Harbinger Of Glory-Chapter 216: No Small Feat.

Three days was and still is a long time in football.

It was long enough for a dressing room to either find itself or lose itself entirely, long enough for a manager to run out of ways to rearrange the same thirteen names on a whiteboard, and long enough for matchday to arrive.

Even if misfortune had befallen them, the world wasn’t going to wait for them to finish grieving.

Despite the growing consensus that Wigan might not even be able to win a game in the upcoming weeks, not to mention them keeping their 6th spot, the DW was still as lively as ever without a hint of change in the atmosphere as compared to previous ones.

The people making their way toward it that evening came in the usual clusters, their scarves up against the cold, hands dug into their jacket pockets, and conversations already halfway through themselves by the time the turnstiles came into view.

"...three promotions, two relegations, and just being in the same place we started at. Yet I am still here," one of them was saying, shaking his head in the way that couldn’t quite capture the disappointment he was feeling.

"Every time you think we’re finally going somewhere,"

"We were going somewhere," another suddenly interjected before the former could finish.

"We were. Dawson had us going somewhere. The team was in a roll, but then half the squad decided to fall apart at the same time."

"I think we might have sinned or done something bad without knowing because there’s levels to how shit your luck can be, and ours is turning the deepest shade of shit I’ve seen and trust me when I say, I’ve seen a lot."

"That’s gross and a very weird analogy, but at this point, I can’t even blame you," another voice in the conversation suddenly said as they made the last turn towards the last stream of people heading towards the entrance.

Then, from slightly behind the group, someone had their phone out, scrolling and squinting at the screen under the glow of the floodlight near the car park.

"Hang on," he said as the others half-turned towards him.

"Has anyone seen the team sheet?"

Nobody answered immediately, but they all began taking out their phones to inspect.

"Leo’s on the bench."

A second passed as they inspected the sheet and truly saw Leo’s name amongst the substitutes, but then one of them made a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a laugh.

"Well, it’s not the first time they’ve done this since his injury. I actually think they might be spoiling him too much, but they bench him to keep him involved, more like rather than him being fit to play since he still has like a couple months give or take before we can see him on the pitch."

"Dawson knows how fragile these young lads can get. You keep them away from the squad entirely, and they start disappearing into their own heads. He’s putting him on the list so the kid feels part of it."

"Maybe."

"It’s not maybe, it’s just—" the man waved his hand loosely.

"That’s what you do with youngsters. You manage their confidence. Keep them close."

"I don’t know," the one with the phone said, still looking at it.

"Well, whatever it is or whatever plans they have, we’ll know eventually, won’t we?"

Nobody had anything else to say after that.

The conversation drifted into something else as they fed through the gates, and the stadium swallowed them up the way stadiums do, gradually, completely, until the individual voices became part of a larger one.

After entering the stadium, it was like there was no concept of time because from the moment they entered till the warm-ups came and went, it felt like just a few minutes even though it was close to an hour.

The tunnel filled and emptied, and after that went by, the two sets of players stood on the pitch in front of the crowd, going through the handshakes and the formalities and the brief, functional small talk that professional footballers exchange before they spend ninety minutes trying to take something from each other.

The DW was not full.

But it was loud enough in the right places, and the people who were there had come with something to say.

Up in the gantry, the broadcasters had settled into their rhythm, and with a few minutes still to go, they turned their attention to the shape of the evening.

"Wigan Athletic sit sixth in the table tonight," the lead commentator said, "and if that sounds comfortable, I’d encourage you to look a little closer, because sixth is doing a lot of work to disguise what is a very precarious situation.

"They are level on points with the seventh-placed side, and it is goal difference, and goal difference alone, keeping them above the line. The gap between where they are and where they need to be is not a chasm. It’s a step. But steps, in the final stretch of a league season, have a way of becoming chasms very quickly."

His co-commentator let that sit for a moment before adding, "And the injury situation hasn’t helped. Dawson is working with a threadbare squad — thirteen senior players available, six of whom were his first-choice eleven when he joined after the start of the campaign. Whatever you think of the recent results, keeping this club in contention at all, with what he’s had available, has been no small thing."

"Bristol City, by contrast, sit thirteenth, mid-table, comfortable enough, with nothing particularly riding on this for them beyond pride and professionalism. The danger in that, for Wigan, is that a team with nothing to lose can sometimes be the most difficult kind to face."

The moment the commentators finished, the cameras cut to the pitch where Bristol City had won the toss and now their striker, tall and unhurried-looking, with the quiet confidence of someone who had done this a thousand times, stood over the ball in the centre circle, waiting.

And he didn’t have to wait long because the referee brought the whistle to his lips and sounded it a moment later.

The striker looked up once, just once, at the space ahead of him and then kicked the ball back to start the game.