David Peace - The Damned Utd

The tables and the fixtures in my head, the doubts and the fears that should Leeds lose to Luton and then Tottenham beat Liverpool, Birmingham beat QPR and Coventry beat Manchester City, then Leeds would be bottom of the First Division –

The wife is frying some bacon, the kids eating their cereal –

Leeds would be bottom of the First Division …

I pour a cup of tea, heap in four sugars –

Bottom of the First Division …

Four kisses bye-bye –

Bye-bloody-bye .

* * *

The Derby players , your players, have written a letter to the board. This is what the Derby players , your players, have written in their letter to the board:

Dear Mr Longson and the directors of Derby County Football Club,

During the events of last week we, the undersigned players, have kept our feelings within the dressing room. However, at this time, we are unanimous in our support and respect for Mr Clough and Mr Taylor and ask that they be reinstated as manager and assistant manager of the club.

It was absolutely vital that we won against Leicester on Saturday for ourselves, as well as for the club and fans. Now that match is out of the way, nobody can say we have acted on the spur of the moment and are just being emotional.

We called the meeting of first-teamers and it was emphasized that nobody was under obligation to attend. But everybody was there. We then decided to write this letter and again nobody was under pressure to sign. But again, everybody did.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Boulton. Ron Webster. David Nish. John O’Hare. Roy McFarland. Colin Todd. John McGovern. Archie Gemmill. Roger Davies. Kevin Hector. Alan Hinton. Steve Powell.

You have tears running down your cheeks at what the Derby players , your players, have written about you, a big bloody lump in your throat and the phone in your hand:

‘I am staggered,’ you tell the Daily Mail, exclusively. ‘Whatever happens I will always be grateful to the players , my players, for restoring my faith in human nature .’

* * *

The cleaning lady is cleaning the office, under the desk and behind the door, not whistling or humming along to her tunes today –

I ask her, ‘How are you today then, Joan?’

‘I’ve been better, Brian,’ she says. ‘I’ve been better.’

I ask, ‘Why’s that then, love?’

‘State of that bloody bathroom down corridor,’ she says. ‘That’s why.’

‘What about it?’

‘You should’ve seen it,’ she says. ‘Mirror broken. Blood in sink. Piss over floor.’

‘No?’

‘I tell you, Brian,’ she tells me, ‘they don’t pay us enough to clean up all that.’

My face is red, my hand still bandaged as I say, ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘Why?’ she asks. ‘Not like it’s your fault, is it, Brian? Not you that thumped mirror and bled all over sink then pissed on floor just because you lost, was it?’

* * *

You have your faith in human nature back, but you still have no job and no car. You have to take a taxi to meet the Derby players , your players, for lunch at the Kedleston Hall Hotel, your new headquarters. You have to pay for the taxi yourself. The Derby players are confused and waiting, their heads in their hands; the players are depressed and worried, their faces long; the players scared and furious, their eyes wide, on stalks –

‘ It’s a bloody outrage,’ says Roy McFarland; Red Roy, as the press call him. ‘The way they’ve treated you, after all you’ve done for them. I tell you, last week was the worst week of my whole bloody life. Drawing with Poland and losing you as a boss, the worst week of my life. I didn’t hang around after the England match, didn’t go back to the hotel with the other lads; I just got in me car and drove straight back home to Derby .’

Eyes filling up and drinks going down, tempers rising and voices choking –

‘What can we do, Boss?’ they all ask you .

‘ You’ve done enough,’ you tell them. ‘That letter was brilliant. Meant a lot .’

‘ But there must be more we can do?’ they all ask. ‘There has to be, Boss? ’

‘ I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ you tell them. ‘We’ll have a bloody party. Tonight .’

‘ A party?’ they all say. ‘What kind of a party? ’

‘ A fucking big one,’ you tell them. ‘So bugger off home and get your wives and your bairns and your glad rags on and meet us all at the Newton Park Hotel tonight .’

* * *

There should be no training today. There should be no players in today. They should all be at home with their wives and their kids, the girlfriends and their pets. But then Jimmy told me they were all coming in anyway, coming in for their complimentary club cars, their brand-new bloody club cars. But after Saturday, after Maine Road, they don’t deserve a club fucking bicycle between them and so I cancelled their days off and told them to report back here at nine o’clock, Monday morning, if they wanted their bloody fucking club cars –

‘The bloody chances you lot missed on Saturday,’ I tell them. ‘They ought to make you all fucking walk to the ground and back every game, never mind giving you a bleeding club car. Only you’d get fucking lost, you’re that bloody thick half of you.’

I turn my back on them. I leave them to Jimmy. I walk off the training pitch. Down the banking. Past the huts on their stilts. John Reynolds, the groundsman, and Sydney Owen are stood at the top of the steps to one of the huts. They are staring at a broken lock and an open door –

‘Be bloody kids,’ I tell them as I pass them.

Sydney says something that sounds like, ‘Bloody big mouth again.’

‘You what?’ I ask him –

‘I said, be bloody big ones then,’ says Sydney.

Least there’s no Maurice today. Maurice is in Switzerland to watch Zurich play Geneva. To spy on Zurich. To compile his dossier. To write his report. There’s no John Giles either. The Irishman is down in London with his Eire squad. To meet with Tottenham. His ticket bloody out of here.

This is what those players are thinking about at training today –

Not Stoke City. Not QPR. Not Birmingham or Manchester City –

Not the chances they missed; the chances they must take –

Against Luton. Against Huddersfield and against Zurich –

Johnny fucking Giles , that’s what they’re thinking about –

Johnny fucking Giles and Vauxhall bloody motors –

‘What kind you going to get, Boss?’ Jimmy had asked me first thing this morning.

‘I’m not off, am I,’ I told him.

‘Why not?’

‘Not been invited, have I.’

‘Why not?’ he asked me again.

‘Maybe they think I won’t be around long enough to need a new bloody car.’

‘I hope you’re fucking joking,’ said Jimmy.

‘I wish I were,’ I told him. ‘Wish I were.’

* * *

You leave the Derby players, your players, until tonight. You drive over to see Mike Keeling. Mike Keeling thinks the board have turned against Longson. He thinks there might be a wedge between them now –

‘ They’re at each other’s throats,’ he says. ‘At each other’s throats! ’

‘ Bet you wish you’d not been so bloody quick to resign now, don’t you? ’

‘ What about you?’ he asks you. ‘Is that how you feel, Brian? Is it? ’

‘ You know it is,’ you tell him. ‘You know it bloody is .’

‘ Well, just this once,’ he says, ‘we might just be able to turn back the clock .’

‘ You really think so, Mike? Really? ’