By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
Ive recently finished reading the damned united and watched the film a couple of times now and Im not quite sure to make of him to be honest. His record speaks for itself, but although I can remember him as a manager I was too young to understand what he was like as a personality really. The closest thing my generation have to him is alex ferguson who i thought was a right twunt that often bullied his way to success. Clough on the other hand although arrogant seemed like a man of integrity. I was wondering what the older generations thought of him, whehther he was disliked like ferguson for example.
this documentary gives a little insight to him as a personality i reckon
I cant remember Cloughie being disliked. He was always seen as the man most football fans would want as England manager.The Ol' Big'Ead tag was an affectionate one I think.. Best line in the film Damned United. Cloughie;: QPR are easy .Stop Stan Bowles and you stop QPR. Screen flashes up score : Leeds UTD 0 QPR 1.
Little known fact ,unless your old enough to have seen him play or like me read his Biography and other books mentioning him.He was a brilliant forward who scored goals for fun .His carreer was cut short by a bad knee injury.
He was a freak. I'm not sure that even he knew how he did it. The nearest to him now is Mourinho. He was kind of like a Blue Peter great manager - whereas Mourinho spends tens and hundreds of millions, Clough made a European Cup winning side out of Squeezy bottles, sticky-back plastic and Peter Shilton. But it was a different world completely.
Took two crap teams to league titles and one of those to 2 European cup wins. Try doing that nowadays without spending millions.
He had a gift that very few managers have where you can inspire a team to run through walls for you. He turned many a cart horse into race horses He knew how to handle individuals, stories where if one of his players were having a mare, at half time he’d ball out a player who was playing well and tell the one having a mare how great he’d been…. Anyone who lays Roy Keane out in the dressing room is alright in my book. He was quick witted and likeable, not some moaning win at all costs sore loser. I will point out though, in his prime a lot of the success came when he worked alongside Peter Taylor. They were the management dream team. Without Taylor he never had the same success. It's thought that Taylor's passing effected him badly as they fell out and never made it up.
Got a lot of bad press due to his (justifiable imo) criticisms of Leeds in 70s, and of course the dreaded 44 days as Leeds manager. Very 'old school' and old fashioned in many ways, but also had a (justifiable again imo) very high opinion of himself and was accordingly very outspoken, which inevitably meant that he was always getting into trouble with the authorities and in turn meant that the FA wimps didn't dare appoint him England manager. Probably the most talented manager ever to have walked the earth (apart from Alec Stock obviously).
A genius indeed and like many of them he had his flaws and sadly the drink got him in the end.
You are right about Taylor - he didn't get enough credit for finding players and Clough seemed to lose his way without him.
I never tire of listening to him and watching clips of Clough's teams or the various documentaries about the great man. What he achieved was astonishing and will never be repeated.
I was at the League Cup game at Forest many years ago when we got thrashed (5-2?) and he clumped a couple of kids that ran on the pitch. The most telling part of this story was that the next day the kids parents took them to the club to meet Clough to apologise! None of this 'you assaulted my son and so we will sue you with our ambulance chasing smart-arsed lawyers'. They had too much respect for Mr Clough'.
dont forget the Damned is a fictional account based on some facts. the Clough family hate it and say its notrepressentative. All i am saying is take it with a pinch, nay a spoon full of salt.
This is worth a watch if any of you haven't seen it. Clough very honest and self depreciating. Revie....?? Hhhmmmm... not quite sure what to make of him, other than very full of himself and his success at Leeds. And deep down probably found it hugely satisfying that he got sacked by Leeds.
However, the thing that emerges from the book is that it is impossible to regard even the most talented men purely as individuals. Clough flopped without Taylor. Clough was the ultimate motivator, Taylor the man who could spot a player and build bridges with them where Clough's corrosive wit alone might only have alienated them (which is what happened at Leeds).
When he brought Keane to Forest, I believe he made a bad back pass resulting in a goal. At half time Clough punched him knocking him to the floor before telling him not to do that again.
To put it into perspective he took over forest in a similar position to QPR when Warnock took over, got promoted like Warnock then won the league the next year and the following year the European cup.
favourite cheese mature Cheddar. FFS there is no such thing as the EPL
If you can find a copy "With Clough by Taylor" is an interesting read, I think it may be one of the things they fell out about. Plenty of his players talk highly of him and some like John McGovern followed him everywhere. Dont think he and Stan Bowles got on too well though
The two things they had in common were arrogance and success but that's where it ends. Clough never abused referees. Clough never encouraged his players to cheat. He also never set his teams up to park the bus or play anti football just to win. He won all his championship playing the beautiful game how it should be played on a shoe string budget. Mourinho on the other hand has spent astronomical amounts boring the bollox off us all. A great manager with a brilliant coach Peter Taylor. It was terrible how it all ended with them.
Loved the Stories on how he took the players away mid season for a beano to Majorca and treated away ties in the European cups as Jolly Boys Outings Once Taylor and him fell out he wasn't the same even though he had a few successes in the League cup in the late eighties, still think his team of Sutton, Pearce ,Franz Carr, Clough jnr, and my favourite player from the 80's Johnny Metgod was an underrated team
And Bowles is onside, Swinburne has come rushing out of his goal , what can Bowles do here , onto the left foot no, on to the right foot
That’s there that’s two, and that’s Bowles
Brian Moore
I never said that they were all that similar, but Mourinho's 'presence' is similar and that's the thing that I'll always remember about Clough. Everybody would shut up when he was talking, you wanted to hear it, even those who didn't like him and there were plenty. Clough certainly played the better football and spent less money but everyone spent less money. You only had one team, a proper week in week out XI back then, and i think that Mourinho would probably prefer it that way too actually. Both knew how to build a balanced side with some character. It's so different now tha tit's hard to compare him with anyone. He'd get into so many scrapes now, it would be harder for him. He'd get fed up with agents for a start. He'd have to adapt.
What a brilliant watch that Cloughie/Revie video that W7 posted is. No spin, no graphics or bullsh*t, just 30 mins of honest debate about an issue that had the whole city of Leeds in uproar back then, and remember Revie was the England manager too. Cloughie was a real one-off
The equivalent these days would be Moyes and Ferguson going head to head about where it's all gone wrong for United after the troublesome end of an epic era. Would never happen
Can you imagine getting two high profile managers doing a programme like that? Would never happen I know, but I bet all you would here is the usual Managerial sound bytes. You wouldn't see that under lying hatred there was between those too.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
