David Peace - The Damned Utd

For the first time in Europe, you were drawn to play the first leg away, away in a small, provincial Czechoslovakian town that’s home to Spartak Trnava :

‘The Derby County of Czechoslovakia,’ you joked, but it wasn’t funny and you were lucky to lose only 1–0 to the Czech Champions, the Czech Champions four years out of the last five, seven years unbeaten at home in their own league and boasting 164 caps between them –

‘ That wasn’t luck,’ you told the press. ‘That was our keeper, Colin Boulton .’

Four days before that game Don Revie and Leeds United had beaten you 3–2 at home in your own league; your much vaunted, talented and expensive Derby defence conceding two silly penalties and a daft goal in the course of being kicked, punched, grappled and wrestled off the park, Mick McManus-style –

‘ You should be in the book for that, Cherry,’ you shouted from the side –

Tackle after tackle, foul after bloody foul, crime after fucking crime –

‘ McQueen!’ you screamed. ‘You’re not fit to play in this bloody league .’

You were incensed, you were bloody outraged, you were fucking furious because you know exactly why Leeds played like this, why Revie told Leeds to play like this, because Derby won the league and they didn’t, you did and he didn’t –

Daylight Robbery. Daylight Robbery. Daylight Robbery –

Because you’re in the European Cup and he’s not –

‘ You’re an animal,’ you shouted and screamed. ‘A fucking animal, Hunter! ’

You did not shake Revie’s hand after the game and you never will again .

Then, four days before this game tonight, ten days after you lost in Czechoslovakia, Leeds beat you again, beat you 1–0 at home in the FA Cup –

Fields of loss. Fields of hate. Fields of blood. Fields of war –

Fuck Lorimer. Fuck Revie. Fuck Leeds. Fuck them all .

There was no Hinton for these last three games. Tonight there’s Hinton:

21 March 1973; Derby County vs Spartak Trnava –

The quarter-finals of the European Cup, second leg; nigh on 36,500 here at the Baseball Ground to see it –

See it. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. Bloody touch and fucking feel it –

The tension. The tension. The tension. The tension –

Two goals or you’re out of Europe, your hopes and your dreams buried, and while Alan Hinton might well be back for you, bloody Kuna is back for them –

The tension. The tension. The tension –

The fresh lines. The new ball –

The tension. The tension –

Two goals or out –

The tension, then the whistle and it starts, starts at long, long fucking last and you hope, you even pray, for an early goal, but it doesn’t come and you know now Trnava are the best team you’ve played this year, better than bloody Benfica, better than fucking Leeds; they hold the ball, they keep it close and they don’t let go, second after second, minute after minute, they don’t let go, don’t let go until Adamec does and Gemmill’s there, there to take it away, away with a pass to McGovern, who centres it for Hector to hit low into that beautiful, beautiful fucking net and bring the scores level on aggregate, level at 1–1; level at 1–1 for two minutes, just two minutes until Hinton crosses and Davies is knocked to the ground in the box and the whole area freezes expecting the whistle, expecting the penalty, the whole area but for Hector, who leans back into that bouncing bloody ball to volley that fucking thing home from fifteen yards and from then, from then on you can only look at your watch, the only place you can stand to look –

Not at the bloody pitch, the pitch the last fucking place you can look –

Not at the pitch when Hector is brought down, not at the pitch when Davies is pushed over, not when the whole of the bloody Baseball Ground is screaming and screaming and screaming for a penalty; not when Boulton sends Martinkovic flying and the whole of the fucking ground goes silent, silent, silent, expecting a penalty for Trnava, a penalty that would bring the scores level again at 2–2, level at 2–2 but give Trnava an away goal, a penalty the referee does not see, just like you with your eyes on your watch, and so the fucking score stays at 2–1 and you –

You just look at your watch, just look at your watch, look at your watch –

The only place, the only place, the only place you can stand to look –

Not at Webster’s last-ditch tackle, at Nish’s vital, vital tackle –

You just look at your watch, just look at your watch –

Until finally, finally, finally Signor Angonese, the Italian referee, looks at his own watch and raises his right hand and slowly, slowly, slowly Signor Angonese, the lovely, lovely, lovely Italian referee, puts his beautiful, beautiful, beautiful black whistle to his red, red, red lips and blows that final, final, final whistle that puts Derby County –

Derby fucking County. Derby fucking County into the semi-finals –

The semi-finals. The semi-fucking-finals of the European Cup –

Derby County. Not Leeds United. Derby fucking County!

Later that night, drunk and half-delighted/half-depressed, you telephone Don, phone fucking Don at his family home, just to make sure he knows –

‘Just in case you fucking missed it,’ you tell him –

‘ How did you get this number?’ he asks. ‘It’s half two in the bloody morning .’

You hang up. You go upstairs. To the bedroom and your wife –

Then you hear the phone ringing again and so you turn back round and walk back down the stairs and pick up the phone and it’s your older brother –

‘ We’ve lost our mam,’ he tells you. ‘We’ve lost our mam, Brian .’

* * *

I go home early. I don’t give a shit. I kiss my wife. I kiss my kids. I take the phone off the hook. I put on an apron and I get stuck into the cooking. Bangers and mash, few sprouts and moans and groans from the kids, with lots of lovely thick bloody gravy; can’t beat it. Then I do the washing up and put the kids in the bath. I read them their stories and kiss them goodnight. Then I sit down on the sofa with the wife to watch a bit of telly:

Nixon and Cyprus. Nixon and Cyprus. Nixon and Cyprus –

So my wife goes up to bed but I know I won’t be able to sleep, not yet, not for a long time, so I stay up in the rocking chair and end up looking in the bloody paper again, the results spread out, working out a fucking league table on the back of one of my daughter’s paintings, a league table for the first two games, a league table that leaves Leeds next to bottom, next to last, so then I go through the fixture list inside my head, inside my skull:

If Leeds win this game and Derby lose that game; Derby lose that and Leeds win this; if Leeds get five points from these three fixtures and Derby only three, then the league table will look like this and not that, that and not this, and so on, and so on, and so on –

Until the sun is shining in my house, through the curtains and across the floor, and it’s just another morning; another morning when I wish I wasn’t there –

I wish I wasn’t going back there .

You go back home to Middlesbrough to cremate your mam –

The end of anything good. The beginning of everything bad …

When you’re gone, you’re gone; that’s what you believe –