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

9 4 8 5 Everton 6 3 2 1 8 6 8 6 Sheffield Utd 6 3 2 1 10 8 8 7 Carlisle United 6 3 1 2 6 4 7 8 Middlesbrough 6 2 3 1 7 5 7 9 Wolves 6 2 3 1 8 7 7 10 Derby County 6 1 4 1 6 6 6 11 Newcastle Utd 6 2 2 2 12 12 6 12 Chelsea 6 2 2 2 9 11 6 13 Burnley 6 2 1 3 9 9 5 14 Leicester City 6 1 3 2 8 9 5 15 QPR 6 1 3 2 4 5 5 16 Arsenal 6 2 0 4 6 7 4 17 Birmingham C. 6 1 2 3 6 10 4 18 Luton Town 6 0 4 2 4 7 4 19 Leeds United 6 1 2 3 4 8 4 20 Coventry City 6 0 3 3 7 13 3 21 West Ham Utd 6 1 1 4 5 11 3 22 Tottenham H. 6 1 0 5 5 10 2

I was a Yorkshire Man and I was a Cunning Man –

And I cursed you!

First with gift, then with loss –

I cursed you!

Loss and then gift, gift and then loss –

Until you lost. Until you left –

I cursed you, Brian. I damned you, Cloughie.

Day Forty

You’re sorry now, you’re sorry now, you’re so fucking very sorry now –

You thought you’d never get away. You thought Mike Bamber would never let you leave. You thought he’d lock you in your room at the Courtlands Hotel, Brighton. Then you thought Peter would never agree to come back with you. Not back to Derby with you. Not tonight. Then you thought you’d never find a car. Not at that time. Not to go to Derby. Never find a driver. Then the journey took a lifetime. The traffic. The weather. You thought you’d never make it. Thought the meeting would be over by the time you got here. But here you are, back home in Derby. Here for the meeting at the King’s Hall, Derby –

The King’s Hall packed. Standing room only. The King’s Hall expectant –

You climb onto the stage. You raise your hands. You fight the tears –

‘We took the job because we were out of work,’ you tell the King’s Hall, Derby. ‘We are football men and the position was open.’

You have come to say goodbye. You have come to say thanks –

‘Thanks for everything you’re doing,’ you tell them. ‘And don’t forget to support Roy McFarland …’

You start to cry. You cannot stop. You hand the microphone to Pete and Peter says, ‘I think we’d better cool it now. But thank you for your support.’

But the Derby County Protest Movement don’t agree. The Protest Movement don’t agree to cool it. The Protest Movement still want you back –

‘This is incredible,’ you tell John Shaw. ‘If I can get back to Derby, I will.’

‘But we’re not going back,’ Taylor tells you. ‘There can be no going back, Brian. Not now. Not now we’ve signed for Brighton. We should all get on with the rest of our lives and stop misleading people. The Protest Movement, the players, the people of Derby. It’s not fair; not fair on them, not fair on Dave –’

‘Fuck Dave Mackay,’ you tell him. ‘Fuck him.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ he says. ‘You’re only hurting him and hurting yourself. Half these folk that are protesting, asking for you back, they’re only doing it to get a bit of free publicity for their businesses, jumping on the bandwagon to promote themselves.’

‘Fuck off!’ you tell him. ‘Fuck off!’

‘Open your eyes, man,’ he tells you. ‘Look around you. No one cares about you. No one cares about Derby County. About a little fucking football club.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘We’ve resigned, Brian. We’ve got new jobs,’ he says. ‘It’s time to move on.’

You storm out. You slam the doors. You walk the streets of Derby. You find a taxi. You get a free lift home. You push open your front door. You run up the stairs. You fall down onto your bed and pull the covers over your head –

‘What have I done?’ you shout and scream. ‘What have I fucking done?’

It is Thursday 1 November 1973.

Day Forty-one

I see it from the motorway. Through the windscreen. Are you there, Brian? Fallen off the top of Beeston Hill. In a heap up against the railway and the motorway banking. Are you still there? The floodlights and the stands, those fingers and fists up from those sticks and those stones, his flesh and their bones. Zombies, bloody zombies. No kids in the back today. Just Arthur Seaton, Colin Smith, Arthur Machin and Joe Lampton here today –

You let them bastards grind you down, they whisper. Those zombies …

‘Shut your bloody gobs,’ I tell them and turn the radio on, on fucking full blast:

‘I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly … It is a burden I shall bear for every day of the life that is left to me …’

Nixon. Nixon. Nixon. Radio on:

‘Mr Evel Knievel fell in the canyon leap on his sky cycle over Snake River Canyon, but landed without injury thanks to his parachute …’

Parachute. Parachute. Parachute. Radio on:

‘Meanwhile, in other sporting news, Leeds United, never out of the top four places over the last ten years, find themselves this morning still three places off the bottom and their new manager, Brian Clough, in an increasingly difficult position …’

I switch off the radio as I come off the motorway