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

Up in the air, drunk and scared. You pull out the paper, the Daily Mail:

‘Clay and I want each other bad,’ says Frazier. ‘I still call him Clay; his mother named him Clay. If you’ve been around this guy long enough, you can have a lot of hate in your heart when the bell rings, but otherwise you kind of look at him and you laugh. There’s something wron g with the guy. I’m aware now th at the guy’s got a couple of loose screws someplace.’

Up in the air, drunk and scared, this is how 1974 begins for Cloughie –

Drunk and scared, up in the air, nineteen hundred and seventy-four.

* * *

I watch them climb down the steps and off the team bus still in their black suits and their black ties, with their paperback books and their packs of cards, but I don’t bother to count the hearts, not this night –

This night has 30,000 eyes but no hearts. Thirty thousand eyes plus two: Don in the crowd. Don in the stands. Don in his black suit. His black tie. His funeral suit. His mourning suit. Here for my final game, same as my first game:

Huddersfield Town vs Leeds United –

This time it’s no friendly. This time it’s the Football League Cup, second round.

Huddersfield Town in their royal blue and white vertical-striped shirts, white shorts and white stockings: Poole. Hutt. Garner. Pugh. Saunders. Dolan. Hoy. McGinley. Gowling. Chapman and Smith –

Versus –

Leeds United in their yellow shirts, yellow shorts and yellow stockings: Harvey. Reaney. Cherry. Bates. McQueen. Hunter. Lorimer. Clarke. Jordan. Giles and Madeley. No McKenzie. No McGovern. No O’Hare –

They are Leeds United, the Champions of England. But they are not my team. Not mine. They win a penalty and Lorimer scores. The referee demands it be retaken and Lorimer misses. They go a goal behind with only eleven minutes left, a goal behind to a Third Division team, a goal behind before Lorimer crashes a volley into the back of the net with only one minute left. There will have to be a replay now at Elland Road in two weeks’ time. But I will not be there. I will not be their manager –

Because they are not my team. Not mine. Not this team, and they never will be –

In their dirty yellow shirts, dirty yellow shorts and dirty yellow stockings …

They are his team. His Leeds. His dirty, fucking Leeds and they always will be –

In his black suit. His black tie. In his funeral suit. His mourning suit …

Not my team. Never. Not mine. Never. Not this team. Never –

They are not Derby County and I am not Donald Revie.

* * *

Derby keep winning. Leeds keep winning. Brighton keep losing. But you are never there; Sunday through Thursday, you’re never, never there –

You are shaking hands with Muhammad Ali, shaking hands with Frank Sinatra. You are not on the back pages of the papers, you’re on the front.

You’re also back on the streets of Derby, on the stump for Phillip Whitehead; Phillip Whitehead, the Labour MP for Derby North; Phillip Whitehead who stood by you at Derby; Phillip Whitehead, your friend, who you want to help, and help full-time:

‘But how can you do that when you’re the manager at Brighton?’

‘No bloody problem,’ you tell him. ‘I only go there on Fridays and then I’m back home here in Derby by Saturday night …’

In the sleet and in the drizzle. On the estates and on the streets. On the stump:

‘I’m Brian Clough,’ you tell the voters of Derby, shout through your loud-hailer. ‘And I think you should all come out and vote for the Labour Party.’

In the sleet. In the drizzle. On the estates. On the streets. You are a Pied Piper:

‘I’m Brian Clough,’ you tell them. ‘And I want you all to get down to the polling station now and vote for Phillip Whitehead, your Labour candidate.’

In the sleet and in the drizzle, on the estates and on the streets, you love all this; the canvassing on the doorsteps, the speeches to the packed halls –

‘A slice of bloody cake for all!’ you tell them. ‘That’s what Brian Clough says.’

‘When you coming back to Derby, Cloughie?’ shouts someone during one of the question times as the whole hall applauds and stamps its feet –

‘Let’s get Phillip elected first,’ you tell the hall. ‘Then let’s see what happens.’

In the February 1974 General Election, Phillip Whitehead retains his seat with a majority of twelve hundred, against all the predictions. All the odds –

That’s what happens in Derby. In February 1974. Just that.

* * *

The five-mile coach journey from Leeds Road, Huddersfield, back to Elland Road, Leeds, is a long one; the longest bloody one of my whole fucking life. No paperback books tonight. No packs of cards. No bloody hearts tonight. No one laughs. No one jokes. No one speaks at all. Not one single word until Manny Cussins says –

‘Can I have a word with you, Brian?’

‘A word?’

‘Yes,’ he mumbles. ‘A word and a drink? Back at my flat.’

* * *

You are up in the air again. You are up in the air and on your way to Iran at the personal invitation of the Shah; the Shah of Iran who wants you to manage his national team –

You and Bill and Vince from the Sunday Mirror. First Class all the way.

The Shah offers you £500 a week to manage the Iranian team, twice your Brighton salary, with a palatial apartment and your own private swimming pool, luxury cars and chauffeurs at your beck and call, with flights back home at your every whim and fancy, the