New Beginnings
Finally it had arrived. All wrapped up. Leading me to a different life from now on.
My bacon sarnie.
The man handed it to me over the counter. I was in the car park of the football club. It was match day. Or it was. The Under 18's had just beaten the first team by 4 goals to 1. Most of the fans, all 30 of them, crowded round the clubhouse door, listening in on the shouting coming from the chairmans office upstairs. Then there was a gasp from everyone.
'You're fired', the chairman bellowed.
I kept out of the way for a few minutes, as the chairman came downstairs with a new plan: Choose one of the few fans loyal enough to manage the club. And then the moment I had been dreading.
Anton McCall, the club's chairman, spotted me. 'Is that,' he asked,'Carlton Palmer?' I immediately sunk away, but it was too late. 'Come upstairs.' I had no choice but to go with him.
He demanded that I take over and we went straight into talks about the club. I realised just how deep in financial trouble the club was. Then we went downstairs, a short 25 minutes after the end of the game, and the fans congratulated me over the appointment.
But you may be wandering why I was even there? I had been scouting youth for my academy at Bristol that day, and I had been driving past and felt peckish. That bacon sarnie really had changed my life.
I would be venturing into management again. With Frome Town FC: Oh God!