Legendary manager Brian Clough, who led unfashionable Nottingham Forest to two European Cup titles, died aged 69 on Monday.
Clough, a great motivator and tactician who led Forest to two European Cup wins in 1979 and 1980, was a controversial character but also universally admired for his contribution to English football.
Clough, who had struggled with health problems the past few years and had a liver transplant in January this year, died of stomach cancer, which had been diagnosed shortly after his operation but had deteriorated last week. His family was with him by his bedside.
A memorable episode came in 1989 when Clough — fondly known as Old Big Head — was fined £5 000 by the FA after striking two fans who ran on to the pitch at Forest’s City Ground following their League Cup quarterfinal victory against QPR.
He later literally kissed and made up with two of the fans by inviting them back to Forest’s ground.
He was brutally blunt about why he never received the highest accolade of being made England manager.
”One reason I never became the England manager was because the FA thought I would take over and run the show … They were dead right,” he said.
Former Forest and England striker Gary Birtles paid handsome tribute to Clough, under whose guidance he won the European Cup and never replicated his form once he moved on to Manchester United.
”I remember him with great fondness and great affection,” Birtles told Sky News.
”I received a call from Nigel [Clough’s son and former Forest player] to tell me the news. However, he should have managed his country. To have achieved what he did was remarkable.
”He was fine if you towed the line, he would let you know in no uncertain terms what he thought if you crossed him. But he was a winner and he was a genius.
”We’ll never know really everyone in England wanted him to have the job. Shame, we never saw what he would have been capable of. He would have rocked the FA from top to bottom if he had got the job and that is something they would not have wanted.”
Another former Forest stalwart, Frank Clark, said Clough had been an outstanding talent in getting the best out of limited players.
”He was a tremendous manager and great motivator and he got 100% from everyone who worked for him. He never made it too complicated and stands up there with the greatest.
”As for his drinking, well, all managers make mistakes and he dealt with his demons like we all do.”
Seasoned British football reporter Steve Curry, however, told Sky News that he did not think Clough would have thrived in the England job.
”I’m not sure he would have been a good England manager because one of his strengths was working with players on a day-to-day basis,” Curry said.
”He was no respecter of reputations and had his own way of doing things. I don’t think working with players for a short period of time would have worked for him.”
Another of the stars he nurtured, Viv Anderson, said he had been a tough but fair manager.
”I can’t really say what he was like on the TV!” said the former England fullback.
”He was very tough. He was very good at getting the best out of the players.
”He moulded them into a very good successful team. He had the knack. He could be unpredictable … there were a few stories of being picked one minute and getting to the ground to learn I had been dropped.
”When I was younger I was intimidated, but the older I got the less [I were].”
Anderson said there were rumours of Clough’s drinking but it rarely, if ever, interfered with his coaching.
”We knew about the drinking but he never brought it to the training ground. Ninety-nine percent of the time he was the ultimate professional,” said Anderson.
Clough formed a superb coaching partnership with Peter Taylor starting at Hartlepool before moving on to Derby, where the two of them won the First Division title. After a brief spell at Brighton, Clough moved to a 44-day stewardship of Leeds but was reunited with Taylor at Forest, where they engineered the greatest period in the club’s history.
Apart from the European Cup wins, as a player he won two England caps and scored 251 goals in 274 games as a striker for Middlesbrough and Sunderland before being forced to retire because of a knee injury.
Clough, who retired from football after a 41-year career in 1993, admitted in his autobiography published last year he had let drink get the better of him.
His greatest coup was to guide Forest to victory in the European Cup against Swedish side Malmo in 1979 and to retain the title the following year against Hamburg. — Sapa-AFP