Donn stood in shaded Wilford Lane, with the constant chirping of cicadas overhead. To the north of him is the youth team training base, and to the south is the senior team training base, and now the two training bases are quiet, which can be regarded as a door-to-door crowd.

He knows that the senior team will not start training until tomorrow, and the youth team is still on holiday. There will be no one else at these two bases except for the staff. For them, the long and wonderful holiday is not over.

Don walked in through the gate of the youth team training base, there was not a single car in the parking lot, the door of the office building was closed, the afternoon sun was exposed to the asphalt road, and his feet were hot when he walked on it, today may be the hottest day of the year.

He walked around the two-story building and walked to the side of the No. 1 field, and sure enough, there was no one empty. Field 1 and Field 3 were connected, separated by a seven-meter-high barbed wire fence, and Tang En looked at it from afar, and there was no one on Field 3. It seems that the youth team is still on vacation.

Donn stood on the empty training ground, and if he chose to stay, it would become his turf and Chris Rac would be his assistant again. But what is there to bring to the youth team's game? Don was a little depressed. In his eyes, the sense of accomplishment brought by the youth team victory is not as good as that of the senior team, and he is used to being noticed, even if he leads the youth team to win the FA Youth Cup.

He looked at the pitch and decided to leave.

Coming out of the main entrance of Field 1, it is a fork in the road, if you go straight to the gate, you will return to the gate, and turn right to lead to the northernmost field 2. The quality of the turf in Field 2 is not very good, and it is rarely used there.

For the second field, Don has a completely different relationship from the others. He has only been to the No. 2 field once since taking charge of the Forest team, and that experience is very important in his memory. Here he met the lovely Gavin, George. Wood also gained his first fan.

That's where Donn's heartbreak, and the joy and sorrow of the second half of the '02-03 season began to take a turn from there.

Standing at a fork in the road, Donn felt that all this was like the choice he was facing now - to move forward, to leave this training base, to leave this sleeping forest; Go to the right...... What does it mean to go to the right?

Don looked at the path that stretched all the way to the front, hesitated for a moment, and chose to go to the second field to have a look.

As he approached, he spotted a man on the field, running back and forth between the two cone-shaped markers.

George. Wood!

Don didn't expect to see him here. Have you turned back the clock? Isn't it June 27, but March 21? Well, there are still some differences, such as Wood doesn't have that coach by his side, and Donn doesn't have Michael and his son Gavin by his side.

He stood outside the barbed wire fence and quietly watched Wood train, but Wood did not notice his existence and continued to do the most basic exercises.

Donn stood and watched for about fifteen minutes, and George. Wood finally switched to the training program, and he put the two cones together, about half a metre apart, and then stood five metres away and kicked the ball at the cone. Donn didn't know what he was doing to practice, and he hadn't seen it in Chris Lack's youth team training or Walker's senior team training, and he changed his mind and stayed after he had planned to leave quietly - he wanted to see what was going on.

Wood kicked ten shots, obviously not training his shots, because he was deliberately suppressing the speed and power of his shots, but rather about precision – shaking his head if the ball rolled between or outside the two markers, and clenching his fists if it hit the markers.

Wood then shifted his angle and stood about forty-five corners away from the marker and repeated the ten kicks, most of which rolled past the marker, as before, and only had a handful of attempts to hit the target.

Don looked at the distance between the two markers, then he looked down at his legs and spread them slightly apart, about half a meter apart, exactly the length of a person's legs apart when standing!

This kid is trying to figure out how to practice passing on his own!

Late June, Nottingham's hottest time of the year. On the empty training ground, there was only George . Wood was still training alone, the hot season, the bad weather, and the relaxing holidays...... None of this has anything to do with him, and since he doesn't have lunch on his own while he's on vacation, he has to go back and forth between here and his home several times a day. The training shirt was soaked with sweat many times, and every time he started training, he took off his clothes and hung them on the goal crossbar, and then trained with his upper body. The tense muscles of his body seemed to contain an explosive power, and as Wood's every movement was released, sweat flowed down his angular body, and the whole person radiated a dazzling light under the scorching voice.

George...... If you can't succeed, no one in the world can succeed!

In order not to disturb Wood's training, he quietly left the remote training ground surrounded by trees. Looking up at the sky, Don decided to go to one last place.

※※※ Nottingham is a city built on hills, with undulating terrain and full of variety. The church in front of Donn was built on a hill, and the brick chapel was not as grand and elaborate as the famous St'Mary's Church in the city centre, and it was as unremarkable as the surrounding buildings. But under the clear blue sky, this small church standing on top of the green grass is comfortable, and it is calming to look at it from the outside.

Don skirted the church and followed a gravel path through the woods to the cemetery, surrounded by forests.

What he didn't expect was that in Gavin. In front of Bernard's tombstone stood a man.

"Michael!" He shouted loudly, breaking the silence of the cemetery.

The man turned around and found that the person who called him was Don En, and he was also a little surprised. "Tony? What are you doing here? ”

Donn stepped forward and placed a bouquet of lilies in his hand in front of the tombstone. "Whatever you come here, I'll do here. It's been more than a month, how are you feeling? ”

Michael shook his head, still in high spirits. "Tony, I'm here to meet you. I'm going to say goodbye to you......"

"Farewell?" Don let out a hint of something wrong in the air. "Say goodbye? Where are you going? ”

"Los Angeles."

"America?!" Donn exclaimed, "You're going so far...... Why? ”

Michael looked at his son's tombstone and said slowly, "I forgot to tell you that my wife is American. She couldn't bear to stay here and think of Gavin all the time, and now Nottingham was sad for our family, and she saw everything thinking of Gavin who died, the house, the yard, the street outside the door, the neighborhood, even the football game...... I don't want her to end up in tears, I think it might be better to leave here and go back to her hometown. ”

Don frowned, "What about Gavin?" ”

"Gavin is not like us." Michael crouched down, wiped a few fallen leaves from the tombstone, and looked at the golden name on the white marble tombstone. "I can change my feelings about football for the sake of my family. But he won't, he'll always be a Forest supporter, from life to death. ”

After saying that, he stood up again and said to Donne, "You must be happy in your heart, right?" Don't be afraid that someone will scold you behind your back next season. ”

Donn smiled bitterly: "Michael, don't you even read the reports about football anymore?" I was sacked by the new president of the Forest team and my agency contract expired. ”

Michael didn't expect Donne's answer to be this, and he looked at Donn in surprise for a long time, making sure he wasn't joking. "What the hell...... So where else are you going? Youth team? Or ......"

Don shook his head: "I've asked myself countless times in the past two days to ask such a question, and I haven't gotten an answer yet. ”

"Are you here to find answers?"

"I don't know ......"

"Tony, would you like to hear from an old fan who has followed the Forest for forty-four years?"

Don looked up at Michael.

"Even though I've decided to leave football, think back to the first half of my life. The years I miss the most, apart from the Clough era, are the half season you led the team. You have some similarities, such as being very passionate, detail-oriented, talented, and having the ingredients to succeed. I remember that the day Clough came to the team was January 3, 1975, and you were January 1, just two days away. It's a shame, maybe we've all missed out on a very legendary story......" Michael put his hand on Donn's shoulder and patted him, then walked past him.

"Goodbye, Tony."

“…… Goodbye, Michael. Don watched in a daze as the man's back faded away.

After coming here for some reason, he got into a fight with this guy at a bar, and then they became good friends. In this strange place, Michael gave him a lot of ungrateful help. He wanted to repay Michael's friendship with his results, but ...... That all went up in smoke with that accident.

(To be continued)