Football Crazy by Terry Ravenscroft, Ravenscroft

and powerful man. Donny knew as well as anyone that you didn't ride around in a Roller if you were on the breadline. He also knew that rich and powerful businessmen of Price's ilk bought football clubs as toys for themselves, much as they would buy a teddy bear or a doll for their children, and whilst they didn't bring much in the way of football knowledge to a club when they acquired it what they did bring was even more important; money. As far as Donny was concerned what the arrival of this rare commodity at Frogley Town meant would be new players; a full-time physiotherapist instead of the ten hours a week but I'll have to fit you in when I can physio that was all the club had been able to afford in the past; a proper office where he could hold proper press conferences instead of a portakabin which, judging by the smell of it in warm weather, had been used as a urinal in its previous incarnation; better training facilities, more ground staff, and lots of other things too; but more than anything what it meant to Donny was that he would be able to have a number two.
    Nobody in football was more aware than Big Donny Donnelly that all managers have a number two, and the fact that he hadn't got one really hurt him. Really hurt him. All managers had a number two, that was the way things worked, it went with the territory. He couldn't think of one other manager in the whole of the Football League who didn't have a number two. Some of them even had a number three! Through his dealings in the transfer market he knew that most of the managers in the Nationwide Conference had a number two too. Even the manager of the Unibond League side that had recently stuffed them had a number two. Probably Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a number two too. If they could all have a number two, why shouldn't he have a number two?
    When Donny had first joined the club some eighteen months previously he had made getting himself a number two his first priority. On the very day he took over the managerial seat at Frogley he had gone to the board of directors and asked them if he could have one, making it very clear by the tone of his voice that a reply in the negative wasn't an option. The board had agreed to his request unanimously and without argument. Donny had been over the moon. However he had very soon been back under the moon, because having agreed to Donny's request for a number two Grant Fielding went on to say that it was of no concern to the board what style of haircut their manager chose to adopt and that if he wanted a number two he could have a number two; and James Liversedge had added that as far as having number twos was concerned shitting was free and Donny could have as many shits as he’d a mind to.
    So eighteen months later Donny was still number twoless. But now he was going to have one!

    To the Frogley Town players it didn't mean very much at all. Their job was out there on the park, doing their best for Frogley Town. Trevor Hanks, the ‘you fat bastard you ate all the pies’ of the team - leastwise according to the supporters of whichever team were providing the opposition for the Town that day - expressed the hope that Price might offer the players a discount on his range of pies; Darrel Lock suggested that with Price at the helm they probably wouldn't have to threaten the board with violence in order to get their pay packets, as they'd had to do on more than one occasion last season; and Des Barrel expressed a hope that they would now be able to fill the communal bath with more than the six inches of water they'd been restricted to in the past, on the grounds of economy. But apart from that it didn't much matter to the players who was the owner of the club, be it Joe Price, Katy Price or Our Price.

    To George Fearnley it also meant very little. Not because any changes at the club would not affect him, as club secretary they were bound to, but because he was due to retire at the end of the coming season and whatever changes were