Overachieving and eccentric football manager Brian Clough was on his way to take over at the country's most successful, and most reviled football club: Leeds United, home to a generation of fiercely competitive but ageing players. The battle he'd face there would make or break the club - or him. David Peace's extraordinarily inventive novel tells the story of a world characterised by fear of failure and hunger for success set in the bleak heart of the 1970s.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"'The most extraordinary novel about football yet to appear.' Tim Martin, Independent on Sunday"
--This text refers to an alternate
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edition.
About the Author
David Peace was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He is the author of the Red Riding Quartet as well as GB84 and was included among Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003. He lives in Tokyo.
--This text refers to an alternate
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More About the Author
David Peace is the author of the Red Riding Quartet, GB84, The Damned Utd, Tokyo Year Zero, and Occupied City. He was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists of 2003, and has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the German Crime Fiction Award, and France's Grand Prix du Roman Noir for Best Foreign Novel. In 2007, he was named as GQ (UK) Writer of the Year. He lived in Tokyo for fifteen years before returning to his native Yorkshire.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic read,
By
This review is from: The Damned Utd (Paperback)
This is a must read for any fan of English soccer/football.
Here's what you should know going in: Brian Clough was a legendary English manager, known for his cantankerous personality and massive drinking problem. This book is fictional account of Brian Clough's 44 days of failure at Leeds United, written from his perspective, and interwoven with his great success at Derby County before he got the Leeds job, and at Nottingham Forest after he was fired by Leeds. It is very well researched by David Pearce, acting as a mini biography of Clough while providing great insight into his personality. It's very well written too, I could barely put it down.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Please make sure you read other literature on Cloughie & perhaps LUFC as well.,
By Tom Plum "TC" (Roswell, NM United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Damned Utd (Paperback)
We all have our "Dirty Leeds" in life. And please, I don't really know how this team played or judge them, these are just adjectives to me and work as a metaphor.
Okay, the basics are this is a running monologue, fiction based on true stories of a legendary football/soccer manager, Brian Clough. It is close to a one dimensional portrait of Clough, showing his aversion to "Dirty Leeds", a successful team back in the day of the mid-seventies who won the league that Derby played in, Derby being the team Clough managed prior to obtaining the head position at Leeds Utd. Football Club in 1974 and managering them for a period of only 44 days. There is a lot to this book on reflecting on it for some time. In principle, Clough has an ethical and principaled dislike of the style of winning and play with which Leeds United Football Club became champions of Division I (not the Premier League which is the 'modern' name) English soccer, it is indeed an obsession of Clough's. Let's give Clough the benefit of the doubt & let's suppose he has some right to hold these views. Leeds losing their former manager Don Revie who goes on to manage the England National Team hired Brian Clough who goes out to tear down and start anew the Leeds Club, to build it up from scratch in a way he sees suitable, selling off old players, etc. and with the new Leeds, a new silky smooth style of play was his vision. 'Cloughie' may have been successful at Leeds but for personal problems such as being cantankerous as he was and alcoholism which unfortunately, he really did suffer from in life. Now, I am wondering why Clough was so successful at Nottingham Forest a few years later though clearly, this was a big learning experience. Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough as an aside, is a good treatise of his time at Nottingham by a journalist who got to know Clough very well, Duncan Hamilton's book was the William Hill sports book of the year. How might the situation at Leeds have gone if Clough had been able to contain his demons? Or was it the board of directors that did not give him enough "lead way"? As usual, there is more to the story than meets the eye. Clough's success in managing also seems highly dependent on his left-hand man, even virtually a co-manager, Peter Taylor. Taylor was at Hartlepool, Derby and Nottingham, all places of success for Clough. No Taylor at Leeds and obviously, no success. The book really came alive it was so exciting, starting around pages 70-80 once I got use to the style of narrative here. The innovative writing style is used by Peace to present primarily two parallel stories that meet up with each other in time and intersect. Definitely worth a read but please, there are dozens of books on the subjects, of both Leeds United and Brian Clough. It is best to consider this book as but one volume out of many. A movie has come out, "The Damned United", but you consider other books out there such as the one about his time at Derby previously,Clough's War: Nothing Stirred Him More than a Fight Brian Cough's Battle for Derby County and you could have more movies, maybe a tv series.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For Fans Of English Football - Fact based Fiction,
By
This review is from: The Damned Utd (Paperback)
Peace gets inside the head of legendary manager Brian Clough as his inner monologue weaves back and forth between his successful run at Derby County to his short and contentious tenure at Leeds United in the 70s. As a sports book this is first rate. Clough was an acknowledged tough manager and he is portrayed here warts and all as a man who made few compromises in his pursuit of success on and off the pitch. Peace writes in a style that drives home Clough's obsession using constant repetition and flashback sequences that took me a short while to get adjusted to. Once you get into his rhythm the book is a very entertaining read. A knowledge of English football certainly helps to make sense of all this. Can't wait to see the film version.
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