THE WHOLE PYRAMID Three divisions now, and you start at the bottom of them. Sixty clubs, every one playing its own season whether you are watching or not. Top three go up, bottom three go down, except at the very bottom, where there is nowhere left to fall. Two cups, drawn properly. The Association Jug replays to the death; the Curry Cup is where the county gets its afternoon. Byes, replays, a final at a neutral ground, and cards of their own for semi-final and final week. The board reads the table. A good season buys you the summer; a bad one does not. It is minuted. Grimshaw Town are a real club now, with a place in the pyramid and a record against you. Derby week is derby week. The card knows where it is and how it went. Home or away, won or lost, it reads the week it was dealt in, and a points deduction comes off the table. Nineteen new dilemmas, twenty-seven new endings, and every story now ends in a sticker. Still no match engine. Still no transfers. Still printed in a lock-up.

THE SATURDAY PAPER Your club now prints its own pink 'un. Make your call, and it lands folded once, the way a paper is actually sold. Unfold it for the match report and the half-time score. The banner is always on your side. The plate beside it never is. A THRILLER, OF A SORT, it says. LOST 0-4, says the plate. Both true, one inch apart, and that inch is the whole paper. Behind it, a league that finally plays itself. Twenty clubs, thirty-eight Saturdays, and somebody in the other dugout on every one of them. Twelve new dilemmas, every one a parody of something that actually happened. A club mascot on the ballot paper. A crossbar that somebody measured before kick-off and then said nothing about until full time. Four new storylines, two of them ones the club remembers you for. Stay long enough in one job and old decisions come back with the bill attached. Sixteen endings that could be reached but never collected now stick down. Still no match engine. Still no transfers. Still printed in a lock-up.