The Damned Utd

Day Three

I have been in the shadows here, in the corridors and round the corners. I have been in the wings, with the crows and with the dogs. Heart racing and legs shaking. My tongue still, my mouth closed. Ears back and eyes open. Under grey skies –

I have kept my own counsel …

No kids with me today. Not today. Today there are things to do. Things to say. Not things for kids to hear. For kids to see. Under grey skies –

Until today; Friday 2 August 1974.

The first team traipse down the embankment from the training ground to the car park, their studs across the tarmac. The team stand around the black cinders in the far corner of the car park. Their hands on their hips, their names on their backs, they move their boots through the white ash. Under grey skies –

‘Players’lounge,’ I tell them. ‘Ten minutes.’

* * *

Two families by the seaside. The Royal Hotel, Scarborough. Oh, you do like to be beside the seaside. You are happy here, with your ice cream and your deckchair. Your wife and your three kids. You are a home bird and a happy bird now. The fear of unemployment and the need to booze, both are gone for now. Evil Ernest Ord has been vanquished and Hartlepools have finished eighth from the top this season –

There is a new roof upon the stand. Thanks to you. Modern floodlights too –

It is 1967 and things are on the up. You are happy here, but Peter is not –

Your very best pal. Your right hand. Your shadow …

Restless and jealous, his ear to the ground and his lips to the phone –

The bucket-and-sponge man on £24 a week –

‘Look, we took Hartlepools only as a stepping stone to something better, and now that something has come along. You know yourself that it’s been a hard slog at Hartlepools and, personally, I’ve had a bellyful of it. I know we can never pick the perfect time to go, but I think this is the right move for us.’

The sun goes behind the clouds and the rain starts to come down, to pour down, in buckets and buckets, buckets and spades, in spades and spades –

The deckchairs folded up and the ice creams melted –

‘Just meet him,’ says Pete. ‘Listen to what he has to say. Can’t hurt, can it?’

* * *

The players’ lounge, Elland Road. Deep in the West Stand, off the main corridor. Round another corner. Two doors and a well-stocked bar. Low ceiling and sticky carpet. Easy chairs and no windows, only mirrors. Mirrors, mirrors, on the walls. The smell of shampoo and Christmas aftershave as they file in from the dressing room in their denim and their leather, with their gold chains and their wet hair, teasing and touching, picking and pinching, a gang of apes after a fuck, they form a circle, their heads as low as their knees in their easy chairs, they spread their legs and touch their balls and try not to look my way –

My Way, indeed.

They are internationals, the bloody lot of them. Medals and trophies galore, every last fucking one of them –

These big, hard men in their tight, new clothes –

These big, hard and dirty men. These big, hard, dirty, old men –

These old and nervous men. Their best years behind them now –

They are worried men. Frightened men. Just like me.

I pick a chair. Turn it round. I sit astride it, arms across the back, and I say a little prayer –

The Prayer to be said before a Fight at Sea against any Enemy …

I say the prayer and then I begin, begin to say my piece:

‘You lot might be wondering why I haven’t said much this week. The reason is I have been forming my own opinions. That is what I like to do. I don’t like listening to other people. But now I’ve formed my opinions and so, before I start working with you lot, there are a few things that need to be said about each of you –

O Most powerful and glorious Lord God …

‘Harvey, you’re an international and an improvement on Gary Sprake,’ I tell him. ‘But not much of one. The best teams are built on clean sheets. Clean sheets come from good keepers. Good keepers mean safe hands. So safe hands is what I want from you or I’ll go find myself a safer pair somewhere else.’

The Lord of hosts, that rulest and commandest all things …

I turn to the two Pauls, Madeley and Reaney. I tell them, ‘Mr Madeley, you’ve played in every bloody position bar the fucking keeper. Obviously Don couldn’t make up his mind. But I reckon it’s time you made a position your own, either that or I’ll do it for you and that might mean the bloody bench or the transfer list. Mr Reaney, you’ve had one broken leg, missed one Cup Final and one World Cup — you’re not getting any younger, so look after yourself because in my opinion you deserve more bloody caps than the ones you’ve had.’

Thou sitest in the throne judging right …

‘No one in the game likes you,’ I tell Hunter. ‘And I think you want to be liked.’

Bites Yer Legs shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head. ‘I don’t give a fuck.’

‘I think you do.’

‘I’m an established England international,’ he says. ‘I really don’t give a shit.’

Therefore we make our address to thy Divine Majesty in this our necessity …

‘Mr William Bremner — you’re the captain and you’re a good one,’ I tell him. ‘But you’re no good to the team and you’re no good to me if you’re suspended. I want discipline from my teams and, as the captain, I expect you to set the example.’

That thou wouldst take the cause into thine own hand …

‘And you’d do well to follow that example,’ I tell Lorimer. ‘Because you know how I feel about you. How you harangue referees. How you fall over when you’ve not been touched. How you make a meal out of every tackle to try and get the other player booked. How you protest when you have nothing to fucking protest about —’

‘Nothing to protest about?’ he says. ‘Them tackles that some of your lads at Derby gave me? You expected me just to stand for that the whole bloody game?’

And judge between us and our enemies …

‘As for you and the amount of injuries you’ve had,’ I tell Eddie Gray. ‘If you’d been a bloody racehorse, you’d have been fucking shot.’

Eddie Gray looks up at me, looks up at me with tears in his eyes. Eddie Gray says, ‘Didn’t an injury end your career?’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘It bloody well did.’

‘Then you ought to understand how I feel.’

Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us …

I turn to Michael Jones. I tell him, ‘Same goes for you, young man.’

For thou givest not always the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or few …

‘Irishman, you’re another one with a terrible bloody reputation,’ I tell John Giles. ‘God gave you intelligence, skill, agility and the best passing ability in the game. These are qualities which have helped to make you a very wealthy young man. What God did not give you was them six studs to wrap around someone else’s knee.’

‘So bloody what?’ he says. ‘People kick me, I kick them back.’

‘Just remember,’ I warn him. ‘It’s not my fault you didn’t get this job.’

‘Relax, will you?’ he says. ‘I didn’t want the job then and I don’t want it now.’

O let not our sins now cry against us for vengeance …

I point at McQueen and Jordan. I tell them, ‘You’ve both been to the World Cup and, McQueen, you’ve had a good one. I liked what I saw but I want to see more of it.’

But hear us thy poor servants begging mercy, and imploring thy help …

‘Mr Cooper and Mr Bates, they tell me you’re both finally fit again. Thank God! You’ll get your chance to prove yourselves to me tomorrow. Make sure you bloody do!’

That thou wouldst be a defence unto us against the face of the enemy …

‘Sniffer,’ I tell Allan Clarke. ‘You scored eighteen goals last season. I want fucking nineteen this season. At least fucking nineteen! Understood?’

Sniffer grins. Sniffer nods. Sniffer Clarke salutes.

Make it appear that thou art our Saviour and mighty Deliverer …

I turn to the last three. I tell them, ‘Cherry, young Gray, Taff Yorath — it’s a long season ahead of us, lots of games ahead of us — so train hard, keep your noses clean, do things my way and you’ll have your chances. Up to you to make sure you bloody take them chances when they do come along.’

My way –

‘Gentlemen, I might as well tell you now. You lot may have won all the domestic honours there are and some of the European ones but, as far as I am concerned, the first thing you can do for me is to chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pots and all your pans into the biggest fucking dustbin you can find, because you’ve never won any of them fairly. You’ve done it all by bloody cheating.’

Through Jesus Christ our Lord …

‘And there’s one other thing,’ I tell them all, tell every last fucking one of them. ‘I don’t ever want to hear the name of Don bloody fucking Revie again. Never ever again. So the next player who does mention that bloody name again will spend his working week with the fucking apprentices. Learning his lesson, whoever he bloody is, no matter who he fucking is –

‘Now bugger off home, the lot of you.’

Amen.

* * *

You meet the chairman of Derby County at a hotel at Scotch Corner. Peter waits in the car. Len Shackleton makes the introductions. This Sam Longson is another self-made millionaire, another blunt and plain-speaking man who drives a Rolls-Royce. His money from haulage. Proud of it. Proud of Derby County too. But Derby County are in the Second Division and going nowhere. Their only cup won back in 1946. Third Division North Champions in 1957. Nothing since. Nowhere since. They have just finished seventeenth in Division Two and Sam Longson has just sacked their manager, Tim Ward. Now Longson is getting hate mail. Now Longson is shitting himself –

‘That’ll soon be a thing of the past,’ you tell him. ‘And I’ll be the reason why —’

Then you start telling him why. Never stop telling him why. Never shut up.

Three hours later, Longson is so excited he won’t be able to sleep tonight.

You go out to the car. Peter has the window down. Peter asks, ‘How did it go?’

‘Job’s mine,’ you tell him. ‘Bloody mine!’

He’s as happy as Larry. Pleased as punch. Then he says, ‘What about me?’

* * *

Down the corridors. Round the corners. The empty corridors. The dark corners. The office is bare; just his old telephone and Jean Reid’s resignation letter on the floor by the door. I pull my kit bag across the carpet towards me and take out an unopened bottle of Martell. I light a cigarette and pick the price off the brandy –

£3.79 — Wineways.

Tomorrow is Saturday. Away at Huddersfield. My first game here –

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck …

I haven’t got a clue who to pick. I haven’t got a clue what to say –

Not a fucking one. Not a fucking one.

There are voices and feet outside the door. Laughter, then silence –

Down the corridors. Round the corners …

I get up off the floor. I open the door –

Nothing. No one.

I don’t believe in God. But I do believe in doubt. I do believe in fear.