David Peace - The Damned Utd

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

But then the glasses clink, the coughs come and the conversations start back up .

‘ This must be the first time you’ve been in here?’ asks Louis Edwards as he cracks open another bottle of champagne. But Peter is already pulling you away, already taking you to one side and saying, ‘Time we were going back down .’

‘ Fuck off,’ you tell him. ‘We’ve only just bloody got up here .’

‘ But I don’t like it here,’ he says. ‘Not my kind .’

‘Looks like someone wants a word with you though,’ you tell him, and Peter glances back to see Jack Kirkland crooking his finger, beckoning him over .

‘No one bloody crooks their fucking finger at me,’ hisses Peter .

‘Just go and see what the twat wants and then we’ll get off,’ you tell him –

Tick-tock, go the hands on your watch .

But as Peter is walking across the Manchester United boardroom towards Jack Kirkland, Longson is walking up to you and, in front of your wife and in front of the room, Sam Longson asks, ‘Did you make a V-sign at the Manchester United directors?’

‘ Did I do what? ’

‘ Did you make a V-sign at Sir Matt and the Manchester United directors? ’

‘ No. ’

‘ They say you did .’

‘ Well, I didn’t .’

‘ I want you to apologize .’

‘ No .’

‘ I’m not asking you to apologize,’ says Longson. ‘I’m telling you to apologize .’

‘ Fuck off .’

The chairman of Derby County Football Club stares into your eyes as your wife looks down at the devils in the carpet and you glance at your watch –

It has stopped .

Longson turns and walks away as Peter comes back across the Manchester United carpet. Peter is also red-faced. Peter also has tears in his eyes. Peter takes Lillian by her arm. Peter leads her out of the Manchester United boardroom –

You turn to your wife. You tell her, ‘We’re going.’

No one speaks on the coach back to Derby; the players don’t speak; the trainers and the coaches don’t speak; Jimmy and Peter don’t speak; you don’t speak; your wives don’t speak; no one speaks at all –

No one says a single fucking word –

It is Saturday 13 October 1973, and you know this is the end.

* * *

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, but it’s still another bloody ugly Yorkshire morning at the arse-end of August when I wake up in my modern luxury hotel bed in my modern luxury hotel room, feeling like fucking dogshit, and reach over the pens and the papers, the league tables and the fixtures to switch on the modern luxury radio beside the bed:

‘Yesterday Mr Denis Howell, the Sports Minister, chaired the so-called Soccer Summit to hammer out plans for dealing with hooliganism after the stabbing to death of a fourteen-year-old Blackpool supporter last Saturday. Afterwards Mr Howell said that players would also be required to tighten up their conduct on the pitch:

‘“ We have expressed the view that the FA, in dealing with misconduct, must express the seriousness of the situation and the determination we have to get this problem under control and conquer it in the interests of football and the sporting public .”

‘ Later this morning, Billy Bremner, of Leeds United and Scotland, and Kevin Keegan, of Liverpool and England, will appear before the FA Disciplinary Committee in London, accused of bringing the game into disrepute by pulling off their shirts after being sent off in the FA Charity Shield at Wembley earlier this month .’

I switch off my modern luxury radio and lie back in my modern luxury hotel bed and thank fucking God that I left Maurice in London to accompany Bremner and Giles –

Thank fucking God , this once.

* * *

The coach drops you all back at the Baseball Ground. You call taxis for your wives and then you and Peter go up the stairs to your office –

‘ He wants to know exactly what my job is,’ rails Peter. ‘Can you fucking believe the cunt? He’s only been on the board two fucking minutes and he wants to know what my bloody job is. Wagging his fucking finger at me in front of all them folk. First thing Monday bloody morning, the bastard tells me. Well, I’m not going, Brian. I’m bloody off. No one wags their fucking finger at me .’

You open up your office. You switch on the lights. You go inside –

The security grille has been pulled down over the bar .

You walk over to the grille. You rattle it –

It’s been locked .

* * *

There is no training today and the car park is empty when the taxi drops me at the ground. It’ll fill up soon enough; as soon as the FA Disciplinary Committee announces its verdict. I see John Reynolds up on the practice pitch. I jog up the banking and onto the pitch –

I hold up my wrist and my watch and I tell him, ‘Still going strong, John.’

‘That’s good,’ he says.

I nod and I smile and I ask him, ‘How are you this morning then, John?’

‘I’m working,’ he says and walks away.

* * *

You pace and you pace, up and down your carpet. Back and forth, you pace and you pace. The walls getting closer and closer, the room getting hotter and hotter. It is Sunday lunchtime and you can hear the church bells pealing, smell the Sunday joint cooking. Roasting. Peter is sat on your sofa. Peter is smoking. You pick up the phone. You telephone Longson at his home –

‘ Can I have your permission to sack Stuart Webb? He’s locked the bar .’

‘ I know,’ Longson tells you. ‘Stuart was acting on my instructions .’

‘ He was what? Why? What’s going on? ’

‘You just get on with managing the team,’ he tells you and hangs up .

You put down your telephone. Slam it down. Break it –

Peter is sat on your sofa. Peter is crying –

It is Sunday 14 October 1973 .

* * *

Under the stands. Through the doors. Round the corners. Down the corridor to the office. I unlock the door and I switch on the lights. The telephone is ringing. I pour a drink and I light a fag and I pick up the phone:

‘You best come up here,’ says Cussins. ‘The verdict’s in.’

I finish my drink. I put out my cigarette. I switch off the lights and I lock the door. Down the corridors and round the corners. Up the stairs and through the doors –

The Yorkshire boardroom, the Yorkshire curtains, the board silent and subdued, grim and stony-faced. The ashtrays filling up –

‘Both Bremner and Keegan have been fined £ 500 each and suspended from today until September the thirtieth,’ says Manny Cussins.

‘September the thirtieth?’ I repeat. ‘That’s over a bloody month.’

‘The viewing public were shocked and offended by what they saw,’ says Cussins. ‘The FA were let down. Mr Stokes and the Committee felt they had no choice.’

‘What about Giles?’

‘Both John Giles and Tommy Smith were giving a good talking to,’ says Cussins. ‘But no further action was taken against either of them.’

‘How many games will Bremner miss?’ asks Percy Woodward.

‘Eight,’ I tell him. ‘Including the first leg of the European Cup.’

‘Eight?’ repeats Cussins.

‘Not forgetting the three he’s already missed, so that’s eleven in all.’

‘We’ll survive,’ says Woodward. ‘It’s happened before.’