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

In your car in his driveway, Pete asks, ‘What if the old twit finds out?’

You stop looking at your cheque and ask him, ‘Finds out what?’

‘Finds out that Coventry had already pulled out of the deal.’

‘So what if he does,’ you tell Pete. ‘What’s he going to do? Sack us?’

* * *

It’s late and pissing it down, and we’re late and pissed off when we finally arrive at the hotel alongside the M6 near Stoke. The team get off the coach and walk towards the entrance and the reception, the warmth and the light. I call them back outside –

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I ask them. ‘Get out here, the lot of you.’

They march back down the hotel steps, into the rain and into the night.

‘This way,’ I tell them and lead them round to the back of the hotel.

They stand there in their suits and their ties, in the rain and in the night, on the hotel lawn, and they listen, they listen to me:

‘Tomorrow it all starts again; the first game of the season. I’ve won a League Championship and you’ve won a League Championship and so, no doubt, you all think you know what it bloody takes to win the fucking League Championship. Well, you don’t, because you won your titles through deceit and deception. This season you’re going to win the league my way; honestly and fairly. Now last season you played forty-two league games and you won twenty-four, drew fourteen and lost four; well, this season you’ll play forty-two games and lose only three. Last season you scored sixty-six goals and you let in thirty-one; well, this season I want you to score more than seventy and let in less than thirty. And, if you do it my way, not only will you win the league, not only will you win it honestly and fairly, you’ll also win the hearts of the public, which is something you’ve never fucking done before.’

In their suits and their ties, in the rain and the night, they listen:

‘Not only the league title either; this season we’re going after everything in sight. If Leeds United are entered for a competition, we’ll be playing to win that competition. There’ll be no reserve teams in the League Cup, no second-string teams in a Leeds shirt, not under Brian Clough. Because I won’t settle for second best for my team. It is not in my nature. I am after excellence in all things and that includes every game we play –

‘Every single fucking game, starting tomorrow. Right?’

There’s silence on the hotel lawn from the suits and the ties, in the night and in the rain, so I ask them again and ask them louder than before, ‘Right?’

‘Right,’ they mumble and they mutter.

‘Right what?’ I ask them.

‘Right, Boss,’ they say, in their suits and their ties, in the rain and in the night –

Under their breath, through gritted teeth.

‘Right then,’ I tell them. ‘Let’s go get our bloody dinners then.’

* * *

You easily beat Huddersfield Town 3–0 to stay top with just two games to go. You are now certain to finish in the top four; certain of a place in the UEFA Cup; certain of that, at the very least –

Just two games to go; two games, against Manchester City and against Liverpool. City, who are third, away; Liverpool, who are fourth, at home –

Two games to stop Leeds, two games to win the league.

On 22 April 1972 you travel to Maine Road, Manchester. It is the last home game of the season for Manchester City; Manchester City who are managed by your TV mate Malcolm Allison; Malcolm Allison who has just spent £200,000 on Rodney Marsh; Rodney Marsh who scores in the twenty-fifth minute and wins a second-half penalty, which Francis Lee converts. You have your chances too, but you also have your nerves –

Manchester City go top and you drop down to third:

 GPW D LGFGAPtsManchester City 42 23 11 8 77 45 57  Liverpool 40 24 8 8 64 29 56  Derby County 41 23 10 8 68 33 56  Leeds United 40 23 9 8 70 29 55

Now there is just one game to go for you in the league –

Home to Bill Shankly and Liverpool.

But before Bill Shankly and Liverpool, you have one other match: the sec ond leg of the Texaco Cup final against Airdrieonians –

It is not the FA Cup. It is not the League Cup. But it is a cup.

You drew the first leg 0–0 in Scotland back in January. It was a hard bloody game and you know the return game will be a physical one too; you also know some of your squad will be called up for internationals and you still have to play Liverpool –

Bill Shankly and Liverpool.

You are forced to field five reserves. Not through deceit. Not through deception. Not like Don. This is through necessity. Sheer necessity. Roger Davies is one of those reserves and he scores, to Pete’s delight. But Airdrie take the Derby man in every tackle and it is another hard and bloody night, but you win 2–1 –

You have won the Second Division Championship, the Watneys Cup and now this; the 1971–72 Texaco International League Board Competition –

It is not the FA Cup. It is not the League Cup. But it is a cup –

‘It doesn’t matter what Derby win,’ you tell the newspapers and the television, ‘just as long as we win, and it’ll set us in good store for Liverpool and the