
Wood did not know why that man chose to leave the club, because he was someone who did not allow others to get close to his innermost thoughts.
Wood wanted to stay at the club. He wanted to prove to that man that his decision to leave was wrong. Or, perhaps, he was protecting something at the club.
Wood's thoughts were all over the place. He had not even heard what the manager was saying earlier, but it did not matter since his role would always be the same. All he had to do was to stop the opposition from attacking and to build a barrier in the midfield to protect his teammates. When the situation called for it, he would join in on offense as well.
The role that O'Neill assigned to Wood was not any different from how Twain would play Wood. This couldn't be seen as a lack of thought from O'Neill. Rather, it was that Twain had shown the world how best to make use of Wood's abilities, and there was no need to change anything about Wood's game.
If a manager wanted to change Wood's game, they could get Wood to focus solely on offense and get him to give up on defense entirely. However, the truth was that there was not a single manager in the world who would ever do that because it was a massive waste to not make use of Wood's defensive capabilities, and wasting talent is utterly shameful.
O'Neill felt a little relieved after seeing Wood listen to his words earnestly. At the very least, the team's captain was behaving positively. As long as the captain stood with him, the locker room would not be in complete disarray.
In truth, George Wood was the player whom O'Neill was most concerned about when he first joined as Forest's new manager. Everyone knew the relationship between Wood and Twain. There were even some media outlets who described their relationship as that of a father and son. O'Neill was worried that Wood would transfer to another club after Twain's departure. If that were to happen, the future for the team would be bleak.
Fortunately, Wood did not leave the club. He even signed a new contract with them.
O'Neill did not care about whether the other players wanted to stay or leave as long as Wood stayed.
O'Neill decided to talk about something else after he finished explaining his tactics to the team.
"I hope we can attain victory in this match."
Silence ensued when he finished his words. The players finally locked their eyes on him.
Their gazes conveyed a multitude of meanings, and O'Neill returned their gazes. "I know this is an insignificant exhibition game. But I hope you guys can understand one thing. It doesn't matter what kind of game you play in. You have to prepare for it with the intention to win. You guys are a champion team. You guys are a team that pursues victory. That's all you need to remember."
The players averted their gaze from O'Neill.
In their minds, there was one thought:
"Why does he speak like the boss…"