Staff are sworn to secrecy on pain of death. Scouts are dispatched with cyanide pills embedded in their teeth. Fans whisper fearfully of a bunker deep beneath the Amex. Inexplicable surges and power cuts plague the homes near the stadium. Trucks brimming with fashion display mannequins have been spotted entering the ground in the small hours of the morning.
So what is the secret to Brighton & Hove Albion’s constant regeneration? It must be obvious by now – Brighton have a machine for infusing humanoid dolls with abilities from database management grindfest, Football Manager.
Brighton owner Tony Bloom lurks in his underground lab poring over the stats of newly generated players in the so-called game, choosing a few players each season to make real.
At first the machine only worked for the Championship, which explains the mystery of Neal Maupay, but now it’s calibrated to the Premier League, and footballers like Ferguson and Mitoma can be generated for peanuts.
After years of failed experiments with different vessels, Bloom has settled on crash test dummies. Although obviously injury prone, the dummies have the benefit of being easily repairable – a fact that hasn’t been passed on to Chelsea. There have been other successes though, with player bodies ranging from Sideshow Bob plushies, inflatable car dealership tube boys, Trolls™, cockless Kens™ and even deflated sex dolls.