Brian Clough...

English teams won the European Cup between 1977 and 1984. Ipswich and Tottenham won the Uefa cup in 1981 and 84. Everton won the Uefa Cup Winners Cup in 85.

He'd have been in his element. The best players and England should have dominated.

Yes it was 40 odd years ago but it shaped things to come.


What's wrong with wanting to win and be the best?

We're a nation of losers.

 

I don't know if you listen to Undr the Cosh? The recent one with John Gregory was particularly illuminating on managers from around that era. Obviously Mark Crossley's one, talking about Clough is amazing. Different times, as managers are not managers now, just coaches. Venables probably one of the first "coaches", as such. Gregory illuminates this well. I never really warmed to him in the past, but I think he comes over really well.

 

Clough is a bit of enigma, he gets a lot of headlines and rightly so for what was achieved at Forest & Derby but there is a school of thought that Clough was a great man Manager but it was Taylor who was the football & tactical genius of the two.

 

To be fair, the best players in those teams weren't English.

Dalgleish, Rush, Souness, Hanson, Heighway, McGovern, Robertson etc al.

 

Bought my dad a Clough biography for his birthday last week. He was in a great centre forward and a great manager in the 70s and 80s, but by the 90s he was a shadow of his former self - much due to his battle with the bottle.

 

John McGovern was an enigma, almost ignored or even disliked by fans of the clubs he played for, yet Clough signed him four times.

If Cloughie was managing England today Jordan Henderson would likely be first player on team sheet.

 

I've read most of the Cloughie books as I was always a big fan.
I can recommend another that I read recently called 'Be good, love Brian'.
It's by Craig Bromfield and tells the story of how Brian Clough took him into his family home after a chance meeting in Sunderland.
Reveals another side of the man that not many got to see.

 

Yes I have read as many books as I could and he must have been the most charasmatic man in football. With out a doubt a genius. No one will ever achieve what he did at Forest they were going no where in division 2 when he took hold of them.

 

He'd have had him alongside him. For England I'd have thought.

 

Derby fans marched in protest when they sacked him, never heard of that since or before.

 

Agree on the Liverpool team but Forest's best players were Peter Shilton, Viv Anderson and Trevor Francis. Robertson was good but the rest were journeymen whose whole was greater than the individual parts.

 

Fair point - just had a further look and you're correct.

 

In the 1980 win 5 Scots played including John Robertson who scored the winning goal.

 

Didn’t Clough say more than once he’d have picked Glenn Hoddle and built the rest of the team around him

 

An excellent book , well worth a read

I believe Craig was also interviewed on under the cosh just before his book was released, the presenters were stunned listening to his account of how he was befriended by Clough

An incredible story that could never happen today

 

Clough is on many occasions bigged up John Robertson.
His team talks often consisted of just get the ball to him and he did an interview before a big European game where he dismissed the opposition with a ‘we have a fat lad on the wing who may just be the difference’

 

Think Ipswich as well, had the couple of Dutch lads and John Wark but spine of Cooper, Mills, Butcher, Mariner etc

 

Yes, I’ve listened to the Undr the Cosh episode too.

 

Yes, was a brilliant story that. Everyone has flaws in their personality & demons. How Cloughie treat that lad was outstanding. If you say you are a socialist, treat people right. That is surely the definition. It has only rarely been delivered by politicians, for a variety of reasons.

 

His cross to Trevor Francis. Holy Moly.