By
Richard Churchill
Introduction
This project is a very brief report on the football legend,
Brian Clough. It will cover his playing and management
years, also it will show the honours inside and outside
football the man earned. I hope it will be informative for
everyone who reads it.
The early years
Brian Howard Clough was born on the 21st of March 1935 in
Middlesbrough. He was the fifth of eight children. He lived
on a council estate in Middlesbrough. His dad worked as a
sugar boiler in a local sweet factory, and his mum was a
housewife.
He was head boy at Marton Grove Secondary Modern School.
His dream was to play cricket for England. He left school at
fifteen with no formal qualifications, and upon doing so was
advised by his mum to put in for a nice job as a fitter and
turner at ICI, which he did until he failed his apprenticeship
at the age of sixteen. So he got a job filling in overtime
sheets for the same company, it was here he met his future
wife, Barbara. It is here he started to dream about becoming
a footballer. He was spotted playing for Great Broughton by
Ray Grant who helped run the Middlesbrough youth side.
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The player
After a short spell in the youth team he was given a
professional contract of £1 a week retainer and £7 if he
played. He then did his National Service in the RAF. When he
returned he made his professional debut against Barnsley on
17th September 1955 and scored his first league goal against
Leicester City on the 8th October 1955. He played a further
222 games for Middlesbrough scoring 204 goals, he played
there until 1961. In this time he won two England caps in
1959 against Wales and Sweden. He also became the
quickest ever player to score 200 league goals, a record
which still stands today.
In the July of 1961 he transferred to Sunderland for around
£45,000, he scored 54 goals in 61 games, until he was
injured on Boxing Day 1962. It was a knee cruciate ligament
injury which in those days finished careers. He finally retired
at the age of 29, in 1964 and joined the Sunderland coaching
staff. He was made youth team manager but was later
sacked.
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The manager
In 1965 he was given his first management job at
Hartlepools (now Hartlepool United). It was here one of the
greatest double acts in football management was to learn
their trade. Peter Taylor, who was a reserve goalkeeper at
Middlesbrough when Clough was playing, agreed to leave his
job as Burton Albion manager to assist Clough. He was there
for two seasons.
Both he and Taylor then went on to manage Derby County.
He took on a struggling 2nd division team. Within two
seasons he had won the 2nd division title, two seasons later
they were the football league champions and a season after
that they were European Cup semi-finalists. He resigned in
October 1973 due to the chairman questioning if he was up
to his job. The Derby County fans protested at the ground to
try to pressure the chairman to leave and Clough and Taylor
stay, but nothing came of this.
After this there was a brief appointment at Brighton & Hove
Albion between November 1973 and July 1974. Then in 1974
came the now infamous forty four days in charge of Leeds
United.
But then in January 1975 he became the manager of
Nottingham Forest again with Peter Taylor as his assistant.
Like Derby County before these were an awkward 2nd division
side, but yet again he was due to work his magic in his own
unique style. At this club he won the League Championship,
four League Cups, two European Cups and an Anglo-Scottish
Cup. Forest was to be his last club, in 1993 his last game in
charge was a 2.0 defeat by Sheffield United, which saw
Forest relegated.
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This is a chart showing his results per club:
Club Games Games Games Games Goals Goals
Played Won Drawn Lost Scored Agains
t
Hartlepoo 79 35 13 31 114 113
ls
Derby 264 126 61 77 397 298
County
Brighton 32 12 8 12 39 42
& Hove
Albion
Leeds 6 1 2 3 4 8
United
Nottingha 759 331 207 221 1124 837
m Forest
Total 1140 505 291 344 1678 1298
As you can see this table shows that the man is one of the
few long serving managers to finish with a winning record.
But it’s not just this that made him a special manager, he
also did things with a special style. He was the first manager
to have a coloured captain and England international in Viv
Anderson (in 1978), and was the first manager to spend a
million pound on a player, Trevor Francis (in 1979).
He was also famous for his outlandish statements (“I
wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the game, but I was
in the top one”) and his legendary nickname for himself was
Old Big Head. He was never afraid to speak his mind or to
sort out players who were getting too big for their own good.
There were all sorts of drama surrounding him, being
overlooked for the England job in 1977, alleged bungs,
slapping fans who invaded the pitch after a game (then
giving them a kiss as an apology), slapping players and of
course the drink.
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Life outside football
Outside football Clough was very much a family orientated
man (his mother installed that into him). He had two sons,
Simon and Nigel (who himself went on to play for England
and is now the manager of Derby County) and a daughter
Elizabeth. He was married to Barbara in 1959 and they were
still together when he passed away after a long battle with
the bottle on 24th September 2004. He was also a member
of the Labour Party and was offered to stand against Winston
Churchill for election. He was awarded the freedom on
Nottingham in 1993 and an OBE (some called the Order of
the Big ‘Ed) in 2002.
In memory of the man a bronze statue has been erected of
him in Nottingham.
Photo by: Ian Plumb
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Bibliography
www.brianclough.com
www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/sep/21/guardianobitua
ries.football
www.brianclough.com/
Clough: The Autobiography
