The Damned Utd

Day Thirty

You’ve spent the whole night doing the rounds; house to house, pub to pub, club to club; gathering your support and rallying your troops, your heart already heavy with regret but your head still light with injustice and rage, injustice and rage, injustice and rage …

First you met with Phillip Whitehead, your friend and local MP –

‘Don’t give the board the chance to overthrow you,’ he told you. ‘Because that’s what they want, what they’re waiting for. Only resign if you genuinely don’t want the job and you’re satisfied that the sacrifice will be worth it …’

Injustice and rage. Injustice and rage …

Then off you flew again, off in your club car to meet Sir Robertson-King, the President of Derby, at his local pub in Borrowash –

‘Are you sure about what you’re doing?’ he asked you.

‘No, I’m not sure,’ you told him. ‘But I can’t carry on working in that atmosphere. Now, if you took the chair …’

‘Let’s see how it goes at the board meeting tomorrow then.’

Injustice and rage. And regret …

Now night is day, tomorrow today, and the morning of the board meeting here, your children looking at you with worry in their wide eyes, worry on their open mouths, for the things they’ve seen, the things they’ve heard –

The things they feel but do not understand.

* * *

I’m late out of bed, late to get washed, late to get dressed, late down the stairs and late out the door. Jimmy is picking me up this morning, Jimmy already parked waiting outside, Jimmy with his hand on his horn, and the first thing he says when I open the door is, ‘You hear about Bill Nick, Boss?’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s resigned.’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘No.’

‘It’s in all the papers, all over the radio.’

‘Why?’

‘Poor results and modern players, that’s what they’re saying.’

‘What about modern chairmen and modern directors?’

‘Never mentioned them,’ laughs Jimmy. ‘But, seriously, I think it was Rotterdam. I don’t think he’s ever got over that. He told Dave Mackay that he was physically sick, he was that scared. You know his own daughter was there in the stadium when all the Spurs fans were rioting. Dave was there and all and he says he’s never heard owt as sad as the sound of Bill Nick making his appeals over the loudspeakers for them to stop fighting.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I tell Jimmy. ‘But I do know one thing …’

‘What’s that, Boss?’

‘Never resign,’ I tell him. ‘Never ever resign.’

Then we pick up the Johns. Four big men in one small car –

No conversation. No chat. No banter. No jokes. No radio. Nothing –

Just four men on their way to Leeds. On their way to work.

* * *

You have prior engagements, prior to the board meeting, engagements you intend to keep; so you drive miles and miles out of Derby to open a new shop for an old friend, then you drive miles and miles back into town to visit some elderly patients at a hospital –

And at the shop and at the hospital, the customers and the patients, the staff and the doctors, they all shake you by your hand and say, ‘Don’t go, Brian. Please don’t.’

And you clasp their hands and nod your head and thank them for their hands and for their words, and tell them, ‘I don’t want to go.’

Then you drive to the Baseball Ground and park your Derby County club car in the space reserved for the Derby County club manager and walk through the press and the television, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, past a group of night-shift workers from Rolls-Royce who pat you on your back and plead with you, ‘Please don’t bloody go, Brian. Please don’t fucking go.’

And you clasp their hands and nod your head and thank them for their pats and for their pleas, and tell them, ‘I don’t want to go.’

Then you disappear inside the Baseball Ground, you disappear.

* * *

In the rain and in the sun, under the black and blue, purple and yellow Yorkshire skies, it should be business as usual today, training as usual for everyone. The club secretary has issued a statement on behalf of Leeds United:

‘Billy will be training with the rest of his teammates as he has done over the past fortnight when he has also been under suspension.’

But the press and the television still want more, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, still waiting for me as we pull into the Elland Road car park, as I slam the door of Jimmy’s car, as I do up my cuffs and tell them all:

‘I am not saying a word about the FA decision. Not a word.’

* * *

Up the stairs. Through the doors. Round the corners. Down the corridors, Pete already here; smoking his cigs and biting his nails in the antechamber –

‘Where have you been?’ he asks. ‘I thought you weren’t going to show.’

‘I had things to do,’ you tell him. ‘Now let’s get in there.’

‘We’ve got to wait out here.’

‘For what?’

‘For them to consider our resignations.’

‘If they’ve got things to say, they can bloody well say them to my fucking face,’ you tell him and walk towards the boardroom doors –

‘Please don’t,’ Pete says, Pete begs. ‘It’ll just make things worse.’

So you turn back from the doors and sit down next to him and light a cig of your own, staring at the clock on the wall and the potted plant by the doors; and you know you’ve made a big mistake, sat out here, smoking your cig, waiting your turn, remembering all the bloody things you know you should have said, all the fucking things you know you should have done, all them bloody, fucking things you had forgotten –

Then the doors open and Longson shouts, ‘Right, you two, let’s have you in!’

But before you’re even halfway into the room, before you’ve even sat down, you’ve already told them: ‘Accept our resignations.’

‘Now wait, Brian,’ says Sir Robertson-King. ‘We’d like you to reconsider.’

But Longson is quick too, quick to say, ‘He’s resigned and he wants us to accept his resignation, so I propose we accept it and have bloody done!’

‘Now just you listen to me,’ you tell him, tell them all. ‘We’ve only resigned because of him, him and his narrow-minded ways. Everything I’ve ever done has been for the good of Derby County, everything! And that includes the television and the newspapers, the television and the newspapers that helped put Derby County on the bloody map, that put you all on the fucking map. And so I won’t be told by him — not by him or by the FA or by the League or by anybody — what I can or cannot write and what I can or cannot say. But if this board withdraw his daft ultimatum and banish that bugger from our sight and just let us get on with our job of winning the league and then the European Cup, of taking on every single thing in the game and of creating a footballing dynasty here at Derby County, then we will withdraw our resignations.’

The board nod their heads. The board mutter. The board will put it to the vote. The board ask you and Peter both to wait outside again –

Outside with the clock on the wall. The potted plant by the doors. The doors that quickly open again so they can call you back in:

‘Your resignations have reluctantly been accepted,’ smiles Jack Kirkland –

Only Sir Robertson-King and Mike Keeling have voted against accepting your resignations. Now Mike Keeling resigns, along with your own secretary.

‘Don’t even think of a settlement,’ Longson tells you. ‘You’re getting nowt!’

You stand in the centre of the room, naked and beaten, with Peter beside you.

‘Leave your car keys on the table and get out now,’ barks Longson.

In the centre of the room, naked and beaten before the board, their eyes down on the table, their fingers at their mouths, their feet shuffling and eager to leave –

‘Not one of you has the guts to stop this?’ you ask them. ‘Not one of you?’

But their eyes stay down on the table, their fingers at their mouths –

‘Cowards!’ you bark at them all and turn to the doors, the doors and the exit, the exit and the antechamber; through the antechamber and down the corridor, down the corridor and into the executive lounge you go –

‘I want you out of the ground,’ Longson is shouting. ‘Both of you, now!’

Into the heat of the lights, the gaze of the cameras, and the … Action!

Daggers drawn, pistols poised, you stand at one end of the lounge and Longson stands at the other; Longson telling the press and the television, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, telling them all how your resignations have been accepted, accepted but ‘with a certain amount of sadness’.

‘It surprises me a little,’ you answer back, ‘that people, the very people who want to stop me putting two words together, can’t put them together themselves.’

But Longson keeps blinking into the lights, keeps stuttering into the cameras, blinking and stuttering on and on about acceptance and sadness.

‘I feel deeply embarrassed for the chairman,’ you tell the same cameras and lights, not blinking and not stuttering. ‘And deeply ashamed for Derby County.’

Finally, Jack Kirkland drags the chairman away from the heat of the lights and the gaze of the cameras, drags him back into the board meeting and, as he goes, as Longson goes back into that boardroom, Longson turns and looks into your eyes and spits upon his hand, he spits upon his hand again and winks –

‘Right then, Brian, we’ll see, shall we?’

And you, you push your way through the press and the television, the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, you push your way back down that corridor towards that boardroom, and those doors they close in your face, slam shut in your face –

In your face, in your face, after all the bloody things you’ve fucking done for them, they close those doors in your face, slam them shut in your face, and you pick up the jug of water from the table and you’re going to throw it through those bloody doors, throw it in all their fucking faces, when Peter takes hold of your arm, Peter takes hold of your arm and lowers the jug back down to the table and says, ‘Leave it, Brian. Leave it.’

* * *

The bad boy of British football doesn’t knock. The bad boy of British football just opens the office door and says, ‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘Have a seat, William. Have a fag and a drink too, if you want.’

Bremner takes a seat. Bremner takes a fag. Bremner takes a drink.

‘You’re going to miss the Man. City match on Saturday,’ I tell him. ‘Then the Luton game the following Saturday, the League Cup game against Huddersfield, then the league games against Burnley, Sheffield United, Tottenham and Everton, and also the first round of the European Cup. That means your first match back for us will be the return leg of the European Cup game in Zurich.’

‘I’ve read the fixture list,’ says Bremner. ‘I know what I’m missing.’

‘That’s another eight games,’ I tell him. ‘Top of the three you’ve missed already. Eleven bloody matches all told.’

He takes another one of my cigs. He takes another glass of my whisky.

‘I’ve told you before,’ I tell him again, ‘if I had to pick any member of the first-team squad here at Leeds to miss games through suspension, the last name on that list — and even then, way behind any other name on that list — would be yours. Clarkey, Giles, Peter Lorimer, Norman Hunter; anybody but you. There’s not another bloody player in this whole fucking club we could possibly miss more than you.’

Bremner puts out his cig. Bremner finishes his drink. ‘Is that all?’

‘Sit down,’ I tell him. ‘Sit down and listen, will you?’

Bremner sits back down. Bremner stares back across my desk.

‘Like I’ve told you before,’ I tell him again, ‘I don’t want to lose you on the field but, if I must lose you on the field, I don’t want to lose you off the field. Now I’m not going to ask you to travel with us to away games, not unless you want to, but what I am going to ask you to consider is coming to the Central League home games, watching the reserves for me, giving me an extra pair of eyes.’

Bremner doesn’t speak. Bremner just stares back across my desk.

‘So instead of travelling to Maine Road with us this coming Saturday,’ I continue, ‘you’d be here watching the reserves play Bolton. If nothing else, it’ll be good experience for you, especially if, as I hear it, you’re thinking of going into management.’

Bremner doesn’t speak. Bremner just stares –

Into my eyes. Into the silence.

Then the door opens again. No knock. Just John Giles standing in the doorway –

‘Thousand apologies,’ he laughs. ‘Not interrupting, am I?’

Bremner stands up. Bremner asks, ‘Can I go now, sir?’

* * *

You and Peter push your way out to your club car in the space reserved for the club manager and then you drive through the press and the television, through the pens and the microphones, the cameras and the lights, past the group of night-shift workers from Rolls-Royce who bang on the roof of your grey Mercedes and beg and beg and beg you –

‘Please don’t bloody go, Brian. Please don’t fucking go.’

But you and Peter drive away from the Baseball Ground, drive away to a garage to have the tyres on your club car changed and the tank of your club car filled up on the club account, and then you and Peter drive on to Peter’s house –

To the silence in his sitting room. The silence and the cup of tea –

‘What will you do now?’ you ask him.

‘I think I’ll catch a bloody plane to Majorca,’ he says. ‘What about you?’

‘I haven’t a fucking clue,’ you tell him –

It is Tuesday 16 October 1973, and you are out of a job.