David Peace - The Damned Utd

Then you drive to the Baseball Ground and park your Derby County club car in the space reserved for the Derby County club manager and walk through the press and the television, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, past a group of night-shift workers from Rolls-Royce who pat you on your back and plead with you, ‘Please don’t bloody go, Brian. Please don’t fucking go.’

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

Then you disappear inside the Baseball Ground, you disappear .

* * *

In the rain and in the sun, under the black and blue, purple and yellow Yorkshire skies, it should be business as usual today, training as usual for everyone. The club secretary has issued a statement on behalf of Leeds United:

‘ Billy will be training with the rest of his teammates as he has done over the past fortnight when he has also been under suspension .’

But the press and the television still want more, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, still waiting for me as we pull into the Elland Road car park, as I slam the door of Jimmy’s car, as I do up my cuffs and tell them all:

‘I am not saying a word about the FA decision. Not a word.’

* * *

Up the stairs. Through the doors. Round the corners. Down the corridors, Pete already here; smoking his cigs and biting his nails in the antechamber –

‘ Where have you been?’ he asks. ‘I thought you weren’t going to show .’

‘ I had things to do,’ you tell him. ‘Now let’s get in there .’

‘ We’ve got to wait out here .’

‘ For what? ’

‘ For them to consider our resignations .’

‘If they’ve got things to say, they can bloody well say them to my fucking face,’ you tell him and walk towards the boardroom doors –

‘ Please don’t,’ Pete says, Pete begs. ‘It’ll just make things worse .’

So you turn back from the doors and sit down next to him and light a cig of your own, staring at the clock on the wall and the potted plant by the doors; and you know you’ve made a big mistake, sat out here, smoking your cig, waiting your turn, remembering all the bloody things you know you should have said, all the fucking things you know you should have done, all them bloody, fucking things you had forgotten –

Then the doors open and Longson shouts, ‘Right, you two, let’s have you in!’

But before you’re even halfway into the room, before you’ve even sat down, you’ve already told them: ‘Accept our resignations.’

‘ Now wait, Brian,’ says Sir Robertson-King. ‘We’d like you to reconsider .’

But Longson is quick too, quick to say, ‘He’s resigned and he wants us to accept his resignation, so I propose we accept it and have bloody done!’

‘ Now just you listen to me,’ you tell him, tell them all. ‘We’ve only resigned because of him, him and his narrow-minded ways. Everything I’ve ever done has been for the good of Derby County, everything! And that includes the television and the newspapers, the television and the newspapers that helped put Derby County on the bloody map, that put you all on the fucking map. And so I won’t be told by him — not by him or by the FA or by the League or by anybody — what I can or cannot write and what I can or cannot say. But if this board withdraw his daft ultimatum and banish that bugger from our sight and just let us get on with our job of winning the league and then the European Cup, of taking on every single thing in the game and of creating a footballing dynasty here at Derby County, then we will withdraw our resignations .’

The board nod their heads. The board mutter. The board will put it to the vote. The board ask you and Peter both to wait outside again –

Outside with the clock on the wall. The potted plant by the doors. The doors that quickly open again so they can call you back in:

‘Your resignations have reluctantly been accepted,’ smiles Jack Kirkland –

Only Sir Robertson-King and Mike Keeling have voted against accepting your resignations. Now Mike Keeling resigns, along with your own secretary .

‘ Don’t even think of a settlement,’ Longson tells you. ‘You’re getting nowt! ’

You stand in the centre of the room, naked and beaten, with Peter beside you .

‘Leave your car keys on the table and get out now,’ barks Longson .

In the centre of the room, naked and beaten before the board, their eyes down on the table, their fingers at their mouths, their feet shuffling and eager to leave –

‘ Not one of you has the guts to stop this?’ you ask them. ‘Not one of you? ’

But their eyes stay down on the table, their fingers at their mouths –

‘Cowards!’ you bark at them all and turn to the doors, the doors and the exit, the exit and the antechamber; through the antechamber and down the corridor, down the corridor and into the executive lounge you go –

‘ I want you out of the ground,’ Longson is shouting. ‘Both of you, now! ’

Into the heat of the lights, the gaze of the cameras, and the … Action!

Daggers drawn, pistols poised, you stand at one end of the lounge and Longson stands at the other; Longson telling the press and the television, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, telling them all how your resignations have been accepted, accepted but ‘with a certain amount of sadness’ .

‘ It surprises me a little,’ you answer back, ‘that people, the very people who want to stop me putting two words together, can’t put them together themselves .’

But Longson keeps blinking into the lights, keeps stuttering into the cameras, blinking and stuttering on and on about acceptance and sadness .

‘ I feel deeply embarrassed for the chairman,’ you tell the same cameras and lights, not blinking and not stuttering. ‘And deeply ashamed for Derby County .’

Finally, Jack Kirkland drags the chairman away from the heat of the lights and the gaze of the cameras, drags him back into the board meeting and, as he goes, as Longson goes back into that boardroom, Longson turns and looks into your eyes and spits upon his hand, he spits upon his hand again and winks –

‘Right then, Brian, we’ll see, shall we?’

And you, you push your way through the press and the television, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, you push your way back down that corridor towards that boardroom, and those doors they close in your face, slam shut in your face –

In your face, in your face, after all the bloody things you’ve fucking done for them, they close those doors in your face, slam them shut in your face, and you pick up the jug of water from the table and you’re going to throw it through those bloody doors, throw it in all their fucking faces, when Peter takes hold of your arm, Peter takes hold of your arm and lowers the jug back down to the table and says, ‘Leave it, Brian. Leave it .’

* * *

The bad boy of British football doesn’t knock. The bad boy of British football just opens the office door and says, ‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘Have a seat, William. Have a fag and a drink too, if you want.’

Bremner takes a seat. Bremner takes a fag. Bremner takes a drink.

‘You’re going to miss the Man. City match on Saturday,’ I tell him. ‘Then the Luton game the following Saturday, the League Cup game against Huddersfield, then the league games against Burnley, Sheffield United, Tottenham and Everton, and also the first round of the European Cup. That means your first match back for us will be the return leg of the European Cup game in Zurich.’