David Peace - The Damned Utd

‘A hundred and forty-two days out of the last ten years,’ I tell them.

‘But this is the first trouble Bremner’s had in over four years,’ says Woodward. ‘Mr Revie worked very hard to improve discipline.’

I light a cigarette. I say nothing.

Then Sam Bolton says, ‘You should have been there.’

‘At the FA? Why?’

‘Paisley was there with his players.’

‘So bloody what?’ I tell him. ‘What Bremner did was nothing to do with me and I’ll not be associated with it.’

‘He’s your player,’ says Bolton. ‘Your captain.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any bloody difference whether I was there or not.’

‘Not to fine or suspension,’ says Bolton. ‘But it might have made a bloody difference to player himself and rest of his bloody team.’

‘Bollocks,’ I tell him, tell them all, and I leave the room. Through the doors. Down the stairs. Round the corners. Down the corridors. I unlock the door and I switch on the light. There is a note on the floor under the door to say Bill Nicholson called.

* * *

Peter comes out of his meeting with Jack Kirkland and says, ‘I don’t think there is any place for me here now. It’s Hartlepools all over again, trying to get at you through me.’

‘They think we’re too big for our boots,’ you say and hand Peter the letter –

The letter that arrived this morning. The letter from Longson –

First class. Recorded delivery:

Dear Mr Clough,

Henceforth each and every newspaper article and television appearance must be approved by the board. If you repeat or continue after receipt of this letter any breach of your obligations under your agreement with the club, the board will assuredly take the only course which you will thereby leave open to them. I should add that they will do so with some reluctance but without hesitation.

Yours sincerely, Samuel Longson

‘What are we going to do?’ asks Peter .

‘ We’re finishing,’ you tell him. ‘That’s what we’re going to do .’

You pick up the phone. You call Longson –

‘ You’ve got what you wanted,’ you tell him. ‘We’re calling a special board meeting tonight and we’re resigning .’

‘ There’ll be no board meeting tonight,’ he tells you. ‘I’m not driving all the way into Derby just for you two buggers. Put your resignations in writing and give them to the board tomorrow morning .’

You put down the phone. You look round the office –

At Peter. At the journalists and the mates who’ve gathered here –

‘ You’re a bloody journalist so you can type, can’t you?’ you tell the bloke from the Evening Telegraph, and Gerald Mortimer from the Derby Evening Telegraph nods .

‘Good,’ you tell him. ‘Then take this down:

‘Dear Mr Longson,

‘Thank you for your letter, which was delivered to me today. I have studied it carefully and have come to the conclusion that this, coupled with the other events of the past three months, leaves me with no alternative course of action. I wish therefore to inform you and the board of directors that I am tendering my resignation as manager of this club and wish this to come into effect immediately.

‘Yours sincerely, Brian Clough.’

Gerald Mortimer stops typing. The office is silent. The security grille locked –

‘ Right, Peter,’ you tell him. ‘You’re next .’

* * *

I drive back down to Derby early. I kiss my wife and I kiss my kids. I lock the door and I take the phone off the hook. I have dinner with my wife and my kids. I wash the dishes and I dry them. I bath my kids and I dry them. I read them stories and I kiss them goodnight. I watch television with my wife and I tell her I’ll be up in a bit. Then I switch off the television and I pour another drink –

I get out my pens and I get out my papers –

The league table and the results. The league table and the fixtures –

But the results never change. Never. The table never changes –

Until it’s almost light outside. Again. Morning here now –

This won’t work. That big black fucking dog again –

‘Clough out!’ he barks. ‘Clough out! Clough out!’

You’ve spent the whole night doing the rounds; house to house, pub to pub, club to club; gathering your support and rallying your troops, your heart already heavy with regret but your head still light with injustice and rage, injustice and rage, injustice and rage …

First you met with Phillip Whitehead, your friend and local MP –

‘ Don’t give the board the chance to overthrow you,’ he told you. ‘Because that’s what they want, what they’re waiting for. Only resign if you genuinely don’t want the job and you’re satisfied that the sacrifice will be worth it …’

Injustice and rage. Injustice and rage …

Then off you flew again, off in your club car to meet Sir Robertson-King, the President of Derby, at his local pub in Borrowash –

‘Are you sure about what you’re doing?’ he asked you .

‘ No, I’m not sure,’ you told him. ‘But I can’t carry on working in that atmosphere. Now, if you took the chair …’

‘ Let’s see how it goes at the board meeting tomorrow then .’

Injustice and rage. And regret …

Now night is day, tomorrow today, and the morning of the board meeting here, your children looking at you with worry in their wide eyes, worry on their open mouths, for the things they’ve seen, the things they’ve heard –

The things they feel but do not understand .

* * *

I’m late out of bed, late to get washed, late to get dressed, late down the stairs and late out the door. Jimmy is picking me up this morning, Jimmy already parked waiting outside, Jimmy with his hand on his horn, and the first thing he says when I open the door is, ‘You hear about Bill Nick, Boss?’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s resigned.’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘No.’

‘It’s in all the papers, all over the radio.’

‘Why?’

‘Poor results and modern players, that’s what they’re saying.’

‘What about modern chairmen and modern directors?’

‘Never mentioned them,’ laughs Jimmy. ‘But, seriously, I think it was Rotterdam. I don’t think he’s ever got over that. He told Dave Mackay that he was physically sick, he was that scared. You know his own daughter was there in the stadium when all the Spurs fans were rioting. Dave was there and all and he says he’s never heard owt as sad as the sound of Bill Nick making his appeals over the loudspeakers for them to stop fighting.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I tell Jimmy. ‘But I do know one thing …’

‘What’s that, Boss?’

‘Never resign,’ I tell him. ‘Never ever resign.’

Then we pick up the Johns. Four big men in one small car –

No conversation. No chat. No banter. No jokes. No radio. Nothing –

Just four men on their way to Leeds. On their way to work.

* * *

You have prior engagements, prior to the board meeting, engagements you intend to keep; so you drive miles and miles out of Derby to open a new shop for an old friend, then you drive miles and miles back into town to visit some elderly patients at a hospital –

And at the shop and at the hospital, the customers and the patients, the staff and the doctors, they all shake you by your hand and say, ‘Don’t go, Brian. Please don’t.’

And you clasp their hands and nod your head and thank them for their hands and for their words, and tell them, ‘I don’t want to go.’