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

I stop. I turn round. ‘Pardon?’

‘Your phone is ringing.’

‘What? When?’

‘Just now,’ Syd says. ‘Just as we were walking past the office. Maurice was all for nipping in and answering it for you, and he would have as well, but I told him that you told us not to, didn’t you?’

‘Still might be ringing though,’ says Maurice Lindley. ‘If you hurry, you might just catch it.’

Round the corner, down the corridor, I walk towards the office. I can hear the phone still ringing. Ringing and ringing and ringing. I get out my keys. I unlock the door. I get to the desk –

I pick up the phone –

The line is dead.

* * *

You can’t sleep a wink. You have been waiting for this day since 25 October last year. You’ve been waiting for this fixture all season –

Easter Monday; 30 March 1970; Derby County vs Leeds United.

You have not lost since QPR in February. Not since you signed Terry Hennessey from Nottingham Forest for £100,000. You are right up there now, a top-five finish on the cards. Fairs Cup place. You are doing well –

But not as well as Leeds United. Not as well as Don Revie, OBE –

Leeds United are second in the league, in the semi-finals of the European Cup against Celtic, in the FA Cup final against Chelsea and on the verge of an unprecedented treble –

Leeds, Leeds, Leeds; marching on together:

David Harvey, Nigel Davey, Paul Peterson, Jimmy Lumsden, David Kennedy, Terry Yorath, Chris Galvin, Mick Bates, Rod Belfitt, Terry Hibbitt, Albert Johanneson –

It is their reserve side and the 41,000 fans jeer as the Leeds team is announced; the Baseball Ground has been cheated and they want their money back, and you’d bloody well give it to them if only you fucking could –

You are seething, fuming and looking for Revie. You find him in a huddle with Les Cocker, Lindley and Owen and you let him have it, both barrels:

‘Listen to that fucking crowd,’ you tell him. ‘They came here to see the League Champions. Paid their hard-earned brass to see the fucking Champions. Not Leeds United fucking reserves. You’ve cheated these folk. The people of Derby. My team.’

‘Take it up with the FA,’ says Revie. ‘Day after bloody tomorrow, we play Celtic in the semi-final of the European Cup and if you were in my shoes you’d do the same.’

‘Never,’ you tell him. ‘Never.’

You field your strongest side. You easily beat them 4–1, but the crowd continues to jeer for the full ninety minutes. They even slow-hand-clap your Derby –

And you don’t bloody blame them. You can’t and you won’t.

The FA will fine Leeds and Revie £5,000 for this, for failing to field their strongest side, and your hate will be as crisp and complete as Leeds United’s season will be barren and bare, finishing second to Everton, losing to Celtic in the semi-finals of the European Cup and to Chelsea in an FA Cup final replay –

‘But if you were me,’ says Revie in the tunnel, ‘you’d have done the same.’

You ignore his hand and tell him, promise him, ‘I’ll never be you, Don.’

Two months later, Revie is named Manager of the Year –

For the second successive season.

* * *

The door is locked and the chair against it; a cig in my mouth and the phone in my hand:

‘Mr Nicholson?’ I ask. ‘Brian Clough here.’

‘Afternoon, Mr Clough,’ says Bill Nicholson. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Well, it’s about John Giles –’

‘What about him?’

‘Well, about him coming to you –’

‘I hope you’re joking with me? After Saturday?’

‘Saturday?’

‘I was at Wembley, Mr Clough. Giles was worse than Bremner. Ten times worse. He should never have stayed on that pitch.’

‘That’s your final word, is it?’

‘You can take it as that, aye.’

I hang up. I get out my address book. I pick up the phone –

‘Brian Clough here,’ I tell Huddersfield. ‘Can I speak to Bobby Collins please?’

* * *

There is always doubt, always fear, and always trouble –

Round every corner. Down every corridor. Behind every door. In every drawer.

Four days after you beat Leeds United reserves, four days after that win guarantees you a place in the Fairs Cup, a place in Europe, the joint League and FA commission into the bookkeeping at Derby County makes its report; the Derby County books have been inspected by the joint League and FA commission because there have been administrative blunders. Big bloody blunders. Huge fucking blunders –

Tickets oversold. Books unbalanced. Contracts unsigned. Illegal payments made.

The joint League and FA commission find Derby County guilty of eight charges of gross negligence in the administration of the club; of failing to lodge the contracts of three players with the League; of varying the contracted payments to players during the season; of paying £2,000 to Dave Mackay Limited for programme articles; and of paying lodging allowances to your apprentices instead of their landladies –

Every technicality. Every little thing –

‘The offences enumerated in the charges were admitted by the representatives of the club. The commission, therefore, finds the club guilty of the offences with which they have been charged and, as a result of the investigation of the charges, the commission has reached the conclusion that there has been gross negligence in the administration of the club, for which the members of the board must accept some responsibility. Taking the offences as a whole, the commission has imposed a fine of £10,000 and has further decided that the club be prohibited from playing in European competition during the