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

the manager of Burton Albion. Burton Albion are top of the Southern League. Peter has his new bungalow. His wife and kids settled. Peter is on £41 a week and a three-year contract. His wife shakes her head. His kids shake their heads –

But Peter looks at you. Peter stares into those eyes –

That desire and ambition. That determination and arrogance –

Peter sees the things he wants to see. Peter hears the things he wants to hear –

‘You’ll be my right arm, my right hand. Not an assistant manager, more a joint manager. Except they don’t go in for titles at Hartlepools, so we’ll have to disguise you, disguise you as a trainer.’

‘A trainer?’ he asks. ‘I’ll drop down from being a manager to a trainer?’

‘Aye,’ you tell him. ‘And the other bad news is that they can’t afford to pay you more than £24 a week.’

‘£24 a week,’ he repeats. ‘That means I’ll lose £17 a week.’

‘But you’ll be in the league,’ you tell him. ‘And you’ll be working with me.’

‘But £17 is £17.’

The five pints find the five whiskies. The five pints catch the five whiskies –

You put £200 on the table and tell him, ‘I need you. I don’t want to be alone.’

You’re going to spew if he refuses. You’re going to die if Pete says no.

‘I’ll come then,’ he says. ‘But only because it’s you.’

Peter Taylor. The only man who ever liked you. Ever got on with you –

Your only friend. Your right hand. Your shadow.

* * *

They are waiting for us again. My youngest lad and me. The crows around the floodlights. The dogs around the gates. They are waiting for us because we are late again, my youngest lad and me –

Thursday 1 August 1974.

Bad night, late dreams; faceless, nameless men; red eyes and sharpened teeth.

Half an hour arguing with my boys over breakfast; they don’t want to go to work with me today. They didn’t like it there yesterday. But my youngest lad feels sorry for me. My youngest lad gives in. My wife takes the eldest and my daughter into Derby to get their new school shoes. I have a slice of toast and don’t answer the telephone. Then my youngest lad and me get in the car and drive up the motorway –

The boots and the blades that marched up and down this route …

To the crows around the floodlights. Dogs around the gates –

Roman legions and Viking hordes. Norman cunts and royalist whores …

The press. The fans. The steady, grey rain. The endless, grey sky –

The emperors and the kings. Oliver Cromwell and Brian Clough.

I park the car. I get out. I do up my cuffs. I don’t look at my watch. I get my jacket out of the back. I put it on and ruffle my youngest lad’s hair. He’s looking across the car park –

Up the banking. To the training ground –

Hands on their hips in their purple tracksuits, waiting. Their names on their backs, whispering, whispering, whispering –

Bastards. Bastards. Bastards.

Jimmy Gordon comes down the steps. Jimmy says, ‘Can I have a word, Boss?’

I’ve known Jimmy Gordon since I was a player at Middlesbrough. Doesn’t work hard enough on the field, he once wrote in a report on me. Jimmy didn’t like me much then. He hated me. Thought I was a right bloody show-off. Big-headed. Selfish. He once told me, Instead of scoring thirty goals a season, why don’t you score twenty-five and help someone else to score fifteen? That way the team’s ten goals better off. I didn’t listen to him. I wasn’t interested. But I was when I went to Hartlepools. First job I had, I tried to get Jimmy to come and coach for us. But Jimmy wasn’t interested. That changed when we got to Derby. I spent five hours round his house –

He said, ‘Why me? All we do is argue.’

‘That’s why I want you,’ I told him.

Five hours later, Jimmy still didn’t like me. But he had his price. Everybody has. So I found him a house and I got the chairman to pay a £1,000 interest-free deposit on it –

But Jimmy still didn’t like me much then. Jimmy still doesn’t like me much now. Jimmy looks around the room –

‘What the bloody hell are we doing here?’ he asks me –

I’m sat in that office. Don’s office. In that bloody chair. Don’s chair. Behind that fucking desk. Don’s desk. My youngest on my knee. To cheer me up. A brandy in my hand. To warm me up –

‘They’ll never forgive you,’ says Jimmy. ‘Not after all the things you’ve said. They never forget. Not round here.’

‘That right, is it?’ I laugh. ‘So why did you agree to come and join me then?’

‘Much as I don’t like you,’ he smiles, ‘I don’t like to think of you in trouble.’

I finish my brandy. I ask him, ‘You want a lift tomorrow morning?’

‘So I can drive you back?’

I pick my lad up off my knee. I put him down. I wink at Jimmy –

‘Best not keep them waiting any longer,’ I tell them both.

* * *

Welcome to the edge of the world. To Hartlepools –

You can drop off the edge of the world at Hartlepools. On the beach at Seaton Carew. Bottom of the entire Football League and up for re-election again –

Many men will never know. Many men will never understand –

Heaven is here. Here where the Victoria Ground was cursed by a Zeppelin bomb, here where the roofs now leak and there are buckets in the boardroom to catch the rain, where the stand is made of wood and the terraces are covered in chicken feathers, where the chairman is a five-foot millionaire who