July 1st, 2017
The M25 was a familiar kind of hell. A slow-moving river of red brake lights, even at six in the morning. I sat in the driver's seat of the Audi, a lukewarm coffee from a service station in my hand, and stared into the gloom.
The date was circled in my mind in bright, angry red. July 27th. Twenty-six days. That was the entire runway. That was all the time I had to turn a construction site into a functioning football team before our first competitive match.
The Europa League third qualifying round. A game that would be played in some corner of Europe, I probably couldn't pronounce, against a team that was already halfway through their domestic season. It was not a pre-season. It was a countdown.
I pulled into my parking space at Beckenham. The training ground was quiet, bathed in the cool, grey light of a London dawn. But as I walked through the automatic doors, I could feel it. A low-level hum of energy.
