David Peace - The Damned Utd

The leading member. The one that makes folk switch on –

The one that keeps them bloody watching .

You tell Longson you are going to Amsterdam. You tell Longson you’re taking Pete with you. You tell Longson that he can regard it as part of your holiday –

‘ This is a private matter then,’ says Longson. ‘And Derby will not pay for it .’

‘ Of course not,’ you tell him. ‘I wouldn’t bloody dream of it .’

Then Sam Longson asks you, ‘I wonder what you do bloody dream of these days, Brian?’

‘ What the hell do you mean by that? ’

‘ Do you dream of Derby County?’ he asks. ‘Or do you dream of television? ’

‘ What are you saying? ’

‘ I’m not saying anything,’ says Sam Longson. ‘All I know is that a man cannot serve two masters. He will come to love the one and hate the other .’

‘ If I have to give up all of this, the television, then I’ll resign, Mr Chairman .’

‘ Bloody well resign then,’ laughs Longson .

‘ But if I do, Mr Chairman, you know it’ll be curtains for you too .’

Longson spits on his hands. Longson rubs them together and then Longson says, ‘Right then, Brian, we’ll see, shall we? ’

* * *

The cleaning lady is cleaning my office, under the desk and behind the door, whistling and humming along to the tunes inside her head –

‘You know, I once sacked all the cleaning ladies at Derby.’

‘What did you do that for then, Brian?’ she asks me.

‘For laughing after we lost.’

‘Least you had a good reason then,’ she says. ‘Not like Mr Revie.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘Mr Revie once sacked a lass here for wearing green.’

‘Wearing green?’

‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘He thought green brought bad luck to club.’

‘And so he sacked her?’

‘Oh yes,’ she says again. ‘After we lost FA Cup final to Sunderland.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Just like that.’

The telephone on my desk starts to ring. I pick it up. I tell them, ‘Not now.’

* * *

The new season, 1973–74; but this new season is no new start; no beginning and no end. Things just going from bad to worse; out of Europe, in the dock; your chairman out to sack you and your mam still dead; this is how the 1973–74 season starts –

You face Sunderland and Bob bloody Stokoe in the second round of the League Cup and a thousand bad fucking memories. But Derby have a two-goal lead by half-time. You outplay the winners of the FA Cup and conquerors of Leeds United for three quarters of the match. You are playing exhibition football .

Then Sunderland hit back and equalize with two goals. Now you will have to travel to Roker Park for a replay. Now no one would bet on Derby to win that game .

‘Sheer lack of fucking professionalism!’ you tell the dressing room. ‘Your brains are still in Spain, sat on that fucking beach in the sun. The season’s bloody started –

‘ Never take your eye off that fucking ball –

‘ Never play exhibition football –

‘ Always kill a game –

‘ Always win it –

‘ Always! ’

* * *

Up the stairs. Down the corridor. Round the corner and through the doors. I’m late for the Monday lunch with the board. Late again. The board waiting in the club dining room, their bread all gone and their soup cold, their vegetables soft and their wine cheap –

I sit down. I light a cigar and I ask for a brandy, a bloody large one –

I thought there might be more smiles here. More laughter now –

‘Someone died, have they?’ I ask the dining room –

But the room is silent and stinks of cigarettes; the ashtrays full and the wine gone. The waiters clear away the club crockery and cutlery, the white linen tablecloths.

‘What time is the team leaving for London?’ asks Cussins, eventually.

‘After this party breaks up,’ I tell him, holding up my glass.

* * *

Your first two league games of the new season are against Chelsea and Manchester City. You win these first two games at home to Chelsea and Manchester City, win them both by one goal to nil. You have four points out of four. Not since 1961 have Derby County won the opening two games of a season, and that was in the Second Division. Not the First .

Then you draw 0–0 at Birmingham, defending in depth, adopting the very tactics you repeatedly castigate the England manager for, those negative tactics you repeatedly deplore on ITV and in your columns. There was also a clear, clear penalty; the most blatant, blatant one you have ever seen:

‘ The only good thing to come out of this was a clear demonstration of the discipline of the Derby County players,’ you tell the world and his wife. ‘I am sure that a certain other team who usually wear white, on the outside at least, I’m sure that particular team would have besieged the referee .’

You can say what the hell you want. You have five points out of six –

You do say what the hell you want. Twice weekly on the box –

Cloughie, that’s you. Twice weekly. The hell you want .

* * *

I have been in the kit room. I have been among the socks and the straps, the shirts and the shorts, but I have found what I was looking for. I have changed out of my good suit and nice tie into my tracksuit bottoms and this old Leeds United goalkeeping jersey.

Down the corridors. Round the corners. Through the doors and into the car park. The team and their trainers are already sat on the bus waiting for me. I climb aboard and plonk myself down next to Syd Owen at the front of the coach –

‘What do you think of this then, Sydney?’ I ask him.

‘Of what?’

‘Of this?’ I ask him again, pointing at this old Leeds United goalkeeping jersey.

‘I think if the team have to wear suits when they travel, so should their manager.’

‘But what do you think of the colour, Sydney?’

‘Green?’ he asks. ‘I think it suits you, Mr Clough.’

* * *

You have five points from your first three games. The fourth game of the 1973–74 season is at Anfield against the League Champions; against Kevin Keegan and Liverpool, against Bill Shankly. Young Steve Powell and John McGovern force early saves from Ray Clemence, but then it’s all Kevin Keegan, all Liverpool. Nineteen-year-old Phil Thompson scores the first of the night and his first for Liverpool; the first goal Derby have conceded in 305 minutes of First Division football. In the eighty-fifth minute of this game, Keegan scores a second with a penalty –

You have been beaten, well beaten, and outplayed –

Derby County drop from fifth to seventh place .

Eight days later, on Wednesday 12 September, Liverpool come to the Baseball Ground. Between these two games, you have beaten Everton in a game that some of the papers described as the very worst Derby County performance since you took over:

‘A shambles of a match … the kind of match one wants to forget … a complete lack of application … Everton robbed by two decisions from a linesman.’

Peter pins these words to the dressing-room wall; no team talk tonight and, four days after one of your worst performances, you take apart the League Champions –

You attack. You attack. You attack –

‘To go like this, from the macabre to the sublime,’ say the newspapers now, ‘means that Derby County are superbly managed. Nobody has ever doubted the ability of this team, but somebody had to make these players produce their best —’