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

in dealing with misconduct, must express the seriousness of the situation and the determination we have to get this problem under control and conquer it in the interests of football and the sporting public.”

‘Later this morning, Billy Bremner, of Leeds United and Scotland, and Kevin Keegan, of Liverpool and England, will appear before the FA Disciplinary Committee in London, accused of bringing the game into disrepute by pulling off their shirts after being sent off in the FA Charity Shield at Wembley earlier this month.’

I switch off my modern luxury radio and lie back in my modern luxury hotel bed and thank fucking God that I left Maurice in London to accompany Bremner and Giles –

Thank fucking God, this once.

* * *

The coach drops you all back at the Baseball Ground. You call taxis for your wives and then you and Peter go up the stairs to your office –

‘He wants to know exactly what my job is,’ rails Peter. ‘Can you fucking believe the cunt? He’s only been on the board two fucking minutes and he wants to know what my bloody job is. Wagging his fucking finger at me in front of all them folk. First thing Monday bloody morning, the bastard tells me. Well, I’m not going, Brian. I’m bloody off. No one wags their fucking finger at me.’

You open up your office. You switch on the lights. You go inside –

The security grille has been pulled down over the bar.

You walk over to the grille. You rattle it –

It’s been locked.

* * *

There is no training today and the car park is empty when the taxi drops me at the ground. It’ll fill up soon enough; as soon as the FA Disciplinary Committee announces its verdict. I see John Reynolds up on the practice pitch. I jog up the banking and onto the pitch –

I hold up my wrist and my watch and I tell him, ‘Still going strong, John.’

‘That’s good,’ he says.

I nod and I smile and I ask him, ‘How are you this morning then, John?’

‘I’m working,’ he says and walks away.

* * *

You pace and you pace, up and down your carpet. Back and forth, you pace and you pace. The walls getting closer and closer, the room getting hotter and hotter. It is Sunday lunchtime and you can hear the church bells pealing, smell the Sunday joint cooking. Roasting. Peter is sat on your sofa. Peter is smoking. You pick up the phone. You telephone Longson at his home –

‘Can I have your permission to sack Stuart Webb? He’s locked the bar.’

‘I know,’ Longson tells you. ‘Stuart was acting on my instructions.’

‘He was what? Why? What’s going on?’

‘You just get on with managing the team,’ he tells you and hangs up.

You put down your telephone. Slam it down. Break it –

Peter is sat on your sofa. Peter is crying –

It is Sunday 14 October 1973.

* * *

Under the stands. Through the doors. Round the corners. Down the corridor to the office. I unlock the door and I switch on the lights. The telephone is ringing. I pour a drink and I light a fag and I pick up the phone:

‘You best come up here,’ says Cussins. ‘The verdict’s in.’

I finish my drink. I put out my cigarette. I switch off the lights and I lock the door. Down the corridors and round the corners. Up the stairs and through the doors –

The Yorkshire boardroom, the Yorkshire curtains, the board silent and subdued, grim and stony-faced. The ashtrays filling up –

‘Both Bremner and Keegan have been fined £500 each and suspended from today until September the thirtieth,’ says Manny Cussins.

‘September the thirtieth?’ I repeat. ‘That’s over a bloody month.’

‘The viewing public were shocked and offended by what they saw,’ says Cussins. ‘The FA were let down. Mr Stokes and the Committee felt they had no choice.’

‘What about Giles?’

‘Both John Giles and Tommy Smith were giving a good talking to,’ says Cussins. ‘But no further action was taken against either of them.’

‘How many games will Bremner miss?’ asks Percy Woodward.

‘Eight,’ I tell him. ‘Including the first leg of the European Cup.’

‘Eight?’ repeats Cussins.

‘Not forgetting the three he’s already missed, so that’s eleven in all.’

‘We’ll survive,’ says Woodward. ‘It’s happened before.’

‘A hundred and forty-two days out of the last ten years,’ I tell them.

‘But this is the first trouble Bremner’s had in over four years,’ says Woodward. ‘Mr Revie worked very hard to improve discipline.’

I light a cigarette. I say nothing.

Then Sam Bolton says, ‘You should have been there.’

‘At the FA? Why?’

‘Paisley was there with his players.’

‘So bloody what?’ I tell him. ‘What Bremner did was nothing to do with me and I’ll not be associated with it.’

‘He’s your player,’ says Bolton. ‘Your captain.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any bloody difference whether I was there or not.’

‘Not to fine or suspension,’ says Bolton. ‘But it might have made a bloody difference to player himself and rest of his bloody team.’

‘Bollocks,’ I tell him, tell them all, and I leave the room. Through the doors. Down the stairs. Round the corners. Down the corridors. I unlock the door and I switch on the light. There is a note on the floor under the door to say Bill Nicholson called.

* * *

Peter comes out of his meeting with Jack Kirkland and says, ‘I don’t think there is any place for me here now. It’s Hartlepools all over again, trying to get at you through me.’

‘They think we’re too big for our boots,’ you say and hand Peter the letter –

The letter that arrived this morning. The letter from Longson –

First class. Recorded delivery:

Dear Mr Clough,

Henceforth each and every newspaper article and television appearance must be approved by the