TED: I think you’re wrong. I thought the same way as you do at first, but I suppose it came down to quality versus quantity in the end.

LAURIE: Who stuck out for Hayward?

TED: Jock. We couldn’t shift him. He wanted Hayward and that was it.

LAURIE: Jock. Do you want to know something? Jock is an old bastard. Two years ago he was thumping the table in Committee meetings and yelling at the top of his lungs that the Club would never stoop to buying players.

TED: I know. I fought the election against him on the issue.

LAURIE: When it happens he’s in there organising it. Why in the hell did you offer him the vice-presidency? All his cronies got beaten and he only scraped back in by two votes.

TED: I intended it as a gesture of reconciliation.

LAURIE: More fool you.

TED: Yeah. More fool me. The very first thing I did after the election was to go out and buy the Club the best administrator in the business, and now, eighteen months later, Jock is in cahoots with my administrator and the two of them are running the Club.

LAURIE: He’s a great survivor.

TED: I don’t know why you spend all your time gunning me down. They’re the ones with the real power.

LAURIE: I hear you put up ten thousand of your own money?

TED: Yeah. They pulled a last minute bluff and upped the price to ninety. I didn’t mind really. I felt as if I’d contributed in a very concrete and personal way to what I thought was a very important step in the Club’s history. I still think we’ve done the right thing. That lad’ll do great things for us one day.

LAURIE: I hope you’re right.

TED: What’re we going to say to the press?

LAURIE: Just that we’re prepared to keep working with each other and that I’ve withdrawn my resignation.

TED: I’d like a bit more than that, Laurie. You called me autocratic in the press this morning. Don’t you think that calls for some sort of retraction?

LAURIE: The fact that I’ve said we can still work together will be more or less a retraction.

TED: No it won’t. All that means is that you still think I’m autocratic but you’ve decided to grit your teeth and sit it out.

LAURIE: That’s not too far wide of the mark.

TED: Yes, well I want a bit more. I’ve got my pride. I want to say that we’ve had discussions, that several misunderstandings have been ironed out, and that we’re sure we can re-establish a fruitful and harmonious working relationship.

LAURIE: Is it true?

TED: No, but it sounds good.

LAURIE: I’ll say that we’ve talked with each other and found that we can still work together. That’s all.