The Damned Utd

One of Mike Atherton's 'Top Ten Best Sports Books' in The Times





In 1974 the brilliant and controversial Brian Clough made perhaps his most eccentric decision: he accepted the Leeds United manager's job. As successor to Don Revie, his bitter adversary, he was to last only 44 days. In one of the most acclaimed novels of this or any other year, David Peace takes us into the mind and thoughts of Ol'Big'Ead himself, and brings vividly to life one of post-war Britain's most complex and fascinating characters.



David Peace was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He attended Manchester Polytechnic from 1988-91 and got a BA in English. He taught English in Istanbul from 1992-1993 and then moved to Tokyo - where he has lived ever since.



His work to date has concerned itself the Yorkshire of the 70s and 80s - the place and time in which he grew up.



During the course of writing GB84, he found out that his great-great-grandfather, his great-grandfather and his brothers were all miners. He also found out that many of them were killed in the Thornhill Mining disaster of 1983 - when 139 men were killed.



He is the author of the Red Riding Quartet as well as GB84 and was included on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003.