The Damned Utd

Day Thirty-three

The loneliest bloody day of the week, the loneliest fucking place on earth; under the stands, through the doors, round the corners to the bathroom and toilet in the corridor. The bathroom door is locked, the bathroom mirror broken. There is a dirty grey handkerchief wrapped around the knuckle of my right hand and when I look up into that mirror again there are black splintered cracks across my face, terrible black splintered cracks across my face –

Leeds United lost yesterday. 2-bloody-1 to Manchester City at Maine Road; Leeds United have just three points from five games and have scored just three goals. By this stage last year, Leeds United had beaten Everton, Arsenal, Tottenham, Wolves and Birmingham City; this stage last year, Leeds had ten points from five games and had scored fifteen goals with six from Lorimer, four from Bremner, two from Jones and one a piece from Giles, Madeley and Clarke –

This time last year, when Don bloody Revie was the manager of Leeds United and I was the manager of Derby County; when Don was fucking top and I was second; this time last year, when Alf Ramsey was still the manager of England.

I run the taps. I wash my face. I open the bathroom door. I go down the corridor. His corridor. Round the corner. His corner. Down the tunnel. His tunnel. Out into the light and out onto that pitch. His pitch. His field –

His field of loss. His field of blood. His field of sacrifice. His field of slaughter. His field of vengeance. His field of victory!

I shouldn’t be here. I should be at home with my wife and with my kids, carving the roast and digging the garden, walking the dog and washing the car. Not here. Not in this place –

This hateful, spiteful place –

Flecked in their phlegm.

It starts to spit again. I put out my cig. I finish my drink. I walk off that field, off that pitch. Down that tunnel, down that corridor. Round those corners, through those doors and out of Elland Road.

In the car park of the ground, in the shadow of the stands, there are four young kids in their boots and their jeans, kicking a jam-jar lid about –

‘Morning, lads,’ I shout.

‘Afternoon, Mr Clough,’ they shout back.

‘How are you today then, lads?’

‘All right, ta,’ they shout. ‘And you?’

‘I’m surviving,’ I tell them and walk across the car park, across the car park to the huts on their stilts beside the banking that leads up to the training pitch. The huts are all locked so I have to give the lock a right good kick before it gives in –

‘What you doing?’ the young lads ask me.

‘You’ll see,’ I tell them and force open the door to one of the huts. I go inside and drag out one of those huge string bags that hold all the old match-day balls. I open up the bag and boot one of the balls down the steps from the hut to the lads in the car park –

‘There you go,’ I tell them. ‘Courtesy of Leeds United.’

‘Ta very much,’ they all shout.

‘You’re very welcome, lads,’ I tell them and walk back down the steps from the hut, down to the car park and across to my car, a little lad waiting by the door –

He asks, ‘What happened to your hand, Mr Clough?’

‘I got it caught somewhere, didn’t I?’ I tell him.

‘How did you do that then?’

‘Stuck it somewhere I bloody shouldn’t have, that’s how.’

‘Least it weren’t your fucking nose,’ he laughs.

‘You might be right there,’ I tell him. ‘But there’s no need for language like that, not on a Sunday, so you bugger off home and get that big mouth of yours washed out.’