The Damned Utd

Day Thirty-four

The scenes have shifted, the sets changed again. The curtain falls and another one rises. You have taken your final bow at the old Baseball Ground. You have transferred to London. You have been on the Parkinson show. You have been in the papers, all over the papers, the front and back pages –

Never out of the papers. Never off the television –

Risen in your new grey suit, arms outstretched –

Cloughie, Immaculate.

Jimmy Gordon, Judas James Gordon, might be in temporary charge of the team, might be the one who picked Saturday’s team, but the Derby players, your players, beat Leicester City 2–1. ‘For Brian and Peter,’ they said. ‘For Brian and Peter.’

Not for Jimmy. Not for the bloody board and not for fucking Longson.

But Longson has not been silent. Longson has responded. Longson in the papers. Front and back pages. Longson on the telly and things have got nasty now; very, very nasty now because Longson has made all kinds of allegations about you; allegations about expenses; allegations about transfer deals; allegations about players’ salaries and bonuses; allegations about tickets and petty cash; about money, money, money –

Always funny, funny money –

Not allegations made by the whole board. Just by Longson.

You drove back from London yesterday in a rented car. You kissed your wife. You kissed your kids. You had your Sunday lunch. Then you spent the rest of the day on the phone to your friends, your friends who came round, to drink your drinks and hold your hand, your friends who are solicitors, your friends who went through Longson’s statement, paragraph by paragraph, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word, your friends who helped you repudiate that statement, paragraph by paragraph, line by line, sentence by sentence, word by word. Allegation by fucking allegation.

Today your friends who are solicitors will begin a libel action on your behalf. They will issue a writ. Not just against Longson, but against the whole board –

‘It’ll turn them against Longson,’ said John. ‘It’ll drive a wedge between them. Set them at each other’s throats, you’ll see. At each other’s throats, they’ll be.’

You get out of bed. You get washed. You get dressed –

You go downstairs. You go into the kitchen –

Risen again in your new grey suit –

Cloughie, Immaculate –

Unemployed.

* * *

The sun might be shining outside, the sky might be blue, but I’m under the covers of my bed, with the tables and the fixtures in my head; next Saturday, if Leeds beat Luton then Leeds will have five points. Five points could take Leeds up to eleventh or twelfth, if Leicester lose to Wolves, West Ham lose to Sheffield United, QPR lose to Birmingham, Chelsea lose to Middlesbrough, Tottenham lose to Liverpool, and if Arsenal and Burnley draw, Carlisle and Stoke draw, Ipswich and Everton draw. The problem is Derby vs Newcastle. If Derby and Newcastle draw, both teams will have six points and, if Leeds beat Luton, Leeds will only have five points. The best result then would be a defeat for Derby. Then Newcastle will have seven points and both Derby and Leeds will have five points. Then it will come down to goal average. So Leeds will need to beat Luton by three or four goals to make certain that Leeds climb above Derby; beat Luton who were promoted as Second Division runners-up to Middlesbrough last season –

The tables and the fixtures in my head, the doubts and the fears that should Leeds lose to Luton and then Tottenham beat Liverpool, Birmingham beat QPR and Coventry beat Manchester City, then Leeds would be bottom of the First Division –

The wife is frying some bacon, the kids eating their cereal –

Leeds would be bottom of the First Division …

I pour a cup of tea, heap in four sugars –

Bottom of the First Division …

Four kisses bye-bye –

Bye-bloody-bye.

* * *

The Derby players, your players, have written a letter to the board. This is what the Derby players, your players, have written in their letter to the board:

Dear Mr Longson and the directors of Derby County Football Club,

During the events of last week we, the undersigned players, have kept our feelings within the dressing room. However, at this time, we are unanimous in our support and respect for Mr Clough and Mr Taylor and ask that they be reinstated as manager and assistant manager of the club.

It was absolutely vital that we won against Leicester on Saturday for ourselves, as well as for the club and fans. Now that match is out of the way, nobody can say we have acted on the spur of the moment and are just being emotional.

We called the meeting of first-teamers and it was emphasized that nobody was under obligation to attend. But everybody was there. We then decided to write this letter and again nobody was under pressure to sign. But again, everybody did.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Boulton. Ron Webster. David Nish. John O’Hare. Roy McFarland. Colin Todd. John McGovern. Archie Gemmill. Roger Davies. Kevin Hector. Alan Hinton. Steve Powell.

You have tears running down your cheeks at what the Derby players, your players, have written about you, a big bloody lump in your throat and the phone in your hand:

‘I am staggered,’ you tell the Daily Mail, exclusively. ‘Whatever happens I will always be grateful to the players, my players, for restoring my faith in human nature.’

* * *

The cleaning lady is cleaning the office, under the desk and behind the door, not whistling or humming along to her tunes today –

I ask her, ‘How are you today then, Joan?’

‘I’ve been better, Brian,’ she says. ‘I’ve been better.’

I ask, ‘Why’s that then, love?’

‘State of that bloody bathroom down corridor,’ she says. ‘That’s why.’

‘What about it?’

‘You should’ve seen it,’ she says. ‘Mirror broken. Blood in sink. Piss over floor.’

‘No?’

‘I tell you, Brian,’ she tells me, ‘they don’t pay us enough to clean up all that.’

My face is red, my hand still bandaged as I say, ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘Why?’ she asks. ‘Not like it’s your fault, is it, Brian? Not you that thumped mirror and bled all over sink then pissed on floor just because you lost, was it?’

* * *

You have your faith in human nature back, but you still have no job and no car. You have to take a taxi to meet the Derby players, your players, for lunch at the Kedleston Hall Hotel, your new headquarters. You have to pay for the taxi yourself. The Derby players are confused and waiting, their heads in their hands; the players are depressed and worried, their faces long; the players scared and furious, their eyes wide, on stalks –

‘It’s a bloody outrage,’ says Roy McFarland; Red Roy, as the press call him. ‘The way they’ve treated you, after all you’ve done for them. I tell you, last week was the worst week of my whole bloody life. Drawing with Poland and losing you as a boss, the worst week of my life. I didn’t hang around after the England match, didn’t go back to the hotel with the other lads; I just got in me car and drove straight back home to Derby.’

Eyes filling up and drinks going down, tempers rising and voices choking –

‘What can we do, Boss?’ they all ask you.

‘You’ve done enough,’ you tell them. ‘That letter was brilliant. Meant a lot.’

‘But there must be more we can do?’ they all ask. ‘There has to be, Boss?’

‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ you tell them. ‘We’ll have a bloody party. Tonight.’

‘A party?’ they all say. ‘What kind of a party?’

‘A fucking big one,’ you tell them. ‘So bugger off home and get your wives and your bairns and your glad rags on and meet us all at the Newton Park Hotel tonight.’

* * *

There should be no training today. There should be no players in today. They should all be at home with their wives and their kids, the girlfriends and their pets. But then Jimmy told me they were all coming in anyway, coming in for their complimentary club cars, their brand-new bloody club cars. But after Saturday, after Maine Road, they don’t deserve a club fucking bicycle between them and so I cancelled their days off and told them to report back here at nine o’clock, Monday morning, if they wanted their bloody fucking club cars –

‘The bloody chances you lot missed on Saturday,’ I tell them. ‘They ought to make you all fucking walk to the ground and back every game, never mind giving you a bleeding club car. Only you’d get fucking lost, you’re that bloody thick half of you.’

I turn my back on them. I leave them to Jimmy. I walk off the training pitch. Down the banking. Past the huts on their stilts. John Reynolds, the groundsman, and Sydney Owen are stood at the top of the steps to one of the huts. They are staring at a broken lock and an open door –

‘Be bloody kids,’ I tell them as I pass them.

Sydney says something that sounds like, ‘Bloody big mouth again.’

‘You what?’ I ask him –

‘I said, be bloody big ones then,’ says Sydney.

Least there’s no Maurice today. Maurice is in Switzerland to watch Zurich play Geneva. To spy on Zurich. To compile his dossier. To write his report. There’s no John Giles either. The Irishman is down in London with his Eire squad. To meet with Tottenham. His ticket bloody out of here.

This is what those players are thinking about at training today –

Not Stoke City. Not QPR. Not Birmingham or Manchester City –

Not the chances they missed; the chances they must take –

Against Luton. Against Huddersfield and against Zurich –

Johnny fucking Giles, that’s what they’re thinking about –

Johnny fucking Giles and Vauxhall bloody motors –

‘What kind you going to get, Boss?’ Jimmy had asked me first thing this morning.

‘I’m not off, am I,’ I told him.

‘Why not?’

‘Not been invited, have I.’

‘Why not?’ he asked me again.

‘Maybe they think I won’t be around long enough to need a new bloody car.’

‘I hope you’re fucking joking,’ said Jimmy.

‘I wish I were,’ I told him. ‘Wish I were.’

* * *

You leave the Derby players, your players, until tonight. You drive over to see Mike Keeling. Mike Keeling thinks the board have turned against Longson. He thinks there might be a wedge between them now –

‘They’re at each other’s throats,’ he says. ‘At each other’s throats!’

‘Bet you wish you’d not been so bloody quick to resign now, don’t you?’

‘What about you?’ he asks you. ‘Is that how you feel, Brian? Is it?’

‘You know it is,’ you tell him. ‘You know it bloody is.’

‘Well, just this once,’ he says, ‘we might just be able to turn back the clock.’

‘You really think so, Mike? Really?’

‘I can’t promise,’ he says. ‘But I really think we have a chance, yes.’

‘So what can I do to help you?’ you ask him. ‘To help you make it happen?’

‘An olive branch, Brian,’ he says. ‘Some kind of olive branch would help.’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking,’ you tell him, ‘thinking that if they’ll take me back, and when I say they, I’m not talking about that bastard Longson, but if the board will take me back, me and Peter, then I’d be willing to jack in all the telly and the papers.’

‘Really? You’d give all that up? The television and the papers?’

‘Course I bloody would,’ you tell him. ‘If it meant I could get my real job back.’

* * *

I finish my drink. I finish my fag. I leave the office. I lock the door. I double check it’s locked. I walk down the corridor, round the corner, up the stairs, round another corner, down another corridor towards the doors to the directors’ dining room. I can already hear their Yorkshire voices behind the doors, their raised Yorkshire voices –

I can hear my name, hear my name, and only my fucking name …

I light another fag and I listen. Then I open the doors to the dining room and their Yorkshire voices suddenly fall. The dining room silent. Their eyes on their plates. Their knives and their forks.

Sam Bolton looks up from his. Sam Bolton has his knife in his hand as he asks me, ‘What the bloody hell is going on with John Giles and Tottenham bloody Hotspur?’

‘What you all so bothered about?’ I ask him, all of them. ‘Not two bleeding minutes ago you wanted the bugger gone, didn’t you?’

They’ve still lost their Yorkshire voices, rest of them. Eyes still on their plates. Their knives and their forks.

‘So let’s get them bloody fingers crossed,’ I tell them –

But no one laughs. No one smiles. No one says a fucking word.

I put down my drink. I put out my fag. I turn back towards the doors. The exit –

‘One last thing,’ says Bolton. ‘We don’t much care for being third from bottom.’

‘Fourth from bottom,’ I correct him.

‘Nor do we much care for managers who clutch at straws, Clough.’

* * *

You take your wife and your kids to the Newton Park Hotel near Burton-upon-Trent. You take your wife and your kids to meet the Derby players, your players, and their wives and their kids. Peter and Lillian come too. It is supposed to be a farewell dinner, that’s how you sold it to your wife and your kids, to Peter and to Lillian –

But no one wants to say farewell. No one wants to say goodbye.

So the champagne flows, all thirty bottles of it, all paid for by you, as the kids run riot and the wives wilt, as the jokes and the stories start, the memories and the tales –

The jokes and the stories, the memories and the tales of the games and the cups; the games and the cups you’ve won; the memories and the tales no one wants to end.

‘If I’m not playing for the Boss,’ says someone, ‘I don’t want to bloody play.’

‘Me and all,’ says everyone else. ‘Me and all.’

‘I reckon we should all boycott the fucking club,’ says someone –

Then someone else, ‘Let’s bloody train in the fucking park with the Boss.’

‘We should all get on a plane and bugger off to Majorca,’ says another, probably you as you open one more bottle and order another, drink one more drink and pour another, put out one more fag and light another –

‘Let’s bloody do it,’ says everyone else. ‘Come on, let’s fucking do it!’

Every player on his feet now. Every player halfway to Spain –

‘Y viva España,’ everyone sings. ‘We’re all off to sunny Spain …’

But then the wives get to their feet and sit their husbands back down, calming them down and squeezing their hands, tighter and tighter –

Your own wife squeezing your hand the tightest of all.

* * *

The press conference is late. The press conference is about the Irishman and Tottenham Hotspur. The press conference is not about the Manchester City game; not about the chances Leeds missed; the position Leeds are in. But Manny Cussins has still come along; to show his support for me; his confidence in me.

But the press don’t want to know about Manchester City. The press don’t want to know why the League Champions are just one place and point above the relegation zone. The press just want to know about the Irishman and Tottenham Hotspur –

Thank fucking Christ for Johnny fucking Giles.

‘As far as I am personally concerned, I think we should all be very sorry to lose him for his playing ability,’ says Manny Cussins. ‘We all value him for his wonderful service with us but would give fair consideration to anything that concerns his future.’

‘Have Leeds United had an enquiry or an offer from Tottenham about Giles?’

‘We’ve had no communication from anyone at Tottenham,’ says Cussins, glancing at me. ‘I think Mr Clough would have told us, had Giles been approached.’

‘Is that right, Brian?’ they ask me. ‘You’ve had no contact with Tottenham?’

* * *

You are stood in the car park of the Newton Park Hotel with the Derby players, your players, the Derby players and their wives and their kids, your own wife and your own kids –

No one wants to get into their car. No one wants to go to their home –

No one wants to say goodnight. To say farewell. To say goodbye –

To say, this is the end, and then let go.

* * *

Round the corner. Down the corridor. There is a pile of letters and a list of phone calls on the desk in the office. I sweep them off the top into the bin and pour myself another large drink. I tilt the chair back on two legs and light another fag; the fortieth of the day –

There are voices. There are voices. There are voices in the corridor –

Don’s voice; I swear it sounds like Don’s voice in the corridor –

I sit forward. I put down my drink. I open the door –

The voices are gone, but the echo still here –

‘Are you there, Brian?’

* * *

Last thing tonight, with a head full of champagne and a chest full of cigarettes, you pick up the phone and Keeling tells you, ‘They tried to get Bobby Robson.’

‘Bobby Robson?’ you ask him. ‘You’re fucking joking?’

‘Longson and Kirkland approached Ipswich first thing this morning.’

‘He’d never take the job,’ you tell him. ‘Not Bobby.’

‘Sounds like you’re right.’

‘So who’s next on their list?’ you ask him again. ‘Alf Ramsey?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ laughs Keeling. ‘Alf or Pat Saward.’

‘Pat who?’ you ask Keeling.

‘Pat Saward,’ laughs Keeling again. ‘Brighton sacked him this afternoon.’

‘Brighton?’ you ask him. ‘What fucking division are they in?’