The Damned Utd

Day Eighteen

The Liverpool game has been moved to the first of May; your favourite day of the year. But you are not a superstitious man; you do not believe in luck –

‘Not over forty-two games,’ you tell the world. ‘There’s no such thing.’

But if you beat Liverpool today, you’ll still have a chance of the title –

If Liverpool do not win their last game. If Leeds lose theirs.

But first Derby have to win; to beat Bill Shankly, Kevin Keegan and Liverpool; Bill Shankly, Kevin Keegan and Liverpool, who have taken twenty-eight out of the last thirty available points; who have not been beaten since the middle of January; who have conceded just three goals since then; who still have a game to go after this, away at Arsenal, still one more game; something you do not have; something you do not need.

‘This is it,’ you tell the dressing room. ‘The last game of our season. The best season of our lives. The season we will win the League Championship. Enjoy it.’

It’s an evening kick-off, but the sun’s still shining as the two teams are announced, as the record 40,000 crowd gasp at your selection; you have named sixteen- year-old Steve Powell for the injured Ronnie Webster.

The score is still 0–0 at half-time. Your team, your boys, exhausted –

Exhausted by the tension of it all; the tension which crawls down from the fans on the terraces to the players on the pitch; the tension which crawls from the players to the referee; from the referee to the bench, to Peter and to Jimmy, to Bill Shankly and his Boot Room, but not to you; you put your head around the dressing-room door:

‘Beautiful,’ you tell them. ‘More of the same next half, please.’

In the sixty-second minute of your forty-second game, Kevin Hector takes a throw on the right to Archie Gemmill; Gemmill runs across the edge of the Liverpool area and slips the ball to Alan Durban; Durban who leaves the ball with a dummy for John McGovern; McGovern who scores; John McGovern, your John McGovern, your boy –

The one they like to blame. The one they love to jeer –

1–0 to John McGovern and Derby County:

Boulton. Powell. Robson. Durban. McFarland. Todd. McGovern. Gemmill. O’Hare. Hector and Hinton; Hennessey on the bench with Pete, Jimmy and you; Cloughie, Cloughie. Cloughie.

GP W D L GF GA Pts Derby County 42 24 10 8 69 33 58 Leeds United 41 24 9 8 72 29 57 Manchester City 42 23 11 8 77 45 57 Liverpool 41 24 8 9 64 30 56

Bill Shankly shakes your hand and tells you it should have been a penalty, a clear penalty when Boulton floored Keegan, but well done all the same –

He still thinks he can go to Arsenal and win the league, you can see it in his eyes. Read him like a bloody book. But you know –

Know, know, know, know, know, know, and know –

Liverpool will not win their last game and Leeds, two days after a Cup Final against Arsenal, will lose at Wolverhampton Wanderers –

‘But if my Derby side can’t win it,’ you tell the newspapers and the television, tell Revie and Leeds United, ‘then I’d want Shanks and Liverpool to have that title.’

* * *

I haven’t slept. Not a bloody wink. I’ve just sat on the edge of the hotel bed. The whole fucking length of the night. Looking at the empty glass on the bedside table. Next to the phone which never rings. Failing to make it move. Not a single fucking inch. Not one. Listening to the footsteps in the corridor. Up and down, up and down. For the key in the door, the turn of the handle. But the sun is shining now and Saturday’s come. The first Saturday of the new season. The first Saturday for real. Police patrol the centre of Stoke in pairs, their German shepherd dogs straining on their leather leashes. For real –

Leeds United are coming to town. Leeds United are coming to town …

The first Saturday of the new season; the first game of the new season.

I stand by the door to the coach and I watch the team board the bus for the trip to the Victoria Ground. Harvey and Hunter get on; Hunter who is suspended anyway –

‘You’ll not be doing this much longer,’ I tell them. ‘It’ll soon be Peter Shilton and Colin Todd, not you two.’

Harvey and Hunter don’t say anything, they just take their seats on the team bus.

The coach through the streets, fists against the side, gob against the glass …

I stand up at the front of the team bus as we drive to the ground and I tell them, ‘I’ve got a bit of bad news for you, gentlemen. There will be no pre-match bingo today. No carpet bowls either. Now I know you’re all fond of your bingo and your bowls, but I’m afraid those days are gone. Just football from now on, please.’

The fists against the side, the gob against the glass …

The players say nothing, in their club suits and their club ties with their long hair and their strong aftershave, their heads and their shoulders in their books and their cards.

The gob against the glass.

The coach arrives in the car park. The team and I run the gauntlet of autograph-hunters and abuse, and I leave them to get changed and head for the private bar; I’ll not be bothering with a team talk. Not today. There’s no point. I’ve just stuck the team sheet on the dressing-room wall and I’ll let them sort it out for themselves –

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!