David Peace - The Damned Utd

‘ You never called,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about us .’

‘ Forgotten?’ you laugh. ‘I didn’t get back to the bloody house till midnight .’

‘ So?’ he says .

‘ So, what?’ you ask .

He wipes his mouth and he says, ‘Don’t make me beg, Brian. Please …’

‘ Beg?’ you laugh. ‘You’ll never beg again. We’re in! Bloody in! ’

‘ Both of us?’ he says. ‘They agreed to take me and all? ’

‘ Course they bloody did,’ you tell him. ‘Me and you .’

He’s still smiling but now he’s asking, ‘How much? ’

‘ £2,500 a year, with £70,000 for new players .’

‘ £2,500 a year each? ’

‘ With £70,000 for new players,’ you tell him again, and now he’s jumping up and down on his doorstep and hugging you like you’ve both just come up on the bloody pools, and you’re opening up the carrier bag in your hand and taking out the two bottles of champagne and the packets of cigars –

‘ We’re on our way,’ he’s shouting. ‘You and me; Clough and Taylor! ’

Sunday is the loneliest bloody day of the fucking week for the manager of a football club. The manager’s office on a Sunday bloody morning, the loneliest fucking place on earth if you lost the day before –

Leeds won yesterday — just, thanks to Michael Bates — but I’m still the only one here today in this empty office, on this empty corridor, under this empty stand –

No one here today but me. No one here but me. No one but me –

In this empty ground, in this empty city, this empty land –

No wife. No kids. No Peter Taylor –

No fucking Taylor. No Judas –

Just me and the ghost of troubled Don –

Behind every door. Down every corridor. Round every corner .

I leave the office. His office . I walk down the corridors. His corridors . Round the corners. His corners . Down the tunnel. His tunnel . Out into the light and onto the pitch –

I take my cigs, I take my drink. Across the blades, across the lines –

This cigarette which takes the skin off my lip. This drink which dulls the sting. Every single blade of grass of consequence, every single line of chalk an authority –

Upon the empty, deserted pitch beneath the empty, deserted stands –

This pitch where I played and only won, where I’ve managed and only lost, beneath these stands where I’ve heard them jeer and heard them swear, heard them whistle and heard them boo.

It starts to spit. To piss it down again. I take my cigs. I take my drink. I leave that pitch. I leave those stands. I walk back down the corridors. Round the corners and through the doors. To the office –

His fucking office .

I should be at home with my wife and my kids, carving the roast and digging the garden, walking the dog and washing the car –

Not sat here in this office in my brand-new chair behind my brand-new desk, standing back up then sitting down again, picking up the phone and putting it back down, thinking about the week just gone and the one to come, planning and scheming, plotting and dreaming; every ground in the land, every manager the same –

Not home with the wife. Not home with the kids –

For when you’re there, you wish you weren’t …

No Sunday roast. No English garden –

When you’re not, you wish you were –

Just a fat dog and a dirty car –

Because I’m never there. I’m always here –

Here in my brand-new chair behind my brand-new desk on the phone to Des Anderson, assistant manager at Derby County. I know they’re still not happy, the players there. Not since we left. I know they’d all jump at the chance to play for me again –

John McGovern first. Then the entire first team, if I had my way –

My Way , indeed –

‘How much?’ I ask Des.

‘ £ 150,000.’

‘Fuck off,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve got him on the bloody transfer list and playing in the fucking reserves.’

‘Dave needs the money,’ he says. ‘It’s as simple as that.’

‘For what?’ I ask him. ‘I left him the best fucking team in bloody Europe.’

Des sighs. Des says, ‘He wants Duncan McKenzie.’

‘Who?’

‘This lad at Forest. Twenty-eight goals last season. On a one-man strike now.’

‘For what?’

‘A better club,’ laughs Des.

I put down the phone –

Who the fucking hell is Duncan McKenzie? Taylor would know, know everything about him. Especially a Nottingham lad. Chapter and verse. But he’s not bloody here –

Fucking Taylor. Fucking Judas .

And he won’t be at the Goldstone Ground either. Not on a Sunday. Not Taylor. So I call his house, his brand-new fucking flat beside the seaside. No answer –

Fucking Taylor. Fucking Judas .

Mike Bamber will have taken them all out for a slap-up Sunday lunch at his hotel. The Courtlands Hotel. Taylor and his family. Bamber and his –

Oysters and smoked salmon. Champagne and caviar –

Dora Bryan on the next table. Bruce fucking Forsyth.

I pour myself another large Martell. The name on my cig pack –

Duncan McKenzie .

Whoever the fuck this McKenzie is, Dave Mackay wants him for Derby County, and if Dave Mackay wants him for Derby County, I want him for Leeds –

My Leeds. My new Leeds .

I get out my address book. I pour another Martell, light another cig and pick up the phone again. I make a few calls. Take folk from their roasts and their gardens –

Their dogs and their cars.

He’s a popular lad this Duncan McKenzie. Bloody Tottenham want him as well. To replace Martin Chivers. Fucking Birmingham too. Very popular for a lad who quit football a month ago and has only trained with his local amateur side. Popular enough for Dave Mackay to have already offered Alan Brown £ 200,000 for him. Popular enough for Alan Brown to have rejected it and all –

Popular enough for Brian Clough and my new Leeds United.

I drive back down to Derby on an empty stomach and an empty motorway. I show my face in the Midland Hotel and then out at the Kedleston Hall Hotel, where one thing leads to another, one drink to another, and I know I’m going to be late back home again, to another roast burnt, another garden overgrown, to another fat dog in another dirty car –

No son to my parents. No husband to my wife. No father to my kids –

But you can never bring it home –

Never. Never. Never –

Bring it home –

Ever.

Derby County say they have a tradition. But it’s not much of one; of entertainment, not success, bar the 1946 FA Cup-winning side of Jack Nicholas, Raich Carter and Peter Doherty. Derby County say they have a history. But not much of one; relegated from the First Division in 1953; relegated from the Second in 1955. Back now in the Second Division. But only just. Derby County also say they have a curse. But not much of one; just the old belief that the club was cursed by the gypsies who were turned off the site of the Baseball Ground, them and every other club –

Curses. History. Tradition –

Derby County don’t know the meaning of the bloody words, not in the fucking Midlands. Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle, these are the places where curses, tradition and history mean something; in the north-east. You already think you might have made a mistake leaving home, leaving home and coming here .

Your very first game as manager of Derby County is on the 1967 pre-season tour of West Germany. Derby County are rubbish. Bloody rubbish. Utter fucking rubbish –