The Damned Utd Read Online Free PDF

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.