The Damned Utd

They’re professional fucking footballers, aren’t they?

I’ve brought in Trevor Cherry for Hunter and I’m also starting with Terry Cooper; his first league game in two years, first league game since he broke his leg on this very ground; a chance for both Cherry and Cooper to prove themselves –

Prove themselves in front of the watching scouts from Leicester and Forest.

Ten to three and I finish my drink. I walk back down the stairs. Round the corner. Down the corridor. I stand by the dressing-room door and I stare at each one of them:

Harvey. Reaney. Cooper. Bremner. McQueen. Cherry. Lorimer. Madeley.

Jordan. Giles and McKenzie.

I stare at each one of them and I wonder how much they want to win this game –

How much do they really, really want to win this fucking game?

I stare into their eyes and know I can make them win or lose this game –

Win or lose it with the flick of a switch.

Half-time and it’s 0–0; half-time and I flick that switch:

‘Do you want to win this bloody game?’ I ask the Irishman –

‘What about you?’ I ask Bremner. ‘Fucking suspension hasn’t started yet.’

Five minutes into the second half, Terry Cooper gets a booking and Bremner misses a tackle and Leeds are a goal down –

Three down by full-time.

The press are waiting, the television too:

‘We played enough good football to win three bloody matches,’ I convince them. ‘In the first half hour we played well enough to be three up. I’m not saying Stoke didn’t deserve to win — I’d never say that — but it could have gone either way and I do feel very sorry for the lads, very sorry –

‘They wanted to win so badly.’

I’m the last on the bus and the driver gives me another dose of West Riding charm. I sit down at the front next to Jimmy, head against the window, and then the team begins to applaud me, the whole coach clapping me –

Slowly; very, very slowly –

‘I feel very sorry for the lads.’

Just like the big fat fucking smile that’s growing across my lips, across my face.

* * *

Leeds are still 10–11 favourites; Liverpool 11–8; Derby County 8–1.

But there’s a whole week to wait, and you don’t like waiting, so you go on holiday; Peter takes the team to Cala Millor, Majorca, for a week in the sun. You make bloody sure the press know that’s where Derby have gone; fucking sure Revie and Leeds know that’s where Derby have gone; sunning themselves in Majorca, the bets laid at generous prices and the champagne on ice –

‘No sweat,’ Pete keeps telling the team. ‘The Championship is ours.’

You don’t go to Spain, not this time. You take your mam, your dad, your wife and your kids to the Island Hotel, Tresco, in the Scilly Isles. You pretend not to care about the Championship, not to be interested, but you think of nothing else –

Nothing else as you build sandcastles with the kids on the beach –

Nothing else; Liverpool and Shankly you could get over. Perhaps. But not Leeds and Revie. Never. Not again. Not Revie. That team. But you know in your heart of hearts, your darkest heart of hearts, you know that Don will have prepared his dossiers, will have laid out his lucky blue suit, filled the envelopes full of used banknotes, had a chat with the referee and packed the bingo cards and the carpet bowls –

Nothing left to chance.

On the Saturday night at the Island Hotel, you hear Leeds have beaten Arsenal to win the Centenary Cup final. Leeds are now just one game away from a cup and league double; Arsenal now no competition for Liverpool.

Last week you were certain it would be you who won the title. You just knew –

Now you’re not so sure, the sandcastles washed away each day by the tide –

These tides of doubt and tides of fear, these seas of doubt and fear.

Monday night, nine o’clock, the phone at the Island Hotel starts to ring –

Liverpool have drawn with Arsenal and Leeds have lost at Wolves –

You kiss your mam, your dad, your wife and your kids; you order champagne for the guests and the staff of the Island Hotel and pose for the Sun on the beach –

On the beach in the tides of champagne, the seas of champagne –

Champagne in the Scilly Isles. Champagne in Majorca. Champagne in the boardroom at Highbury where Old Sam has gone to watch Liverpool and Shankly lose –

‘Keeping the management and winning the title,’ Old Sam Longson declares. ‘What more could the people and fans of Derby ask for?’

Three bottles of champagne. Three separate bottles of champagne –

Derby County are the 1971–72 First Division Champions –

Those final league placings for ever on your wall –

It is a beautiful night; Monday 8 May 1972 –

And fear is dead. Doubt is dead –

Long live Cloughie!

THE SECOND RECKONING

First Division Positions, 18 August 1974

P W D L F A Pts 1 Man. City 1 1 0 0 4 0 2 2 Middlesbrough 1 1 0 0 3 0 2 3 Stoke City 1 1 0 0 3 0 2 4 Carlisle United 1 1 0 0 2 0 2 5 Liverpool 1 1 0 0 2 1 2 6 Wolves 1 1 0 0 2 1 2 7 Newcastle Utd 1 1 0 0 3 2 2 8 Arsenal 1 1 0 0 1 0 2 9 Ipswich Town 1 1 0 0 1 0 2 10 QPR 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 11 Sheffield Utd 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 12 Derby County 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 13 Everton 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 14 Coventry City 1 0 0 1 2 3 0 15 Burnley 1 0 0 1 1 2 0 16 Luton Town 1 0 0 1 1 2 0 17 Birmingham C. 1 0 0 1 0 3 0 18 Chelsea 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 19 Leeds United 1 0 0 1 0 3 0 20 Leicester City 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 21 Tottenham H. 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 22 West Ham Utd 1 0 0 1 0 4 0

I have come to turn the stones –

Eleven round stones to place one upon another, one after another –

On the Cursing Stone.

One after another, one on top of another, I place them stones –

But if one should slip, if one should fall, the curse will fail –

But I place my stones. Then I say your name –

‘Brian.’

Day Nineteen

I wake up on Sunday morning at the Dragonara with another bloody hangover, of booze and dreams, thinking how fucking ungracious they are; never ever been gracious in defeat have Leeds United; always had their excuses have Leeds; always the poor tale –

Runners-up in the league and the cup in 1964–65; runners-up in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, 1965–66; two disallowed goals in the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea and runners-up in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup again in 1966–67; finally winners of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and also of the Football League Cup in 1967–68, but lose the semi-final of the FA Cup through a Gary ‘Careless Hands’ Sprake howler; finally League Champions in 1968–69 but go out of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in the quarter-finals; 1969–70, they finish second in the league, runners-up in the FA Cup final and are knocked out of the European Cup in the semi-finals by Celtic, blaming ‘fixture congestion’, ‘injuries’ and Gary Sprake; 1970–71, they go out of the cup to Fourth Division Colchester and claim only to have lost the league thanks to a referee called Ray Tinkler, who allowed an offside West Brom goal to stand, though they manage to pull themselves together to win the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup for a second time; then, in 1971–72, they are made to play their first four home games away from Elland Road — because of the pitch invasion following the West Brom game and because of the comments made by Revie and his chairman, Woodward — and that season they do win the cup but lose their very last game of the season at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Derby County winning the league –