Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780747265689
ISBN number: 0747265682
Label: Headline Book Publishing
Manufacturer: Headline Book Publishing
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: July 28, 2003
Publishing house: Headline Book Publishing
Sale Popularity Level: 1426417
Studio: Headline Book Publishing
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Any debate about who the greatest British manager of all time must start with Brian Clough, who was able to take two small Midlands clubs - Derby County and Nottingham Forest - to their first-ever championships and then inspire Forest to two successive European Cups. Idiosyncratic and controversial, Clough was the people's choice for the role of England manager, but never got the job. In this account of his life, he reveals how he achieved such results and gives his outspoken views on the state of the modern game, the current crop of managers and much else besides. Also, he talks fully about his battle with alcohol and how he has found a new calm since he retired from management in 1993.
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This book dates from 2002, and the last chapter is largely devoted to the state of English football at that date. The sports-obsessed have much longer memories than that, and anyone wanting to know how the (nearly) current scene was viewed by the greatest genius, I'm in no doubt at all, who ever managed an English club can read all about it here. Clough was often wrong, and even he knew that, but much oftener right. Where his crystal ball deceived him in 2002 was in the belief that Alec Ferguson was over the hill. Ferguson has just won the league title again with Manchester United in 2007. It is a terrific achievement and a terrific career, and it's not over yet. To say the least of it, not everyone could have done what Ferguson has, even with Manchester United. What I don't believe Ferguson or any man could have equalled was what Clough achieved with two obscure and unfashionable clubs.
I remember nothing about Clough's career as a player, because that was with minor sides and it was before the blanket TV coverage that we have today. Cloughie himself gives us no opportunity to forget what a great goal-scorer he was before a knee injury brought his playing days to an abrupt end. He went into management because he had bills to pay and a family to support, and he discovered that he had another talent too - he could teach. To put it mildly, he could communicate. To put it even more mildly, he didn't miss and hit the wall with his more acerbic opinions. That was what I used to love about him but, understandably, it didn't endear him to many. He was the glaringly obvious choice for manager of the England team, but governing bodies in sport tend to be side-issue specialists and of course greatly persuaded of their own importance, and they sensed (it would have been impossible not to) that Clough's estimate of that was well short of theirs.
In case you didn't know that Clough was a conceited bigmouth he tells us that himself. He had any amount to be conceited about, and he knows that too. He plays the standard game of disparaging what he calls his `brains', and he was certainly not intellectually inclined. What he had was clear insight - what was blindingly obvious to him would never have been clear to many others in nine lifetimes, and any modern manager or coach wanting or needing to know some home truths could never complain about lack of clarity in Clough's account. Even he wasn't born knowing it. In his playing days it was all about scoring goals, but he was ahead of the others in appreciating that even if the forwards play like world-beaters a defence that plays like panel-beaters and lets in a goal for every goal scored will undo whatever the forwards achieve.
He is as ruthless in describing his own downfall as he ever was in showing up anyone else's shortcomings. It was drink that nearly killed him, and he leads off with that story. If there is a touch of reticence, even from Clough, it shows in the way he can hardly bear to describe how his befuddled judgment led to his disastrous last season at Nottingham Forest. I found the book very readable indeed. He repeats himself a bit, he meanders a bit, but so what? It wasn't the booze that killed him, it was cancer. Like George Best he had to have a liver transplant. Unlike George Best he was not intent on destroying himself and he stopped the drinking before it put an end to him. He was, quite simply, a genius, and our loss was not down to his own frailty but to the nincompoops in charge of selecting an England manager. He tells us that as well, as of course you would expect, and he tells it in his own inimitable way. What improvement, if any, there has been in that department I'm not at all sure. However even from beyond the grave he can still teach, and some lessons worth learning could hardly be clearer than the way they are put across here.
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