As somehow, as per usual, I seem to have missed the bandwagon...

...we'll just handwave those.  Things get a bit timey-wimey otherwise, don't you know. Oh!  Also, in the immediate history for this particular game, he'd been working with John Magister up in Manchester for, oh, a year, two years before they got transferred to Blackpool.  Rather conveniently, this means that Sam gets a fair deal of the blame from Gene in re. John's nutcaseness.  Joy bloody rapture.