The Damned Utd

Day Fourteen

Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad Ali. The Quarrymen become the Beatles. Lesley Hornby becomes Twiggy and George Best becomes Georgie Best –

Superstar.

It is a new world. It is a new England –

The colour supplements. The colour televisions. The brand-new papers. The Sun. The columns and the panels. The columns and the panels that need opinions. Minds with opinions. Mouths with opinions –

A mind and a mouth like yours, open wide.

Open wide, just like your arms and your wallet.

Your wife is not keen. Peter neither. But Sam Longson is –

‘You have something big to offer football,’ Uncle Sam assures you.

The summer of 1970; Alf Ramsey and England are in Mexico for the World Cup, losing twenty-odd pounds a game and struggling for air. You are in the television studios of Independent Television, getting hundreds of quid a game and struggling for breath on a panel with Malcolm Allison; Big Mal and Big Head –

You are television panellists. You are television pundits –

You open your mouths. You speak your minds –

You are controversial. You are confident –

Making names for yourselves –

A new name for yourself –

Cloughie.

* * *

I’ve been stood here for an hour watching them go through their paces, through their practices; here in the shadow of this ground, here under this sickening sky. Tonight’s game is at Southampton, the last so-called friendly before the season starts –

Have to fly down as well –

I don’t want to go; not one single part of me. I’d pay good money to get out of it.

Bites Yer Legs comes up to where I’m stood –

‘I’m a bit worried about the way we dealt with the corners on Saturday,’ he says. ‘We’ve got to get that right and I wondered if you had any thoughts?’

‘You’re professional fucking footballers,’ I tell him. ‘Sort it out yourselves.’

* * *

In the 1969–70 season, Derby County finished fourth; fourth in your first season in the First Division. You played forty-two league games, won fifteen at home and seven away; you scored sixty-four goals and conceded thirty-seven; you had a total of fifty-three points at the end of the season, thirteen less than Everton, the Champions, four less than Leeds in second, two less than Chelsea in third, but two more than Liverpool and eight more than Manchester United. Derby finish fourth; Derby should be in Europe next season; in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup –

But Derby are not. Derby have been banned. But despite the ban from Europe. Despite the boardroom fights. Despite these dark clouds and ominous signs, hopes are still high for the new season, the 1970–71 season –

Hopes on the pitch. Hopes off the pitch. Hopes upstairs. Hopes downstairs –

A new club secretary has been appointed, has been appointed by you –

You didn’t ask the board. You didn’t ask Uncle Sam. You didn’t ask Peter and you didn’t ask your wife –

You just told them all that you had appointed Stuart Webb –

Stuart Webb comes from Preston North End. Stuart Webb is young –

Webby has immaculate suits. Webby has business aspirations –

Burning ambitions. Burning, scolding ambitions –

Webby wants to be in total control of the administration of the club, to expand the promotions, to revive the supporters’ club, the Junior Rams, to initiate awards nights –

He wants to do for Derby off the pitch what you have done on the pitch –

Stuart Webb wants to be you. Stuart Webb wants to be Brian Clough –

Webby wants to be Cloughie.

You can’t blame him. Nobody can –

Everybody wants to be you. Everybody loves you; fathers and sons, wives and daughters. Young and old, rich and poor. Because hopes are high in the poor houses, hopes are high in the posh houses –

Hopes you have raised. Hopes you must fulfil.

Manchester United have come to the Baseball Ground for the big pre-season game; the 1970 Watneys Cup final. In front of 32,000 –

Live on television. Live because of Manchester United:

Stepney. Edwards. Dunne. Crerand. Ure. Sadler. Morgan. Law. Charlton. Kidd and Best (with Stiles on the bench) –

The one and only Manchester United, with Law, Charlton, Kidd and Best.

But it’s your team, your boys, who score four, who hammer in shot after shot, who produce four-or five-man moves with simple first-time passes, it is your team, your boys who find the space, who carve open their defence –

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 –

‘He’s not the player you think he is,’ says Ball. ‘Your mate’s fucked up.’

You don’t listen to him; you don’t give a fuck. You and Peter, you know players. Nobody else knows players, just you and Peter –

‘You’re not making any friends, you and your mate,’ says Ball –

You don’t bloody listen; you don’t give a flying fuck –

It’s all water off a duck’s back to you.

You go back to Derby. You sell Willie Carlin to Leicester. You let Peter tell him. Hold his hand. Hold his heart –

Inject it full of cortisone. Dry his tears –

All water off a duck’s back.

* * *

There are 15,000 at the Dell for this bloody Ted Bates testimonial match; the last of these fucking dress rehearsals. Clarke, Madeley and Yorath haven’t made the trip and so I play Terry Cooper and Eddie Gray from the start to see how they’ll hold up for Saturday. I also play Hunter in the first half as well, even though he’s suspended for Saturday, play him because I’ve got a couple of prospective clubs in the stands here to have a look at him, Cherry, Cooper and Harvey. Flog those four for starters, get shot of the Irishman, buy Shilton, Todd, McGovern and O’Hare and then I’ll be halfway there –

But now I’m still back in the stalls; back in the stalls with the season four days off.

In the dug-out, under his breath, Jimmy Gordon asks, ‘What’s wrong, Boss?’

‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’

‘You’re not even watching them,’ he says. ‘Eyes are on the roof of the stand.’

‘Fuck off,’ I tell him. ‘You do your job and I’ll do mine.’

There are just two good things about this game: the behaviour of the players, for bloody once, and Duncan McKenzie’s first goal for the club, a fifteen-yard shot inside the far post. He also misses a hatful of chances, but at least he’s got one under his belt –

Just two good things in ninety fucking minutes of football –

It’s not enough. Jimmy knows it. I bloody know it –

There is something wrong.

The players know it too. They feel it in their boots –

The season starts in four days. The season starts away from home.

* * *

It is Halloween 1970, and Peter looks like death. You know how he feels:

You have played fourteen games so far this season and won just four of them. You have been beaten at home by Coventry, Newcastle, Chelsea and Leeds –

Leeds, Leeds, Leeds:

You never had a kick, never had a bloody touch. Never had any fucking confidence either. Just cortisone. Norman Hunter man of the match, a colossus, the Leeds defence outstanding, with goals from Sniffer Clarke and Peter Lorimer –

Leeds went two points clear at the top. You dropped four places down –

Now you’ve just lost 2–0 to Arsenal. Now you are twentieth in the league.

Peter is stretched out on the treatment table at Highbury. He looked terrible on the coach here from Paddington and looked no better in the dug-out next to you –

‘I’d give anything to stay here,’ he tells you.

‘Come on,’ you tell him. ‘You’re taking the team to Majorca tomorrow.’

Peter opens his eyes. His bloodshot eyes. Peter looks up at you –

You’re not going to Majorca. Not this time. It’s half-term holidays for the kids and you’re going to spend the week with them and your wife.

You’ll not be going home to pack; you’ll not be driving back down to Luton Airport; you’ll not be flying to Majorca at three in the morning –

That’ll be Peter, with his pains in his chest, with his doubts and his fears –

Not you. Just Peter. Peter and the team.

* * *

I’m first on the coach. The coach back to the airport. Least there’ll be drink on this plane. The plane back to Leeds –

Leeds, Leeds, fucking Leeds.

I’m first off when it lands. First back on the coach to Elland Road. First off again. The players stumbling back to their cars in the dark, them that can still walk. But there’s no car and no walking for me; a taxi waiting outside Elland Road to take McKenzie and me back to the Dragonara Hotel –

Situated next to Leeds City Station and the closest modern luxury hotel to the Leeds United ground. For party rates please contact the sales manager …

Part of the Ladbroke Group.

I sit on my modern luxury bed in my modern luxury hotel room. I stare out of the modern luxury window at the modern concrete city of Leeds –

Motorway City, City of the Future.

I reach over the modern luxury bed and I switch on the modern luxury radio. But there’s no Frank Sinatra. No Tony Bennett. No Ink Spots and no more bloody brandy either. I get off my modern luxury bed and walk down the modern luxury corridor and bang on the door of a modern luxury footballer –

Bang and bang and fucking bang again –

‘Who is it?’ shouts Duncan McKenzie. ‘It’s one o’clock in the morning.’

‘It’s Cloughie,’ I tell him. ‘I want to see you down in reception.’

He’s a good lad is Duncan. Duncan won’t argue. Duncan will come.

‘Give us five minutes then,’ he shouts back. ‘I need to get dressed, Boss.’

‘Don’t make it any bloody longer then,’ I tell him.

Reception is deserted but for a terrible fucking draught and some horrible bloody music which the receptionist can’t seem to turn off. I have an argument about the music and the bar being closed but I still manage to order a pot of tea and then sit down with my feet up to wait for McKenzie –

‘Took your bloody time,’ I tell him. ‘Worse than a fucking woman.’

McKenzie sits down. McKenzie takes out his fags.

‘Don’t ever let me see you get off a plane in that condition again,’ I tell him.

‘What do you mean? What condition?’

‘Don’t play daft with me, lad. You were fucking rat-arsed!’

‘But I don’t drink, Boss,’ he says. ‘I’d only had a couple of tonic waters.’

‘Good job I’ve only ordered you a cup of bleeding tea then, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Boss,’ he says and puts out one cig and lights another –

‘And give us one of them while you’re at it,’ I tell him.

He hands me a cigarette and holds up a light –

I take a drag and ask him, ‘Who were you sat with on the plane back?’

‘I can’t remember now,’ McKenzie says. ‘Trevor Cherry, I think.’

‘What did he say about me?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Come on,’ I tell him. ‘What was bloody Cherry saying about me?’

‘We didn’t talk about you,’ he says. ‘Just small talk. Mutual friends.’

I know he’s lying. I know they talked of nothing but Cloughie.

‘You’ve settled in well,’ I tell him. ‘They trust you. Now what are they saying?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Fuck off,’ I tell him. ‘You’re supposed to be my eyes and ears in that bloody dressing room. Now what are they fucking saying about me?’

‘Nothing. Honest, Boss,’ he pleads. ‘Just worried about their futures. Nervous —’

‘Course they’re all fucking nervous,’ I tell him. ‘They’re all fucking old men; over thirty the bloody lot of them.’

‘They just want to play well —’

‘Fucking shut up about them, will you?’ I tell him. ‘What about me? No one understands my position. No one understands the mess Revie left them in and put me in; no contracts, over-the-hill the lot of them. Team had shot it and he knew it. No chance in hell they can win the European Cup. That’s why he fucked off and took the England job. You think he’d have walked out on a team that he thought was going to win the European Cup? The fucking European Cup? That man? Never in a month of bloody Sundays. They’ve fucking shot it; he knew it and I know it. Half them bloody players fucking know it and all; know it in their boots; know it in their hearts. But now it’s my job to tell them, tell them what they already bloody know but don’t want to fucking hear.’

He’s a good lad is Duncan. Duncan won’t argue. Duncan will nod.

‘Thank Christ I got you,’ I tell him. ‘Now bugger off.’

Duncan stands up. Duncan smiles. Duncan says, ‘Goodnight, Boss.’

‘Fuck off,’ I tell him. ‘Before I give you a bloody kiss goodnight.’

But Duncan doesn’t move. ‘Boss, can I ask you one question?’

‘If you give us another fag.’

Duncan hands me one, then asks, ‘What did you think of my goal?’

‘It was good,’ I tell him and Duncan smiles –

A right broad Cheshire Cat of a grin –

Just like my eldest. Just like my youngest –

‘Almost bloody good enough to make up for the other hundred fucking sitters you missed. Now get off to bloody bed, you’ve got fucking training tomorrow morning!’

* * *

It is the early hours of Saturday 9 January 1971. You are home to Wolves this afternoon. You are lying awake next to the wife –

You cannot sleep. You cannot dream –

You thought things had been on the up again; the draws with Liverpool and Manchester City, the wins over Blackpool and Forest. But then you lost at home to West Ham and away at Stoke, drawing 4–4 with Manchester United at home on Boxing Day –

4–4 when you’d been leading 2–0 at half-time; you blame Les bloody Green for that. Blame fucking Pete; it was Peter who brought him from Burton Albion with him; Taylor who’s kept defending him, paying off his gambling debts, fending off the paternity suits, lending him money and keeping him in the side when he’s cost you games.

You hear the phone ringing. You get out of bed. You go downstairs –

‘You won’t see me today,’ says Taylor. ‘I’ve not slept a bloody wink. I feel like fucking death. I think I’ve got cancer.’

‘Be at the ground in half an hour,’ you tell him.

‘It’s no good,’ he says. ‘I’ve had it.’

‘I want you there not later than nine,’ you tell him and hang up –

I feel like death. I feel like death. I feel like death.

You get out your address book and the phone book and you start to make the calls; to call in favours, to trade on your fame; to pull strings, to get what you want –

The best possible care for Peter.

You get the X-ray department of your local hospital to open on their weekend. You get the best doctor in Derby to come in, to bring a cancer specialist with him.

You pick Pete up at the ground. You drive him to the hospital –

And then you wait, wait in the corridor, wait and pray for Pete.

‘He’s had a heart attack,’ the doctor says. ‘Probably about eight weeks ago.’

‘The Arsenal game,’ you tell Pete. ‘Remember how you were?’

‘When was that?’ asks the doctor.

‘October thirty-first,’ I tell him. ‘We lost 2–0.’

‘Well, that certainly fits,’ says the doctor. ‘Now you need to drive him home slowly and make sure he stays there.’

‘We’ve got a match against Wolves this afternoon,’ says Pete. ‘I can’t.’

‘You’ve got no match. Nor will you have for several weeks,’ the doctor tells Pete. ‘It’s important that you rest completely.’

You both thank the doctor, the consultant, the specialist and the X-ray department. Then you drive Pete home slowly and see him into his house, making sure he stays put.

Back at the ground, you drop Peter’s old mate Les Green; drop him after 129 consecutive league and cup appearances; drop him and tell him he will never play for Derby County or Brian Clough again –

You play Colin Boulton in goal. You lose 2–1 –

It’s your twelfth defeat of the season.