The Damned Utd

Day Twenty

You have won the 1971–72 League Championship; you have beaten Shanks and Liverpool; you have beaten Revie and Leeds –

You are the Champions of England.

The summer months see the builders back to the Baseball Ground, now you’re in the European Cup; there has been work on the Osmaston End and on the Normanton Stand; new, pylon-mounted floodlights are also erected, now your games will be shown in colour at home and abroad –

Now you are the Champions.

But all your dreams are nightmares and all your hopes are hells, the birds and the badgers, the foxes and the ferrets, the dogs and the demons, the wolves and the vultures, all circling around you, the clouds and the storms gathering above you, above the new pylon-mounted floodlights, your pockets filled with lists, your walls defaced with threats, your cigarettes won’t stay lit, your drinks won’t stay down.

The parties and the banquets, the civic receptions and the open-top bus tours, the parades and the photographs; the Championship dinner that no other club dare attend; the Charity Shield you’ll never defend –

Every one a pantomime, every one a lie –

You can’t stand the directors and the directors can’t stand you:

‘The threat to me comes from the faceless, nameless men in long coats with long knives who operate behind closed doors.’

There is a war coming; a civil bloody war.

* * *

No need for nightmares. Not today …

Every day I wake up and wonder if I’ll ever win again; Hartlepools, Derby and Brighton, every day I wondered if I’d ever win again. But today I wake up and for the first time wonder if I’ll ever bloody want to win again; if I’ll ever give a fuck again –

Monday 19 August 1974.

I have a shit. I have a shave. I get washed and I get dressed. I go downstairs. The boys are already out in the garden with their mates, having a kick about in the dew. My daughter’s at the table, colouring in. My wife puts my breakfast down in front of me and moves the newspaper away, out of my sight. I reach over and I bring it back –

No need for nightmares, that’s what I told the press on Saturday and that’s their headline for today, and that’s what I’ll tell them again; today and every fucking day –

‘But what’ll you tell yourself?’ asks my wife. ‘Tell my husband?’

* * *

There’s been trouble all your life, everywhere you’ve ever been, one crisis after another; one war after another. This time, this trouble, this war starts like this:

‘I’m not bloody going then,’ you tell the Derby board. ‘Simple as that.’

‘It’s the pre-season tour,’ says Sam Longson. ‘Holland and West Germany; your own suggestion. The reason you won’t let Derby compete in the Charity Shield.’

‘You’re still going on about that, are you?’

‘I’m not going on about it,’ says Longson. ‘But you’re not making any sense.’

‘Listen,’ you tell him. ‘The tour was arranged long before we won the title.’

‘When you were saying we couldn’t win it,’ says Jack Kirkland –

The Big Noise from Belper, that’s what Pete calls Jack Kirkland; made his pile in plant hire but thinks he knows his football; plans to turn the Baseball Ground into a sports complex; plans that need big gates and your transfer money, the money you’ve put in their coffers with those 33,000 gates you’ve brought them, money you need to spend to bring them more big gates or you’ll get the sack –

But Jack Kirkland doesn’t give a fuck about that; Jack Kirkland is the brother of Bob Kirkland; Bob Kirkland who you and Pete forced to resign –

Now Jack Kirkland, the Big Noise from Belper, is out for a seat on the board; a seat on the board and your head and Pete’s on a pole –

Jack Kirkland is out for revenge.

‘No bloody pleasing you, is there?’ you ask him. ‘One minute I’m arrogant and conceited, next minute you’re throwing my humility and honesty back in my face.’

‘If you can’t stand the heat,’ begins Kirkland –

‘The point is —’ interrupts Longson …

But two can play at that game and so you tell him, ‘The point is either my family comes on this bloody trip or I don’t fucking go.’

This is how it goes, round and round, until Longson has had enough:

‘This is a working trip, not a holiday,’ he shouts. ‘And I am ordering you in no circumstances to take your wife and kids with the team to Holland or West Germany.’

‘You’re ordering me? Ordering me?’ you ask him, repeatedly. ‘Ordering me? Who the fucking hell do you think you are?’

‘The chairman of Derby County,’ he says. ‘Chairman before you came here.’

‘That’s right,’ you tell him. ‘You were chairman of Derby County before I came here, I remember that; when Derby County were at the fucking foot of the Second Division, when nobody had heard of them for twenty years and nobody had heard of Sam bloody Longson ever. Full stop. I remember that. And that’s where you’d still fucking be if it wasn’t for me; at the foot of the bloody Second Division, where nobody remembered you and nobody had heard of you. Just remember, there would be no Derby County without me, no league title, no Champions of England; not without Brian Clough –

‘Just you remember that, Mr bloody Chairman.’

Longson sighs and says again, ‘You’re not taking your family on a working trip.’

‘Then I’m not fucking going,’ you tell him –

And you don’t. And that’s how it starts; this trouble, this war, this time.

* * *

Ten minutes after that final whistle on Saturday I’d taken the call from Elland Road; Eddie Gray had pulled up during the Central League reserve match, limped off –

‘If you’d been a bloody racehorse, you’d have been fucking shot.’

Injuries and suspensions, bad decisions and bad bloody luck –

The Curse of Leeds United.

Through the doors. Under the stand. Round the corner. Down the corridor. I’m sat at that bloody desk in that fucking office, wondering what the fuck I’m going to do on Wednesday against Queen’s Park bloody Rangers, who the fuck I should play, who the fuck I should not, who the fuck I’m going to be able to play, when Jimmy Gordon puts his head around the door and his thumb up –

‘You’re fucking joking?’ I ask him.

‘No joke,’ says Jimmy. ‘Sale of the century time.’

* * *

Peter is on the pre-season tour of Holland and Germany with the team and the directors. You are at home in Derby with the wife and the kids –

It is August 1972.

This is when the Football League Management Committee make their report, their report into your conduct in the Ian Storey-Moore transfer fiasco:

‘The Committee considered evidence both verbally and in writing from Nottingham Forest, Derby County, the player and from the League Secretary. It transpired that, although the player had signed the transfer form for Derby County, this form was never signed by Nottingham Forest and the player could not remember having signed a contract for Derby County. It was admitted that the League Secretary had informed the club secretary of Derby County that, until the transfer form was completed by Nottingham Forest, the player was not registered with Derby County. The Committee was satisfied, therefore, that by taking the player to Derby and announcing publicly that he was their player, while he was still registered with Nottingham Forest, Derby County had committed a breach of Football League Regulation 52(a).’

The Football League Management Committee fine Derby £5,000 –

Because it’s Derby County. Because it’s Brian bloody Clough –

Because of the things you’ve said. The things you’ve done –

Because you won’t play in their Charity Shield –

Because you won’t keep it bloody shut.

This is how the 1972–73 season starts for the Champions of England:

Not with the Charity Shield, not with the Championship dinner, but with Peter, the team and the directors in Holland playing ADO of the Hague, while you, the wife and the kids are at home in Derby with your reprimands and with your fines –

The whole bloody world at war with you; you at war with the whole bloody world.

* * *

‘Now just you wait one bloody minute, Clough,’ says Sam Bolton.

‘There isn’t a bloody minute,’ I tell him and I stand up.

‘Sit down,’ he says and he means it. ‘Enough bloody stunts. It’s not your brass you’re spending, so you’ll bloody well sit down and shut up until this meeting is over and we tell you whether or not we’ve accepted or refused your request for transfer funds.’

I roll my eyes and tell him, ‘There’s a match on Wednesday night.’

‘I know that,’ says Bolton.

‘Well then, do you know how many players you have available to play?’

‘That’s your job, Clough,’ he says. ‘Not mine.’

‘Exactly,’ I tell him. ‘Now you’re talking some bloody sense, Mr Bolton. So if it’s my job to know how many players are available, then it’s my job to go out and bloody buy some more if we’ve got three players suspended, two with long-term injuries and countless bloody others with short-term ones. Isn’t it now?’

‘I don’t think anybody doubts your motives,’ says Cussins, the peacemaker.

‘Oh really?’ I ask him. ‘It doesn’t bloody sound like that to me.’

‘I just think,’ he says, ‘that perhaps the Derby County way of doing things and the Leeds United way of doing things are probably quite different.’

‘I would bloody well hope they are,’ laughs Bolton.

‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask him.

‘Come on, Clough,’ says Bolton. ‘World and his wife knows how you treated Sam Longson and rest of them mugs on Derby board. You had them all round your little bloody finger, eating out of palm of your hand, didn’t you now?’

‘So what?’ I ask him. ‘I won the title for them, didn’t I? Took them to the semi-finals of the European Cup. They were forgotten when I took them over, were Derby. Yesterday’s men they were. Now look at them; household name now Derby County.’

‘I know you are,’ smiles Bolton.

I look at my watch but I’ve not got one, so I just ask them outright, there and then, ‘I want John McGovern and I want John O’Hare. Derby want £130,000 for them –

‘Yes or no?’

* * *

You are the Champions of England and this is how you start the defence of your title on the opening day of the 1972–73 season:

Down at the Dell, you draw 1–1 with Southampton in front of the lowest gate of the day; the lowest gate of the day to see the Champions of England, see the Champions of England miss chance after chance. The only good thing you take back to Derby is the performance of John Robson in the back four. Three days later, you draw again at Selhurst Park. In another disappointing game, your best player is again John Robson.

This is how you start the defence of your title, as Champions of England, with draws against Southampton and Crystal Palace. But it doesn’t worry you, not much –

Not with all the other things on your plate and on your mind; on your mind and on the box; on the box with your new contract from London Weekend Television for On the Ball, On the Balland in the papers; in the papers and in your columns; your columns for the Sunday Express:

The FA Cup should be suspended for a year to give England the best possible chance in the World Cup. I feel I am the best manager to handle George Best; he’s a footballing genius and I’m a footballing genius, so we should be able to get along well enough. I’ll actually be leaving football shortly. I fancy a job outside the game; one which would give me more time with my family. I’m thinking of telephoning Sir Alf and offering to swap jobs for a year. Unfortunately the chairman has refused to give me time off to accompany England on their winter tour of the West Indies. I think I would like the supreme job of dictating football. I would halt league football in March to give the national side three months’ preparation for the World Cup finals.

* * *

Just one call, that’s all it takes. Jimmy to Dave. Just one call and I’m on my way. From Elland Road to the Baseball Ground.

I get Archer, the club secretary, to drive while I sit in the back with Ron from the Evening Post; bit of an exclusive for Ron this, put a few noses out of joint, but Ron and the Post have been good to me; kept me company at the Dragonara; kept me from my bed, my modern luxury hotel bed; never one to say no to a drink is our Ron from the Post.

Teatime and I’m sat down with Dave Mackay in my old office; Dave in my old chair at my old desk, pouring the drinks into my old glasses.

‘You weren’t ever tempted to burn that bloody desk, were you, Dave?’

‘Oh, aye,’ he tells me. ‘The way the fucking players went on about you, on and on about you. Fucking Cloughie this, fucking Cloughie that. Like you’d never left the fucking building, felt like you were fucking haunting the place.’

‘So why didn’t you burn the bloody stuff?’ I ask him. ‘Have fucking done?’

‘Be a waste of a good desk,’ he laughs –

In my chair. At my desk. In my office. The tight Scottish bastard.

From the Baseball Ground to the Midland Hotel, where John and John are waiting. Not waiting in the lobby. John McGovern and John O’Hare are in the bar –

These are my boys and my boys know me.

‘Champagne,’ I tell Steve the barman. ‘And keep it bloody coming, young man. Because tonight it’s on Leeds United Football Club.’

* * *

Chelsea beat you 2–1 in your first home game of the season; your first home game in defence of your title, in front of 32,000. You play with frenzy and anxiety, bookings and dissent; no retention and no penetration, no calmness and no method. You have lost faith in yourselves; faith in yourself.

There’s also trouble on the terraces, fighting among the fans for the first time, police dogs and police sirens up and down the side streets, trouble and fighting –

Off the pitch and on the pitch; in the boardroom and in the dressing room; upstairs and downstairs; round every corner, down every corridor.

You will beat Manchester City and you will climb to twelfth in the league before the end of August 1972. But before the end of August 1972 the press already have a new title for Derby County: Fallen Champions –

Last year’s men managed by last year’s man; Farewell Cloughie.

Peter takes you to one side. Peter says, ‘Sell John Robson.’

‘What you talking about?’ you ask him. ‘He’s just got a Championship medal; played in all but one of our games last season, not put a foot wrong this season.’

‘Fuck him,’ says Pete. ‘We’re talking about the European bloody Cup, Brian. Not resting on our fucking laurels. Robbo’s got his medal, now let’s get rid.’

Pete’s had his ear to the ground, got out his little black book, lips to the phone; Leicester City have been flashing the cash; buying Frank Worthington for £150,000 and signing Denis Rofe at full-back for £112,000 –

‘Where does this leave David Nish?’ asks Pete.

‘On his way to Derby County perhaps?’

Pete nods. Pete pats you on the back. Pete says, ‘Go do your stuff, Brian.’

* * *

The press switch on their microphones and pick up their drinks –

‘I could not let down the Leeds supporters in the type of quality players they are used to. We were faced with an absolute crisis for Wednesday night with Allan Clarke, Norman Hunter and Billy Bremner under suspension, Terry Yorath recovering from enteritis, Eddie Gray out of action after breaking down in the reserves with thigh trouble, Mick Jones recovering from a knee operation and Frank Gray going down with influenza.

‘So I am absolutely delighted to get McGovern and O’Hare, for the type of players they are and the type of people they are. They are both players of character and skill and they give me cover at a time when injuries and suspensions are a real problem.’

— the press put down their drinks. The press pick up the telephones.

* * *

You did not make an appointment. You did not telephone. You do not wait in line and you do not knock. You just walk straight into the Leicester City boardroom and tell them, ‘I’ve come to buy your full-back.’

Len Shipman, the chairman of Leicester City and the president of the Football League, is not impressed. Shipman says, ‘This is a very important meeting and you can’t just come barging in here, uninvited.’

‘Very good,’ you tell him. ‘I’ll wait outside, but you’ll still be skint.’

You don’t care; don’t give a fuck. You’re going to buy David Nish for £225,000 whether Leicester like it or not; whether Derby like it or not –

‘Derby County — the Biggest Spending Club in the League!’

Derby County do not like it. Sam Longson says, ‘That’s a hell of a lot of money to spend on a full-back with no caps; a full-back who won’t even be eligible for the opening European Cup games. A hell of a lot of money to spend without even asking.’

‘There wasn’t the time,’ you lie. ‘There were other clubs knocking.’

‘Look, Brian, we’ve always done our best to provide cash for Peter and yourself. But where is the consultation, where is the conversation? The respect and the trust?’

‘Like I told you, no time.’

‘But the board firmly believes we could have got Nish for considerably less than the £225,000 you paid for him, had we been consulted.’

‘I telephoned, didn’t I?’

‘From the hotel bar,’ says Longson. ‘Drunk as a lord.’

‘We were celebrating a job well done.’

‘I will bite my tongue,’ he says. ‘And I will swallow my pride as best I can.’

‘You do that then,’ you tell him. ‘You do that, Sam.’

* * *

It is late when I get a taxi from the Midland Hotel back to the house. I make it go past the Baseball Ground on the way, the long way home –

‘Never should have done what they did to you,’ says the driver. ‘Outrageous.’

‘Did it all to ourselves,’ I tell him. ‘It was all bloody self-inflicted, mate.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ says the driver. ‘But it wasn’t right, I do know that.’

‘You’re a good man,’ I tell him.

‘Not right,’ he says again. ‘Everybody knows that. You ask anybody.’

‘Not in Leeds,’ I tell him.

The driver stops the taxi outside the house. He turns round to face me in the back. He asks, ‘What did you go there for, Brian? They don’t deserve you. Not Leeds.’

* * *

Kirkland stops you and Peter in the corridor outside the visitors’ dressing room at Carrow Road; stops you after you’ve just lost to Norwich City on David Nish’s début for Derby County; Derby County, the Champions of England, now sixteenth in the league; Jack Kirkland stops you and says, ‘That’s your lot.’

‘Our bloody what?’ says Peter.

‘Big-money signings like Nish,’ Kirkland says. ‘That’s your lot.’

‘The influx of players must never stop,’ says Peter. ‘It’s a club’s lifeblood.’

‘No more transfusions then,’ Kirkland laughs. ‘That’s your lot.’

‘Fuck off,’ shouts Peter. ‘Fuck off!’

‘No chance,’ Kirkland winks. ‘Be you two gone before me, I promise you.’