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Clough holds hands with Spurs boss Terry Venables as the teams walk out for the 1991 FA Cup final |
Camden Book Reviews | Brian Clough | Provided you dont kiss me: 20 years with Brian Clough | Duncan Hamilton
Brian Clough remains a cult figure among football fans for his madcap management. A new book offers an insight into how he achieved his goals, writes Dan Carrier
THE 1991 FA Cup final pitted two of football’s great characters against each other. Leading the Nottingham Forest side out at Wembley was Brian Clough, a man who had turned unfancied provincial also-rans into league champions and then lifted the European Cup twice, but had never been in a FA Cup Final.
In the other corner for Spurs was Terry Venables, a controversial figure who had enjoyed success with Barcelona, made Crystal Palace trendy and generally done everything with a cockney swagger which made him perfect for the back pages.
Spurs ran out winners and it is said that after the game, instead of heading into the dressing room to console his charges, Clough sat forlornly in the dugout alone, clutching his loser’s medal and ignoring the needs of the team he had put together.
It was an act of eccentricity – but just the type of behaviour seasoned observers had become used to.
And quite how eccentric and occasionally absurd Brian Clough could be is revealed by sports writer Duncan Hamilton. He spent 20 years covering Nottingham Forest and during that time had to put up with – and occasionally bask in – the inner workings of a flawed football genius.
This is not a straightforward biography. Instead it reads almost as a psychological discussion of what makes one man a success – makes a person stand out above others. Hamilton is a seasoned hack – he lays bare some truths about the grimy side of football reporting.
It seems like a dream job, from getting a free ticket to the football and a seat behind the manager and then the chance to discuss the game afterwards with the major figures, to being served complimentary soup and sarnies at half-time.
Hamilton was standing just behind Clough through the 20 years of success and failures at the club. He saw the madness, the slow and sad descent into alcoholism. He also watched Clough create a barnstorming persona that meant he was the fans’ favourite and the nemesis of directors and FA administrators.
Hamilton first met Clough as a green 18-year-old on his first day as a cub reporter for the Nottingham Evening Post, trembling in a shirt and tie ironed by his mum and clutching some typed questions.
Clough gave him a grilling. He asked him about his background.
When Hamilton revealed his working-class roots – his father was a miner from Newcastle – Clough visibly warmed.
He had a similar upbringing, and it was the start of an often fraught, occasionally paternal relationship between the pair that lasted for the rest of Clough’s football career.
Hamilton’s book is superbly paced. It tells the stories any football fan wants to hear: the truth behind his relationship with his assistant Peter Taylor and its subsequent breakdown; his unique management style – praise those doing badly, hammer those doing well; insist on complete and utter discipline down to the crew-cuts he liked his players to sport. With the football season over and the long summer months to wait till Saturdays have a purpose again, Hamilton’s book, a rare, intelligent sports biography, will help while away those dark, close-season hours.
It is not about the conquests of Europe but the personal demons a man has to overcome to find professional satisfaction – about how genius can be a heavy burden to bear.
Above all it is a timely piece of social history.
Watching the recent European Cup final, you could see in Sir Alex Ferguson perhaps the last of the great, working-class football managers. Now the game is run by multi-national companies and players’ agents. Add to this the changes in employment laws, and the footballers having a much greater say over their own careers.
John Terry accused of spitting at the opposition? Didier Drogba being sent off moments before a penalty shootout? It would have driven a man like Brian Clough to despair.
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