Godfather Of Champions

Best Manager: Tony Twain!

A young man in the classroom was engrossed reading a newspaper he was holding, when suddenly next to him a girl’s voice rang out, “Liu Wei.”

The startled guy’s first reaction was to shove the newspaper under the table. Then he saw Yang Yan covering her smiling mouth. “Yang Yan, you gave me a scare, but the class is supposed to be progress…”

“So, you do know that we are in class now?” Yang Yan pointed to the newspaper in his hand. “Didn’t you say you’re not a Nottingham Forest fan?”

“Er …” the young man spread the newspaper on the table again. “I’m a fan of all football. And since the Forest team manager’s so passionate about the Chinese culture, of course I must support. Oh yes, didn’t he invite you to be his Chinese tutor? Did you give him a call?”

Yang Yan had forgotten about the matter. After being reminded by Liu Wei, she then recalled that she’d put that piece of paper in her notepad and never flipped through it again.

“No, I forgot.” She shook her head.

“You,” Liu Wei rolled his eyes, “really have the heart to let a polite gentleman feel hurt?”

Yang Yan shrugged and rested her chin on her hand. “Why do you all think he is a polite gentleman?”

Liu Wei shoved the newspaper toward Yang Yan. “I have never thought that football managers should be gentlemen, especially excellent qualified managers, all the more should not be.”

After he finished speaking, he sat still and pretended to look like he was listening carefully.

Yang Yan found it odd, so she looked up and saw the lecturer of this class, her university professor, Stanley Schecher, walking toward her with an unpleasant expression.

She glared at Liu Wei, who pretended as if nothing had happened, Yang Yan could only awkwardly accept the fact that she had no other way to stuff the newspaper into somewhere else.

“Yang, I think you have to explain to me what this is… Well?” Schecher glanced down at the newspaper on the table and then took it to look at it carefully for a moment. Throughout the exchange, everyone in the classroom looked at them. Yang Yan lowered her head and dared not utter a word. She knew that Professor Schecher was widely known to be strict in the academy. To contradict him might worsen the consequences. Since he had already seen it, she should simply admit that she was reading the newspaper during class time.

She waited until Professor Schecher finally put down the newspaper. “Is this yours, Yang?”

Yang Yan glanced sideways at a serious-looking Liu Wei and nodded.

“Not bad. I didn’t know you were a fan of the Forest team. Come to my office on Wednesday morning.” After passing judgment on Yang Yan, Professor Schecher looked at Liu Wei again and spoke with a cold voice. “Liu, change your seat for the rest of the lesson.”

Liu Wei knew that his actions had long been seen by the professor. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, then got up and went to the vacant seat at the back of the room.

“Oh yes, by the way,” Schecher called out to Liu Wei, “I’m a Forest fan.”

The classroom, hushed a moment ago, suddenly burst out in riotous laughter with a mix of excited cheers and applause. Even Yang Yan could not help laughing when she saw Liu Wei’s stunned expression.

Professor Schecher returned to his lecture. Liu Wei also conscientiously picked a seat in the last row to sit down and listen to the lecture again.

Yang Yan peeked at the newspaper on the table.

Below the eye-catching headline was the main content of the interview in point form:

An accident shaped the best manager ever.

Unforgettable five-match winning streak.

Tony Twain adores the Eastern civilization.

Tony Twain adores the Eastern civilization….

Yang Yan stared distractedly at the photograph of Twain in the newspaper.

With the team’s five-match winning streak, a surging morale, and February’s best manager, Tang En felt he was able to divide his attention to take care of another person.

Although tomorrow was the match, Tang En decided to pitch the First Team training to Walker and Bowyer and head over to the youth team to have a look. He hoped that George Wood had not gotten him into any trouble.

Twenty minutes later, Tang En stood on the empty training ground, tapping on his head.

Today was the FA Youth Cup match, the Forest youth team should be playing now at the City Ground. This head of his was of no use again, completely mixed up.

He took out his cell phone and called Landy to say that he would like to take his car to go to the City Ground.

The parking lot outside the City Ground was deserted. If it had been a day later, it would be difficult to find a parking space when one was late. When he got out of the car, the only other thing he could hear aside from the thin applause, was the sharp whistle.

It seemed that the match had been going on for a while, and he wondered how Wood was performing.

Tang En admitted he had some expectations of this kid…

When the First Team manager, Tony Twain, appeared on the sidelines, the first people who took notice of him were the players on the field. David Kerslake followed the players’ gaze and saw Twain walking toward him.

“Tony, what are you doing here?” Kerslake rose to greet him.

“I’ve come to see if the youth team has any outstanding players,” Tang En graciously said, taking the seat that the youth team assistant coach rose and gave to him and sat next to David. After the somewhat unfamiliar assistant coach walked away, Tang En lowered his head and asked Kerslake in a low voice, “David, did that kid cause you any trouble?”

Kerslake knew that Twain must have come at this time for that person. He smiled and shook his head. “He had a fight with his teammates just a few days after he joined.”

Hearing this, Tang En looked up and stared at Kerslake in astonishment. “Why didn’t you tell me? What was the fight about?”

Kerslake shrugged. “Just a spat, I felt there was no need to tell you. A member of the team mocked him by saying he was ‘raised by a whore’, then he suddenly rushed up, threw a punch, and knocked the other person to the ground. If the other people at the side hadn’t reacted so quickly, he probably would have thrown a few more punches. Four men, Tony… four guys used all their effort before they could pull him back. That kid is simply a raging bull.”

Tang En nodded. “Raised by a whore.” Swearing was quite common in the UK, as if it were “damn it.” In China, sometimes it might just be a “modal particle.” However, Sophia was the most important person to Wood. He would absolutely not allow anyone to impinge upon her. Whether it was a joke or something serious, Wood would not allow his mother to be insulted. This incident also gave Tang En a reminder that he must never swear at him using terms like “raised by a whore” or “son of a b*tch,” otherwise he would definitely kill him.

“How was it resolved?”

“The one who started this whole thing was tossed to Notts County at a super low price.”

“That’s not very good, David… How was the playing skill of the young man who was sold?”

“He was pretty bad. He had no future.”

“Oh, you did well! I support you with this punishment decision. What did you do with Wood?”

“I punished him with laps, to run 30 laps.” Kerslake’s lowered voice was a little excited. “He completed them easily! Fred, the fitness coach, was dumbfounded! This kid’s physical fitness is excellent!”

Tang En nodded, he’d already expected this result. “David, if you’re going to punish him next time, I suggest you’d better let him run 40 laps with weights. OK, let’s watch the match… How long has it been?”

“Coming up to 70 minutes.”

The two men turned their gaze toward the field. Because the First Team manager was watching from the sidelines, the Forest youth team players played with vigor, hoping to impress the manager and become a First Team player. Just like Jenas, Dawson, and Reid.

The scoreboard on the sidelines showed the match score so far: 1:0. The home team Nottingham Forest was ahead of the visiting team West Ham youth team.

Tang En easily found George Wood on the field. After a few months of training, his basic skills were decent, but… as a striker, his position awareness had barely changed from two months ago.

“David, do you think that Wood has the potential to be a striker?” He spoke aloud the doubt he had always had in his mind.

“I was going to talk to you about this, Tony.” Kerslake shifted in his seat and lowered his voice again. “Two months of training, most of the time I let him do the basic drill, because I realized that his shooting standard is terrible.”

“Oh?”

“During the shooting practice, even if it was empty at the goalmouth, he could not even score a goal out of ten balls. Let’s not even talk about driving and shooting a ball to get in a goal. He had absolutely no idea how to shoot a goal in, I had to teach him. But… damn, this kid’s temper is awful. He does not listen at all, still wants to do it his own way. If it weren’t for you, I’d have already kicked him out.”

There was a big gap between the before and after evaluations… He just said his physical fitness was excellent, and now he said he wanted to kick him out.

“If it weren’t for our main striker, Jeffrey, injured from being shoveled by the opponents, I wouldn’t have brought him on. Tony, if you’d watched his first few matches, you’d agree with me. God, letting him play forward will only make a mess of our offense,” Kerslake jabbered on with his grumble.

Tang En sucked his teeth after hearing it all.

“When was he brought on?”

“About 10 minutes ago.”

“Do you have his player statistics?”

Kerslake called back the assistant coach, who had just walked away, asked the question, and then shook his head. “Nearly twelve minutes, no shots, no successful passes, no headers, no fouls, no offenses received, nothing whatsoever…”

Tang En glanced toward the field, frowned as he looked at George Wood, who was working really hard, but failing to grasp the game. David Kerslake’s words were repeated in his ears.

Kid, is this your future?

Perhaps I never had the keen eye of a professional manager… George is not suitable for professional football at all. This matter is really very cruel to him, I gave him a very big and beautiful dream, and now I have to tell him to wake up from the dream? Pretending to care and tell him, “George, I think it’s better for your future if you go back to being a mover…” After seeing what had happened to George’s family, Tang En felt like he could not say these words.

He was not a compassionate man who tried to please everyone. However, at the sight of that strong and optimistic mother, Tang En felt that no matter what, he wanted George Wood to succeed, so that he could afford to pay for his own mother’s treatment. A son who was a mover, earning two hundred pounds a week, and did not even have enough money for the treatment and medicine… That should never be the future of that beautiful mother.

But what could he do? A star player was not someone a manager could groom into being. It was up to the player. Talent and hard work were essential. Wood worked hard, but he had no talent.

Kerslake realized that Twain suddenly stopped talking. He was just frowning and staring at the field. He did not know what this man was thinking, so he did not disturb him and just watched the match in silence.