Brian Clough

Brian Howard Clough, OBE was born in Middlesbrough on 21 March 1935 and died at Derby City Hospital on 20 September 2004. He was a talented footballer and subsequently a successful football manager, most notable for his success with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He is considered one of the best football managers Britain has ever produced.

Childhood

Born at number 11 Valley Road, Grove Hill, Middlesbrough, he was the son of a local sweet factory worker, and the fifth of eight children. When talking of his childhood he said he "adored it in all its aspects. If anyone should be grateful for their upbringing, for their mam and dad, I’m that person. I was the kid who came from a little part of paradise”. Middlesbrough is not the most attractive place in the world, “But to me it was heaven”, said Clough. “Everything I have done, everything I’ve achieved, everything that I can think of that has directed and affected my life – apart from the drink – stemmed from my childhood. Maybe it was the constant sight of mam, with eight children to look after, working from morning till night, working harder than you or I have ever worked”.

Playing career

Clough was a prolific striker for his home town club Middlesbrough scoring 204 goals in 222 starts for Boro, he then signed for Sunderland and scored 63 goals in only 74 games. Unfortunately for Clough on 26 December 1962, he injured his knee during a match against Bury after colliding with the goalkeeper. It turned out to be a cruciate ligament injury, which usually ended a player's career at that time. Clough returned two years later but could only manage three games before retiring. He played twice for England, against Wales on 17 October 1959 and Sweden on 28 October 1959, without scoring. That he didn't win more England caps always mystified Clough.

Management career

Hartlepool and Derby County

Clough then went on to manage Hartlepool United with Peter Taylor as his assistant manager, before they both joined Derby County as manager and assistant manager in 1967. At Derby, Clough and Taylor won promotion to the Football League First Division (then the highest echelon of English football) within two years. Clough was universally seen as a hard but fair manager, who insisted on clean play from his players and brooked no stupid questions with the press. He was famous for insisting on being called 'Mr Clough' and earned great respect from his peers for his ability to turn a game to his and his team's advantage.

During the 1971-72 season, Derby tussled with and for the title. Leading the table by one point having played their last match, Clough took his players on holiday to Spain, where they learned that both title rivals had failed to win their final matches, meaning that Derby became champions for the first time in their history.

The following season Derby reached the semi-finals of the European Cup, but were knocked out by Juventus 3-1 on aggregate in very controversial circumstances. It later emerged that the West German referee had indeed received gifts from the Italian side before the match. Clough himself accused the Juventus team of being "Cheating Bastards" and then questioned the Italian nations courage in the war. Clough's frequent outspoken comments against football's establishment (which had led to Derby being threatened with expulsion from the League) eventually led to him falling out with the board of directors at the club, and Clough and Taylor both left in 1973, to widespread uproar from Rams fans, who demanded the board resign and Clough be reinstated.

Brighton and Leeds United

Such was the loyalty to Clough that along with himself and Taylor, scouts and backroom staff completed the walk out, following the pair for their brief spell with Brighton & Hove Albion. He proved less successful on the South Coast than with his previous club, winning only 12 of his 32 games in charge of the Third Division side. Whereas eight months earlier Clough was managing a team playing Juventus in the European Cup and eighteen months earlier guided a club to their first ever league championship, he was now managing a club who, just after his appointment as manager, lost to Walton and Hersham 4-0 at home in an FA Cup replay and who lost 8-2 at home to Bristol Rovers, and eventually finished in 19th place.

Clough left less than a year after his appointment to become manager of Leeds United following Don Revie's departure to become manager of England, though this time Taylor didn't join him. Such a move was surprising, given Clough's previous outspoken criticism of Revie and his team's playing style. Shortly after his appointment Clough famously told the Leeds players that they should throw all their medals in the bin, since they'd won them unfairly. He lasted in the job only 44 days before he was sacked after upsetting many of Leeds's star players, notably Johnny Giles, Norman Hunter and Billy Bremner.

Nottingham Forest

In January 1975, Clough made a quick return to management with Nottingham Forest, who at the time were a Second Division side. A year later he was joined by his old assistant Taylor. They transformed the club's fortunes and the first success at the club came in Clough's second full season (1976-77) when they won promotion to the First Division. In their first season after promotion they won the League Cup, beating Liverpool F.C. 1-0 in a replay at Old Trafford, and were crowned champions of the First Division, finishing seven points clear of nearest challengers Liverpool.

This made Clough the first manager since Herbert Chapman to win the English Championship with two different clubs. During the 1978-79 season, Clough signed the 24-year-old Birmingham City F.C. striker Trevor Francis - Britain's first £1million footballer (although Clough insisted that the fee was actually £999,999). Forest retained the League Cup, but finished as runners-up to Liverpool in the league. The season was rounded off with victory in the European Cup final, thanks to a 1-0 over Malmö FF. A year later, Clough guided Forest to a second successive European Cup after victory over Kevin Keegan's Hamburg and a third successive League Cup final, though this time they were defeated by .

It was not until 1988-89 that Clough and Forest would enjoy another major trophy success, this time over Luton Town F.C. in the League Cup again. For a time, Forest were on course for a treble that season, but ultimately had to settle for 3rd place in the league and a defeat in the FA Cup semi-finals. A year later, Clough guided Forest to another League Cup victory with a 1-0 over Oldham Athletic. In 1991 Forest reached their first FA Cup final under Brian Clough but lost 2-1 to Tottenham Hotspur. They reached the League Cup final again in 1992, but lost 1-0 to Manchester United

The 1992-93 season was Clough's 18th with Forest - and his last. They were one of the 22 clubs in the new Premier League, but the sale of key players like Teddy Sheringham and Des Walker, combined with the manager's increasingly uncontrolled alcoholism, saw the club's fortunes take a sharp decline and they were bottom virtually all season. Just before a 2-0 defeat against Sheffield United F.C. confirmed the club's relegation after 16 years in the top flight, Clough announced his retirement as manager.

Retirement

Clough retired as manager of Nottingham Forest F.C. in May 1993 to be succeeded by the Leyton Orient manager Frank Clark. He spent the majority of his retirement living in Quarndon in Derbyshire before moving to Derby itself.

Much of his retirement was spent concentrating on his fight against alcoholism which had plagued him since the 1970s. He considered applying for the job as manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. on the resignation of Graham Taylor in October 1995, perhaps thinking that he could take the struggling club (then just above the relegation zone in the new First Division) to the same heights to which he took Nottingham Forest. But nothing came of it and Clough's managerial career was over. Nottingham Forest honoured him by renaming the City Ground's Executive Stand the Brian Clough Stand. Clough was made an Inaugural Inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his impact as manager.

In the early 1990s, Clough was implicated in the "bungs" scandal in English football involving then manager Terry Venables and Spurs chairman Alan Sugar and particularly the transfer of Teddy Sheringham from Forest to Spurs. Clough was alleged to have been receiving illegal payments during transfer negotiations and making illegal payments to players^*. Owing to Clough's declining health when the case was put together, he was never formally charged by the FA.

Clough's relationship with Peter Taylor, his assistant at Derby, Brighton and Forest, was damaged permanently in 1983 over the transfer of John Robertson. The two fell out when Taylor, who had retired in 1982 but then become manager of Derby, signed the Forest winger without telling Clough beforehand. The rift had not been repaired by the time Taylor died in October 1990, but Clough and his family attended Taylor's funeral. Some say that guilt over this unreconciled rift increased Clough's already heavy drinking. Clough dedicated his autobiography in 1994 to Taylor and when given the freedom of Nottingham also paid tribute to him, as he did in 1999 when a bust was unveiled of Clough at the City Ground.

In January 2003, the 67-year-old Clough underwent a liver transplant; 30 years of heavy drinking had taken its toll and doctors said that Clough would have died within two weeks without a transplant, as it was severely damaged and cancer had been found within it. The transplant gave Clough a new lease of life for the next 20 months.

Clough's reputation for never sitting on the fence and ever-strong views on all manner of football issues translated into an entertaining and sometimes controversial column which he wrote for Four Four Two magazine up until his death.

Death and legacy

Clough died of stomach cancer on 20 September 2004, at the age of 69.

Such was his popularity, fans of Derby County and Nottingham Forest, usually the fiercest of rivals, mourned together following his passing. A memorial service was held at Derby's Pride Park Stadium on 21 October 2004 which was attended by over 14,000 people. It was originally to be held at Derby Cathedral, but had to be moved due to demand for tickets.

Clough was often seen as the English public's pick for manager of England, but he was never given the job by the Football Association, presumably because FA officials were nervous about his outspoken nature and habit of causing controversy. To this day Clough is widely regarded as "the best manager England never had".

In September 1989, British punk band the Toy Dolls, released the album Wakey Wakey, featuring a song entitled Cloughy is a Bootboy!, which describes an altercation between a fan and the resulting court case.

Clough was reportedly being considered for a knighthood for his services to soccer when he died. He already had an OBE and joked that it stood for "Old Big 'Ead".

Unusually for someone in British professional sport, Clough was a committed socialist, often appearing on miners' picket lines and being a sponsor of the Anti Nazi League.

His son, Nigel Clough, currently manages Burton Albion F.C.

In June 2005 the Nottingham Playhouse premiered a play called Old Big 'Ead in The Spirit of the Man, by the Nottingham-born playwright Stephen Lowe, in which Brian Clough "takes to the stage.. quite literally!", portrayed by actor Colin Tarrant. Later that year, the A52 trunk road which links Derby and Nottingham was formally renamed "Brian Clough Way" in his honour.

In 2000, composer Robert Steadman wrote a song called Brian Clough's CV as part of his Nottingham Songbook which was premiered in the Millennium Dome.

Quotations

"I certainly wouldn't say I'm the best manager in the business, but I'm in the top one."

"Get in there - that's what I pay you for!" - to Derby County players at a training session.

"You got all those medals by cheating" - to the Leeds United players on his first day as manager.

"If a chairman sacks a manager that he initially appointed, then he should go as well."

"John Robertson was a very unattractive young man, if one day, I felt a bit off colour, I would sit next to him. I was bloody Errol Flynn compared to him."

"If God had intended for us to play football in the clouds he would have put grass up there" - referring to the long ball game.

"If a player had said to Bill Shankly 'I've got to speak to my agent', Bill would have hit him. And I would have held him while he hit him."

"It was like a morgue in the dressing room after the game, and it's still like a morgue now. If that's what defeat feels like, we don't want to go through it again - oh, it's rotten" - interview with ITV after defeat for Forest in the 1980 League Cup final.

"Derby County were here a long time before Robert Maxwell" - on agreeing with a protest by Derby fans against Maxwell's ownership of the club.

"They thought I was going to change it lock, stock and barrel. They were shrewd because that's exactly what I would have done" - on why he was rejected by the FA for the England job.

"I'd ask him how he thinks it should be done, have a chat about it for twenty minutes and then decide I was right" - on dealing with players disagreeing with his methods.

"I like my women to be feminine and not rolling around in mud" on what he thought of women's football

"Don't send me flowers when I'm dead, send them to me now if you like me."

"I want no epitaphs of profound history or all that kind of thing. I contributed, I hope they would say that and I hope that somebody liked me."

"For all his horses, knighthoods and championships, he hasn't got two of what I've got. And I don't mean balls." - on Sir Alex Ferguson's failure to match his record of two European Cup wins.

"Who thought Derby County could be turned into League champions; that any manager could bounce back from getting the bullet after 44 days with a great club and go on to prove himself among the best managers of all time; that what was done at Derby could be repeated at Forest; that after winning one European Cup, we could retain it; that a brash, self-opinionated young footballer, cut down by injury in his prime, would go on to achieve more impressive fame as a brash, highly successful manager?"

External links

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