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

Jimmy who’s picking up the balls and putting them back in their bags, ask Jimmy, ‘Where the fucking hell are they?’

‘They’ve finished up. They’ve all gone for their soap downs and their massages.’

‘Get them back out here,’ I tell him. ‘I’m the fucking manager here. I decide –’

‘But you weren’t –’

‘I wasn’t what?’

‘Nothing,’ says Jimmy. ‘You’re right, Boss. You’re right.’

‘I know I am,’ I tell him. ‘Now you get them back out here and you fucking tell them from me, you tell them they finish when I say so. Not a moment before.’

‘Boss, maybe it’d be better coming –’

‘Do it,’ I tell him. ‘Or I’ll fucking sack you and all.’

Jimmy does it and, ten minutes later, there are sixteen very long faces in sixteen dirty purple tracksuits out on that training pitch; sixteen long faces until Duncan McKenzie, the new boy, gets hold of the ball and runs with it at Bites Yer Legs –

‘Nutmeg, Norman!’ he shouts out and plays the ball through Hunter’s legs –

Everyone is laughing now, even Hunter. Even Bremner. Even Giles –

I clap my hands. Jimmy blows his whistle. The laughter stops.

‘Now before you all go off for your lovely hot baths,’ I tell them, ‘before you all piss off in your lovely new suits and your lovely flash cars to your lovely new houses and your lovely young wives, you can all get down on your bloody hands and knees and look for my fucking watch!’

* * *

You and the team have three days’ relaxation at your Marlow HQ. You and the team go down to London on a luxury team coach. You and the team spend a night at one of the capital’s finest hotels. You and the team have your breakfasts in your beds. You and the team arrive to a splendid reception from your travelling fans at Selhurst Park. You and the team go and get changed. Then you and the team run out onto that pitch and beat Crystal Palace 2–1 with goals from Roy McFarland and Willie Carlin –

You beat high-flying Crystal Palace and you go top, top, top –

This is the day, this is the day, this is the day –

The day Derby go top of Division Two –

Saturday 30 November 1968.

Everything about you and Derby County has First Division stamped all over it; your preparation, your luxury coach, your choice of hotels, the style of your play and the manner of your victories –

You have lost only once in the league since you went to Leeds Road and were beaten by Huddersfield Town. Just once in the league since that day –

Just once since Willie Carlin joined.

Following that victory over Chelsea, you also went to First Division Everton and drew o–o in the fourth round of the League Cup. Then you brought them back to the Baseball Ground and beat them 1–0; another night to remember in a season never to forget. Next you got Swindon in the fifth round but you could only draw at the Baseball Ground. Swindon then beat you at their place and so now you’re out of the League Cup –

You took your eye off the ball. Took your eye off the ball. Your eye off the ball –

You were bloody angry at the time, fucking furious at the time, but not now –

Not now everything about you has First Division stamped all over it. Not now you are favourites to go up. Not now you are favourites to go up as Champions –

Not now you’ve gone from eleventh to first in just three months –

Not now you’ve been named Manager of the Month –

Not now you’re top, top, top of Division Two.

* * *

Under the stand. Through the doors. Round the corner. I’m walking down the corridor towards Syd Owen. He walks past me without a word, without a look. Then he says behind my back. Under his breath. Behind his hand. Through gritted teeth, Syd says something that sounds like: ‘Anything to do with peacocks is fatal …’

I stop. I turn round. I ask, ‘You what?’

‘There was a phone call for you.’

I ask him, ‘When?’

Syd’s stopped now, turned round and is facing me in the corridor. ‘Yesterday.’

I ask him, ‘Where was I?’

‘How I should I know?’ he laughs. ‘Probably off selling or buying someone.’

‘What time?’

‘Morning, afternoon,’ he shrugs. ‘Not sure.’

‘Well, who was it?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘But you answered it?’

‘Oh, aye.’

‘Where? Which phone?’

‘The one in the office.’

‘My office?’

‘It is now,’ he laughs again.

‘What were you doing in my office?’

‘I was looking for the Matthewson file,’ he says. ‘For Saturday.’

‘The what file?’

‘The file on Bob Matthewson,’ he says, slowly.

‘And who the fucking hell is Bob Matthewson when he’s at home?’

‘You mean you don’t know?’ he asks.

‘Course I don’t fucking know, Syd,’ I tell him. ‘That’s why I’m fucking asking you who the bloody hell he is.’

‘No one special,’ he smiles. ‘Just the referee for Saturday.’

‘You’ve got bloody files on the fucking referees?’

‘Course we have,’ he says. ‘What do you think we are, amateurs?’

‘Why?’

‘Turn a game can a referee,’ he says. ‘Specially if you know how to help him.’

‘Well, I told you,’ I tell him again, ‘I burnt all them fucking files with his desk.’

‘Lucky we’ve got copies then, isn’t it?’

I walk down the corridor towards him, my finger out and pointing straight at him. ‘I don’t need files on referees and I don’t need files on other teams and I don’t need you in my office and I don’t need you to answer my phone for me. Is that clear?’

‘Their scream forebodes rain and even death …’

‘You what?’ I ask him again. ‘Is that clear?’

‘Crystal,’ says Syd. ‘Crystal.’

* * *

‘You’re fucking shit,’ you tell him –

Tell