The Damned Utd by David Peace (easy readers txt) 📕

O let not our sins now cry against us for vengeance …

I point at McQueen and Jordan. I tell them, ‘You’ve both been to the World Cup and, McQueen, you’ve had a good one. I liked what I saw but I want to see more of it.’

But hear us thy poor servants begging mercy, and imploring thy help …

‘Mr Cooper and Mr Bates, they tell me you’re both finally fit again. Thank God! You’ll get your chance to prove yourselves to me tomorrow. Make sure you bloody do!’

That thou wouldst be a defence unto us against the face of the enemy …

‘Sniffer,’ I tell Allan Clarke. ‘You scored eighteen goals last season. I want fucking nineteen this season. At least fucking nineteen! Understood?’

Sniffer grins. Sniffer nods. Sniffer Clarke salutes.

Make it appear that thou art our Saviour and mighty Deliverer …

I turn to the last three. I tell them, ‘Cherry, young Gray, Taff Yorath – it’s a long season ahead of us, lots of games ahead of us – so train hard, keep your noses clean, do things my way and you’ll have your chances. Up to you to make sure you bloody take them chances when they do come along.’

My way –

‘Gentlemen, I might as well tell you now. You lot may have won all the domestic honours there are and some of the European ones but, as far as I am concerned, the first thing you can do for me is to chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pots and all your pans into the biggest fucking dustbin you can find, because you’ve never won any of them fairly. You’ve done it all by bloody cheating.’

Through Jesus Christ our Lord …

‘And there’s one other thing,’ I tell them all, tell every last fucking one of them. ‘I don’t ever want to hear the name of Don bloody fucking Revie again. Never ever again. So the next player who does mention that bloody name again will spend his working week with the fucking apprentices. Learning his lesson, whoever he bloody is, no matter who he fucking is –

‘Now bugger off home, the lot of you.’

Amen.

* * *

You meet the chairman of Derby County at a hotel at Scotch Corner. Peter waits in the car. Len Shackleton makes the introductions. This Sam Longson is another self-made millionaire, another blunt and plain-speaking man who drives a Rolls-Royce. His money from haulage. Proud of it. Proud of Derby County too. But Derby County are in the Second Division and going nowhere. Their only cup won back in 1946. Third Division North Champions in 1957. Nothing since. Nowhere since. They have just finished seventeenth in Division Two and Sam Longson has just sacked their manager, Tim Ward. Now Longson is getting hate mail. Now Longson is shitting himself –

‘That’ll soon be a thing of the past,’ you tell him. ‘And I’ll be the reason why –’

Then you start telling him why. Never stop telling him why. Never shut up.

Three hours later, Longson is so excited he won’t be able to sleep tonight.

You go out to the car. Peter has the window down. Peter asks, ‘How did it go?’

‘Job’s mine,’ you tell him. ‘Bloody mine!’

He’s as happy as Larry. Pleased as punch. Then he says, ‘What about me?’

* * *

Down the corridors. Round the corners. The empty corridors. The dark corners. The office is bare; just his old telephone and Jean Reid’s resignation letter on the floor by the door. I pull my kit bag across the carpet towards me and take out an unopened bottle of Martell. I light a cigarette and pick the price off the brandy –

£3.79 – Wineways.

Tomorrow is Saturday. Away at Huddersfield. My first game here –

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck …

I haven’t got a clue who to pick. I haven’t got a clue what to say –

Not a fucking one. Not a fucking one.

There are voices and feet outside the door. Laughter, then silence –

Down the corridors. Round the corners …

I get up off the floor. I open the door –

Nothing. No one.

I don’t believe in God. But I do believe in doubt. I do believe in fear.

Day Four

You drive down to a meeting with the Derby County directors at the Baseball Ground. The job’s yours but it still has to be ratified and confirmed by the full board, according to Sam. You’ve got the wife with you, the three bairns in the back of the Rover. You drop them by the swings in Normanton Park. You tell the wife you’ll be back within the hour. You drive on to the Baseball Ground.

Sam Longson is waiting for you with the rest of the board: Sidney Bradley, Harry Paine, Bob Kirkland and three others who say nothing and whose names you do not catch. Turns out the board have been overwhelmed with applications for the job, least that’s what they’re telling you. Turns out they have a shortlist of four –

Alan Ashman, Billy Bingham, Tommy Cummings and you –

Turns out the job’s not quite yours –

The Derby board do not even offer you a drink, so you help yourself.

‘My injury finished me as a player and took away the thing I loved most in this world,’ you tell them. ‘But it did give me an early start in management at Hartlepools. Re-election had become an annual event for them, but I changed that. I cut the playing staff down. I got rid of the players who were crap. I brought in one or two who were slightly better than crap. Hartlepools