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

waiting for me, with their paperback books and their packs of cards. I make Sniffer shift again so I can sit next to Bremner again. Billy rolls his eyes and lights another fag –

‘You don’t fucking give up, do you?’ he says.

‘Never,’ I tell the man –

This the man I watched and commentated on for ITV at the World Cup this summer, captaining his country, beating Zaire 2–0, drawing with Brazil, drawing with Yugoslavia, sticking it up the press boys, this the man who was Scotland, this man who sits beside me now and stares out of the window at the rain and the motorway, this man who Revie thought of as a second son, this man who would run through fire for Don, who walks on water for the people of Leeds, the people of Scotland, this man beside me now, lighting another fucking fag and pretending to read a bloody paperback book until he turns to me, until he finally turns to me and asks –

‘You ever play at Wembley did you, Mr Clough?’

The cunt. Cunt. Cunt –

Halfway down the M1, the coach stops at a service area. Everyone gets off for a coffee and a piss. It’s raining hard as I walk across the car park to the foyer –

The fucking cunt. Cunt. Cunt –

I come out of the toilets and they’re all stood around the one-arm bandits, signing autographs and getting kisses off the waitresses –

The cunts. Cunts. Cunts –

‘Come on,’ I tell them. ‘Let’s all go for a walk around the car park.’

‘Walk?’ spits Bremner. ‘I’ve never been for a fucking walk in my life.’

‘Get going,’ I tell them. ‘Stretch your legs, you lazy buggers!’

They stare at me and, for one moment, they look like they won’t go. But then Captain Bremner opens the door and leads them one by one out into the rain and the car park, leads the League Champions around the service-station car park –

In the rain. In their Sunday best. In the rain. In their polished shoes –

‘Good man, Billy,’ I tell him as I catch him up. ‘Stretch them legs.’

‘Fuck off,’ he hisses at me. ‘I’m getting bloody soaked here.’

‘I thought you lot bloody loved these kinds of communal activities,’ I tell him. ‘Round of golf. Bit of bingo. Carpet bowls. Thought that was all part of Don’s appeal? Togetherness. One for all and all for one. One big happy family.’

‘You’re right,’ says Bremner. ‘One big happy family; till you fucking turned up.’

* * *

The very last game of the season. The very last game in the Second Division –

Saturday 19 April 1969 –

Home to Bristol City. Home in front of 31,644 fans. Home as Champions.

You’ve had your hair cut, your suit pressed and your shoes shined –

The players, your players, do a lap of honour while Bristol stand on the pitch and wait for the game to begin, the mauling to begin –

The midfield of John McGovern, Alan Durban and Willie Carlin are in their element with a first-half hat-trick from Durban, plus one from Kevin Hector, and then one from Alan Hinton which is the pick of the five –

Dave Mackay clips the ball forward to Willie Carlin. Carlin takes the ball into the box then back-heels the ball to Alan Hinton. Hinton runs onto the ball and never stops, never breaks stride, just lashes it with his left foot into the bottom corner of the net –

Unstoppable. Unstoppable. Un-fucking-stoppable –

Green. Webster. Robson. Durban. McFarland. Mackay. McGovern. Carlin. O’Hare. Hector and Hinton.

Dave Mackay goes up the steps. Mackay picks up the trophy –

The Second Division Championship trophy –

Mackay holds it aloft in his right hand –

The crowd roars. The crowd chants –

‘Derby! Derby! Derby!’

You stand before the chairman, the directors and the board, stand before them with your players and your trophy, the sound of the crowd ringing around the Baseball Ground, ringing around the whole of the bloody town –

This time last year there were 20,000 here to see you lose to Blackpool. The year before 11,000. This time last year Dave Mackay thought he’d played his last game. Today there are 32,000 here. Today you are Champions –

You shake Dave’s hand. Peter pats Dave’s back –

Dave Mackay is one year older than you; umpteen medals, cups and caps heavier than you, he will be named joint Footballer of the Year for this season –

But you are still smiling from ear to bloody ear –

Still smiling from ear to fucking ear –

The chairman too. The board –

The whole fucking town.

* * *

They are not my team. Not mine. Not this team, and they never will be. They are his team. His Leeds. His dirty fucking Leeds, and they always will be. Not my team. Never. Not mine. Never. Not mine. Never. Not this team. Never –

It is gone midnight and I cannot sleep. I’ve drunk too bloody much again and I’ve got a thumping fucking headache. The hotel room is too hot and the pillows are too hard and I miss my wife, I miss my kids and I wish I wasn’t me, Brian Howard Clough. Not for tonight and not for tomorrow. I get out my address book. I pick up the phone. I dial his number and I wake him up:

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Brian Clough,’ I tell him.

‘What the hell do you want, Brian? It’s past midnight.’

‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’m very sorry to wake you up like this.’

‘Are you drunk, man? What’s wrong with you?’

‘This is your team,’ I tell him. ‘I want you to lead them out at Wembley.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You won the league,’ I tell him. ‘You lead them out tomorrow.’

‘You’ve got the job now, Brian,’ says Don Revie.