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"And for those of you just joining us after the end of the Chelsea match, welcome back to the Dogtrack where Richmond's holding Arsenal at a 3-3 tie with about a minute of injury time remaining."
"High scoring game, Chris."
"Thanks in no small part to the efforts of Jamie Tartt with two of the three, the equalizer coming from Dani Rojas."
"They've been trailing all game but in the final minutes here Richmond's taken an aggressive approach and pulled a defender; Richard coming in for Babatunde now."
"Look at Arsenal trying to sneak by them after the switch, McAdoo's having none of that. Passes back to Hughes, who passes to Tartt. But here's Saunders coming alongside and --."
"OH! What a foul on Jamie Tartt. The goal is -- there's the whistle -- the goal is GOOD and with ten seconds left I think it's safe to say that will do it for Richmond. What a nail biter from Jamie Tartt who put everything he had into that kick and is still --."
"-- still on the ground, Arlo. Looks to be moving but he's holding his knee, hasn't gotten up yet."
-
What Ted remembers later is Beard saying, "he's not putting any weight on it."
Jamie's up and waving to the crowd as best he can with one arm wrapped around each of Isaac and Jan's shoulders, both the physio and the team doctor trailing behind them as they make their way to the side of the field in a slow moving procession, but Beard is right. Jamie's foot hangs just low enough that it might fool the crowd in a pinch, but every other step, Isaac and Jan are quietly lifting him.
Jamie's not putting any weight on his right leg, even supported. That's the first sign something is wrong.
Ted claps alongside the crowd as Jamie reaches the edge of the pitch, squeezing his arm in support as the procession passes by and carries on into the locker room, where they are significantly more kitted out in the way of first aid.
"Coach," Beard murmurs quietly, barely audible over the sound of the crowd. Ted turns back and Beard jerks his head over at Roy, who hasn't moved since the end of the game. He looks -- well, composed, it being Roy Kent they're talking about here -- but there's a deep furrow to his eyebrows that might be considered 'worried' on a more expressive man. That's the second sign.
"Divide and conquer?" Ted asks Beard.
"You know it."
They fist bump and part ways.
Ted takes the roundabout path, detouring to high five Colin and join the celebratory huddle surrounding Thierry.
"Would've been a lost cause without you in goal," Ted says, and means it. There's a tendency in professional sports to attribute wins to the goal scorers and losses to the goaltenders, but Zoreaux's legendary save just before halftime prevented Arsenal from pulling ahead by two and kept them in the race at all.
"Told you, mate," Bumbercatch says, and Ted enjoys Zoreaux's proud smile in response.
He catches Keeley's eye in the stands and points at Roy, feels the weight of her trust settle on his shoulders when she gives a thumbs up in return.
Finally he reaches the target of this little journey, pulling up to a stop beside Roy as they both turn their gaze to the field.
"Doc's got him now," Ted says.
"That's a fucking ligament tear at
best
and you know it," Roy says.
"Could be."
Roy turns to him. "You were supposed to say that I'm wrong."
"Don't think that you are, though. Hell of a fall."
"That's months of physio, surgery if it's a full tear."
"Yep."
"So, what are you going to say to him then?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, the speech. The one where you tell him we're all behind him and everything's going to be okay and all that bullshit."
"Oh, that. Huh. Hmm. That's a head scratcher. To be honest, I wasn't planning on saying anything."
"The fuck?" Roy says, arms coming uncrossed and one hand flying out wide as he points at the ground for emphasis. Ted doesn't think Roy would actually haul off and punch him but there's a note of anger to his voice that reminds him of what's at stake here.
"It's not me he needs to hear from right now," Ted says, meeting his eyes. Roy's the first to look away. There's no mistaking Ted's meaning and no playing dumb about it. Roy grunts, head tipping back despite the rain as he takes a deep breath in. Under his breath, Ted hears him counting to ten.
-
The inner sanctum is in a state when Ted arrives. Isaac salutes him with a beer as he passes, one foot in the treatment room and another in the hall so he can see into the locker room, where Bumbercatch is dancing on the bench and Richard is passing out drinks.
Ted pauses in his office long enough to strip off his wet rain gear and collect his most recent care package from Henry. Keeley pokes her head in the door while he's changing out of his muddy runners. "Press in 10," she says. "You seen him yet?"
"Beard's with Jamie now," Ted says. "Roy's on his way. Hold the press another 5 if you can, I've got a couple of things to take care of first."
He ducks into the equipment room to find Will already hard at work, collecting wet jerseys and jackets into a pile for the night's laundry. "This'll keep," Ted tells him. "You're part of the team, come celebrate now."
Ted waits until the younger man's run off to do as he suggested before turning to survey the room. He finds the object of his search tucked away behind a mountain of athletic tape in an assortment of colours. Red, green, and white for Colin; bright yellow for Isaac, plain black for Jan Maas. Ted doesn't mess with a team's superstitions and so they keep the full rainbow lying around.
The treatment room is cramped with so many people crammed into the small space despite Isaac clearly playing crowd control. He spots the team doctor and physiotherapist off to the side in quiet conference and slips past them to see Beard sitting beside Jamie on a small stool, one elbow resting on the side of the exam table as he angles his phone so that Jamie can see his screen. The Beard injury special, that is; the man's a master of distraction when it matters most. Ted watches them a minute longer, hands tucked into his pockets. Jamie's face is tight with pain, his knee elevated and packed tightly with ice packs to keep the swelling down.
Ted clears his throat, drawing the attention of all parties. "Can I have the room for a minute?"
He waits for everyone to clear out before turning back to Jamie. "Thought you might appreciate a breather. How you feeling?"
"Like a pincushion," Jamie grumbles. He shifts his weight slightly and grimaces, the fingers of one hand going white knuckled with tension as he grips the edge of the table.
"Undercover porcupine, that's about the size and shape of it, yep. I meant how are you feeling, Jamie?"
"Me knee's messed, Coach."
"Doc order an MRI?"
"That's our next stop," Jamie says, looking miserable. "Think it's me ACL."
"Who's going with you?"
"Isaac."
"I'll catch up with you there in a bit, too."
"Oh Coach, you don't need to--."
"I'll see you there, Jamie," Ted says, and that's the end of that. He doesn't know , but he certainly has enough evidence to suspect that James Tartt, Sr. was not one to sit around in the waiting room when his son was ill or injured. Such a basic act of compassion is owing to anyone. "Meantime, I wanted to bring you something."
Jamie's ears perk up at the mention of a gift, and Ted smiles. "First --."
"My hoodie!" Jamie says, accepting it gratefully. He struggles into it awkwardly, taking particular effort not to jostle his knee, but looks significantly more content after burrowing into the brightly coloured patterned fabric.
"--your hoodie," Ted finishes. "Second, it's not much, but my kid swears by it." He holds up an ice pack. It looks almost underpowered in this room, meaningfully smaller than the professional grade ones they've got lying around the club in spades, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in character. There's a velcro strap attached to the outside so that it can be secured tightly in place, the fabric liner decorated with some children's show Ted doesn't recognize. "Now, I know you're a little old for this--."
"Oh cool, Transformers!" Jamie says, and Ted blinks, regroups.
"But are you ever too old for Transformers? I think not." Ted doesn't dare mess with the existing setup of their highly qualified medical crew so he opts to hand Jamie the ice pack instead.
"For good luck," Ted says, watching as the younger man runs a hand over the soft fabric.
He runs into Roy on his way out of the room. "Not planning on a speech, huh?" Roy grunts.
"Naw, that was just a little old fashioned TLC," Ted says. "Left the hard part to you." And with that, he clasps Roy on the shoulder and leaves the two of them alone.
-
The press erupts when he enters the room, shouting questions at him before he even has a chance to sit down. It would be more compelling if this wasn't their reaction to literally every scrap of team news; no sense of scale, this crowd. He holds up a hand for calm and miraculously gets partial compliance, some of the more experienced at least quieting if not sitting. The door in the back opens and Rebecca steps in, taking up a position along the back wall and whispering something in Keeley's ear.
"Alright, alright, who's first?"
And then the calm breaks, the shouting starting anew. "Trent, your hand was up first." He pauses for groans from the audience and a quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-it fist pump from the man in question. "You can do the honours."
"Trent Crimm," he starts.
"The Independent," the room finishes, and Ted nods along with them. You can read something of the collective journalistic mood into the attitude with which they approach Trent's traditional introduction; a chorus is good, a chorus means they can keep the atmosphere light.
"Jamie Tartt scored the game-winning final goal tonight but had to be carried off the field. Any comment on the extent of his injuries and when we might expect to see him play again?"
"I'll tell you what my mother told me at the age of six when I passed out at the sight of blood: Ted Lasso is no doctor. And not being a member of the medical profession, I wouldn't like to speculate. We'll be taking that one day at a time."
"And what would you say to those that say it's karma Jamie Tartt should suffer the same injury with which he ended Roy Kent's career?" comes the fast follow-up, this time from Ernie Lounds. Ted feels his eyebrows hit his hairline, spots the gesture Keeley makes in the back of the room before Rebecca steps neatly in front of her.
"Well, I'm a big believer in Lady Karma there, Ernie, do unto others and all that jazz. I'm just not so sure this is the way she shows it. I can speak for every member of AFC Richmond -- and, I would hope, the people in this room -- when I say that we're all pulling for him and send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery." More than one member of the press has the decency to look ashamed, mumbling agreement. In the second row, he spots Amelia Martin from The Times scratch out a line on her notepad.
"Ted, with Rojas' stellar performance tonight, rumors are intensifying that Southampton is looking to pick him up on loan -- any truth to those?"
-
"Absolute bottom feeding blood sucking wankers ," Keeley hisses upon Ted's exit. Alarmed, Ted turns back to check that no members of the press have followed him out of the room.
"As if Roy would be pleased to see someone else's career end the same way. The way they're talking as if it's inevitable, when plenty of players have come back from worse -- hell, Dani was out for months when he first joined."
Privately he agrees, but the team rule is that only one of the public-facing staff is allowed to be visibly angry at any given time and Keeley's clearly called dibs. He follows her through the labyrinth of halls, grateful for the distance they're putting between here and the press room. Even with soundproofing, Keeley's voice has a way of carrying when she's passionate about something.
The mood in the locker room is celebratory but muted; an open bottle of Stella placed prominently in Jamie's cubby like an alcoholic shrine to their fallen compatriot. He accepts a drink from Richard, their bartender in arms, keeping to the edge of the room.
"Any word?" he asks Beard.
"Nothing yet," Beard says. "Roy's with him, he'll call when he hears."
"Alright, folks, listen up," Ted calls. When that fails to obtain the team's attention he leans back and nods at Beard, placing his hands theatrically over his ears. Beard whistles high and loud, the sharp sound cutting easily through the ambient chatter.
A hush falls over the room. "Thanks for that, Coach."
"Coach."
"Just going to say a few words before I let you get back to celebrating a well-earned win. Each and every one of you should be proud of the way you played tonight. We'll review the game footage in the morning but I already know some of what we're going to see. We've got Thierry moonlighting as Superman with that airtime, Colin with some fancy footwork to steal possession by any means necessary, Dani being a straight up magician with the arc on that last goal."
"Now, we're all thinking about Jamie tonight. No one likes to see a player go down like that, least of all a teammate and a friend. We wish he could be here to join us, and I'm sure he will be soon -- in the meantime, I'm sure he could use a little support from the team over the next days and weeks."
Sam's the first to speak. "Oh, we've got that part under control."
-
Ted finds Roy and Jamie tucked away in the corner of the clinic, a curtain pulled round the bed for a bit of privacy. There's a pile of snacks on the bed in easy reach of both of them, enough sugar to keep any dentist in business for ages. It's a solid haul from the vending machine Ted remembers passing on the way in.
The clinic is quiet this time of night, the only other inhabitants aside from the staff being a young mother and son with a nasty sounding cough that Ted remembers finding terrifying when Henry was that age and a college-aged boy with a dish towel wrapped around his arm.
"Fucking Megatron?" Roy says. "Come off it."
"I mean, yeah. He's got lasers and shit. You know I'm right."
"You absolutely are not, you're just stoned."
Ted takes this opportunity to come around the corner. Jamie's eyes are a little glassier than they were the last time Ted saw him, a little slower to track movement. "They give you something for the pain?"
"For the MRI," Roy clarifies. "He's claustrophobic."
"So was Michelle. Is, I suppose."
"Hi, Coach!" Jamie says, running about ten seconds behind in the conversation.
"Hey, Jamie. How you doing?"
"Tore my liniment."
"Ligament," Roy says.
"But they said I don't need surgery. Just therapy."
"That too."
"Hey, that's great! Couple of weeks on crutches and you'll be back in fighting form."
"Should make the Crystal Palace match," Jamie says. Ted looks over at Roy, who shakes his head. That'll be something to keep an eye on over the next few weeks, when Jamie's deep into physio and the potential for re-injury is at its highest.
"We'll see about that. Doc's rule is law, you know how it is. Meantime, you get to munch on all the get-well goodies you can eat."
"...like the gingerbread?"
"Sure, like the gingerbread. I've got a batch with your name on it ready and waiting "
"It's October," Roy says.
"So?" Jamie says. "Never too early for gingerbread, it's an all season treat."
Ted beams. "When a man's right, he's right."
His phone chimes in his pocket and he picks it up to check the notification. "I think this is for you," he says, and turns the screen around to show Jamie the latest message in the team group chat: Colin has sent a picture of a stack of PS5 FIFA games sitting on Jamie's front step, the whole set tied neatly together with a bright red bow. The caption reads 'keep your skills sharp, boyo.'
The phone pings again. "And Bumbercatch would like to inform you that playing as Messi is -- oh, well, that's his word, not mine."
And again. "And Richard says -- jeez that really translates, eh, French is such an expressive language."
And again. Ted slips his phone back in his pocket. "...I'll let you catch up on these later, then. You boys have a ride home?"
"Keeley's bringing the car around," Roy informs him.
"Good, good." Ted shoves his hands in his pocket, hesitates on his next words. "So look, what I wanted to say was --."
"--oi, if this is going to be the 'there's more than life to football' speech, Grandad's already beaten you to it."
Roy stirs. "Is that what I said?"
"'S what you meant though, innit?"
"Jesus, one painkiller and you're a fucking philosopher."
"Roy's right, but I think he's got that covered. No, I just wanted to say if you need anything, anything at all, just pick up the phone and give me a call."
"Right, yeah."
"I'm going to take another run at that, just to make sure you heard me. It's going to be hard getting around for a little while: cooking meals, getting groceries, the whole nine yards. We're a team on and off the field."
"I hear you, Coach."
Ted's eyes drop down to Jamie's knee. Tucked under the tight layers of fabric bandage used to rewrap the injury is the Transformers ice pack Ted gave him earlier.
He thinks maybe Jamie might.