Celebrated quote-fountain Oscar Wilde had a much-repeated, typically callous line about how losing one parent could be regarded as misfortune, but losing both resembles carelessness. Conversely, while winning the league once with an under-heralded never-before-champion club could only be regarded by the harshest critic as somewhat fortuitous, to repeat the process with another lesser light might resemble genius.
Before Brian Clough, only two men had led two different clubs to be champions of England, both way back in the day. Even since, in an era of managerial movements between superclubs, only Kenny Dalglish has been able to join them.
What worked for Clough was an incendiary combination of ego, ambition, daring, charm, chutzpah, motivation, fear, friendship and loyalty. And it started with personal tragedy…
“I constantly doubt my ability to manage. I think I’m right but I’m not infallible”
Psychiatrists describe alcoholics and addicts as having the apparently conflicting mental conditions of high ego and low self-esteem; Clough fits the pattern. That he carefully constructed his image is undeniable – this is, after all, the man who said, “I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business, but I was in the top one.”
What’s less well-documented, because it’s a much tougher subject, is that Clough was frequently racked with self-doubt. As he told The Observer shortly after conquering Europe in 1979, “I’m conceited on certain aspects of life, but with others I’m totally embarrassed. All of us have certain areas of our lives and characters that we’re uncomfortable with.”
His former team-mate Alan Peacock said of Clough that “when he scored he was like a man on drugs – he just lived for that”. And Brian Howard Clough scored a lot. Born in Middlesbrough in 1935, he netted 204 in 222 matches for his hometown Second Division outfit. He also shot his mouth off, criticising underachieving colleagues and managers, cultivating local journalists – the beginning of a long career of media symbiosis – and regularly handing in transfer requests. When one was finally accepted, he switched to local divisional rivals Sunderland and scored 62 goals in 71 games.
On Boxing Day 1962, on a freezing Roker Park pitch, Clough collided with the opposing goalkeeper and ruptured medial and cruciate ligaments in one knee. He fought desperately for a couple of years to return – even making three further appearances and scoring one last goal – but back then, such injuries were a career death sentence and he was forced to hang up his boots.
“I suddenly knew the meaning of the word desolation,” sighed Clough. “Life had seemed so good and so promising – suddenly, I had nothing but worries.”
Now the supply of his favourite drug
