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

right hand, your shadow, fighting with Peter twenty-four hours before the first leg of the semi-final of the European Cup –

The blood of a dead magpie running down the windows of the hotel bar –

The blood of your best mate running down the knuckles of your hand –

The first time you’ve spoken to anyone since your mam passed on.

* * *

Three hours and three phone calls later, Mr Vernon Stokes, the chairman of the FA Disciplinary Committee, tells Manny Cussins that, on reflection, he has decided it wouldn’t be right to call Clarke of Leeds before the Committee as he was not cautioned during the match and, if he ordered Clarke of Leeds to appear, he would have to call up every player who committed a foul during the Charity Shield game.

I go downstairs to face the press, face the press with a smile on my face for once, with a smile on my face as they ask about the draw for the League Cup:

‘I would have felt much better had we been drawn to play Huddersfield at home. They had a fabulous result in the first round, which proves they are no pushovers. Bobby Collins has obviously got things well organized over there.’

‘Have you any further thoughts on your two games in charge so far?’

‘Listen to me,’ I tell them. ‘Leeds lost three matches in a fortnight while they were on the crest of a wave going for the title. This kind of thing has happened before.’

‘But you’ve said they play without confidence and yet they’re the League Champions; how is it they can lack confidence?’

Because Don Revie made them believe in luck, made them believe in ritual and superstition, in documents and dossiers, in bloody gamesmanship and fucking cheating, in anything but themselves and their own ability –

‘It’s a vicious circle,’ I tell them. ‘Once Leeds get back to their winning ways, then their confidence will return and then there’ll be no stopping them –’

‘In the race for the title?’ they ask.

‘Leeds will be there or thereabouts, just as they have been for the last ten years.’

‘But you said you wanted to win the title better,’ they remind me. ‘But the first time Leeds won the title in 1969 they lost only two matches the entire season.’

‘Is that a question or a statement?’ I ask them.

‘Up to you,’ they say.

‘Well, they’ll just have to win the next forty games then, won’t they?’

‘But how do you honestly feel?’ they ask. ‘Two games into the new season and with the League Champions still seeking their first point and their first goal.’

‘Birmingham City are also still looking for their first point.’

‘You’re suggesting Saturday is a relegation battle then?’

‘No.’

‘Can you tell us anything about the team for tomorrow?’

‘There’s no room for Bates, Cooper or Jordan, I can tell you that.’

‘There’ll be some disappointed players in the dressing room then?’

‘There will always be disappointed players in the dressing room, but these three players also know how delighted I’ve been with them so far, and Cooper and Bates will go into the reserves tomorrow, along with Terry Yorath, and continue to get practice. Jordan will be on the bench …’

‘And McKenzie?’

‘Young Duncan McKenzie has fallen foul of your Leeds United curse,’ I laugh. ‘He’s injured himself and will have to watch the game from the stands.’

‘Are you becoming superstitious, Brian?’

‘Never.’

‘Will you be saying the same tomorrow, if you lose again?’

‘Look, my coming here has just magnified all this. I am not feeling the pressure and I don’t want pressure on the team, either,’ I tell them, the press and the television, their microphones and their cameras, their cameras and their eyes –

But there’s something in their eyes, the way their eyes never meet mine; the way they look at me, the way they stare at me, but only when I look away; like I’m bloody sick or something, like I’ve got fucking cancer and I’m dying –

I feel like death. I feel like death. I feel like death …

Dying, but no one dare bloody tell me.

* * *

Half an hour before kick-off, Peter comes rushing into the dressing room, face red and eyes wide, shouting: ‘He’s in the fucking referee’s dressing room again. I’ve just seen him go in. That’s twice now.’

‘Who is?’ you ask him. ‘Who?’

‘Haller, their substitute,’ says Pete. ‘Just seen him go in with my own bloody eyes. That’s the second fucking time and all. Talking fucking Kraut.’

‘Forget it,’ you tell him. ‘Could be anything.’

‘Could it hell,’ shouts Pete. ‘Haller’s bloody German and so’s the fucking referee, Schulenberg. It’s not right. I’m telling you, they’re up to something.’

‘Fucking forget it, Pete,’ you tell him again. ‘Think about the match, the game.’

The first leg of the semi-final of the European Cup; 11 April 1973 –

The Stadio Comunale, the black and the white; the black-and-white flags of 72,000 Juventus fans; Juventus, the Old Lady herself, in black and white:

Zoff. Spinosi. Marchetti. Furino. Morini. Salvadore. Causio. Cuccureddu. Anastasi, Capello and Altafini –

‘Dirty, dirty, dirty bastards,’ Pete is saying, saying before you even get to the bench, before you even get sat down, before a ball has even been kicked.

For the first twenty-odd minutes, you ride the late tackles, the shirt-pulling and the gamesmanship –

‘They’re just bloody flinging themselves to the floor at the feet of the ref.’

The obstructing, the tripping, and the holding of players –

‘Dirty, diving, cheating, fucking Italian bastards.’

Then Furino puts his elbow in Archie Gemmill’s face. Gemmill trips him back, just a little trip, and Gemmill goes in the book –

‘Fuck off, ref! Fuck off!’ screams Pete. ‘What about fucking Furino?’

Roy McFarland goes up for a high ball with Cuccureddu. McFarland and Cuccureddu clash