Harbinger Of Glory Chapter 267: Not The Last!

It was almost like ti had slowed for them in the stadium; the mont they stepped out, an hour passed quickly.

And yet, the Wigan fans refused to go ho.

They did all; sang, danced, but going ho seed not to be a priority for them at the mont.

Seeing the festivities going on, the cara crew from one of the broadcast channels stopped beside the back road that ran along the side of the stadium, and soon the interviewer had found what any good interviewer looks for in a mont like this, which was the right face in the right group.

Just so tres away, an old man was surrounded by lads young enough to be his grandchildren, all of them with bottles that had appeared from sowhere that nobody was going to ask about.

One of them offered the old man a bottle, and he took it, tilted it back, took a proper sip, and then stopped before his face went serious for a second.

The lads around him, seeing the change in expression, went quiet and tried to read him, but none were sure what was coming.

Then he broke.

"This," he said, holding the bottle up, "tastes like promotion."

At the mont, the group realised what he had just done and went absolutely mad around him while the interviewer laughed.

The cara caught all of it, and just as the noise peaked, the Wigan team bus ca around the corner of the back road, moving slowly through the crowd.

And as it did, a fan gestured for the driver to toot the horns and toot he did.

The fans beside the road lost whatever was left of their composure, screaming at the top of their lungs as if they had been paid to do so.

Inside the bus, it wasn’t close to the scenes outside, but it was loud and close.

As the players went on about their fun, Nolan, seated at the front, leaned back in his seat with his eyes half closed and stared at the space in front of him.

"I need a long break after this," he said.

Beside him, Dawson, who now had his coat and tie off, glanced over at him and then nodded.

"We all do," he said.

The ride back to Wigan took as long as it always did, but the ti passed faster than it ever had.

So of the players slept or tried to because it was impossible in the current scene.

Whenever one tried to close their eyes, their mates turned on them, splashing drinks across their faces to wake them up.

And it went on like this as players kept drifting in and out of sleep and the small party in the bus.

After a while, the bus turned towards the town of Wigan, but as they went a bit further, the scenery outside began to change.

People.

Everywhere.

Locals and fans lined the streets, spilling off pavents and standing on whatever they could find that gave them height.

All of them were facing the bus as it ca through.

So of them had been there for so ti by the look of it, but the look on their faces told that they were not ready to sleep yet.

Leo, sitting beside the aisle this ti, rose to his feet and moved to one of the empty window seats at the back to catch the view outside, and it was chaotic to say the least.

He watched a man running beside the bus with his kid on his shoulders.

He watched a boy who couldn’t have been more than eight pressed against the barrier with his Wigan shirt on, just staring at the bus with enormous eyes like he was trying to engrave every scene into his mory.

Leo looked at all of them and felt sothing shift in his chest.

He’d known promotion mattered.

He’d understood it intellectually, the history, the decade without it, what it ant for the town.

But knowing it and seeing it were different things, and what was outside this window right now was the real version of it, and it was sothing he hadn’t really thought about.

After a while, he left his teammates watching and settled back into his seat.

.....

The next morning, the studio had three of them around the desk.

It was the familiar setup of a results show at the end of a season, where the league tables behind them showed their final state with everything confird and settled.

"Right," the host said, pulling things together.

"The Premier League is done, the top European leagues are wrapped up, and last night the Championship gave us its final act."

He looked at his guests.

"The playoffs, and I must say, it was eventful to say the least!"

"I enjoyed myself yesterday. It was cagey, and it was fun," the first pundit said, shaking his head.

"I an, look, I picked against them at every stage of this. The semi-final, the final and I was wrong every ti."

"You weren’t alone," the second one said.

"I an, yours is understandable since your team, Middlesbrough, was competing in the playoffs too, but for , I just couldn’t see them doing it, but they’ve done it!"

"So it’s Burnley, Sheffield United and Wigan going up," the host said, moving it along.

"Burnley and Sheffield have done this before, as they’ve been in and out of the Premier League recently. But Wigan," he said, pausing for a mont, "Their last ti in the Premier League was 2013."

"Ten years," the first pundit said.

"It might not seem like a long ti for so but you have to understand the standing Wigan had back then. I an they won the FA cup final while getting relegated."

"And they get back like this, winning the FA Cup final, sorry, getting to the FA Cup final, going the distance with City, and then winning the playoff in stoppage ti."

"That’s a season. That’s a proper season."

"And it might not be the only news coming out of Wigan," the host said, the tone shifting slightly.

"Because reports from last night, which most people probably missed given everything that was happening, suggest that the club is in the process of being purchased by local businessman Mike Danson in a deal that sees him purchase one hundred per cent of the shares."

The pundits both nodded.

"If that goes through, the fans are going to be very happy about that," the second one said.

"Local ownership, soone with skin in the ga beyond just the financial side. That is one aspect, should this deal go through, that the fans would like."

"It does," the first agreed.

"Especially going into the Premier League. You want stability at the top. You want soone who understands what the club ans to people."

"Big sumr ahead for Wigan Athletic," the host said, wrapping it up.

"However you feel about how it happened, you cannot argue with what they’ve done."

"And sothing tells we haven’t heard the last of them."