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

is how far you’ve come. This is who you are. This is where you are –

The First Division, the very top. You don’t ever want to leave here.

* * *

The sun never shines at Elland Road. Not on the training ground. Not since I’ve been here. No wonder the kids don’t want to come to work with me. The wife too. Just wind and shadow, mist and rain; dogshit and puddles, purple tracksuits and purple faces –

They’ve had enough of me and I’ve had enough of them –

But they’ve made their beds. Their own fucking beds:

‘I’m only going to say this once,’ I tell them. ‘I don’t care what you were told before, what little tricks and little tactics, little deceits and little cheats your old manager and your old coaches taught you, but there’s no room for them in my team. None whatsoever. So there’ll be no repetition of the kind of things that went on at Wembley on Saturday. None whatsoever. I was embarrassed to be associated with you, with this club, the way some of you – most of you – behaved, and I’ll not have it. Not at this club, not while I’m the manager –

‘So any repetition and you’ll not only be finding the money to pay your own bloody fines, you’ll also be finding another fucking club to play for and all!’

* * *

You bring your team, your boys, to Elland Road on Saturday 25 October 1969 to play the Champions, the First Division Champions.

This will not be the same as last year. Not the same as those three cup defeats. This time you are in the First Division too –

This time will not be the same –

This time he will notice you. This time he will respect you.

But suddenly things have not been going as well for you. Perhaps things had been going too well for you, perhaps you were becoming complacent; you were the last unbeaten side in Division One until you lost to Wednesday, then you drew with Chelsea and Palace and lost at home again to Manchester City. Now Robson is out injured and the rest of the team are only playing thanks to cortisone injections –

Cortisone to mask the pain, to mask the bloody fear, to mask the fucking doubt:

Derby County have not won a game since you beat Manchester United 2–0 –

Beat Manchester United with Charlton, Best and Kidd –

But that was then and this is Leeds, Leeds, Leeds:

Sprake. Reaney. Madeley. Bremner. Charlton. Hunter. Lorimer. Clarke. Jones. Bates and Gray –

Leeds United, First Division Champions, 1968–69.

There are 45,000 here at Elland Road to watch them beat you 2–0 with two trademark Leeds United goals; the first from Clarke as the linesman flags for a foul throw from Bremner; the second three minutes later as Bates plays the ball forward to Clarke, who is at least three or four yards offside –

But the flag stays down and the goal goes in.

At half-time your team, your boys, protest. You tell them to shut their bloody mouths. You tell them to listen and fucking learn:

‘They are ruthless,’ you tell them. ‘They fight for every ball. They brush off every challenge. Now I want to see your courage and I want to see them defend.’

Leeds don’t get a sniff for the entire second half. Not a single one. But you don’t get a goal either. Not a single one –

In the tunnel, Revie shakes your hand. Revie says, ‘You were unlucky.’

‘There’s no such thing as luck,’ you tell him. ‘No such thing, Don.’

* * *

The Irishman puts the top back on his new pen, puts his pen back in his jacket pocket. The club secretary picks up the new contract, puts the contract in his drawer.

‘Pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen,’ says the Irishman.

‘Likewise,’ I tell him.

He laughs. ‘You wanted me gone and you still do and you might yet get your wish. But you’re also smart enough to know you need me now, now with all the injuries and the suspensions you’ve got, the start of the season upon you. You’ll be bloody glad of me come Saturday, sure enough.’

‘Sure enough,’ I tell him.

‘Be bleeding ironic though if Mr Nicholson agrees terms with us before then, now wouldn’t it, Mr Clough?’

‘You read my mind,’ I tell him.

* * *

You still have not won again, not won again since 4 October; already there are the doubters and the gloaters, on the terraces and behind the dug-out, outside the dressing room and in the corridors, the boardrooms and the bars, the ones who were right all along, who knew it wouldn’t last, just a flash in the pan, another false dawn, all this talk of a Golden Age, a Second Coming at Derby County –

But however loud the voices in the stands and in the streets, in the newsrooms and the boardrooms, they are never louder than the ones inside your head –

The voices that say the same, the voices that say you’ve shot it –

‘You’re all washed up, Brian. You’re finished, Clough.’

These are the voices you hear morning, noon and night; every morning, every noon and every night. These are the voices you must silence; the voices you must deafen:

‘I will win, I will not lose. I will win, I will not lose…’

On 1 November 1969 Bill Shankly’s Liverpool come to the Baseball Ground:

Lawrence. Lawler. Strong. Smith. Yeats. Hughes. Callaghan. Hunt. Graham. St. John and Thompson; their names are a poem to you, their manager a poet –

‘Win. Win. Win. Win …’

But you have been too long at this master’s knee; now the pupil wants to give the