The Damned Utd

‘You leave that to me,’ says John. ‘You leave everything to me.’

* * *

Saturday comes again, welcome or not, it comes again like it always does, welcome or not, wanted or not, another judgement day –

The chance to be saved, the chance to be damned.

I sit alone at the front of the coach on the motorway to Manchester and I already know today’s result before we’ve even arrived –

No mystery. Not today. Not there. Not at Maine Road.

I’ve not been to a game yet when I haven’t already known the result before my team has got changed, before one whistle has been blown or one ball has been kicked; I know the result, know the answer –

Because I look into their eyes, I look into their hearts –

No mystery. Not today. Not any day. Not there –

Not in their eyes. Not in their hearts –

No mystery there. Just answers –

In the eyes. In the hearts –

Because in our eyes and in our hearts we have already lost, we are already damned.

* * *

It is Saturday lunchtime. You are at the Kedleston Hall Hotel, your new headquarters, having a long lunch with John, his mate Bill Holmes, your mate Dave Cox and Peter –

Peter who looks like he’s died twice in the last two days.

You’re all smoking and drinking more than you’re eating; knocking back the booze; knocking back the Dutch courage –

Laughing and joking more than you’re talking.

Then John looks at his watch. Then John says, ‘It’s time, Brian.’

You finish your drink. You pat Pete on his knee. You both stand up. You leave the restaurant of the Kedleston Hall Hotel. You go out into the car park. You get into the Rolls-Royce. The front seat of the golden Rolls-Royce. You turn the key. You start the engine and off you set through the streets of Derby. Pete on the back seat, you at the wheel. Through the deserted streets of barricaded houses and police reinforcements, deserted but for the police and the demonstrators and their banners. The demonstrators who have boycotted the match, their banners demanding, ‘BRING BACK CLOUGHIE!’

Through the deserted, barricaded streets to the Baseball Ground.

It is five minutes to three o’clock when you park the Rolls and the policeman asks, ‘How long do you intend staying, Brian?’

‘Five minutes, no longer,’ you tell him.

‘So you’re not stopping to watch the match?’

‘Believe it or not,’ you tell him, ‘I’m just nipping in to say cheerio.’

The policeman lets you park the Rolls, lets you leave Pete on the back seat, so you can nip through the demonstrators, through the cameras and the lights, past the bewildered steward and through the turnstiles, into the ground on your borrowed Derby County season ticket, where you then head off towards the players’ entrance, but here the commissionaire blocks your way and thwarts your plans to appear on the running track, so you run instead out beneath the main stand and then up, up, up the steps you go and along the row to your borrowed seat, just along from the directors’ box –

And there you stand, risen, your arms outstretched –

Immaculate in your new grey suit –

Your arms outstretched –

Immaculate and back.

The players stop their warm-up, the Derby County players and the Leicester City players, as the Derby crowd applaud their hero –

Applaud, adore and love their hero.

Just along from you, Longson now gets to his feet as his fellow directors and the season-ticket holders behind the directors’ box applaud him –

But it’s too little and too late. Much too late –

The real applause, the real adoration, the real love is for you –

‘Cloughie! Cloughie! Cloughie!’

Then the referee blows his whistle and you’re gone, gone again, down the stairs. Through the turnstiles. Past the same steward –

Across the deserted street. Into your golden Rolls-Royce and away –

Down to London. To the Parkinson show. To television –

No looking back. No turning back –

Saturday 20 October 1973.

THE SIXTH RECKONING

First Division Positions, 1 September 1974

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

The last of the Cunning Men is here –

I have the hair from your comb. I have the hair from your drains –

Tonight I will burn it. Tonight I will bury it.

All the beasts of the field here too –

The birds and the badgers. The foxes and the ferrets –

The dogs and the demons. The wolves and the vultures –

Come to devour, to eat you.

Day Thirty-three

The loneliest bloody day of the week, the loneliest fucking place on earth; under the stands, through the doors, round the corners to the bathroom and toilet in the corridor. The bathroom door is locked, the bathroom mirror broken. There is a dirty grey handkerchief wrapped around the knuckle of my right hand and when I look up into that mirror again there are black splintered cracks across my face, terrible black splintered cracks across my face –

Leeds United lost yesterday. 2-bloody-1 to Manchester City at Maine Road; Leeds United have just three points from five games and have scored just three goals. By this stage last year, Leeds United had beaten Everton, Arsenal, Tottenham, Wolves and Birmingham City; this stage last year, Leeds had ten points from five games and had scored fifteen goals with six from Lorimer, four from Bremner, two from Jones and one a piece from Giles, Madeley and Clarke –

This time last year, when Don bloody Revie was the manager of Leeds United and I was the manager of Derby County; when Don was fucking top and I was second; this time last year, when Alf Ramsey was still the manager of England.

I run the taps. I wash my face. I open the bathroom door. I go down the corridor. His corridor. Round the corner. His corner. Down the tunnel. His tunnel. Out into the light and out onto that pitch. His pitch. His field –

His field of loss. His field of blood. His field of sacrifice. His field of slaughter. His field of vengeance. His field of victory!

I shouldn’t be here. I should be at home with my wife and with my kids, carving the roast and digging the garden, walking the dog and washing the car. Not here. Not in this place –

This hateful, spiteful place –