David Peace - The Damned Utd

Don’t take it out on this world –

This night has a thousand eyes but just one song.

* * *

‘ It’s easy to be a good manager,’ Harry Storer always used to say. ‘All you have to do is sign good players .’

Harry Storer was right. Harry Storer was always bloody right –

It’s players that lose you games. Players that win you games –

Not theories. Not tactics. Not luck. Not superstition. Not God. Players –

You pick them, but they play. They win, they lose or they draw –

Not you. Not the manager. Them. The players –

You have kept the likes of Kevin Hector and Alan Durban. You have brought in the likes of John O’Hare, Roy McFarland and Alan Hinton –

You have tasted Elland Road. You have tasted the Big Time. But now it’s back to the Second Division. Back to Portsmouth, Millwall, Huddersfield and Carlisle .

Derby County win a few games. Derby County lose a few –

Peaks and ruts. The hate mail comes. Ruts and peaks. The hate mail goes –

But there are still men like Fred Wallace; there are always men like Fred Wallace, standing on the terraces, behind the dug-out, outside the dressing room, in the corridors, in the boardrooms and at the bars –

‘ Dropped another place,’ he tells you. ‘Fifth from bottom now .’

Men who want you to fail. Men who want you to lose. Men who wish you dead. Men like Fred Wallace. There are always men like Fred and there are always doubts –

There are doubts in 1968 and there’ll be doubts in 1978 –

Doubts and broken promises:

Derby County fail to win any of their last six games. Derby County lose their very last match at home to Blackpool. You have lost nineteen games in the 1967–68 season, scored seventy-one goals but conceded seventy-eight, and you have finished the season eighteenth in Division Two; one place lower than last season, last season when Derby sacked Tim Ward; two places lower than you promised the Rotary Club of Derby –

Promised the newspapers and the television, the town and the fans –

Broken promises and broken hearts –

Meanwhile, Hartlepools United have been promoted to Division Three –

Broken hearts and salted wounds –

Your glass breaks against his lounge wall, you are drunk and crying, shouting: ‘Least we’d have fucking won something .’

‘ But we’d still be in the bloody Third Division,’ says Peter .

You shake your head: ‘This rate, we’ll fucking pass them on our way down .’

‘ Brian, listen to me,’ he says. ‘Hartlepools was just a bloody stepping stone, always was and always will be. This time next year we’ll be promoted as fucking Champions. And that’ll just be the start of it. You wait and you see .’

You look up. You dry your eyes. You ask him, ‘Do you promise me, Pete? ’

‘ Cross my heart,’ he nods. ‘Cross my heart, Brian .’

‘ If you promise,’ you tell him, ‘then I believe you —’

Promises made and hearts healed –

Peter puts his arms around you, and your wives pick up the pieces .

Impeachment, impeachment, impeachment and the return of George bleeding Best. Bestie . Turning out for Dunstable Town and beating Manchester United 3–2. I’ve got a smile on my face and the radio on as I drive; a smile on my face until I see him, see Bestie by the side of the road, larger than life, any life –

His head full of demons; his own throat cut …

To sell them Brylcreem. Double Diamond beer and pork sausages.

They hate flair round here. Hate and fucking loathe it. Drag it out into the street and kick it in its guts, kill it and hang it from the posts for all to mock and see, from the motorway and the railway, from the factories and the fields, the houses and the hills –

Elland Road, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds –

Yorkshire. Nineteen seventy-four –

His own throat cut –

There is always a war coming, and England is always asleep.

* * *

You are bloody lucky not to have been sacked. Fucking lucky. Except you don’t believe in luck. Talent and hard work. That’s what you believe in. Ability and application. Discipline and determination. That’s what got you from Clairville Common to Great Broughton. From a fitter and turner at ICI to centre-forward at Middlesbrough Football Club and then captain of Sunderland. That’s what got you your 251 league goals in 274 games, got you your eighteen hat-tricks, your five four-goal hauls, and that’s what’s going to save you and Derby County –

That’s what’s going to get you what you want –

Ability and application. Discipline and determination –

No such thing as luck. No such thing as God. Just you, you and the players –

Peter reads out the pre-season team sheet; names like McFarland, O’Hare, Hector and Hinton. Peter puts down the team sheet. Pete says, ‘Just two things missing now: a good bloody keeper and a bit of fucking experience .’

‘ And where are we going to find them?’ you ask him. ‘Not round here .’

‘ Don’t you worry,’ says Peter. ‘I know just the keeper and just the man with the experience we need .’

* * *

There’s another friendly tomorrow, another away game, my second game in charge. I stand at the far edge of the training pitch and watch them practising their set pieces, their corners and their free kicks –

Like clockwork .

Jimmy Gordon comes over. He says, ‘Thought we’d knock it on the head, if that’s all right with you, Boss?’

I look at my watch. It’s not there.

‘Half eleven,’ says Jimmy. ‘Anything you want to say to them before we finish?’

I shake my head. I tell him, ‘What’s to say?’

Jimmy shrugs his shoulders. He starts to walk back towards the team.

‘Jimmy,’ I call after him. ‘Ask Eddie Gray to come over here, will you?’

Eddie’s played in just one of the last forty-five Leeds games. He’s in his purple tracksuit with his name on the back, sweating and out of breath. He says, ‘Mr Clough?’

‘Boss to you,’ I tell him and then I ask him, ‘You fit?’

‘I think so,’ he says.

‘Think’s no good to me,’ I tell him. ‘I want you to know so.’

‘Well then, I know so,’ he laughs. ‘I know so, Boss.’

‘Good lad,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll give you a run-out tomorrow night then.’

Eddie sprints back over to his mates as someone shouts, ‘You off and all then?’

* * *

‘ Me go and sign Dave Mackay? You must be bloody joking, or fucking drunk?’ you told Peter .

‘ You’ve pulled off bigger things than this,’ he lied. ‘Just go and try .’

‘ He’s off into management,’ you told him. ‘Hanging up his boots .’

‘ It’s only 99 per cent certain,’ Peter lied again .

And so off you set. Just you. Not Pete –

You in your car to sign Dave Mackay –

Dave Mackay, the legendary Scottish wing-half with Tottenham Hotspur –

Tottenham Hotspur, the legendary 1960–61 double-winning Spurs –

The double-winning Spurs of the legendary Bill Nicholson .

So here you are at White Hart Lane, London. Been here since half seven this morning. You want to speak to Bill Nicholson, but no one knows who you are. Never heard of you. No one gives you the time of day. So you sit in your car in their car park with the radio and the cricket on and you wait; wait and wait and wait, in the car park in your Sunday best, wait and wait and wait until you see Bill Nicholson –