It’s only a friendly, only a testimonial.
Through the doors. Down the corridors. Round the corners. Up the stairs. Into the boardroom. Into the bar. Into the spirits –
The handshakes and the backslaps –
Then Jimmy is in my ear –
‘They’re waiting,’ he whispers. ‘They want to know who’s playing.’
‘Bring them up here,’ I laugh. ‘Get a few pints down them.’
‘Come on, Boss,’ he pleads, his eyes wide and his palms out –
I finish my drink. I light another fag. I follow him out of the board room. Down the stairs. Round the corner. Down the corridor –
To the doors of the visitors’ dressing room. To the sound of silence –
I put out my fag. I take a deep breath. I open the door –
To the visitors’ dressing room. To the stink of Saturday –
‘Stewart, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, McQueen, Hunter, Lorimer, Bates, Clarke, Giles and Madeley,’ I tell them and leave them, leave them to their dressing room. Their silence. The stink of Saturday –
‘Mr Clough?’
I turn round; Bates stood in the corridor outside the dressing room.
‘You bloody deaf, are you, young man?’ I ask him. ‘You’re playing. Now go and get your fucking boots on.’
‘I know,’ says Mick Bates. ‘But where do you want me to play? I’m usually in midfield but, with both me and Paul Madeley playing today, I was wondering if I should play further up, in front of Johnny Giles and Billy Bremner?’
‘Look, you’ll do what I bloody tell you and play where I fucking say,’ I shout. ‘Now fuck off back in there and get your bloody boots on before I change my mind and have you fucking cleaning them all next bloody week!’
I walk off down the corridor. Round the corner. Up the stairs –
I take a seat in the stands to watch the game. My first game as manager of Leeds United. The Champions of England. But they are not my team. Not mine –
They go a goal behind. Then the Irishman volleys one back –
I look at my watch. It’s not there. Still missing.
Half-time, I’ll take off Norman Hunter and stick on Trevor Cherry and then they’ll pass better and score a winner, but I’m already looking through my address book –
Because they are not my team. Not mine. Not this team, and they never will be –
They are his team. His Leeds. His dirty, fucking Leeds and they always will be.
Not my team. Never. Not mine. Never. Not this team. Never –
They are not Derby County. Never Derby County.
* * *
There’s a beard and a smell about Peter when he answers the door, dark rings around his eyes and fresh whisky on his breath.
‘Lillian’s not bloody left you, has she?’ you ask him.
‘You never called,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about us.’
‘Forgotten?’ you laugh. ‘I didn’t get back to the bloody house till midnight.’
‘So?’ he says.
‘So, what?’ you ask.
He wipes his mouth and he says, ‘Don’t make me beg, Brian. Please …’
‘Beg?’ you laugh. ‘You’ll never beg again. We’re in! Bloody in!’
‘Both of us?’ he says. ‘They agreed to take me and all?’
‘Course they bloody did,’ you tell him. ‘Me and you.’
He’s still smiling but now he’s asking, ‘How much?’
‘£2,500 a year, with £70,000 for new players.’
‘£2,500 a year each?’
‘With £70,000 for new players,’ you tell him again, and now he’s jumping up and down on his doorstep and hugging you like you’ve both just come up on the bloody pools, and you’re opening up the carrier bag in your hand and taking out the two bottles of champagne and the packets of cigars –
‘We’re on our way,’ he’s shouting. ‘You and me; Clough and Taylor!’
Day Five
Sunday is the loneliest bloody day of the fucking week for the manager of a football club. The manager’s office on a Sunday bloody morning, the loneliest fucking place on earth if you lost the day before –
Leeds won yesterday — just, thanks to Michael Bates — but I’m still the only one here today in this empty office, on this empty corridor, under this empty stand –
No one here today but me. No one here but me. No one but me –
In this empty ground, in this empty city, this empty land –
No wife. No kids. No Peter Taylor –
No fucking Taylor. No Judas –
Just me and the ghost of troubled Don –
Behind every door. Down every corridor. Round every corner.
I leave the office. His office. I walk down the corridors. His corridors. Round the corners. His corners. Down the tunnel. His tunnel. Out into the light and onto the pitch –
I take my cigs, I take my drink. Across the blades, across the lines –
This cigarette which takes the skin off my lip. This drink which dulls the sting. Every single blade of grass of consequence, every single line of chalk an authority –
Upon the empty, deserted pitch beneath the empty, deserted stands –
This pitch where I played and only won, where I’ve managed and only lost, beneath these stands where I’ve heard them jeer and heard them swear, heard them whistle and heard them boo.
It starts to spit. To piss it down again. I take my cigs. I take my drink. I leave that pitch. I leave those stands. I walk back down the corridors. Round the corners and through the doors. To the office –
His fucking office.
I should be at home with my wife and my kids, carving the roast and digging the garden, walking the dog and washing the car –
Not sat here in this office in my brand-new chair behind my brand-new desk, standing back up then sitting down again, picking up the phone and putting it back down, thinking about the week just gone and the one to come, planning and scheming, plotting and dreaming; every ground in the land, every manager the same –
Not home with the wife. Not home with the kids –
For when you’re there, you wish you weren’t …
No Sunday roast. No English garden –
When you’re not, you wish you were –
Just a fat dog and a dirty car –
Because I’m never there. I’m always here –
Here in my brand-new chair behind my brand-new desk on the phone to Des Anderson, assistant manager at Derby County. I know they’re still not happy, the players there. Not since we left. I know they’d all jump at the chance to play for me again –
John McGovern first. Then the entire first team, if I had my way –
My Way, indeed –
‘How much?’ I ask Des.
‘£150,000.’
‘Fuck off,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve got him on the bloody transfer list and playing in the fucking reserves.’
‘Dave needs the money,’ he says. ‘It’s as simple as that.’
‘For what?’ I ask him. ‘I left him the best fucking team in bloody Europe.’
Des sighs. Des says, ‘He wants Duncan McKenzie.’
‘Who?’
‘This lad at Forest. Twenty-eight goals last season. On a one-man strike now.’
‘For what?’
‘A better club,’ laughs Des.
I put down the phone –
Who the fucking hell is Duncan McKenzie? Taylor would know, know everything about him. Especially a Nottingham lad. Chapter and verse. But he’s not bloody here –