The Damned Utd

You’re first at the door when the Leeds team bus arrives at the Baseball Ground, the players filing off, Don in his huddle with Les Cocker, Maurice Lindley and Syd Owen.

‘Welcome to Derby, Don,’ you say. ‘Pleasure to meet you. I’m Brian Clough.’

But Don doesn’t acknowledge you, introduce himself or even say hello –

Don stays away from the boardroom, out of the bar. Don heads straight down the corridor, down to the dressing room, the visitors’ dressing room –

To stare into the mirror, the mirror, mirror on the dressing-room wall, combing his hair and saying his prayers, combing his hair and saying his prayers, combing his hair and saying his prayers –

Don doesn’t see you in the tunnel. Don doesn’t see you on your bench –

Don rocking back and forth on the visitors’ bench in the visitors’ dug-out, rocking back and forth in his lucky blue suit and his old car coat –

From the very first whistle of the game to the very last one –

Rocking back and forth as his team niggle at your heels and pull at your shirts, clipping ankles and catching thighs, all elbows and knees to your fingers and thumbs –

Fingers and thumbs and a needless handball from Bobby Saxton to give away the penalty that Johnny Giles blasts into the back of your net –

Bobby Saxtonwill not play for Derby County again. Not play for you again. Never, never, never play again.

But at the very final whistle you stick out your own hand and you tell Don Revie, ‘Well done, Don. See you next week.’

And this time Don Revie takes that outstretched hand but he looks right through you as he shakes it, shakes it, shakes it, looks right through you to the mirror, the mirror, mirror on the dressing-room wall, a comb in his hand and a prayer on his lips, a comb in his hand and a prayer on his lips, a comb in his hand and a prayer on his lips –

That he will win and you will lose. He will win and you will lose –

The rituals observed, the superstitions followed, all Don’s prayers are answered.

You travel up to Elland Road twice in two weeks and twice in two weeks you are well beaten and you travel back down to Derby with nothing –

Nothing but ambitions fuelled; hearts hardened and lessons learnt –

Losing 2–0 in the FA Cup to goals from Lorimer and Charlton, then losing 3–2 in the second leg of the semi-final of the League Cup –

Two Derby goals that you know, in your hardened heart of hearts, flatter you and flatter Derby County in front of Elland Road –

In front of Leeds United, in front of Don Revie –

‘Bit lucky there,’ says Don. ‘Thought God might be smiling on you.’

‘I don’t believe in luck,’ you tell Don. ‘And I don’t believe in God.’

‘So what do you believe in then?’ asks Don Revie.

‘Me,’ you tell him. ‘Brian Howard Clough.’

* * *

Just the three of us now; me, his shadow and his echo –

In the empty stadium, beneath the empty stand, off the empty corridor, the three of us in his old bloody office in my brand-new chair at my brand-new desk on his old fucking phone –

The spit from his lips. His tongue. The breath from his mouth. His stomach –

My brandy. My cigarette. My call –

Bill Nicholson ranting down the line about Martin Chivers; about modern footballers; about Mammon and greed –

‘John Giles could be just the man you need,’ I tell him. ‘Be able to groom him. Mould him. Done a fine job with the Republic. Just what the Spurs need …’

Bill Nick’s not keen, but Bill agrees to meet Giles. To talk to him.

I hang up, pour another brandy and light another cig, in my brand-new chair at my brand-new desk in his empty old office, off his empty old corridor, beneath his empty old stand in his empty old stadium –

Just the three of us: me, his shadow and his echo –

I walk out into the corridor. Round the corner –

Down the tunnel and out onto that pitch –

My brandy in one hand, my cigarette in the other, I stand in the centre circle again and look up into the dark, empty Yorkshire night –

Don’t take it out on this world –

This night has a thousand eyes but just one song.

* * *

‘It’s easy to be a good manager,’ Harry Storer always used to say. ‘All you have to do is sign good players.’

Harry Storer was right. Harry Storer was always bloody right –

It’s players that lose you games. Players that win you games –

Not theories. Not tactics. Not luck. Not superstition. Not God. Players –

You pick them, but they play. They win, they lose or they draw –

Not you. Not the manager. Them. The players –

You have kept the likes of Kevin Hector and Alan Durban. You have brought in the likes of John O’Hare, Roy McFarland and Alan Hinton –

You have tasted Elland Road. You have tasted the Big Time. But now it’s back to the Second Division. Back to Portsmouth, Millwall, Huddersfield and Carlisle.

Derby County win a few games. Derby County lose a few –

Peaks and ruts. The hate mail comes. Ruts and peaks. The hate mail goes –

But there are still men like Fred Wallace; there are always men like Fred Wallace, standing on the terraces, behind the dug-out, outside the dressing room, in the corridors, in the boardrooms and at the bars –

‘Dropped another place,’ he tells you. ‘Fifth from bottom now.’

Men who want you to fail. Men who want you to lose. Men who wish you dead. Men like Fred Wallace. There are always men like Fred and there are always doubts –

There are doubts in 1968 and there’ll be doubts in 1978 –

Doubts and broken promises:

Derby County fail to win any of their last six games. Derby County lose their very last match at home to Blackpool. You have lost nineteen games in the 1967–68 season, scored seventy-one goals but conceded seventy-eight, and you have finished the season eighteenth in Division Two; one place lower than last season, last season when Derby sacked Tim Ward; two places lower than you promised the Rotary Club of Derby –

Promised the newspapers and the television, the town and the fans –

Broken promises and broken hearts –

Meanwhile, Hartlepools United have been promoted to Division Three –

Broken hearts and salted wounds –

Your glass breaks against his lounge wall, you are drunk and crying, shouting: ‘Least we’d have fucking won something.’

‘But we’d still be in the bloody Third Division,’ says Peter.

You shake your head: ‘This rate, we’ll fucking pass them on our way down.’

‘Brian, listen to me,’ he says. ‘Hartlepools was just a bloody stepping stone, always was and always will be. This time next year we’ll be promoted as fucking Champions. And that’ll just be the start of it. You wait and you see.’