The Damned Utd

Description

1974 was the year Britain had two general elections and there was great uncertainty in the air. Overachieving and eccentric football manager Brian Clough was on his way to take over at one of the country's most successful and most reviled football club: Leeds United, home to a generation of fiercely competitive but ageing players. Cloughie knows if this is to work, it will have to work his way. His successes, his triumphs and his trophies count for nothing in this godforsaken corner of West Yorkshire. But his dreams, as well as that of his fellow countrymen, are not well starred. 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.

John Simm, 'one of the best actors of his generation' (Independent), is the star of the BBC TV series Life on Mars, recently appeared as The Master in Dr Who, and is an acclaimed stage actor and reader. David Peace is the author of The Red Riding Quartet and was chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. In 2004 he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel GB84. Tokyo Year Zero, the first book of his Tokyo Trilogy, will be published in Autumn 2007. He lives in Tokyo with his wife and two children.

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