The system upgrade was a source of deep, personal, and profound excitement. It had given me a new vision, a new sense of purpose, a new long-term project to get my teeth into. But in the short-term, in the harsh, unforgiving, and deeply pragmatic world of a lower-league promotion race, it was an irrelevance. And we were in trouble.

The victory against Salford City Amateurs, the glorious, heroic, and emotionally draining pinnacle of our season, had come at a cost. A huge and deeply damaging cost. We had invested so much, physically, mentally, and emotionally, into that one, single, ninety-minute battle, that we had nothing left in the tank. We were a team running on empty.

The aftermath was a brutal and humbling lesson in the cruel and deeply cyclical nature of football. After the high comes the low. After the victory comes the hangover. After the miracle comes the mundane. And we were about to be plunged into a deep, dark, and deeply demoralizing slump.

It started with a 1-1 draw against a team in the bottom three, a team we should have beaten comfortably.

We were flat, we were lethargic, we were a pale imitation of the vibrant, energetic, and brilliantly organized team that had beaten the league leaders just a week before.

We scored an early goal, a scrappy, deflected effort from a set-piece, and then we just… stopped. We sat back, we invited pressure, and we were punished by a late, and thoroughly deserved, equalizer.

I was frustrated, but not overly concerned. It was a blip, a bad day at the office, a natural, and understandable, emotional comedown after the high of the Salford game. We would be better next week. We would be back to our old selves.

But we weren't. The next week, we drew 0-0, another drab, uninspired, and deeply forgettable performance against another one of the league's struggling teams. We created nothing.

We looked like a team of strangers, a collection of individuals who had never met before. The passing was sloppy, the movement was non-existent, and the team spirit, the collective will, the very thing that had defined us, was gone.

And then, the week after that, the unthinkable happened. We lost. We lost 1-0, at home, to a team that was second from bottom, a team that had not won a game in three months. It was a shambles. A disaster. A humiliation. It was the worst performance of my managerial career. And it was a sign that we were in a full-blown crisis.

The dressing room after the game was a toxic, unhappy, and deeply unpleasant place. The camaraderie, the unity, the sense of a shared, collective purpose, was gone.

In its place was a new, and deeply corrosive, culture of blame, of recrimination, of a bitter, and deeply personal, finger-pointing.

The players were arguing with each other, they were shouting at each other, they were on the verge of a full-blown, physical, altercation. The team that I had built, the team that I loved, was falling apart at the seams.

Big Dave, who hadn't said a word in three weeks, finally broke his silence. "Lads," he said in his deep, gravelly voice. Everyone stopped arguing and looked at him. "We're shit."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Kev, despite everything, let out a bark of laughter. "Cheers, Dave. Really helpful."

"Just thought someone should say it," Dave replied with a shrug.

It wasn't much. But it broke the tension, just for a second. Just enough for everyone to remember they were still human.

Frankie Morrison, my wise, grizzled, and deeply experienced assistant, took me to one side. He had seen it all before. He had seen a hundred teams, a hundred managers, a hundred seasons, rise and fall. He knew the signs. He knew the patterns. He knew the game.

"This is the hard part, Gaffer," he said, his voice a low, gravelly, and deeply sympathetic whisper.

"This is the bit they don't tell you about in the coaching manuals. Winning is easy. It's managing success that's the hard part. The players, they read the papers, they listen to the hype, they start to believe their own publicity. They think they've cracked it. They think they can just turn up and win. And they forget. They forget what got them there in the first place. The hard work, the discipline, the hunger. And that's when it all starts to go wrong."

He was right. I had been so focused on the opposition, on the tactics, on the long-term, strategic vision of my new club philosophy, that I had neglected the most important thing: the players.

I had failed to manage their success. I had failed to keep them grounded, to keep them hungry, to keep them focused. I had let them become complacent. And now, I was paying the price.

My own, inexperience was showing. I didn't know how to handle a complacent squad. I didn't know how to get them going again.

I tried everything. I tried the hairdryer treatment, screaming at them in the dressing room, questioning their desire, their commitment, their professionalism. It didn't work.

They just looked at me with a mixture of resentment and a kind of weary, seen-it-all-before cynicism. Baz actually yawned. YAWNED. In the middle of my passionate speech about desire and commitment. I was so shocked I forgot what I was saying and just stood there, mouth open, pointing at him like an idiot.

"Sorry, Gaffer," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "Been working double shifts at the warehouse. Knackered."

What could I say to that? These were working men, not full-time professionals. I was asking them to care more about football than their actual jobs. The absurdity of it all hit me like a brick.

I tried the arm-around-the-shoulder approach, talking to them individually, trying to understand their problems, trying to rebuild their shattered confidence. It didn't work.

***

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