Damned Cloughie and Damned Leeds

The Damned United – By David Peace

David Peace chronicle’s Cloughs ill-fated 44 days in charge of Leeds United in 1974, and Peace is a curious name for the author of a book that is about the opposite. Conflict, strife, antagonism, treachery and regret.

The book starts with Clough reliving the challenge with Bury’s goalkeeper on Boxing Day 1962 that at the time looked like it had ended the career of the bright young Centre Forward. We all know now that it started it but the book questions rightly, how much the injury affected Clough himself and whether it gave an already fully functioning ego the necessary drive and force of will to make him the man he became. There is something to this as everybody remembers the great manager but Peace, and interview evidence backing him up, that Clough always saw himself as an injured player, always recovering, never retired. Maybe it was easier to bollock an out of form striker if the manager truly believed that he could replace him.

It’s an incredible story from any time period. The top manager in the country, between posts after leaving Derby in acrimonious circumstances taking over as manager of his most hated rivals. The equivalent of Jose Mourinho taking over at Old Trafford before being hounded out of town barely a month later by the combined forces of Ryan Giggs and Roy Keane.

The book takes no prisoners in its depictions of the intransigent Billy Bremner and scheming Johnny Giles – the Lords of the Manor who didn’t take kindly to the new Sheriff. Even Peter Taylor, Clough’s closest partner and right hand, comes over as a craven mixture of Phil Neal, Graham Taylor and David Pleat. Portrayed as a money-obsessed apologist, half in love with the main man and unable to function solo. The fact that Taylor refused to join Clough at Leeds indicates that this may have been a two-way street. Clough unable to function without his Yang as it reveals the thoughts of a confident man operating way outside of his comfort zone, in hostile territory with only himself to rely on.

Their careers at Middlesbrough are only mentioned in passing as the action flits back and forth between Clough’s rise with Derby, the one, true loves of his footballing life, and his constant travails in picking up the reins of Revie’s team.

The ghost of Revie haunts Clough through the corridors of Elland Road and it’s a curious thing that for two Middlesbrough men who fought their personal and professional battles away from the town, it’s only one that is recognised and embraced warmly by the town he left behind. The mention of Clough’s name brings a smile to the lips and a glint to the eye, whereas Revie is never mentioned, unless it’s as a byword for gamesmanship and cheating.

Their relationship reminded me of Salieri and Mozart in Amadeus. The proficient and gifted prodigy effortlessly eclipsing the competent, professional mentor. The twist being that here, Clough is the prodigy is obsessed with destroying and surpassing Revie with his own team.

Like the man himself, the book has some rough edges with some nods towards the seamier sides of the life of 1970s football manager, alone on the road and in a strange town. His harsh revisionist judges would do well to remember that he was a man first and foremost and a manager second.

It’s an interesting fiction and helps fill in the gaps for those of us who only remember Clough as a green jumpered caricature on the City Ground sidelines. We know that the Grove Hill General was so much more but then, so was his Nemesis from Costa Street.