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

‘Brian, Brian, Brian …’

‘Go on then,’ you tell him. ‘You fucking quit if you want to, like you always do. But I’m not giving up, not giving up on this lot. Not after all they’ve bloody done for us, all they’ve fucking risked for us. Never …’

‘Exactly,’ says Peter. ‘And that’s why we shouldn’t ask them to risk any more. All this talk of not training, not playing. All this talk of sit-ins, of strikes. They’ll be in bloody breach of their fucking contracts. They’ll be out of the club and out of a job; banned from playing anywhere else. They’ll be out of work, just like us.’

‘Fuck off,’ you tell him. ‘You’re a coward. You’re yellow.’

But Taylor just shrugs his shoulders. Puts out his fag and stands up. Then Peter shakes each player by their hand, each Derby player –

‘Thanks for everything,’ he says. ‘And best of luck on Saturday, I mean it.’

* * *

There are only fifteen minutes before the start of the Central League fixture against Blackburn and Elland Road is still empty. Empty but for directors, managers and scouts –

Freddie Goodwin from Birmingham City is here. Alan Brown from Forest too. From Leicester. From Everton. From Stoke. From Villa. From Ipswich. From Norwich. From Luton. From Burnley. From Coventry. From Wednesday. From bloody Hull and even Carlisle, they’ve all come to this shop window; come for this fucking fire sale –

‘Take your bloody pick,’ I told them all. ‘Everything must go!’

Through the doors. Up the stairs. Round the corner and down the corridor, I walk towards the Yorkshire boardroom doors. Towards the Yorkshire boardroom and chaos:

A man is lying on the floor of the corridor, outside the boardroom –

The man is Harry Reynolds, a former chairman of Leeds United –

People are loosening his collar, people loosening his tie –

People calling for a doctor, for an ambulance –

But Harry Reynolds is already dead.

* * *

The taxi drops you back at your house. Roy McFarland and Henry Newton help you to the door. Your wife lies you down on the settee –

‘Don’t listen to Peter,’ you tell Roy and Henry. ‘He’s just scared. Yellow.’

Your wife waits until Roy and Henry have gone. Until you’ve had a little sleep. A nice cup of tea. Then your wife tells you Stuart Dryden phoned from Nottingham Forest. Now Stuart Dryden might only be a committee member at Nottingham Forest, says your wife. But Stuart Dryden has a vision. Stuart Dryden has a dream –

That Nottingham Forest can win promotion from Division Two to Division One; that Nottingham Forest can win the First Division Championship; that Nottingham Forest can win the European Cup; not once, not twice, but time and time again –

Stuart Dryden believes you are the man to realize this dream –

‘That you’re the only man who can make that dream real,’ Stuart Dryden tells you in the middle of the night. In a Nottingham office. In secret.

‘Are you offering us the job?’ you ask Stuart Dryden.

‘I’d bloody love to,’ he says. ‘But I’ve only been on the committee for a week.’

‘Well, I’m interested,’ you tell him. ‘And so is Peter. But we’re not applying.’

‘But you’ve got to do something to help me get you there,’ says Dryden.

‘Like what?’ you ask him.

‘Like phoning the club at 11 o’clock tomorrow morning and making a discreet enquiry about the vacancy. I’ll make sure I’m there to take the call.’

‘I’ll not bloody beg,’ you tell him. ‘I’ll not fucking beg.’

‘It’s not begging,’ he says. ‘It’s a discreet enquiry.’

‘But who’s to say I won’t be back at Derby this time tomorrow?’ you ask him.

‘But they’ve already appointed Dave Mackay,’ says Stuart Dryden. ‘They’ve already appointed our bloody manager in your place.’

‘You never know. They might just un-appoint him,’ you tell him. ‘Then Derby would get me back and you’d get Mackay back and we’d all be happy.’

‘But we don’t want Mackay back,’ says Stuart Dryden. ‘We want you.’

* * *

The reserve game goes ahead and Leeds beat Blackburn Rovers 3–0, but it doesn’t matter. Not now. Now Harry Reynolds is dead. Not now Don Revie has arrived, as if by magick:

‘Harry Reynolds was the man who gave me my chance,’ says Don Revie. ‘Without him there would have been nothing. No man could have done more for a football club than Mr Reynolds. Without his intervention, I would probably have gone to Bournemouth all those years ago. I owe a debt to him that I cannot express in words. I am deeply saddened by his loss and anything I have achieved in my managerial career I owe to him. When I think of the dedication and effort he put into his career as chairman in the early years of my management, his trips with me all over the country to sign players and talk promising youngsters into a career at Leeds, I realize that he was unique …’

I have locked the office door. The chair up against it. My fingers in my ears, my fingers in my ears, my fingers in my ears –

The other directors, the managers and their scouts have all gone –

But not Don Revie. Don is still out there. Under the stand. Round the corner. Pacing the corridors, knocking on doors –

‘Are you there, Brian? Are you still there?’

* * *

You are lying in bed next to your wife. The clock by the bed ticking. You close your eyes but you do not sleep. You do not want to be the manager of Nottingham bloody Forest. You do not want to be the manager of Brighton and fucking Hove Albion. You do