Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Elliot Batchelor has, at B.93, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at B.93 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. B.93 will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alpha Barry trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what B.93 can pretend not to have heard.
Tomáš Nemčík was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and William Thomsen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jaka Bijol trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Mehdi Hosseini is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Jaka Bijol was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Berkant Bayrak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at B.93. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at B.93, another week without a signature from Tomáš Nemčík.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at B.93, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Robert Carter
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what B.93 can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 1 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Mehdi Hosseini and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at B.93, and it is not being withdrawn.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
1 for Alpha Barry, marked 7.25, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at B.93 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and William Thomsen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Erik Christensen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaka Bijol was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Mehdi Hosseini was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. B.93 will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The dugout3 Dec 2035
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at B.93 heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at B.93 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Berkant Bayrak is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Alpha Barry has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what B.93 can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at B.93 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alpha Barry was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
1‑2 to Esbjerg, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
Filip Moon was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Half the programme played, position 7, 14 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation B.93 are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around B.93 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at B.93 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thulani Grobler is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
In brief
The dugoutWillum Storm knocks on the manager's door
B.93 asked and FC Nordsjaelland said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Aram Khamoyan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sebastian Laustsen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
B.93 have made the call to FC Nordsjaelland. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ben Drake is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.