On the sesh with Premier League managers.

A thread >

CIA-grade acid in Pep’s mountain poetry retreat. Everything groovy. 20 minutes in he’s in your personal space, asking “How is it?! It’s good? What you see?” You start explaining and melting at the same time. He dances around you. You go into the woods, and start running. Forever.

Pints. More pints. Then more pints, Dyche becoming aggressively tactile. A shit club and lots of shots, Dyche on the speakers. Curry (vindaloos mandatory). Taxi home, wake up in your clothes having pissed yourself. It’s Dyche on the phone: “Get down the pub, you poof. Your round”

His gaff, bottomless ashtrays of primo-grade coke (he shops at Waitrose). Jose holds court. Six lines in, it’s a stream of world-class anecdotes. Six hours in, you’re bored of his voice. But you can’t abandon the free coke. So you stay. And you hate yourself. Which he likes.

Meet in Air BnB loft in Kreuzberg for lines and cocktails. Uber to Berghain for 10-hour techno set from Marco Carola. Ralf scores awesome pills for everyone. “Pay me later!” He heads for the dancefloor. You next see him at 7am, explaining counter-pressing to baffled Koreans.

Late-afternoon ciders at Roy’s local village cricket club. “I’ve been saving a special Highland malt if you’d like to come back”. You do. For Jazz, lasagna and single malt. You want to go larger. “I’m afraid my drug is football, but you please yourself”. “Know anyone?” “Sorry”.

German beers and psilocybin-injected bratwurst chez Kloppo. Things get wobbly. He guffaws, teeth like a piano. “We’ll be trippin’ balls. So, that’s just how it is. Fucking mentality giants!” Cabs to Anfield. Giggling at grass for 6 hours. Hugs. The best day of your life.

Beers and pizza at the bowling alley. He bumps into an old pal and buys 6g of speed. Next thing you know you’re three pills deep at a happy hardcore rave in Peterborough, Brendan’s flushed, manically gurning face covered in fluorescent glitter. 38 hours later, you’re still on it.

Desert retreat in Mexico. Everyone swallows the peyote, then sits cross-legged on beanbags placed initially in 3-3-1-3 formation but swirling as you go on a mystical psychic voyage, Bielsa perfectly silent yet communicating wisdom telepathically. You come round. You go again.

Selection of craft IPAs get things rolling. Brucey then brings out 'Meet the Fockers' boxset and drops a stash of nitrous cannisters on the table. Later, you play the ‘Who am I?’ Post-it note game. Brucey guesses himself in two questions, sustaining a week of Whatsapp bantz.

Sun-dappled tasting tour of Tuscan vineyards, then a private jet to Milan for guest-list access to VIP room in haute couturier’s club. Slovakian model busts out the coke. ‘Why not’, you think. Carlo clocks you, eyebrows raised. Two hours later, he’s snorting it off her breasts.

Sedate evening of poker on his back patio until, smiling like an apologetic yet kindly hedgehog, he opens an ornamental claret-and-blue box inside which are a dozen Quaaludes, which you neck. Several hours later, you’re lying in a bunker on an unknown golf course, wearing skirts.

Real ales in Lamb & Flag. Splash of cologne, fresh shirt, up town. Meet some nurses. Quick shag at a house party. Bump into students while waiting for cab. Another party. Wilder hits the poppers. Then the spice. Ends up being talked down off a warehouse roof in Rotherham.

“Meet at mine,” he says, no intention of going out. Plies you with booze. Controls the stereo religiously: Weller, Oasis. “Lads, shall we get some sniff?” It’s been six years. Sketchy contacts. You buy 2g of pub dust. Everyone pretends they’re off their tits.

Down the park sniffing glue on the swings. Walk around town, ‘Big Dream’ chat tempered with the realisation that this is all there is. Bit of shoplifting. Head to a motorway bridge. Decide against. More glue. Buy skag. Back to his. Joy Division on full blast. Existential horror.

A three-day trek chewing coca leaves to the hills above Cuzco, then an intensive 30-hour ayahuasca trip, Nuno acting as benign shaman, encouraging you to process, then purge all the negative feelings from the past, like the time you didn’t track back against Spurs. Transcendence.

Over to his for fußball, pinball and ping-pong in the games room, selection of cheeses and wines for nibbles. Game of Triv. Ragingly bored, you ask if you can skin up. Reluctant green light. Scotty joins in (Triv forfeit), then passes out. You draw on his face, then leave.

Start with hash cookies then on to bongs and a 4-hour game of Risk in a lodge overlooking the fjords. The giggling fades. You want to leave; a dilemma, with him growing morose. His parents come home. You hide the stash. He says he has some crack if you fancy it. You do.

Executive box and champers at the races. Limos to a private Gentleman’s Club. Iced Greygoose at VIP tables. Frank immaculate. Buys everyone a lap dance, but breaks the cardinal rule and sneakily paps you, banging it on Insta for bantz. You leave. With a bottle of Moët. On him.

Catch Estonian speed-metal auteurs Glitch in Rijeka, sipping absinthe from hip flask, then whizzed to Split for anarchist squat party, Bilic scoring ketamine, racking up lines the size of pencils, then futilely attempting to conduct a debate on the politics of 3-5-2. Confusing.

Issues strict instructions to avoid booze, then ferries you to a medieval palace where, over 15 hours, he carefully administers pure opium in a 12th century ornamental pipe, taking you to ever higher plateaus of cosmic insight and tactical epiphanies. Exhausting.