TED: Well, you can just go and tell the players that the Committee are a hundred percent behind me.

DANNY: Then perhaps the Committee had better roll up and play tomorrow’s match.

TED: What’s that supposed to mean?

DANNY: It means that if that bloody Committee of yours gives Laurie the boot tonight, then we don’t play tomorrow.

LAURIE: Come off it… (Danny).

TED: This is lovely. Really delightful. A strike threat.

LAURIE: Danny. Go home and calm down.

TED: A strike threat.

DANNY: It’s no threat. We mean it. You sack Laurie tonight and you won’t have a team tomorrow.

TED: Sack him? What do you mean sack him? He’s bloody well resigned. We’re not sacking anyone. Did you hear that, Gerry? A strike threat? (To DANNY) You won’t find me bending under that sort of pressure, my boy.

LAURIE: There’ll be no strike whether I’m here or not.

TED: I should bloody well hope not. There’s more than enough industrial anarchy in the community at large without us copping it on the football field. Next thing you know they’ll be holding a stopwork meeting every time the umpire blows his whistle louder than fifty decibels.

DANNY: Very funny. You’ll be sneering on the other side of your face tomorrow.

GERRY: Danny, if you’d just clear off we’ll get this whole thing sorted out.

TED: Laurie offered his resignation and we’re treating it seriously. What else do you expect us to do?

DANNY: He only offered to resign because you bloody well drove him to it. How could any coach run a team with you sticking your nose in everywhere?

TED: Sticking my nose in?

LAURIE: I appreciate this, Danny, but you’re doing me more harm than good. Go home and calm down.

DANNY: Someone’s got to tell him.

TED: What do you mean sticking my nose in?

DANNY: It’s not your job to pick the bloody team.

TED: I don’t. I’m not even on the Selection Committee.

DANNY: No, but you take two thirds of ’em up to the bar and talk for four hours every Wednesday night.

TED: Jock and Tony? So what? The team is barely discussed.

DANNY: That’s not what I heard.

TED: Then you’d better rap your spies over the knuckles because the team is barely discussed. Laurie, have you ever thought I’ve tried to influence the selection of the team?

LAURIE: Yes.

TED: When?

LAURIE: This week.

TED: That’s a lie.

LAURIE: You told Jock and Tony that Geoff Hayward wasn’t to be dropped.