The Damned Utd by David Peace Read Free Book Online

and Peter on the touchline –
    ‘ What do you expect me to do with this bloody lot, Mr Chairman? ’
    Sam Longson lights another cigar. Sam Longson says, ‘It’s in your hands .’
    ‘ Good,’ you tell him. ‘In that case, I’ll sack the fucking lot of them .’
    * * *
    I can’t get out of bed. Not with this head. This job. I can hear the wife and the kids downstairs. The dog barking at the radio. But I can’t getout of bed. I reach for my watch, but it’s not there. Sod it. I get out of bed, get washed and get dressed. I go downstairs –
    ‘What time did you get in last night?’ asks the wife.
    ‘Too late,’ I tell her.
    She rolls her eyes and asks us, ‘Do you want any breakfast?’
    I shake my head. I tell her, ‘I best be off.’
    ‘Drive carefully,’ she says. ‘And call if you’re going to be late.’
    I nod and turn to the boys. ‘Who wants to go to work with their dad today?’
    The boys look down at their hands. Their fingers and their nails.
    My wife comes up behind me. My wife kisses me on the cheek. My wife says, ‘Don’t force them, love. Not if they don’t want to.’
    ‘And what if I don’t want to?’
    She looks at me. She shakes her head. She starts to speak –
    ‘Just kidding,’ I tell her and open the front door. ‘Just kidding.’
    * * *
    A manager is always at his strongest in his first three months at a club. Get all the unpleasant stuff out of the way then, because you’re never stronger than in your first three months. Things like that are hard work to other managers but they are not hard work to you. Things like discipline, coaching and training. You have got your mind set on football and you know just how to approach it. Doesn’t matter if it’s Manchester United or Liverpool. Leeds United or Derby County –
    You tell the players that they have three weeks to make an impression on you or they’re out. Three weeks later, you sack sixteen of the playing staff, the chief scout, four groundsmen, the secretary, the assistant secretary, a couple of clerks and the tea ladies. You take down the photographs of Jack Nicholas, Raich Carter and Peter Doherty –
    No more tradition. No more history. No more curses –
    You want a bloody revolution. You want a future. You want it now .
    You stand up before the Rotary Club of Derby and you tell them, and the newspapers, and the television cameras, ‘Derby County under me will never finish as low as they did last season –
    ‘ I promise you they will always finish higher than seventeenth .’
    * * *
    The manager’s office on a Monday morning and it all starts again. Building, building, building. To Saturday. Like Taylor used to say, if you’re wrong on a Monday then you’re wrong on a Saturday. But Taylor isn’t here. Not today. Today there’s just a pile of shit on my brand-new desk. A pile of shit and no secretary. A pile of shit that includes hate mail, death threats and the promise of legal action from Don Revie –
    For the things I said, the many public things I said –
    ‘On that show you did last Friday?’ asks Jimmy Gordon.
    ‘Aye,’ I tell him. ‘Didn’t think they could get Calendar down at Lancaster Gate.’
    ‘Don’s house is only round the corner,’ says Jimmy. ‘He’s back all the time.’
    ‘Why do you think I’m getting the fucking locks changed,’ I tell him.
    * * *
    ‘ I’ve seen one,’ Peter tells you and off you set, no questions asked, because this is how it works, you and Peter, this is the chemistry, the magic –
    Observe. Expose. Replace –
    This is Peter’s talent; spotting players. This is Peter’s hard work, how he earns his brass; travelling down to Devon on a Saturday in August to watch Torquay United vs Tranmere Rovers; to watch a centre-forward vs a centre - half; to watch Jim Fryatt vs Roy McFarland; to sneak out of the ground to find a phone box to ring you up – at the club, in a pub, at your home – and say, ‘I’ve found one .’
    Because that’s all it takes,