Time after time after time.
Later, the men from Manchester will say this was just a friendly; just another pre-season game; an inconsequential warm-up. But you know there are no such things as friendlies –
Because you know you cannot switch it on and switch it off.
You sit in your dug-out and you watch Denis Law limp off, Kidd and Best fade and Bobby Charlton look so very, very tired, and then you look at your team, your boys; every one of them giving you 100 per cent, because they know you cannot switch it on and switch it off; because they know football is a game of habit; because they know that habit should be winning –
You’ve raised hopes. Hopes you must fulfil –
And you will; you, Peter, Sam and Webby –
The Golden Age here at last.
* * *
In the Yorkshire boardroom, the Yorkshire curtains drawn. Judgement hour is upon them, upon us all. The FA Secretary and the FA Disciplinary Committee have concluded their four-hour meeting down in London. The Leeds board have received the FA statement –
I help myself to a large brandy and take a seat next to Bremner.
Manny Cussins takes out the statement and, in a solemn tone, reads it aloud: ‘Bremner of Leeds and Keegan of Liverpool will each be under suspension for three matches with effect from August the twentieth unless an application for a personal hearing is made by the players…’
Cussins pauses here and looks up at Bremner –
Bremner shakes his head.
‘Both Bremner of Leeds and Keegan of Liverpool will also be charged separately under FA Rule 40 A7 for bringing the game into disrepute by their actions following being sent off the field of play. Both players, their managers and a representative of each respective board are ordered to attend a meeting at FA headquarters on Friday with Mr Vernon Stokes, the chairman of the FA Disciplinary Committee.’
Cussins puts the statement to one side. The eyes of the board are on me now –
I light a cigar. I take a nip of brandy. I turn to William Bremner and I tell him, ‘They’re going to hang you out to dry for this, you stupid bastard.’
* * *
Despite the high hopes, despite the Watneys Cup, there are always the dark clouds and ominous signs; heavy over you, but heavier still over Peter, worried and shitting bricks –
‘We’re short of pace,’ he says, over and over. ‘We’ll go down without pace.’
Brick after brick after brick; day after day after day –
This is how the 1970–71 season starts; Peter anxious again, screwing up his Sporting Life, chain-smoking and biting his nails, having those dreams again, those nightmares that tell him you’ve shot it, he’s shot it, his days of doubt, his nights of fear –
Only doubts and only fears. No succour, no supper.
Peter thinks you should both have gone to Greece last March; gone to Greece to work for the Colonels for £20,000 a year plus a £10,000 signing-on fee, all tax-free. Peter would have gone, but there was no job for Peter without Brian. In your secret room at the Mackworth Hotel, Peter had begged and pleaded with you to take the job –
‘I’m not meddling with dynamite,’ you told him and that was that.
Peter thinks you should both have gone to Birmingham last April; gone to Birmingham to work for Clifford Coombs. Peter would have gone, but there was no job for Peter without Brian. Again in your secret room at the Mackworth Hotel, Peter had pleaded and Peter had begged, begged and pleaded, pleaded and begged –
Barcelona. Greece. Birmingham. Coventry. Anywhere but here –
‘But I’m happy here,’ you told him then, tell him now. ‘We’re on a good thing.’
But Peter’s never happy with your lot; the grass is always greener and your own nothing but a field of weeds and stones; nothing but weeds and stones –
‘We’re short of pace,’ he says, again and again. ‘And we’ll go down without it.’
‘Did all right last season,’ you tell him. ‘If it’s not broken …’
‘And if we go down,’ he says, ‘who’ll want us then, Brian?’
* * *
I hate fucking flying and this lot don’t make it any bloody better; they don’t talk or joke, don’t drink or smoke, they just sit and stare at the backs of the chairs in front of them. The safety instructions. Me and all –
I think about my wife. I think about my kids …
In the sky over England, up among the bloody birds and the clouds, no one feels invincible. Not up here. Not even me. Not without a drink or a fag in my hand. Up here everybody’s mortal, full of regret, wishing they were back down there with their feet upon the ground, making things right, making things good, making things better –
They’ll be having their tea, my wife and my kids, watching a bit of telly …
Never flew with Middlesbrough. Never flew with Sunderland –
Then it’ll be bathtime and bedtime, a story if they’re good …
Never would have if we’d stayed at bloody Hartlepools –
Goodnight, sleep tight; lights out and sweet dreams …
Never would again if I had my way. Never would again –
Sweet, sweet dreams.
* * *
Observe. Expose. Replace. Observe. Expose. Replace –
This is what Peter does; what Peter does for his money; does to feel worthwhile; to feel needed; important. Stuart Webb’s been in Peter’s ear; he’s been telling him about this lad at his old club; this young Scot at Preston North End. So Peter goes to see Archie Gemmill and ninety minutes later Peter is on the telephone to the Baseball Ground –
‘I’ve seen one,’ he tells you. ‘Get Longson’s cheque book up here fast.’
You drive up to Preston. You meet Alan Ball, father of England’s Alan Ball, the manager of Preston North End. You agree to pay £64,000 for Gemmill –
If Gemmill will agree to join you (which he will; they always do).
Peter goes back home now, needed and important, his job done –
Now your job starts. You go round to Gemmill’s house. Two minutes inside this house and you know your work has only just begun; you can sense another club, the League Champions Everton, are in here; you can hear it in Gemmill’s voice, see it in his eyes, smell it on his clothes. And then there’s Gemmill’s wife; Betty’s seen you on the telly and she’s not keen on what she’s seen, that mouth, those opinions. Betty’s also pregnant and against any other changes in her life –
Two minutes in here and you know you’ll not be going home tonight. So you roll up your sleeves, march into their kitchen and get stuck into the washing-up.
‘I’d like to sleep on it,’ says Archie Gemmill.
‘Good man,’ you tell him. ‘I’ll kip in your spare room, if you don’t mind.’
The next morning Betty cooks you bacon and eggs while Archie signs the contract between the marmalade and the ketchup –
A job well done, that’s you.
You go back to the Preston ground. You break the news to Ball; Ball doesn’t look too sad. Ball thinks he’s pulled a fast one –