Chapter 812: Released
"How long have you been on our books?"
Ellis Cartwright looked at the empty net.
"I am not, gaffer."
I had a ball in my hands and I stopped turning it.
"Say that again."
"I am not on the books." He said it the way you say a thing you have said in your head 400 times. "I was released on the 6th of June."
Somewhere behind me on pitch 2 a groundsman started a mower.
Brrrrrrmmm.
"Ellis."
"It is fine."
"It is not fine, it is the 20th of July." I put the ball down. "Who released you?"
"Mr Cooke did the meeting."
"And what did Mr Cooke say?"
"That I am a lovely lad and there is not a place." He was looking at the goal and not at me. "10 minutes. It was 10 minutes, and there was a lad waiting outside for his one after mine."
"And you have been coming in since."
"Yes."
"Every morning."
"7 o’clock." He shrugged, and it was the worst shrug I have ever seen on a teenager. "Nobody has told me to stop."
I want to be clear about what that means, because it is not romantic and it is not a story about a boy who loves football.
A released academy player has no insurance. No registration. If he does his cruciate on pitch 4 at 7 in the morning, this football club owes him nothing, and neither does anybody else, and he is 18 and he cannot play again and there is no money anywhere.
He has been walking through a gate that Ron opens for him because Ron has been opening it for 4 years and nobody has sent Ron an email.
"Where is your kit from?"
"I kept it. From last season." He went red. "I wash it myself. I am not taking anything, gaffer, I have not taken anything, I bring my own drink."
"Ellis."
"I am not taking anything."
"Sit down on that ball."
He sat down on the ball.
"Have you got a club?"
"There were 2 trials in June." He picked at the grass. "Gillingham said no. There is a Conference South side who said ring back in August, and I have got a job at my uncle’s from the 1st of September if there is nothing."
"Doing what?"
"Windows."
Brrrrrrmmm. The mower went past the fence and neither of us said anything until it had gone.
"You have been getting up at 6 in the morning for 6 weeks to train on a pitch nobody uses, for a club that has released you, in kit you wash in your mum’s machine."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Ellis Cartwright looked at me like I was slow.
"Because if somebody rings in August I am not going to be unfit," he said. "That is all. That is the whole of it. I am not being brave, gaffer, I just do not want to be fat when the phone goes."
I have been in this game 3 years and I have had 40 conversations that were supposed to be inspiring and about 3 that actually were, and that is 1 of them, and he did not know he was having it.
"Go and get changed," I said. "Do not go home. Sit in the canteen and eat something and do not move until somebody comes and gets you."
"I have not got a card for the canteen."
"Tell them I sent you."
"They will not believe me."
"Ellis." I picked the ball up. "Go and sit in the canteen."
Sarah had the academy file on the desk before I had finished the sentence.
"Cartwright. Ellis. I pulled it Wednesday."
"You pulled it Wednesday."
"I texted you about him at half 6 this morning, Daniel, and I put the word eyes in it." She had 2 sheets out. "Joined us at 9. That is 9 years old. 9 years, from the under 10s to the under 18s.
"Released 6th of June. 4 of them went, he was the 3rd meeting."
"Why?"
"Numbers. There is a note on it." She turned the sheet round. "Excellent professional. Physically 12 months behind. No place in the 23s at this time."
"12 months behind."
"He was 5 foot 4 at 16, Danny. He is 5 foot 11 now. He grew 7 inches in 2 years and he has been catching up with his own legs ever since, and somebody looked at him in May while he was still doing it."
I stood there and did the sum I had been doing on a whiteboard 3 hours earlier.
9 years old to 18 years old. Registered with this football club. That is 9 years of a 3 year requirement between 15 and 21.
Club-trained. Not association-trained. Club-trained. Not association-trained. That is the category we have got 4 men in and need 4 minimum, and it cannot be bought or borrowed or covered by anybody else’s academy product.
"Sarah."
"I know."
"You knew on Wednesday."
"I knew on Wednesday that a lad who has been here since he was 9 was letting himself into this building at 7 in the morning after we told him to go away." Sarah squared the sheets. "I do not know one thing about lists.
"I know he asks the ladies in that canteen how their weekend was, and has done since he was 13, and not one of them has a clue he was released."
Michael Cooke runs our under 23s. He has been here 11 years. He is a decent coach and he is a decent man and he made the right call in May and I told him so.
"You did nothing wrong."
"Danny, if I had known he was still coming in I would have said something."
"I know."
"He has not asked me for anything. Not one text." Cooke had his hat in his hand and he was turning it. "The physical thing is real. He was 12 months off in April, I am not making that up."
"And now?"
Cooke stopped turning the hat.
"He is not 12 months off now," he said.
"Say it properly."
"He has grown into it and he has done 6 weeks of work nobody has watched, and if he walked in here today as a trialist I would want a look at him." He put the hat back on. "That is the honest answer and it makes me feel sick."
"It should not."
"It does."
Dougie rang at 4.
"It is out."
"What is out?"
"Us. Hakimi." I could hear him walking. "Somebody has briefed it in Spain inside 3 hours of me sending that letter. Palace withdraw. Palace never had the money. That is the line. That is the exact line, Danny, and 2 of them have run it."
"Salas."
"Course it is Salas. He has got an auction with a hole in it and he needs a reason that is not him." A door went. "I rang the father like you asked."
"And?"
"He listened for 9 minutes and did not say a word and then he thanked me and put the phone down." Dougie made a noise. "I do not know what that was, son. It was not a bad one."
"Right."
"There is a second thing and you will like it less."
"Go on."
"Theo is gone. Bayer have him. Medical was this morning."
I looked at the whiteboard.
2 holes. 20 days. Both right backs gone in an afternoon.
"So we are where we were at the 6th of June, except worse."
"We are where we were," Dougie said, "except now everybody in Europe has read that Crystal Palace cannot afford a right back. That will be handy in a fortnight when we are trying to buy one."
Rebecca came in at 5 past 5 and did not sit down. That told me before she opened her mouth.
"Mateo."
"Go on."
"Scan is booked for 8 tomorrow morning. I do not need it."
"Rebecca."
"Medial ligament. Grade 2, and I would put money on it." She put the tablet on my desk and did not turn it round. "6 to 8 weeks."
I sat back.
"He does not go over," I said. "There was nobody near him."
"There is never anybody near him. It is the knee he had done in 2016 and it has been managing itself since March, and he has played 51 games and a World Cup qualifier campaign on it and it has run out of road."
"6 to 8."
"6 if he is lucky and he does everything I tell him. 8 if he is a footballer."
I did the calendar in my head. You learn to do that in this job and then you wish you had not.
The 5th of August. The 11th. The 15th in Tallinn. The 30th for the draw. First group game in the middle of September.
"He misses the Shield, the first 4 league games and the Super Cup."
"Yes."
"And the baby is December."
"The baby is the 2nd week of December," Rebecca said. "He will be back in October.
"And he will want to play in the first Champions League match this club has ever had, 4 weeks after he is fit, and you are going to have to be the one who says no."
"Am I."
"You always are." She picked the tablet up. "Iza rang me twice while he was on the table. Not him. Her."