The Damned Utd [Paperback]

David Peace (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'The most extraordinary novel about football yet to appear.' Tim Martin, Independent on Sunday"

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 346 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber (January 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571224334
• ISBN-13: 978-0571224333
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #413,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic read February 18, 2009

By Jon Cummins

Format: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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE MOVIE October 9, 2009

By Whippany Reader

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Fascinating story about a bygone era. From a distance of 3,000 miles, Brian Clough always struck me as a brilliant but flawed man, and this novel certainly portrayed both his genius and his myriad failings. Gifted but stubborn; charming but angry; sentimental but insensitive; rigid but rogueish - he was all these and more, and the novel - based on his catastrophic 44-day reign at Leeds United - presents it all. Highly recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Odd, young man June 18, 2009

By Pastor of Disaster

Format:Paperback

hmm, I am still undecided about this. I grew up in the English midlands and am still a die-hard Stoke City supporter, although exposed to large quantities of "Cloughie". I cannot decide what I really think of this book, as I did not know any of the protagonists well enough. You certainly get a sense from Brian Cloughs autobiographies that he might have been like this, but to be fair, who has a constantly running internal monologue like the one presented in the book? That being said, it is certainly a powerful book, and in my opinion sometimes reads more like a war story, certainly in the attitude of the troops to the new unpopular commander. I'm delighted to report that Stoke handed out some monumental batterings to Leeds in the 70s, and that Don Revie turned out to be a rubbish England manager and a traitor to English football. It indeed was a crime that Clough was no6t given the England managers job, especially when you see some of the clowns that subsequently held the post. (Glen Hoddle anyone?) Cloughie simply upset too many mandarins in the FA and his outspoken personality was ultimately his undoing.

As much as anything, this book shows the changes that football has undergone in the intervening 30 years, gone are the days where the manager was conducting the deals directly with players, doing backroom stuff, watering the pitches, and football is the worse for it. The game has been re-engineered to suit a fewer number of global megaclubs and it is no longer the pursuit of the working man.

I know that the majority of reviewers on this site of American, and well done to those of you that have tackled this book, but I do recommend you dig out some old clips of his inteviews and read some more about him. He may not have been a likeable man, but he was always in interesting one, a flawed one, and a talented one.

Perhaps this book does convey some of the essence of what Cloughie was about after all.