Brian
Clough really is one of football's great characters. He had
a career in the game spanning 41 years in total. He has been
loved by the Forest faithful for the 18 years he was with us
and is still fondly remembered some six years after his retirement.
The media also loved him, whether it was for comments like calling
the Polish goalkeeper a clown or for cuffing fans round the
head. They just couldn't get enough of him. I personally have no recollection of Brian Clough the player. The day his playing career ended, 26 December 1962, I was exactly 3 years and 10 months old.
My first real recollection of the man came 10 years later, in 1972, it was not one of like, it was one of dislike. Nothing to do with the fact that he was manager at Derby County, simply the fact that he was trying to sign my favourite Forest player of the time - Ian Storey-Moore. Being a naive 13 year old who didn't pay much attention to the news, I didn't realize that Storey-Moore was already on his way to Manchester United when Clough and Taylor tried to hi-jack the transfer. They even got to the point of unveiling Storey-Moore at the Baseball Ground to a packed audience. At that point the shit really hit the fan, Matt Busby was not a man to be messed around with, not even by Clough and Taylor. Once the mess was sorted out Storey-Moore went to old Trafford, leaving behind a disillusioned 13 year old, and a very embarrassed Clough and Taylor.
The next time I was to come across Clough was in the January of 1975, things were about to change at the City Ground, and boy, do I mean change.
A 41 year career is difficult to summarize in a few paragraphs, so I'm not even going to try. Instead I'm going to break it into two sections. The first part is this page, which will be a summary of Clough's achievements, the second part is, Clough memories a short pictorial representation of his career.
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| Playing Career: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| His career record as a player is phenomenal. He made a total of 222 appearances for Middlesbrough, scoring 204 goals. He then made a total of 74 appearances for Sunderland, scoring 63 goals. He also made nine representative appearances, including England, England 'B', England Under 23, Football League and an FA XI, scoring 13 goals. |
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| Mangement Career: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Brian Clough also took Forest to the record unbeaten run for any League Club, when, between November 1977 and December 1978 they went 42 matches unbeaten. The equivalent of a whole season! For those who want to fill in any of the gaps in these pages I thoroughly recommend the following reading material: Clough The Autobiography. Paperback by Corgi Books. ISBN 0-552-14003-1 His Way - The Brian Clough Story Author, Patrick Murphy. Paperback by Pan Books Ltd. ISBN 0-330-33687-8 The Official History Of Nottingham Forest Author, Philip Soar. Published by The Polar Print Group Ltd. ISBN 1-899538-08-9 |
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