The legend on the picture above was born in Grove Hill, Middlesbrough,
on 21 March 1935 and
came from a large family. He is now married to Barbara and they have
three grown children together,
Libby, Simon and Nigel, the famous number nine.
The Player, Brian Clough Let's take a look at Brian's early days as a player. Brian left school
and began to work at ICI
and played for Billingham Synthonia and Great Broughton before finally
joining Middlesbrough
in November 1951. He was at that time seventeen years old. Brian became
a full-time professional
in May 1952 but did not make his League debut until September1955 in a
game against Barnsley.
He probably got the opportunity because of many injuries at Boro.
After that, he became a first team regular and became the leading scorer
for three seasons in a row.
The only setback was that his goals could not get Boro promoted. Finally
he began to make transfer
requests and desperatly wanted to leave the club, but he had to wait until
July 1961 when Sunderland
took over his contract, paying £45.000. When he left Boro he had
scored 204 goals in 213 games.
At Sunderland he played two seasons and scored 53 goals before the sad
day on Boxing Day*
when he collided with the Bury goalkeeper. His player career was over.
Clough played 274 games
and scored 251 goals but only got 2 England caps for his efforts.
* The Manager, Brian Clough Following the accident, he briefely joined Sunderlands coaching staff
but soon looked for other
options. An opening for him came at Hartlepools United where he became
boss. His old friend and
companion, Peter Taylor also came from Middlesbrough to help him out. The
two of them turned
the fortunes around for the Fourth Division club. They got promoted
in the 1967-68 season, but
by then they had already left for Derby County.
The club were a mediocre Second Division club with only memories of the
glory days before the war.
Could Clough turn things around for Derby too?
The answer was yes! County won the Second Division with seven points in
1969. The club supporters
must have felt relieved and the respect for Brian's abilities must have
been high, but even greater
things was about to happen to the club.
Everyone began to speculate which club Clough would go to next, but he
stayed at the
Baseball Ground. In the season 1971-72 he guided the club to it's first and only
League Championship title.
The next season he took the team to the semi-final in the European Cup.
When things looked so good, things turned for the worse at the Baseball
Ground. In 1973, after a
dispute with Rams chairman Sam Longson, he resigned together with his work-horse
Peter Taylor.
It was a very dark and tragic day for the Derby fans.
A month afterwards, Clough and Taylor were back in business again. This
time they were to turn
things around for Brighton & Hove Albion. The chairman, Mike Bamber
and the fans all got the hopes
up, but the team finished 19th in the third division in 1973-74 and there
was not to be a next season at
the club. The reason for this was the appointment of Don Revie as the new
England boss.
Suddenly, Leeds United were without a manager.
The stay at Leeds also were very brief. Some of the experienced and established
players did not
like Clough's way of running things. Clough left Leeds after only 44 days
at the club.
No new club was available straight away, but after 4 months a club got
interested in him. The club
was Nottingham Forest. He was appointed manager in January 1975 and his
first signing was his
first team trainer in both Derby County and Leeds, Jimmy Gordon.
Clough got a win directly, when Forest won against Tottenham in the FA
Cup replay at the
White Hart Lane after a goal from Neil Martin but he realised that the
squad was too thin. There
was a lack of quality players. He brought in two players from his Derby
days, John McGovern
and John O'Hare.
In July 1976 his old friend Peter Taylor joined him again as he left Brighton
Albions after missing
the promotion with three points. He was welcomed with open arms at the
City Ground.
After his arrival to the club, players like John Robertson, Viv Anderson,
Tony Woodcock and
Martin O'Neill began to blossom and after signing quality players like
Peter Withe and
Larry Lloyd things started to turn around for the club. Forest were promoted
to the First Division
in the season 1976-77. Now followed a couple of successful years for the
club. Clough became
the second manager to take two different clubs to the Football League Championship.
Suddenly clubs like Derby and Sunderland tried to lure him back to them
but Clough stayed
at the City Ground. Clough managed to take Forest to two successive European
Cup wins
in 1979 against Malmö FF and in 1980 against Hamburger SV making Nottingham
Forest
one of the most succesful teams in the world.
Things turned for the worse in 1982 when new signings like Justin Fashanu,
Ian Wallace and
Peter Ward became major disappointments. Forest finished in the bottom
half of the table for
the first time since Clough came to the club. The next blow was when
Peter Taylor announced
his retirement from football. However, he made a comeback and joined Derby
County a year
later and also "stole" John Robertson when Clough was on a holiday. The
friendship ended
between the two and it stayed that way until the death of Peter Taylor
in 1990.
Clough was to rebuild the team in the mid 80's but the clubs bad finances
put his plans to a
grind halt. Now came a couple of years of bad results even though Forest
finished third in
the league in 1983-84.
Brian also were rejected to take charge of the Welsh national team and
there were rumours
of his resignation but he stayed loyal as ever at the City Ground.
At last in 1989, Forest won the Littlewoods Cup against Luton Town and
they repeated the
effort the following year against Oldham Athletic. In 1991 he was back
at Wembley again
in the FA Cup Final but lost to Tottenham Hotspur. Clough had once again
built up a team
and they did well in the 1991-92 season, reaching the FA Cup Quater-final
and the
League Cup Final.
The curtain falls Sadly the team got relegated after the 1992-93 season and the legend
Brian Clough
resigned from the club and from football.
Achievements Brian Clough won the following during his manager career:
League champions, 1971-72(Derby County), 1977-78(Nottingham Forest),
League Cup, 1977-78, 1978-79, 1988-89, 1989-90(Nottingham Forest),
European Cup, 1978-79, 1979-80(Nottingham Forest),
Watney Cup, 1970-71(Derby County), Anglo-Scot Cup, 1976-77(Nottingham Forest),
Super Cup, 1979-80(Nottingham Forest), Simod Cup, 1988-89,
ZDS Cup, 1991-92(Nottingham Forest).
He has also received 24 managerial awards including Manager of the year
in 1978.
As a player he achieved the following: 274 apperances and 251 goals.
