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

* * *

There’s been trouble all your life, everywhere you’ve ever been, one crisis after another; one war after another. This time, this trouble, this war starts like this:

‘I’m not bloody going then,’ you tell the Derby board. ‘Simple as that.’

‘It’s the pre-season tour,’ says Sam Longson. ‘Holland and West Germany; your own suggestion. The reason you won’t let Derby compete in the Charity Shield.’

‘You’re still going on about that, are you?’

‘I’m not going on about it,’ says Longson. ‘But you’re not making any sense.’

‘Listen,’ you tell him. ‘The tour was arranged long before we won the title.’

‘When you were saying we couldn’t win it,’ says Jack Kirkland –

The Big Noise from Belper, that’s what Pete calls Jack Kirkland; made his pile in plant hire but thinks he knows his football; plans to turn the Baseball Ground into a sports complex; plans that need big gates and your transfer money, the money you’ve put in their coffers with those 33,000 gates you’ve brought them, money you need to spend to bring them more big gates or you’ll get the sack –

But Jack Kirkland doesn’t give a fuck about that; Jack Kirkland is the brother of Bob Kirkland; Bob Kirkland who you and Pete forced to resign –

Now Jack Kirkland, the Big Noise from Belper, is out for a seat on the board; a seat on the board and your head and Pete’s on a pole –

Jack Kirkland is out for revenge.

‘No bloody pleasing you, is there?’ you ask him. ‘One minute I’m arrogant and conceited, next minute you’re throwing my humility and honesty back in my face.’

‘If you can’t stand the heat,’ begins Kirkland –

‘The point is –’ interrupts Longson …

But two can play at that game and so you tell him, ‘The point is either my family comes on this bloody trip or I don’t fucking go.’

This is how it goes, round and round, until Longson has had enough:

‘This is a working trip, not a holiday,’ he shouts. ‘And I am ordering you in no circumstances to take your wife and kids with the team to Holland or West Germany.’

‘You’re ordering me? Ordering me?’ you ask him, repeatedly. ‘Ordering me? Who the fucking hell do you think you are?’

‘The chairman of Derby County,’ he says. ‘Chairman before you came here.’

‘That’s right,’ you tell him. ‘You were chairman of Derby County before I came here, I remember that; when Derby County were at the fucking foot of the Second Division, when nobody had heard of them for twenty years and nobody had heard of Sam bloody Longson ever. Full stop. I remember that. And that’s where you’d still fucking be if it wasn’t for me; at the foot of the bloody Second Division, where nobody remembered you and nobody had heard of you. Just remember, there would be no Derby County without me, no league title, no Champions of England; not without Brian Clough –

‘Just you remember that, Mr bloody Chairman.’

Longson sighs and says again, ‘You’re not taking your family on a working trip.’

‘Then I’m not fucking going,’ you tell him –

And you don’t. And that’s how it starts; this trouble, this war, this time.

* * *

Ten minutes after that final whistle on Saturday I’d taken the call from Elland Road; Eddie Gray had pulled up during the Central League reserve match, limped off –

‘If you’d been a bloody racehorse, you’d have been fucking shot.’

Injuries and suspensions, bad decisions and bad bloody luck –

The Curse of Leeds United.

Through the doors. Under the stand. Round the corner. Down the corridor. I’m sat at that bloody desk in that fucking office, wondering what the fuck I’m going to do on Wednesday against Queen’s Park bloody Rangers, who the fuck I should play, who the fuck I should not, who the fuck I’m going to be able to play, when Jimmy Gordon puts his head around the door and his thumb up –

‘You’re fucking joking?’ I ask him.

‘No joke,’ says Jimmy. ‘Sale of the century time.’

* * *

Peter is on the pre-season tour of Holland and Germany with the team and the directors. You are at home in Derby with the wife and the kids –

It is August 1972.

This is when the Football League Management Committee make their report, their report into your conduct in the Ian Storey-Moore transfer fiasco:

‘The Committee considered evidence both verbally and in writing from Nottingham Forest, Derby County, the player and from the League Secretary. It transpired that, although the player had signed the transfer form for Derby County, this form was never signed by Nottingham Forest and the player could not remember having signed a contract for Derby County. It was admitted that the League Secretary had informed the club secretary of Derby County that, until the transfer form was completed by Nottingham Forest, the player was not registered with Derby County. The Committee was satisfied, therefore, that by taking the player to Derby and announcing publicly that he was their player, while he was still registered with Nottingham Forest, Derby County had committed a breach of Football League Regulation 52(a).’

The Football League Management Committee fine Derby £5,000 –

Because it’s Derby County. Because it’s Brian bloody Clough –

Because of the things you’ve said. The things you’ve done –

Because you won’t play in their Charity Shield –

Because you won’t keep it bloody shut.

This is how the 1972–73 season starts for the Champions of England:

Not with the Charity Shield, not with the Championship dinner, but with Peter, the team and the directors in Holland