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

You are drunk when you stand up to speak; drunk and do not give a fuck:

‘Right then,’ you tell Harold Wilson and this roomful of Yorkshire tuxedos. ‘I’ve had to sit here and listen to a load of crap for the last hour, so you lot can all sit here and wait for me while I go and have a bloody pee.’

You go and have your pee. You make your way back. You say your piece:

‘Despite the fact that Lorimer falls down when he has not been kicked. Despite the fact that Lorimer demands treatment when he has not been injured. Despite the fact that he protests when he has nothing to protest about …’

The booing starts. The jeering starts –

‘If you don’t like it, if you can’t take it, invite Basil bloody Brush next time –’

The chairs scrape and the evening ends –

‘Boom-fucking-boom.’

THE THIRD RECKONING

First Division Positions, 22 August 1974

  P W D L F A Pts 1 Man. City 2 2 0 0 5 0 4 2 Carlisle United 2 2 0 0 4 0 4 3 Ipswich Town 2 2 0 0 2 0 4 4 Everton 2 1 1 0 2 1 3 5 Liverpool 2 1 1 0 2 1 3 6 QPR 2 1 1 0 2 1 3 7 Wolves 2 1 1 0 2 1 3 8 Newcastle Utd 2 1 1 0 5 4 3 9 Stoke City 2 1 0 1 4 2 2 10 Middlesbrough 2 1 0 1 3 2 2 11 Arsenal 2 1 0 1 1 1 2 12 Derby County 2 0 2 0 1 1 2 13 Leicester City 2 1 0 1 4 4 2 14 Sheffield Utd 2 0 2 0 3 3 2 15 West Ham Utd 2 1 0 1 2 4 2 16 Burnley 2 0 1 1 4 5 1 17 Coventry City 2 0 1 1 3 4 1 18 Chelsea 2 0 1 1 3 5 1 19 Birmingham C. 2 0 0 2 3 7 0 20 Luton Town 2 0 0 2 1 4 0 21 Leeds United 2 0 0 2 0 4 0 22 Tottenham H. 2 0 0 2 0 2 0

I curse you, I curse you, I curse you –

I throw handfuls of rue at the television set and I shout,

‘I am the last truly Cunning person left!’

Beware! Beware!

She will eat you like air!

I throw handfuls of rue at the television set and I swear,

‘May you rue this day as long as you live.’

Day Twenty-three

Here comes another morning; another morning after the defeat of the night before –

The sun is shining in my modern luxury hotel room, through the curtains and across the floor to the modern luxury hotel bed in which I haven’t slept a bloody, fucking wink, just lain here replaying last night’s match in my head, on the inside of my skull, reliving every touch and every kick, every pass and every cross, every tackle and every block, over and over, again and again, player by player, position by position, space by space, over and over, again and again, from the first minute to the last –

The things I saw and the things I missed –

The many, many bloody things I fucking missed –

It’s just another morning; another morning when I wish I wasn’t here.

* * *

You beat Manchester United 3–1 at the Baseball Ground on Boxing Day. Manchester United and Tommy Docherty. You move up to seventh and United go bottom. You’d thought it was a turning point, another turning point, like Benfica, like Arsenal. But you were wrong again. It was no turning point.

You pick up the phone. You dial Longson’s number. You scream down that line: ‘If Peter bloody Taylor isn’t at fucking work by Friday, I shan’t be going to Liverpool with the fucking team. I’ll fucking walk out and all, I will!’

‘What in heaven’s name is wrong with you?’ asks Sam Longson.

Money, money, money, that’s what’s wrong; that’s all that’s ever fucking wrong with Peter Taylor; money, money, money –

You hang up. You go round to Longson’s house. You beg Longson to sack Taylor. You throw your drink at his kitchen wall when he refuses –

‘I’m getting bloody nowhere with you fucking buggers!’ you shout.

‘But what’s wrong?’ asks Sam Longson –

Money, money, money, that’s what’s wrong; that’s all that’ll ever be fucking wrong with Peter Taylor; all that Peter ever goes on about, on and on about:

‘I just want my slice of the cake,’ he’d said again. ‘Just my fucking slice.’

‘You get your slice,’ you told him. ‘You get your slice and more.’

‘Do I fuck.’ he said. ‘Where’s my new bloody coat? My waste-disposal unit? Where are my fucking Derby County shares then, eh?’

‘Your bloody what? What you fucking talking about now?’

‘Don’t fuck me around, Brian,’ he said. ‘Webby’s told me all about it.’

‘All right then,’ you told him. ‘You have the whole fucking cake if you want it, if that’s what’s fucking bothering you, because I can bloody do without it, without all this fucking bollocks. But I’m telling you this: you won’t last a fucking minute, not a single fucking minute out there, on your own, in front of all them cameras, them crowds, you can’t even buy a pair of bloody socks in town, you’re that fucking afraid of being recognized, of someone speaking to you who you don’t bloody know but, go on, if that’s what you want, that’s what you fucking want, you fucking take it because I’m telling you now, I’ve had enough, enough to fucking last me a bloody