The Damned United

The Damned United is David Peace's brandy-fuelled adrenalin rush through the 44 days in 1974 when Brian Clough was manager of Leeds United FC. The novel rams straight into the narrative on Day One, with Clough entering the club he hates to take over and take control. he despises the players and the coaching staff for their hard style of cheating football. As an emerging football fan at this time it transports me back to a time when I disliked Leeds for being a dirty, fouling and successful team and to when I first remember Cloughie, Ol' Big 'Ead ranting on the telly. The prose twitches and struts through the mind of heavy-drinking, heavy-smoking, heavy-swearing Clough as he meets the players he hates with a passion and fears out of fear at his own failings. The ego-mouth of English football is shown to have a fragility of confidence at Elland Road. But this is played against the self-believe that in part created his rise at Derby County where he took a losing second division side to English Champions in the late 1960s. They even went to a European Cup semi-final, only to lose to a Juventus side who had given gifts to the match referee.

The Damned United surges through the days at Elland Road, carrying me along with it at a pace that rushes the mind. The tobacco stained corridors, sweat-stinking changing rooms, motorway journeys and late night bargaining are all brought to life in a repetitive prose that makes you feel that you are stomping along the corridors, around the corners and onto the training pitches with Mr Clough.

I recommend it not only for football fans but for anyone interested in biography-based novels and modern English fiction. The text repeats on itself, charging faster-and-faster as it runs through the thought processes of a man possessed - by his genius, by his mission, by his alcoholism but most of all by football.