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

it’s been a hard slog at Hartlepools and, personally, I’ve had a bellyful of it. I know we can never pick the perfect time to go, but I think this is the right move for us.’

The sun goes behind the clouds and the rain starts to come down, to pour down, in buckets and buckets, buckets and spades, in spades and spades –

The deckchairs folded up and the ice creams melted –

‘Just meet him,’ says Pete. ‘Listen to what he has to say. Can’t hurt, can it?’

* * *

The players’ lounge, Elland Road. Deep in the West Stand, off the main corridor. Round another corner. Two doors and a well-stocked bar. Low ceiling and sticky carpet. Easy chairs and no windows, only mirrors. Mirrors, mirrors, on the walls. The smell of shampoo and Christmas aftershave as they file in from the dressing room in their denim and their leather, with their gold chains and their wet hair, teasing and touching, picking and pinching, a gang of apes after a fuck, they form a circle, their heads as low as their knees in their easy chairs, they spread their legs and touch their balls and try not to look my way –

My Way, indeed.

They are internationals, the bloody lot of them. Medals and trophies galore, every last fucking one of them –

These big, hard men in their tight, new clothes –

These big, hard and dirty men. These big, hard, dirty, old men –

These old and nervous men. Their best years behind them now –

They are worried men. Frightened men. Just like me.

I pick a chair. Turn it round. I sit astride it, arms across the back, and I say a little prayer –

The Prayer to be said before a Fight at Sea against any Enemy …

I say the prayer and then I begin, begin to say my piece:

‘You lot might be wondering why I haven’t said much this week. The reason is I have been forming my own opinions. That is what I like to do. I don’t like listening to other people. But now I’ve formed my opinions and so, before I start working with you lot, there are a few things that need to be said about each of you –

O Most powerful and glorious Lord God …

‘Harvey, you’re an international and an improvement on Gary Sprake,’ I tell him. ‘But not much of one. The best teams are built on clean sheets. Clean sheets come from good keepers. Good keepers mean safe hands. So safe hands is what I want from you or I’ll go find myself a safer pair somewhere else.’

The Lord of hosts, that rulest and commandest all things …

I turn to the two Pauls, Madeley and Reaney. I tell them, ‘Mr Madeley, you’ve played in every bloody position bar the fucking keeper. Obviously Don couldn’t make up his mind. But I reckon it’s time you made a position your own, either that or I’ll do it for you and that might mean the bloody bench or the transfer list. Mr Reaney, you’ve had one broken leg, missed one Cup Final and one World Cup – you’re not getting any younger, so look after yourself because in my opinion you deserve more bloody caps than the ones you’ve had.’

Thou sitest in the throne judging right …

‘No one in the game likes you,’ I tell Hunter. ‘And I think you want to be liked.’

Bites Yer Legs shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. ‘I don’t give a fuck.’

‘I think you do.’

‘I’m an established England international,’ he says. ‘I really don’t give a shit.’

Therefore we make our address to thy Divine Majesty in this our necessity …

‘Mr William Bremner – you’re the captain and you’re a good one,’ I tell him. ‘But you’re no good to the team and you’re no good to me if you’re suspended. I want discipline from my teams and, as the captain, I expect you to set the example.’

That thou wouldst take the cause into thine own hand …

‘And you’d do well to follow that example,’ I tell Lorimer. ‘Because you know how I feel about you. How you harangue referees. How you fall over when you’ve not been touched. How you make a meal out of every tackle to try and get the other player booked. How you protest when you have nothing to fucking protest about –’

‘Nothing to protest about?’ he says. ‘Them tackles that some of your lads at Derby gave me? You expected me just to stand for that the whole bloody game?’

And judge between us and our enemies …

‘As for you and the amount of injuries you’ve had,’ I tell Eddie Gray. ‘If you’d been a bloody racehorse, you’d have been fucking shot.’

Eddie Gray looks up at me, looks up at me with tears in his eyes. Eddie Gray says, ‘Didn’t an injury end your career?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘It bloody well did.’

‘Then you ought to understand how I feel.’

Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us …

I turn to Michael Jones. I tell him, ‘Same goes for you, young man.’

For thou givest not always the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or few …

‘Irishman, you’re another one with a terrible bloody reputation,’ I tell John Giles. ‘God gave you intelligence, skill, agility and the best passing ability in the game. These are qualities which have helped to make you a very wealthy young man. What God did not give you was them six studs to wrap around someone else’s knee.’

‘So bloody what?’ he says. ‘People kick me, I kick them back.’

‘Just remember,’ I warn him. ‘It’s not my fault you didn’t get this job.’

‘Relax, will you?’ he says. ‘I didn’t want