‘Fuck off,’ replies Pete and walks out of the room and out of the ground.
You follow Pete home; knock on his door; let yourself in. You pour him a drink; pour yourself one; light you both a fag and put your arms around him.
‘You shouldn’t let the chairman upset you,’ you tell him.
‘Easy for you,’ sniffs Pete. ‘The son he never had, with your £5,000 raise.’
‘Right, listen, you miserable bastard, why did we buy Roger fucking Davies?’
‘You doubting me and all now?’ he shouts. ‘Thanks a fucking bunch, mate.’
‘I’m not bloody doubting you, Pete,’ you tell him. ‘But I want to hear you tell me why we went down to Worcester City and bought a non-league player for £14,000.’
‘Because he’s twenty-one years old, six foot odd and a decent fucking striker.’
‘There you go,’ you tell him. ‘Now why didn’t you say that to Longson?’
‘Because he questioned my judgement; questioned the one bloody thing I can do: spot fucking players. I’m not you, Brian, and I never will be — on the telly, in the papers — and I don’t bloody want to be. But I don’t want to be questioned and fucking doubted either. I just want to be appreciated and respected. Is that too much to ask? A little bit of bloody respect? A little bit of fucking appreciation every now and again?’
‘Fuck off,’ I tell him. ‘What was the first thing you ever said to me? Directors never say thank you, that’s what. We could give them the league, the European Cup, and you know as well as I do that they’d never once say thank you. So don’t let the bastards start getting under your skin now and stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself.’
‘You’re right,’ he says.
‘I know I am.’
‘You always are.’
‘I know I am,’ you say. ‘So let’s get back to work and make sure next season we bloody win that fucking title. Not for any fucking chairman or any board of bloody directors. For us; me and you; Clough and Taylor; and no one else.’
* * *
I am on my hands and my knees on the training ground, looking for that bloody watch of mine in the grass and the dirt. But the light is going and I’m sure one of them fucking nicked it anyway. There’s a ball in the grass by the fence. I pick it up and chuck it up into the sky and volley it into the back of the practice net. I go and pick it out of the back of the net. I go back to the edge of the penalty box and chuck it up into the sky again, volley it into the back of the net again, again and again and again, ten times in all, never missing, not once. But there are tears in my eyes and then I can’t stop crying, stood there on that practice pitch in the dark, the tears rolling down my bloody cheeks, for once in my fucking life glad that I’m alone.
* * *
This has been a bad season; a season to forget. But today it’s almost over. Today is the last game of the 1970–71 season. Today is also Dave Mackay’s last game –
1 May 1971; home to West Bromwich Albion –
West Brom who last week helped put pay to the ambitions of Leeds United and Don Revie; Leeds United and Don Revie who have lost the league by a single point to Arsenal; Arsenal who have not only won the league but also the cup and become only the second-ever team to win the Double –
Tottenham being the only other team. Tottenham and Dave Mackay.
Two minutes from the end, from the end of his last match, a match Derby are winning 2–0, and Dave Mackay is still rushing to take a throw-in; still clapping urgently, demanding concentration and 100 per cent –
He has played all forty-two games of this season. Every single one of them.
Then the final whistle of his final match comes and off he goes, running from the pitch with a quick wave to the 33,651 here to see him off, off down that tunnel, down that tunnel and he’s gone –
Irreplaceable. Fucking irreplaceable.
Derby County have finished ninth, scoring fifty-six and conceding fifty-four, drawing five at home and five away, winning sixteen and losing sixteen –
The symmetry being no bloody consolation whatsoever –
Because there is no fucking consolation –
No consolation for not winning –
That’s irreplaceable.
* * *
I don’t go back to the Dragonara. Not tonight. I go back home to Derby. Past the Midland Hotel. Past the Baseball Ground. But I don’t stop. Not tonight –
Tonight, I get back to the house, the lights off and the door locked. I put away the car and I go inside the house. I put on a light and I make myself a cup of tea. I switch on the fire and I sit down in the rocking chair. I pick up the paper and I try to read, but it’s all about Nixon and resignation, resignation, resignation:
‘I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is complete is abhorrent to every instinct in my body …‘
I put down the paper and I switch on the telly, but there’s nothing on except documentaries and news programmes about Cyprus, Cyprus, Cyprus:
Deceit and division; division and hate; hate and war; war and death.
I switch off the telly and I switch off the fire. I wash up my pots and I switch off the lights. I go up the stairs and I clean my teeth. I look in my daughter’s room and I kiss her sleeping head. I look in my sons’ room and my eldest one says, ‘Dad?’
‘You still awake, are you?’ I ask him. ‘You should be asleep.’
‘What time is it, Dad?’ he asks me.
I look at my watch, but it’s not there. I tell him, ‘I don’t know, but it’s late.’
‘You going to bed now, are you, Dad?’
‘Course, I am,’ I tell him. ‘I got work tomorrow, haven’t I? You want to come?’
‘Not really,’ he says. ‘But will you tell us a joke? A new one?’
‘I don’t think I’ve got any new jokes.’
‘But you’ve always got jokes, Dad,’ he says. ‘You know loads of jokes.’
‘All right then,’ I tell him. ‘There’s this bloke walking about down in London and suddenly London gets hit by an A-bomb …’
‘Is this the joke, Dad?’ he asks me.
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘Just listen …’
‘Is it a funny joke?’
‘Just listen to me, will you?’ I tell him again. ‘So there’s this bloke walking about and London gets hit by an A-bomb and now this bloke is the only man left in the whole of London. So he walks around and around London, the whole of London, and it takes him four or five days, until finally he realizes that he must be the only person left in the whole of London and he suddenly feels very, very lonely because there’s nobody else to talk to. Nobody else but him. So he decides that he’s had enough, that he doesn’t want to be the only man left, and so he climbs up to the top of the Post Office tower…’
‘The Post Office tower’s all right then, is it, Dad?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘After the bomb,’ he says. ‘It’s still all right, still there, is it?’
‘Yes, it’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t worry about the Post Office tower. So anyway, this bloke, he climbs all the way up to the top of the Post Office tower and then he jumps off the top and he’s falling down, down and down and down, the sixteenth floor, the fifteenth floor, the fourteenth floor, and that’s when he hears the phone ringing!’