David Peace - The Damned Utd

‘Do you think I should wear this every match day, Sydney?’ I ask him.

‘Wear what?’

‘Wear this,’ I tell him, pointing at my old green Leeds United goalkeeping jersey.

‘Why?’

‘I think it might just be my lucky jumper,’ I tell him. ‘My lucky colour.’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in luck, Mr Clough? In superstition?’

‘Well, you know what they say?’ I ask him. ‘When in Rome …’

‘Are you going to wear it tomorrow then?’

‘Tomorrow?’ I ask him. ‘What’s tomorrow?’

‘Just the FA disciplinary hearing.’

* * *

You have been beaten 1–0 by Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, drawn at home with Norwich City and watched Henry Newton struggle in both games. The board have refused Peter permission to write for the Derby Evening Telegraph. The board have refused your wife and Peter’s wife tickets for the game at Old Trafford this Saturday .

It is Thursday and you are late again for the weekly board meeting. In your absence, Sam Longson has called for your sacking –

‘For bloody breach of fucking contract?’ you repeat .

‘ There is a clause in your contract,’ states Longson, ‘that requires you to give your whole time and your whole attention to the affairs of Derby County Football Club .’

‘ Hypocrites! Bloody hypocrites! When I was invited to sit on the last World Cup panel, three years ago now, you lot bloody told me I must do it. And in those days I even fucking took him with me,’ you tell them, rail at them, pointing at Longson –

‘ And he bloody lapped it up, fucking loved it he did! ’

‘ Stop him doing television,’ Peter tells them, ‘and you’ll take away part and parcel of his management job from him. That’s unfair. Brian’s right, you were the ones who encouraged him in the first place. Egged him on .’

‘ Not me,’ says Jack Kirkland. ‘You’ll not be laying that one at my door .’

‘ Well then, what about this?’ asks Longson and hands out a piece of paper –

It’s an invoice for your expenses for your trip to Amsterdam; your trip to Amsterdam to watch Poland play Holland, the warm-up for the England game –

The England game you will be watching and speaking about for ITV .

‘ That’s a mistake,’ you tell them. ‘A genuine mistake. The TV pays for that .’

This time the board believe you. This time Sam Longson loses the vote to sack you. You have lived to fight another day –

But Jack Kirkland still has the last word:

‘ Stay off the bloody television and cut down the newspaper work,’ he tells you. ‘And get on with the fucking job we’re paying you for .’

It is Thursday 11 October 1973 .

First Division Positions, 28 August 1974

P W D L F A Pts1 Ipswich Town 4 4 0 0 7 0 8 2 Liverpool 4 3 1 0 6 2 7 3 Carlisle United 4 3 0 1 5 1 6 4 Everton 4 2 2 0 6 4 6 5 Man City 4 3 0 1 7 5 6 6 Derby County 4 1 3 0 4 2 5 7 Stoke City 4 2 1 1 6 3 5 8 Middlesbrough 4 2 1 1 5 3 5 9 Wolves 4 2 1 1 6 5 5 1 °Chelsea 4 2 1 1 8 7 5 11 Arsenal 4 2 0 2 5 4 4 12 QPR 4 1 2 1 3 3 4 13 Sheffield Utd 4 1 2 1 5 6 4 14 Leicester City 4 1 1 2 6 7 3 15 Newcastle Utd 4 1 1 2 8 10 3 16 West Ham Utd 4 1 1 2 4 7 3 17 Leeds United 4 1 1 2 2 5 3 18 Coventry City 4 0 2 2 5 8 2 19 Luton Town 4 0 2 2 2 5 2 20 Burnley 4 0 1 3 5 9 1 21 Birmingham C. 4 0 1 3 4 9 1 22 Tottenham H. 4 0 0 4 1 5 0

First thing every morning, last thing every night –

I recite Psalm 109.

Twice a day for one whole year.

If I miss one morning, if I miss one night –

Then I die, not you –

But I am a Cunning Man. And I am a Clever Man –

And I never miss.

It’s gone two in the morning when the bus drops us back at Elland Road and the taxi comes to take me to my modern luxury hotel. The bar is closed, the piano silent. I go up to my room and I pick up the phone to call my wife and kids, to call my brothers, to call John, Billy or Colin or any of my family and my friends not here with me tonight –

My mam and Peter .

I dial room service and I order champagne. Then I get out my pens and I get out my papers. I spread out the Evening Post and I start on the league tables and the fixtures. There’s a knock on the door and the waiter wheels in the trolley –

The bucket and the bottle .

‘Thank you very much,’ I tell him. ‘Now pick up that phone and call your gaffer and tell him you won’t be back down for the next hour because Brian bloody Clough has requested the pleasure of your company and then go get yourself another glass, pull up a pew and raise that glass in a toast with me –

‘ To absent friends — fuck them all .’

* * *

No one speaks when you meet in the car park at the Baseball Ground. No one speaks as you get on the team bus. No one speaks on the drive to Old Trafford. No one speaks at all; the players don’t speak; the trainers and the coaches don’t speak; Jimmy and Peter don’t speak; you don’t speak; Longson and Webby don’t speak; Kirkland and the other directors don’t speak. No one speaks at all. No one says a single bloody word –

Things have come to this; month by month, week by week, day by day. Now things can’t get any worse; the month is here, the week is here and the day is coming, the hour and the minute. Tick-tock, tick-tock, go the hands on your watch. Tick-tock –

This is the end, you think. This is the end. This is the end .

You and Peter stay with the team in the dressing room, your wives in the stands on scalped tickets, the ground filling up, the ground opening up –

Tick-tock, go the hands on your watch. Tick-tock .

You go down the tunnel with the team, your team, and out onto the pitch. You walk along the touchline. You look up into the stand for your wife. You see her in the stands. You put two fingers together and salute her with a wave. You take your place in the dug-out, on the bench, with Peter and with Jimmy –

Tick-tock, go the hands on your watch .

Just four minutes in and Forsyth underhits a back pass to Stepney, and Hector nips in and tucks the ball into the corner of the net. Just four minutes in and it’s as good as over, good as over until the seventy-ninth minute when Kidd and Young hit the bar. But the score remains the same until the end –

This is the end, you think. This is the end .

‘ I know that Don Revie studies the league table every night,’ you tell the press and the television. ‘And I know he’ll be looking at that table and thinking about Liverpool and Newcastle. But I also know one club will hit him right in the eye, and that club is Derby and this time I reckon we’ll be ready for Don Revie and Leeds United when he brings them to the Baseball Ground on November the twenty-fourth .’

‘ You’ll still be there then, will you?’ they ask. ‘Still the manager? ’

Peter pulls you away. Peter takes you to one side. Peter says, ‘Winning here doesn’t happen very often. Let’s take the wives upstairs to the boardroom .’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ you tell him .

‘ Come on,’ he says. ‘Might never happen again .’

Tick-tock, tick-tock, go the hands on your watch. Tick-tock –

‘ Go on then,’ you tell him, ‘but I’m not staying more than half an hour .’

So Peter goes off and finds your wives and then the four of you go upstairs to the Manchester United boardroom, the Manchester United boardroom where Longson and Kirkland and all the other Derby brass are having the time of their bloody lives, with their cigars in their hands and their wives on their arms, the time of their lives until you four walk in and the Manchester United boardroom goes quiet, silent –