Brian Clough
Brian Howard Clough was an English football player and manager, primarily known for his successes as a manager with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He is one of four managers to have won the English league with two different clubs. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest managers of all time. Charismatic, outspoken and often controversial, his achievements with Derby and Forest, two clubs with little prior history of success, are rated among the greatest in football history. His teams were also noted for playing attractive football and for their good sportsmanship. Despite applying several times and being a popular choice for the job, he was never appointed England manager and has been dubbed the "greatest manager England never had".
Clough played as a striker for Middlesbrough and Sunderland, scoring 251 league goals in 274 matches; he remains one of the Football League's highest goalscorers. He won two England caps. He entered management after his playing career was ended by a serious injury at the age of 29. As a manager, Clough was closely associated with Peter Taylor, who served as his assistant manager at several clubs in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He is also remembered for giving frequent radio and television interviews in which he made controversial remarks about players, other managers and the overall state of the game. In 1965, he took the manager's job at Fourth Division Hartlepools United and appointed Peter Taylor as his assistant, the start of an enduring partnership that would bring them success at several clubs over the next two decades. In 1967, the duo moved on to Second Division Derby County who, in 1968–69, were promoted as Second Division champions and, three years later, crowned champions of England for the first time in the club's history. In 1973, they reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. By this point, Clough's relationship with chairman Sam Longson had deteriorated; he and Taylor resigned.
An eight-month spell in charge of Third Division club Brighton & Hove Albion followed, before Clough returned north in the summer of 1974 to become manager of Leeds United. This was widely regarded as a surprise appointment, given his previous outspoken criticism of the Leeds players and their manager Don Revie. He was sacked after just 44 days in the job, but within months, he had joined Second Division Nottingham Forest, where he was re-united with Taylor in the summer of 1976. In 1977, Forest were promoted to the top flight and the following season won the league title, making Clough one of only four managers to have won the English league with two clubs. Forest also won two consecutive European Cups and two League Cups, before Taylor retired in 1982. Clough stayed on as Forest manager for another decade and won two more League Cups and reached the FA Cup final in 1991, but could not emulate his earlier successes. Forest were relegated from the Premier League in 1993, after which Clough retired from football.
Childhood
Brian Howard Clough was born on Thursday, 21 March 1935 at 11 Valley Road, an inter-war council house in Grove Hill, Middlesbrough, North Riding of Yorkshire, He was the sixth of nine children of a local sweet shop worker, later sugar boiler and then manager. The eldest, Elizabeth, died on 11 February 1927 of septicaemia at the age of three. 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." On his upbringing in Middlesbrough, Clough claimed that it was "not the most well-appointed place in the world, but to me it was heaven". "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 until night, working harder than you or I have ever worked."Clough failed his Eleven-plus examination and attended Marton Grove Secondary Modern School. He later admitted in his autobiography, Walking on Water, that he had neglected his lessons in favour of sport, although at school he became Head Boy. He also said that cricket, rather than football, was his first love as a youngster, and that he would have rather scored a test century at Lord's than a hat-trick at Wembley. He left school in 1950 without any qualifications, to work at ICI and did his national service in the RAF Regiment between 1953 and 1955.
Playing career
Clough played for Great Broughton Juniors and, while working for ICI, Billingham Synthonia before his national service in the RAF between 1953 and 1955. He combined playing football in the forces, though he was never selected for the RAF National team, and playing for the Boro third team when on leave.Middlesbrough
Following this, he became a prolific striker for his home town club Middlesbrough since his debut in the 1955–56 season and an impressive 1956–57 season now as starter, scoring 204 goals in 222 league matches for Boro, including 40 or more goals in four consecutive seasons, being Division Two topscorer in two of them: 1958–59 and 1959–60. However, Clough also regularly submitted transfer requests since the 1957–58 season and had a tense relationship with some of his fellow players. He was especially irked by Boro's leaky defence, which conceded goals as regularly as he scored them. In the 1960–61 season after a 6–6 draw against Charlton Athletic, Clough sarcastically asked his teammates how many goals they would have to score in order to win a match. He also publicly accused some of his teammates of betting against the team and deliberately letting in goals. While at Middlesbrough, Clough became acquainted with goalkeeper Peter Taylor, with whom he would later form a successful managerial partnership at several clubs.Sunderland
In July 1961, one of Clough's transfer requests was finally accepted and he moved to Boro's local rivals Sunderland for £55,000 scoring 34 goals in the 1961–62 season. With Sunderland, Clough scored a total of 63 goals in 74 matches. In the 1962–63 season, Clough had scored 24 league goals by December as Sunderland pushed for promotion. In a match against Bury at Roker Park on 26 December 1962, in icy conditions and torrential rain, Clough was put through on goal and collided with goalkeeper, Chris Harker. Clough tore the medial and cruciate ligaments in his knee, an injury which in that era usually ended a player's career. He returned two years later, but could manage only three games and then retired from playing at the age of 29.Clough's manager at Sunderland was Alan Brown, a disciplinarian credited as a big influence on Clough. Brown inspired fear, imposed a strict code of conduct and would fine players for minor transgressions. He once upbraided Clough for talking to a friend during a training session. Such traits would later be adopted by Clough himself when he became a manager.
Of the players who have scored over 200 goals in the English leagues, Clough has the highest goals-per-game ratio of 0.916, and has the second highest ratio in the list that includes the Scottish leagues.
England
Clough played twice for the England national football team, against Wales on 17 October 1959 and Sweden on 28 October 1959, without scoring, although hitting the crossbar and post against Sweden.Management career
Hartlepools United
After a short spell coaching the Sunderland youth team, in October 1965, Clough was offered the manager's job at Hartlepools United. He accepted and immediately asked Peter Taylor to join him as his assistant. At the age of 30, Clough was then the youngest manager in the league. Hartlepools were perennial strugglers and had repeatedly had to apply for re-election to the Football League, having finished in the bottom two of the Fourth Division five times in the past six seasons. Such was the club's perilous financial state in the 1965–66 season, Clough had to tour local pubs raising money to keep the club afloat and even applied for a coach driver's licence to drive the team to away matches.On 15 November 1966, the then chairman, Ernest Ord, who was known for playing mind games with managers, sacked Clough's assistant Peter Taylor, claiming he could not afford to pay him anymore. Clough refused to accept it so Ord sacked him as well. However, there was a boardroom coup where the other board members refused to ratify the two sackings and which instead saw Ord ousted as chairman. Both Clough and Taylor were reinstated. Hartlepools' fortunes gradually improved and the club finished in a creditable eighth place in 1966–67. Their Hartlepools team featured three players who would play for Clough and Taylor at other clubs in the future: Les Green, who would be goalkeeper in Derby's promotion-winning side of 1969, Tony Parry who Clough signed for Derby in 1972 in what is seen as a helpful gesture to his former club who needed funds from transfers and a 16-year-old John McGovern, who would later be signed by Clough at Derby County, Leeds United and Nottingham Forest, winning several major trophies in the process. On 14 May 1967, the two men then joined Second Division side Derby County as manager and assistant manager. They took charge on 1 June 1967. In the following season, Hartlepools were promoted for the first time in their history.
Derby County
Derby County had been rooted in the Second Division for a decade before Clough's arrival, and had been outside the top flight for a further five years, their only major trophy being the FA Cup in 1946.In Clough's first season, the club finished one place lower than in the previous season, but he had started to lay the foundations for his future success by signing several new players, among them Roy McFarland, John O'Hare, John McGovern, Alan Hinton and Les Green. Of the inherited squad, 11 players departed and only four were retained: Kevin Hector, Alan Durban, Ron Webster and Colin Boulton. Clough also sacked the club secretary, the groundsman and the chief scout, along with two tea ladies he caught laughing after a Derby defeat. With the additional signings of Dave Mackay and Willie Carlin in 1968–69, Clough and Taylor's management led Derby to become champions of the Second Division, establishing the club record of 22 matches without defeat on the way and the team was promoted to the First Division for the 1969–70 season.
Clough was universally seen as a hard but fair manager, who insisted on clean play from his players and brooked no stupid questions from the press. He insisted on being called "Boss" and earned great respect from his peers for his ability to turn a game to his and his team's advantage. Derby's first season back in the First Division saw them finish fourth, their best league finish for over twenty years, but, due to financial irregularities, the club was banned from Europe the following season and fined £10,000.
In 1970–71, the club finished ninth. In February 1971, Clough bolstered his squad by signing Colin Todd for a British record £175,000 on the same day Clough had denied that Derby were about to buy Todd. In the 1971–72 season, after tussling with Liverpool, Leeds United and Manchester City for the title, Derby finally topped the league table by one point after playing their final match, a 1–0 win over Liverpool. Manchester City did temporarily top the league after playing their last match, but had a slim chance of winning the title due to outstanding fixtures between the clubs directly below them. Peter Taylor took the players on holiday to Majorca as the clubs beneath them played their final matches. Clough was not with the squad, instead holidaying in the Isles of Scilly with his family and elderly parents. Both Liverpool and Leeds United had a chance to overtake Derby by winning their final matches but Leeds lost to Wolves and Liverpool drew at Arsenal, meaning Derby were league champions for the first time in their 88-year history. The team and management were on holiday when receiving the news they were champions.