David Peace - The Damned Utd

Brian Howard Clough, thirty-four, and a First Division manager –

Brian Howard Clough and nobody else –

An ocean liner out of a shipwreck .

* * *

Fifteen minutes into the second half, Kevin Keegan hustles the Irishman from behind and Giles whips round and punches Keegan in the face with his right fist. They will burn the grass . Giles, the player-manager of the Republic of Ireland; John Giles, the would-be assistant manager of Tottenham Hotspur; Johnny Giles, the should-be manager of Leeds United. Turn this grass to ash . The referee gets out his book. Keegan pleads for leniency on behalf of Giles. The Irishman stays on the pitch but goes in the book. Turn this field to dust . Minutes later, Bremner and Keegan collide during a Leeds free-kick. They will salt this earth . There is a sea of fists, kicks to the heels and digs to the ribs. Leave this ground as stone . Keegan flies round and swings out at Bremner. Barren and fallow for ever . Bob Matthewson sends them both off –

Dirty, dirty Leeds, Leeds, Leeds …

His eyes in the stands. Behind my back. His eyes in that suit.

Bremner and Keegan walk along the touchline. It is a long, lonely walk to a deserted, empty dressing room. Bremner and Keegan strip off their shirts, the white number 4 and the red number 7; shirts they should be proud to wear, these shirts they throw to the ground –

This is what you think I am , says Bremner. This is who you say I am …

Shirts any lad in the land would dream of picking up, of pulling on –

Then this is what I am , shouts Billy. This is who I am .

But not Billy Bremner. Not Kevin Keegan –

His eyes in the stands, behind my back.

No one learns their lesson; Jordan fights with Clemence, and McQueen goes in to sort it out like a fucking express train. Dirty, dirty Leeds, Leeds, Leeds . To add injury to the insults, Allan Clarke is carried off with torn bloody ligaments –

His eyes in that suit, behind my back.

Ten minutes after that, Trevor Cherry heads home an equalizer; first right thing he’s done all afternoon. But no one’s watching. Not now; now minds are racing, events and pens. The game goes to penalties; the first time the Charity Shield has ever gone to penalties, no more Charity, no more sharing of the Shield. The penalties go to 5–5. Harvey and Clemence make a goalkeepers’ pact to each to take the sixth penalty for their side. David Harvey steps up. David Harvey hits the bar. Ray Clemence stays put –

Callaghan steps up. Callaghan converts the sixth penalty –

Liverpool win the 1974 Charity Shield –

But no one notices. Not now –

Now two British players have been dismissed from Wembley –

The first two British players ever to be dismissed at Wembley –

Now they’re going to throw the fucking book at them — at us — for this. The fucking book. Television and the Disciplinary Committee will see to that. You can forget Rattin. There will be those who want Leeds and Liverpool thrown out of the league. Their managers too. Bremner and Keegan banned for life –

Heavy fines and points deducted –

On the panels. In the columns –

In his eyes. In his eyes.

The stadium empties in silence. The tunnel. The corridors and the dressing rooms.

No one is sat next to Bremner on the coach out of Wembley. I sit down next to him. I tell him, ‘You’ll pay your own bloody fine out of your own fucking pocket and, if I had my bloody way, you’d fucking pay Keegan’s fine and all.’

‘ You ever play at Wembley did you, Mr Clough? ’

‘You can’t do that to me,’ says Bremner. ‘Mr Revie always paid all our fines.’

‘He’s not here now, is he?’ I tell him. ‘So you’ll pay it yourself.’

‘ You ever play at Wembley did you, Mr Clough? ’

Bremner looks at me now and Bremner makes his vow:

In loss. In hate. In blood. In war –

Saturday 10 August 1974.

‘You ever play at Wembley did you, Mr Clough? You ever play at Wembley, Mr Clough? You ever play at Wembley?’

You played there just the once. Just the once but you know it should have been a lot more, a lot, lot fucking more; you were sure it would have been and all, after Munich in 1958 and the death of Tommy Taylor, the effect it had on Bobby Charlton. You know it would have been a lot, lot more too, had it not been for your own bloody coach at Middlesbrough, your own fucking directors; everybody telling the selectors you had a difficult personality, that you spoke your mind, caused trouble, discontent. Still, they couldn’t not pick you, not after you played a blinder for England in a ‘B’ international against Scotland in Birmingham, scoring once and laying on two more in a 4–1 victory. You were bloody certain you would go to the World Cup in Sweden then, fucking convinced, and you were picked for the Iron Curtain tour of Russia and Yugoslavia in May 1958, just one month before the World Cup –

That number 9 shirt down to just Derek Kevan and you .

The night before the tour, you were that nervous that you couldn’t sleep. You got to the airport three hours early. You hung around, introduced yourself –

But no one wanted to know you. No one wanted to room with you –

‘Because he bloomin’ never stops talking football. Drives you bleeding barmy.’

But Walter Winterbottom, the England manager, sat next to you on the flight east. ‘I want you to play against Russia,’ he told you. ‘Not Derek. You, Brian .’

You believed him. But you didn’t play. England lost 5–0 .

‘I want you to play against Yugoslavia,’ he told you the next day. ‘You, Brian .’

You believed him again. But again you didn’t play. This time England draw 1–1, thanks to Derek fucking Kevan .

After the Yugoslavia game, Walter sat you down and Walter spelt it out for you. ‘You won’t be going to the World Cup, Brian,’ he told you. ‘Not this time .’ You didn’t believe him. You had travelled to Russia. You had travelled to Yugoslavia. You hadn’t had a single kick. Not a touch. Not a single one –

‘ I scored forty-two goals in the league and cup this last season,’ you told Walter. ‘They bloody count in the fucking matches we play for Middlesbrough but apparently it’s not enough for you lot, not nearly enough …’

The manager and the selectors shook their heads, their fingers to their lips –

‘Don’t burn your bridges, Brian. Bide your time and your chance will come.’

You’d bide your time, all right. You’d take your chances –

Five in the first match of the 1958–59 season; five against the League of Ireland for the Football League; four on your twenty-fourth birthday –

There was public clamour and press pressure now. But you still had to bide your time for another year until you finally got your chance –

Until you were picked to play against Wales at Cardiff .

You forgot your boots and spilt your bacon and beans all down you, you were that nervous, that nervous because that was what it meant to you, to play for your country –

And now that is all you can remember about your England début at Ninian Park; how bloody nervous you were, how fucking frightened –

But, eleven days later, you were picked to play against Sweden at Wembley –

‘You ever play at Wembley did you, Mr Clough? You ever play at Wembley, Mr Clough? You ever play at Wembley?’