novelraw Chapter 266: A New Age
Chapter 266: A New Age
"It was a formality," the main commentator came through again, "but now it’s a finality. Wigan have booked the third ticket to the Premier League."
Despite their outpour earlier, the Wigan fans still celebrated, though this one was a bit more reserved.
On the pitch, players dropped to their knees while others stood with their hands in the air.
They had finally done in
Across the country, in the north of London near Manchester, it was a different scene.
Wigan fans took to the streets, lighting fireworks.
Pubs that had seen the best and worst of it, sang a song that they had been waiting to sing for a decade now and it was one of the most beautifuls feelings ever described.
"BACK TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE!"
"WHO IS IT? WHO IS IT?"
"THAT IS US. THAT IS US!"
"WIGAN ARE BACK IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE!"
...
In a living room that if Leo had seen would describe it as his home, looked like it had been through nothing less than an earthquake.
Cushions on the floor as well as blankets that were mangled together like it was trying to hide something in it’s bundle.
The sofa in the room, bore the full weight of Mia who still felt nervous despite the match having concluded a few minutes ago.
The same went on with Sofia, who was seated on the arm of the chair beside it with her hand pressed to her chest.
Mia stepped down from the sofa and grabbed her phone immediately, navigating to her Instagram profile with the focus of someone who had already decided what they were going to do before they’d consciously made the decision.
Her bio read what it had read for months.
Sister of Leo Calderon
She stared at it for a moment before tapping the ’edit’ button beside it.
The moment that command went through, she deleted it and began typing.
Once she was done, she reviewed, despite writing the same thing before, only this time with a few words.
After a while, she posted it.
Sister of Premier League star, Leo Calderon!
She locked her phone and looked at Sofia, who was still sitting on the arm of the chair but had now grabbed the mug that held her drink.
"He did it," Mia said, looking at the screen where Leo’s goal was being replayed before looking away, the moment she felt Sofia’s gaze on her.
Her aunt smiled, then nodded at her words.
"Yes, he really did it," she said.
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[Wembley]
The executive box sat quietly still.
It had been the same for the better part of 10 minutes since the game ended, and it wasn’t the comfortable kind.
It sat between two men who had very different feelings about the same event and had decided, mutually and without discussion, that speaking about it would only make things worse.
On the pitch below, the celebrations were still going.
Players, staff and fans who had made it onto the grass.
All of it continued because they hadn’t been through years of battling through the Championship and English league one to end it just as the game ended.
Another person who was feeling the same as the fans was local Wigan businessman and billionaire, Mike Danson.
He hadn’t tried to contain it or make it appropriate for the setting.
He just sat with it, watching the scenes below with the expression of a man who had taken a risk and was now watching it pay out in real time.
Beside him, the other man, Jafar, hadn’t moved much.
His face had done several things since the final whistle, with each of them being far from pleasant.
He had just cycled through the particular stages of a man processing the financial implications of something he could no longer control.
He had wanted out.
He had wanted out badly enough to accept terms that had looked good then but now understood had not favoured him, terms that for a rising club, a Premier League club, would have looked very different on paper.
He understood that now.
Jafar had been the owner of Wigan for a while now, and seeing his team dabble in the English League One a few seasons ago, he got the urge to sell.
Still, he didn’t want to sell it at a loss since the Wigan he had bought was one in the English Championship.
So the moment Wigan narrowly made it back to the English Championship a couple of seasons back, he decided to look for a buyer.
The club would soon run into administration, and he wanted nothing to do with the brunt of it.
He searched and searched but didn’t find a buyer, and it was not until the start of the season that he got wind of interest in the club.
To make it more attractive, he reduced the asking price a lot.
And it had all worked out in the 8th month of the year when Mike Danson approached with the intention to buy.
As the proceedings went on at the time, he had seen Wigan going on the rise, but he felt it was just like any good form.
To keep himself from backing out, he’d even added a clause that would see the deal go through regardless of anything other than something illegal.
But now watching the scenes, he felt gutted to say the least.
Beside him, Mike turned toward him and then extended his hand.
"Glad doing business with you," he said, and meant every word of it in ways that Jafar was fully aware of.
Jafar looked at the hand as his face scrunched up a bit, but at last, he took it with the grip lasting two seconds before his hand came away, and he sat with whatever he was sitting with for one more moment before pushing himself to his feet and then straightening his coat.
With that done, he walked out of the box without looking back, and the moment the door closed behind him, Mike Danson turned back to face the glass with a grin he couldn’t keep himself from making on his face.
It was a new age for Wigan!
The Premier League Age!