The Damned Utd, by David Peace (2006)

David Peace’s ‘The Damned Utd’ (2006) is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary writer. (Ed. This piece was originally published on 27 November 2006, and was the first time I’d encountered one of Peace’s books. I subsequently tracked down and read almost of them.)

It’s a fictionalised account of Brian Clough’s 44 days in charge of Leed United Football Club in 1974, and it captures perfectly the essence of the age, the sport and the men of the time, most of all the unique Clough himself. It’s utterly compelling, deceptively hovering between fact and fiction, yet with writing so intensely well-honed that you don’t care which is which.

Peace’s method of conveying the madness of those 44 days is essentially through the knots of repeated short phrases — James Ellroy as Yorkshireman — that enclose, tighten and trap Clough in ever-decreasing circles. It’s a method well-suited to capturing the internal claustrophobia of the football club hidden within the very public pressure, intensified by the fictional Clough’s near-psychosis and drink-fuelled paranoia. It’s a cracking book.

While it will have particular resonance for followers of football, I’d suggest it would deliver for those that aren’t. Though fiction, it certainly conjures the bleakly gnawing reality of Northern Britain in the 1970s, caught between austerity and prosperity…