The Damned Utd

by David Peace

  ‘Everything you are, keeps me so in love …’

  ‘But don’t forget who it was who came in for us when we were out of bloody work, when you could have been fucking suspended. Who it was while everyone else was hedging, not returning your calls. Who it is who’s backed us all the way. No interference. Full support. Cash for transfers –’

  ‘I thank the heavens that you came my way …’

  ‘Aye, and the players you’re saddling me with down here can’t fucking play –’

  ‘Let us stop and count our many blessings …’

  ‘Give it time, Brian. Give it –’

  ‘Because a love like ours doesn’t happen every day …’

  ‘You never see them bloody play –’

  ‘And year after year we’ll keep remembering …’

  ‘Best hotels. New Mercedes coach for team travel. What more do you want?’

  ‘Our anniversary in our special way …’

  ‘The First Division, Europe; I want another crack at the European Cup.’

  ‘So, darling, happy anniversary …’

  ‘Another season,’ he says. ‘Just one more.’

  ‘Another year of love has gone by …’

  ‘The offer’s here,’ you tell him. ‘Let’s go to Leeds.’

  ‘Thank you for each day you’ve given to me …’

  He closes his eyes. He shakes his head. He opens his mouth –

  ‘My darling, happy anniversary …’

  ‘Not this time, Brian,’ says Peter. ‘This time you’re on your own.’

  * * *

  They love me for what I’m not. They hate me for what I am. They love me. They hate me. In the shadow of the stands. On the steps of Elland Road. In the lights of the cameras and the spits of the rain, Manny Cussins is searching for the words, trying to find the words –

  ‘Mr Brian Clough and Leeds United have come to a mutually agreeable arrangement to terminate his employment effective as from tonight …What has been done is for the good of Leeds United. The club and the happiness of the players come first. Nothing can be successful unless the staff is happy …The majority of the players found it difficult to work with the new manager. They seemed to criticize the tactics, the training and so forth of Mr Clough …And there had been a little bit of discontent …But I feel we are big enough to say we can be wrong …Mr Clough has received a reasonably substantial golden handshake but both Leeds United and Mr Clough have agreed not to reveal the actual figure …It was a moral agreement which we have decided to honour … And we hope to announce the name of the new manager tomorrow.’

  ‘But why is he going?’ ask the press. ‘There is no answer to our question.’

  ‘Perhaps because we have been spoilt by Don Revie … For a new manager to come in after thirteen or fourteen years of success … It’s a very difficult act to follow …’

  ‘And how do you feel, Brian?’ they ask. ‘About Leeds United and Mr Cussins?’

  In the shadow of the stands, on the steps of Elland Road. I love them, I hate them. In the spits of their rain and the lights of their cameras, I find the words to tell them –

  ‘We are all parting on the best of terms and so I am feeling very friendly towards Mr Cussins. Everything is fine but I think it is a very sad day for Leeds and also a slightly sad day for football. So everything is a little bit sad at the moment … I do not think there was any trouble with the players. It is very important for them to get on with the job. It is important for them to win the league, the European Cup and the FA Cup. If they can do this it will be good for football … But, whatever happens in the next few weeks, Mr Cussins has been absolutely superb in my dealings with him … I have only been here seven weeks, but it seems like seven years …And I hope the guy who takes my position finds it much smoother …Two or three players have been to see me in my office today and they expressed 100 per cent support. I was not fired by the players … I feel terrible about being fired by Leeds United. But the accumulation of every single thing has caused it: injuries, suspensions, bad results, the board of directors, a couple of players and so on … But anyone who took over from Don Revie would have met resentment from the players. If they are the best team in the country, they have fallen down on this … But I still believe they got the best man to replace Revie …’

  ‘How shall we live, Brian? How shall we live?’

  ‘And I hope to be back in football in four or five days’ time.’

  ‘But have you got all you really wanted, Brian?’ they ask me.

  * * *

  Talks back and forth. Fuck him. Extra time. The spanner in the bloody works. Judas. Break for dinner. You loosen your collar. Undo your tie. You make an excuse. You take your chance. You get to the phone. You make your calls. You spike their guns. Fuck him. Fuck them all. This is one bloody chance that’s not going to get away. No fucking chance. Not this time. Past midnight. Six hours back and forth. No result. Adjourn to the bar. Out of the basement. Up to the lounge. Cussins and Bob Roberts walking up the stairs ahead of you, wringing their hands and shaking their heads, whispering to each other about unexpected complications, muttering about how they wanted both Clough and Taylor, and now they’re not so sure; Revie on the radio, Revie on the telly, calling Clough a daft bloody choice, calling for protest groups and petitions, calling for the appointment of Johnny fucking Giles instead of you. You push past Cussins and Roberts, past Bamber and Taylor. You take the stairs two at a time. Into the lounge. The press and TV waiting. Tipped off. Their cameras flash, their microphones on –

  ‘Gentlemen,’ you tell them, ‘I’ve just been appointed manager of Leeds United.’

  * * *

  John and Bill drive me to the studios of Yorkshire TV. Of Calendar. For their special, Goodbye, Mr Clough, with Austin Mitchell, Brian Clough and tonight’s special guest, back by popular demand and as bold as the brass on the buttons of his blazer, the Don –

  ‘When you walked in, when you walked in, when you walked in,’ says Revie, ‘did you have a meeting on the first day with them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t think it was necessary to have a meeting the very first day.’

  ‘So you were taking over as manager of a new club …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t call all your players and all your coaching staff and all your office staff together …’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And introduce yourself and meet them and tell them exactly what you feel and what you want to try and do?’

  ‘Go on!’ I tell him. ‘The first day I walked in I came back from my holiday and I did two hours’ training with them.’

  Don Revie shakes his head. Don fiddles with them buttons on his blazer. He says, ‘But there was a lot of nervousness and apprehension among the players and the staff, and there have obviously been meetings and discussions among the players and the directors, and there must have been a very good reason to do that. I don’t condone players doing that in any club; it is totally wrong and the directors are wrong to listen to it … But I think Brian is a fool to himself. He has criticized so many people whose records stand to be seen, and I think it is totally wrong for the game of professional football.’

  ‘But listen, Don,’ I tell him. ‘When you’ve taken over the job of a man that’s been there for ten or fifteen years …’

  ‘Thirteen,’ says Don.

  ‘Thirteen years, thank you, and who’s been regarded as the King Pin, as the Father Figure, as the Man Who Made Everything Tick, then within seven weeks it is impossible – utterly impossible – to replace that type of thing …’

  ‘But why try to replace it, Brian? You talked to them about winning the Championship better or differently, but our record is there to be seen for eleven years …’

  ‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Right, the first four or five years, and I’ve always said this, we played for results. But the last four or five years, we
’ve been the most entertaining side by crowd entertainment, and topping charts with national newspapers and television …’

  ‘Also, Don, the disciplinary chart. You topped that.’

  ‘We topped that once.’

  ‘Well, you topped it for the last two or three years.’

  ‘No, no, no. That’s not true. It wasn’t 100 per cent right, I’ll agree. It wasn’t quite right. Discipline on the field. And last year we straightened it out.’

  ‘It was,’ I tell him. ‘You were the top.’

  ‘But yeah, yeah, when you, you see, you, Brian, when you talk about coming to the Leeds job and you had all these things, these worries about stepping into my shoes and one thing and another …’

  ‘Which I had …’

  ‘Yes, you had. But why, why did you come from Brighton to Leeds to take it over when you had criticized them so much and said we should be in the Second Division for this and we should do this and we shouldn’t do that? Why? Why did you take the job?’

  ‘Well, because I thought it was the best job in the country.’

  ‘Of course it was the best job in the country.’

  ‘I was taking over the League Champions.’

  ‘Yeah, you were taking over the League Champions. You were taking over the best bunch of players you had ever seen.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know about the players, Don.’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘I didn’t know them intimate like you do. But I knew you were the League Champions and I was taking over the League Champions. And I wanted to have a crack at the European Cup this year. I think it was near and dear to your heart also. I wanted to win it. I wanted to do something you hadn’t done. Now when I said, I think I said it to Trevor Cherry actually or most of the other players, he said to me, what can you do that the Boss hasn’t done? You’re the Boss, Don, he’s referring to you. I said I want to win the league, but I want to win it better. Now there is no other reply to that question because you had won the league.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Don. ‘But there’s no way you could win it better.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No, no, no …’

  ‘But that’s the only hope I’ve got …’

  ‘But we’d only lost four matches.’

  ‘Well, I can only lose three.’

  ‘No, no, no …’

  ‘I couldn’t give any other answer and I wanted to win the European Cup. Now I believe it was just a fraction, just a fraction, Don – I don’t know this because I haven’t spoken to you – but I believe it was just a fraction whether you took the England job or had another shot at the European Cup.’

  ‘That is totally true,’ says Don. ‘Because I was so involved with the players and everyone at Elland Road …’

  ‘Good lad,’ I tell him. ‘Now I wanted to do that and I wanted to do it better than you. You can understand that, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But –’

  ‘Thank you,’ I tell him. ‘Thank you, Don.’

  The credits roll, the music plays; I can see clearly now.

  * * *

  Down the motorway, their fingers and fists, their sticks and their stones, getting smaller and smaller; John at the wheel of my new blue Mercedes, Bill opening another bottle of champagne. But the sun is not shining, rain only falling; the blue sky is black, the yellows all purple, and I’m in the back with my two feet up and their cheque for £25,000 in my hands –

  I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in luck. I believe in football –

  ‘I’ve just come up on the pools,’ I shout. ‘The bloody pools!’

  I believe in family and I believe in me; Brian Howard Clough –

  It is Thursday 12 September 1974, and I wish you were here.

  The Argument II, cont.

  In May 1979

  Margaret Hilda Thatcher and the Conservative Party won

  the General Election,

  and Brian Howard Clough and Nottingham Forest won

  the European Cup –

  No Milton. No Blake. No Orwell –

  D.U.F.C.

  Sources and Acknowledgements

  This novel is another fiction, based on another fact. That fact was found in the following sources:

  A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow (1960).

  Biting Talk by Norman Hunter (2004).

  Bremner! by Bernard Bale (1998).

  Champions Again: Derby County 1967/75 by Gerald Mortimer (1975).

  Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B. S. Johnson (1973).

  Clough: A Biography by Tony Francis (1987).

  Clough: The Autobiography by Brian Clough (1994).

  Cloughie: Walking on Water by Brian Clough (2002, 2003).

  Derby County: The Clough Years by Michael Cockayne (2003).

  Don Revie: Portrait of a Footballing Enigma by Andrew Mourant (1990).

  Hard Man, Hard Knocks by Terry Yorath (2004).

  His Way: The Brian Clough Story by Patrick Murphy (1993).

  In a League of their Own by Jeremy Novick (1995).

  Leeds United Match Day Magazine and Programmes, 1974–75.

  Marching on Together by Eddie Gray (2002).

  Only a Game? by Eamon Dunphy (1976).

  Peter Lorimer: Leeds and Scotland Hero by Peter Lorimer and Phil Rostron (2002).

  Psycho Mike and the Phantom Ice Rink by Don Watson.

  Room at the Top by John Braine (1957).

  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (1958).

  Selected Poems by Tony Harrison (1984).

  Sniffer: The Life and Times of Allan Clarke by David Saffer (2001).

  The Elland Road Encyclopaedia by Paul Harrison (1994).

  The Football Managers by Johnny Rogan (1989).

  The Glory Game by Hunter Davies (2001 edition).

  The Goalkeeper’s Revenge by Bill Naughton (1961).

  The Ice Age by Margaret Drabble (1977).

  The Leeds United Story by Martin Jarred and Malcolm Macdonald (2002).

  The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe (1959).

  The Official FA Year Books, 1966–76.

  The Real Mackay by Dave Mackay and Martin Knight (2004).

  The Unforgiven: Don Revie’s Leeds United by Rob Bagchi and Paul Rogerson (2002).

  The Yorkshire Post, July–September 1974.

  There Was Some Football Too … 100 Years of Derby County by Tony Francis (1984).

  This Sporting Life by David Storey (1960).

  Welcome to Elland Road: LUFC in Pictures by John and Andrew Varley (1999).

  Winning Isn’t Everything: A Biography of Sir Alf Ramsey by Dave Bower (1998).

  With Clough by Peter Taylor (1980).

  I would like to thank the following people for their assistance and their support: Mrs Scriven and the staff of the Balne Lane Library, Wakefield; Andrew Vine and David Clay at the Yorkshire Post; Sarn Warbis and Richard Hall; François Guérif, Agnès Guery, Daniel Lemoine and all the staff of Payot & Rivages, Paris; Luca Formenton, Marco Tropea, Cristina Ricotti and all the staff of il Saggiatore, Milan; Shunichiro Nagashima; Kester Aspden, Andy Beckett, Gordon Burn, Giuseppe Genna, Peter Hobbs, Eoin McNamee, David Mitchell, Justin Quirk, Ian Rankin, Cathi Unsworth, Martyn Waites, and Tony White; William Miller, Junzo Sawa, Hamish Macaskill, Peter Thompson and all the staff of the English Agency Japan; Stephen Page, Lee Roy Brackstone, Angus Derby Cargill, Anna Pallai, Ian Bahrami and Kate Ward and all the staff of Faber and Faber Limited. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends, in Britain and Japan, and particularly my father, Basil Peace.

  by the same author

  NINETEEN SEVENTY FOUR

  NINETEEN SEVENTY SEVEN

  NINETEEN EIGHTY

  NINETEEN EIGHTY THREE

  GB84

  Author biography

  David Peace is the author of The Red Riding Quartet and was chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. In 2004 he won the James Tait Black Memoria
l Prize for his novel GB84. Tokyo Year Zero, the first book of his Tokyo Trilogy, was published in 2007. He lives in Tokyo with his wife and two children.

  Further Praise for The Damned United:

  ‘The strangest, most compelling football novel ever written.’ Nick Rennison, Sunday Times

  ‘An extraordinarily gripping portrait of Brian Clough at his peak, it is surely the best football book ever written.’ Dominic Sandbrook, Books of the Year, Evening Standard

  ‘Incomparable … a brilliant novel … Peace’s work might be fiction, but its reading of the paranoia, incompetence and venality at large in football’s corridors of power is almost painful in its accuracy.’ Jim White, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph

  ‘The most compelling football book of 2006 … Shakespearean in its scale, ambition, depth and elements of tragedy, farce and betrayal.’ Phil Shaw, Books of the Year, Independent

  ‘Now this, young man, is what you call an exceptional football book, as bold, brilliant and unconventional as Brian Clough himself, whose voice is vividly brought back to life … It is a great story grippingly revived.’ Matt Dickinson, Books of the Year, The Times

  ‘This was an exceptional year in that it produced the best football novel. Ever. David Peace’s meticulous recreation of Brian Clough’s 44 days at Leeds United has power, authenticity and drama.’ Hugh MacDonald, Sports Books of the Year, The Herald

  Copyright

  First published in 2006

  by Faber and Faber Limited

  Bloomsbury House

  74-77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2008

  All rights reserved

  © David Peace, 2006

  The right of David Peace to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ISBN 978—0—571—24607—6 [epub edition]

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly