The Damned Utd

Day Twenty-seven

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and it’s a beautiful Monday morning in late August. The kind of day that makes you feel glad to be alive and glad to be English, glad of your family and glad of your friends, glad you’ve your health and glad you’ve a job; two away games this week, one in London and one in Manchester; Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles up before the FA Disciplinary Committee; but nothing can take this feeling away from me –

This feeling of victory. This feeling of winning …

I get washed and I get dressed; a good shave and a good suit; nice tie, clean shoes. I get out my other suit and get out my suitcase. I pack my razor and pack my toothbrush. Then I go downstairs, down to my family. The smell of bacon frying and bread toasting. The sound of eggs breaking and kettles boiling. I sit down at the table and I ask my eldest to pass me the sugar, and he knocks over the salt cellar, spills the salt my way, my direction –

Not superstition. Not bloody ritual and not fucking luck.

I get out the car. I put my suitcase in the back. I go back into the house. I kiss my wife and kids goodbye. I wave to them as I reverse out of our drive and blow them more kisses. I don’t pick up Jimmy Gordon; don’t pick up John McGovern or John O’Hare. Just me today, on the drive north. Just me on this beautiful Monday morning in late August, on my way to work with the radio on, listening to the news –

‘Kevin started watching Blackpool two years ago. He went to all the home games. I wouldn’t stop him going to matches but I’ve always told him: “Be careful, don’t get into any trouble.” I used to watch Blackpool myself, but the trouble on the Kop put me off and I don’t go now. I think it’s a disgrace. I feel sorry for those who are genuine supporters. They are going to have to do something about it. He was only fourteen years old.’

I switch off the radio as I come off the motorway. Round the bends and the corners to the junction with Lowfields Road and onto Elland Road. Sharp right and through the gates and I hit the brakes hard; there’s a big black dog stood in the entrance to the car park. I hit the horn hard but this big black dog will not move. I start to reverse. I look in the mirror. I see the writing on a wall –

TUO HGUOLC

* * *

Leeds were the shortest ever favourites to win the FA Cup. But Bob Stokoe –

The same Bob bloody Stokoe who looked down on you as you lay on that cold, hard Boxing Day ground and said, ‘He’s fucking codding is Clough.’

— Bob fucking Stokoe hates Don Revie even more than you and so Leeds United lose the FA Cup final to his Second Division Sunderland. Eleven days later, with Clarke and Bremner suspended, Giles injured and Revie supposedly on his way to Everton, Leeds lose the Cup Winners’ Cup final to AC Milan in Greece –

We’ve been robbed, Leeds say. We’ve been cheated –

But so have Derby. Derby are not in Europe.

‘Trust bloody Leeds,’ you tell folk. ‘I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if they hadn’t lost those bloody finals on fucking purpose! To keep Derby out of Europe!’

Leeds United have also been found guilty of ‘persistent misconduct on the field’; Leeds United have been fined £3,000, suspended for a year –

This is the final straw. This is what you write in the Sunday Express:

Don Revie should have been personally fined and Leeds United instantly demoted to the Second Division after being branded the dirtiest club in Britain. Instead, the befuddled minds of the men who run soccer have missed a wonderful chance to clean up the game in one swoop. But the trouble with soccer’s disciplinary system is that those who sit in judgement, being officials of other clubs, might well have a vested interest. I strongly feel that this tuppence-ha’penny suspended fine is the most misguided piece of woolly thinking ever perpetrated by the FA, a body hardly noted for its common sense. It’s like breathalysing a drunken driver, getting a positive reading, giving him back his keys and telling him to watch it on the way back home!

This article is the final straw for the Football League. You are charged with bringing the game into disrepute. This charge the final straw for Longson –

Your chairman is not speaking to you. You are in the dock. You are not in Europe. You lock the doors of your house. You pull the curtains and take the phone off the hook. You go up the stairs. You get into your bed and pull your covers over your head –

The 1973–74 season is but weeks away, days and hours away.

* * *

They are dirty and they are panting. The training almost finished, the practice almost done. The sun is still shining, but the rain is now falling. The sky black and blue, purple and yellow. No rainbows here. No smiles. I thought there might be some smiles today. Thought there might be some laughter. Now we are winning. But the only one smiling, the only one laughing is Allan Clarke –

‘You going to give us a kiss every time I score, are you, Boss?’

‘If that’s what it takes to keep you scoring, I will. You big bloody poofter.’

‘You’ll have a pair of sore lips come May then,’ laughs Sniffer again.

‘I bloody well hope so,’ I tell him. ‘I fucking well hope so.’

But there are no smiles today from Harvey, Reaney, Cherry, McQueen or Hunter. No laughter today from Lorimer, Giles, Madeley, Jordan or Bremner –

No smiles or laughter from McGovern or O’Hare either.

* * *

You can see a way out; out of the failures on the pitch, the injustices off it –

Jimmy Hill has jumped ship to the BBC and ITV are desperate, the 1974 World Cup only a year away. ITV offer you a full-time job at £ 18,000 a year; £ 18,000 a year and no directors to deal with, no defeats to suffer –

No victories and no cups, no applause and no adoration, no love –

You want it and you don’t. You don’t and you do –

You take the job part-time. You will travel to London on Thursdays to record one show and travel down again on Sundays to record another –

You don’t ask your wife. You don’t ask Peter. You don’t ask Longson or the board. You don’t ask anyone. You are Brian Howard Clough –

Cloughie, as the viewing millions call you –

And Cloughie doesn’t bloody ask folk –

Cloughie fucking tells them.

* * *

The Monday morning press conference; no long ropes and postmortems today, only garlands and accolades, tributes and compliments:

On Birmingham City?

‘Freddie Goodwin is not entitled to have lost three matches with his side,’ I tell the press. ‘He has an awful lot of talent and they are grafting like hell for him. They are by far, by far not the worst side in the league.’

On John O’Hare’s début?

‘He turned it on from start to finish all over the pitch,’ I tell them. ‘Just you wait until John’s been here a few weeks.’

And as for Allan Clarke’s goal?

‘No one in England could have scored it better than the way Allan did,’ I declare. ‘It was one touch of pure class above all others.’

The rumours of departures and transfers?

‘No one goes,’ I repeat and repeat. ‘No one bloody well goes.’

On the prospects for Leeds United and the season?

‘There’ll be no holding us now,’ I tell the press. ‘No stopping us.’

And tomorrow night away, down at Queen’s Park Rangers?

‘There’ll be no holding Leeds United,’ I tell them again and again. ‘You just watch us bloody go.’

* * *

England will play Poland at Wembley in October. England must beat Poland to qualify for the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. It will be the nation’s most important match since the 1966 World Cup final itself. You will be part of the ITV panel for this game.

Before England, Poland have a warm-up game against Holland; this will be a useful game for you to watch, as a member of the ITV panel –

The leading member. The one that makes folk switch on –

The one that keeps them bloody watching.

You tell Longson you are going to Amsterdam. You tell Longson you’re taking Pete with you. You tell Longson that he can regard it as part of your holiday –

‘This is a private matter then,’ says Longson. ‘And Derby will not pay for it.’

‘Of course not,’ you tell him. ‘I wouldn’t bloody dream of it.’

Then Sam Longson asks you, ‘I wonder what you do bloody dream of these days, Brian?’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘Do you dream of Derby County?’ he asks. ‘Or do you dream of television?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ says Sam Longson. ‘All I know is that a man cannot serve two masters. He will come to love the one and hate the other.’

‘If I have to give up all of this, the television, then I’ll resign, Mr Chairman.’

‘Bloody well resign then,’ laughs Longson.

‘But if I do, Mr Chairman, you know it’ll be curtains for you too.’

Longson spits on his hands. Longson rubs them together and then Longson says, ‘Right then, Brian, we’ll see, shall we?’

* * *

The cleaning lady is cleaning my office, under the desk and behind the door, whistling and humming along to the tunes inside her head –

‘You know, I once sacked all the cleaning ladies at Derby.’

‘What did you do that for then, Brian?’ she asks me.

‘For laughing after we lost.’

‘Least you had a good reason then,’ she says. ‘Not like Mr Revie.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘Mr Revie once sacked a lass here for wearing green.’

‘Wearing green?’

‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘He thought green brought bad luck to club.’

‘And so he sacked her?’

‘Oh yes,’ she says again. ‘After we lost FA Cup final to Sunderland.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Just like that.’

The telephone on my desk starts to ring. I pick it up. I tell them, ‘Not now.’

* * *

The new season, 1973–74; but this new season is no new start; no beginning and no end. Things just going from bad to worse; out of Europe, in the dock; your chairman out to sack you and your mam still dead; this is how the 1973–74 season starts –

You face Sunderland and Bob bloody Stokoe in the second round of the League Cup and a thousand bad fucking memories. But Derby have a two-goal lead by half-time. You outplay the winners of the FA Cup and conquerors of Leeds United for three quarters of the match. You are playing exhibition football.

Then Sunderland hit back and equalize with two goals. Now you will have to travel to Roker Park for a replay. Now no one would bet on Derby to win that game.

‘Sheer lack of fucking professionalism!’ you tell the dressing room. ‘Your brains are still in Spain, sat on that fucking beach in the sun. The season’s bloody started –

‘Never take your eye off that fucking ball –

‘Never play exhibition football –

‘Always kill a game –

‘Always win it –

‘Always!’

* * *

Up the stairs. Down the corridor. Round the corner and through the doors. I’m late for the Monday lunch with the board. Late again. The board waiting in the club dining room, their bread all gone and their soup cold, their vegetables soft and their wine cheap –

I sit down. I light a cigar and I ask for a brandy, a bloody large one –

I thought there might be more smiles here. More laughter now –

‘Someone died, have they?’ I ask the dining room –

But the room is silent and stinks of cigarettes; the ashtrays full and the wine gone. The waiters clear away the club crockery and cutlery, the white linen tablecloths.

‘What time is the team leaving for London?’ asks Cussins, eventually.

‘After this party breaks up,’ I tell him, holding up my glass.

* * *

Your first two league games of the new season are against Chelsea and Manchester City. You win these first two games at home to Chelsea and Manchester City, win them both by one goal to nil. You have four points out of four. Not since 1961 have Derby County won the opening two games of a season, and that was in the Second Division. Not the First.

Then you draw 0–0 at Birmingham, defending in depth, adopting the very tactics you repeatedly castigate the England manager for, those negative tactics you repeatedly deplore on ITV and in your columns. There was also a clear, clear penalty; the most blatant, blatant one you have ever seen:

‘The only good thing to come out of this was a clear demonstration of the discipline of the Derby County players,’ you tell the world and his wife. ‘I am sure that a certain other team who usually wear white, on the outside at least, I’m sure that particular team would have besieged the referee.’

You can say what the hell you want. You have five points out of six –

You do say what the hell you want. Twice weekly on the box –

Cloughie, that’s you. Twice weekly. The hell you want.

* * *

I have been in the kit room. I have been among the socks and the straps, the shirts and the shorts, but I have found what I was looking for. I have changed out of my good suit and nice tie into my tracksuit bottoms and this old Leeds United goalkeeping jersey.

Down the corridors. Round the corners. Through the doors and into the car park. The team and their trainers are already sat on the bus waiting for me. I climb aboard and plonk myself down next to Syd Owen at the front of the coach –

‘What do you think of this then, Sydney?’ I ask him.

‘Of what?’

‘Of this?’ I ask him again, pointing at this old Leeds United goalkeeping jersey.

‘I think if the team have to wear suits when they travel, so should their manager.’

‘But what do you think of the colour, Sydney?’

‘Green?’ he asks. ‘I think it suits you, Mr Clough.’

* * *

You have five points from your first three games. The fourth game of the 1973–74 season is at Anfield against the League Champions; against Kevin Keegan and Liverpool, against Bill Shankly. Young Steve Powell and John McGovern force early saves from Ray Clemence, but then it’s all Kevin Keegan, all Liverpool. Nineteen-year-old Phil Thompson scores the first of the night and his first for Liverpool; the first goal Derby have conceded in 305 minutes of First Division football. In the eighty-fifth minute of this game, Keegan scores a second with a penalty –

You have been beaten, well beaten, and outplayed –

Derby County drop from fifth to seventh place.

Eight days later, on Wednesday 12 September, Liverpool come to the Baseball Ground. Between these two games, you have beaten Everton in a game that some of the papers described as the very worst Derby County performance since you took over:

‘A shambles of a match … the kind of match one wants to forget … a complete lack of application … Everton robbed by two decisions from a linesman.’

Peter pins these words to the dressing-room wall; no team talk tonight and, four days after one of your worst performances, you take apart the League Champions –

You attack. You attack. You attack –

‘To go like this, from the macabre to the sublime,’ say the newspapers now, ‘means that Derby County are superbly managed. Nobody has ever doubted the ability of this team, but somebody had to make these players produce their best —’

Roger Davies stabs home a rebound after Kevin Hector’s shot is blocked –

‘That somebody is Brian Clough —’

Roy McFarland exchanges passes with Hector and fires in a well-taken strike –

‘Last Saturday, one had to scratch around to find someone who had played even adequately. Last night, one could fill a book describing the fluid moves and the brilliant individual performances —’

Then Nish, Davies and Gemmill combine before Hector scores the third –

‘Even Don Revie and Leeds United, gazing down with a three-point lead over the Rams, would have been pleased with McGovern, Powell and Gemmill.’

You’ve beaten the League Champions 3–1; beaten Kevin Keegan and Liverpool; beaten Bill Shankly; beaten and outplayed them –

Buried and slaughtered them.

You are on your way back to the top. Right back to where you belong –

It is Wednesday 12 September 1973.

* * *

There are no smiles on the team coach down to London. No smiles and no laughter. Just murmurs and whispers, packs of cards and paperback books. Bremner hasn’t travelled with us; he’ll be making his own way down tomorrow, ready for the FA Disciplinary Committee on Wednesday. I glance back down the aisle at Giles from time to time, the backseat boy, glance back to look for hints of doubt, hints of fear –

But the man doesn’t give a fuck.

Not smiling, not laughing, he plays a hand of cards here, then reads another page of his paperback book, The Exorcist.

There are still no smiles as we check in at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington. No smiles and no laughter at the team talk with their timetable for tomorrow. The drinks and then the dinner. No smiles and no laughter. Just murmurs and whispers –

The early night for them and the late, late night for me –

The late, late night with no, no sleep –

No, no sleep but dreams of dogs –

Big black dogs that bark:

‘Clough out!’