Brian Clough

Brian Clough
Brian Clough as coach of Nottingham Forest (1980)
Personnel
Surname	Brian Howard Clough
birthday	March 21, 1935
place of birth	Middlesbrough ,  England
date of death	September 20, 2004
Place of death	Derby ,  England
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1951-1953	Middlesbrough FC
1953-1955	Billingham Synthonia
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1955-1961	Middlesbrough FC	213 (197)
1961-1964	Sunderland AFC	61 0(54)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1957-1958	England U-23	3 00(2)
1957	England B	1 00(1)
1959	England	2 00(0)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1965-1967	Hartlepool United
1967-1973	Derby County
1973-1974	Brighton & Hove Albion
1974	Leeds United
1975-1993	Nottingham Forest
1 Only league games are given.

Brian Howard Clough , OBE (born March 21, 1935 in Middlesbrough , † September 20, 2004 in Derby ) was an English football player and coach . He had his greatest successes as a coach with Derby County and Nottingham Forest . His son Nigel Clough played successfully under him at Nottingham Forest and is also active as a coach.

Career as a player

Clough played as a forward for Middlesbrough FC and Sunderland FC . He scored 251 goals in 274 games. Middlesbrough FC was relegated to the Football League First Division in 1953/54 before Brian Clough's playing career began . Although Clough scored between 34 and 43 goals per season in the following years, the club did not succeed in returning to the First Division . Then Brian Clough moved to local rivals AFC Sunderland . Clough was also able to preserve his accuracy for his new club, but Sunderland also just missed promotion with two third places in the table in the following two years. It was not until the following year that he was promoted to the Football League First Division 1964/65 . Brian Clough had suffered a serious injury in December 1962 and was out for a long time afterwards. The consequences of this cruciate ligament injury forced him to end his career in late 1964 at the age of 29. In the English national football team he played twice, on October 17, 1959 against Wales and on October 28, 1959 against Sweden , but remained without a goal.

Career as a coach

Clough then went as a coach to the then fourth division Hartlepool United , who had regularly played against relegation in previous years. In his last season 1966/67 in Hartlepool he reached an eighth place in the table with his team. After the season, Clough and his assistant coach Peter Taylor decided to move to the English second division club Derby County .

Derby County

Derby had also fought relegation in previous years and got a new boost under the coaching duo. After 18th place in the first season Clough reached with his team in 1968/69 sovereign as the first in the table to rise to the Football League First Division 1969/70 . There the newcomer managed an unexpected fourth place in the table. Due to financial problems, the club did not get the right to start the European Cup, but in the Football League First Division 1971/72 the big hit succeeded by winning the English championship. It was the first championship for both Clough and Derby County. On the final day of the match, Derby was only one point ahead of pursuers Leeds United , Liverpool and Manchester City . With the title in the championship, the team qualified for the national championship in 1973 and only failed there in the semifinals at Juventus Turin around Dino Zoff , Fabio Capello and Helmut Haller . Clough subsequently berated the Juventus players and made negative comments about the Italian people during World War II. In the period before that, he had repeatedly expressed himself negatively in newspaper and television interviews about his own club management, fans and opposing coaches. Clough's arrogance and high-handed demeanor towards the football establishment meant that he fell out with the club's management and left the club at the beginning of the 1973/74 season.

Leeds United

He then took a position at the relatively insignificant club Brighton & Hove Albion , which at that time only played in the third division. After an unsuccessful season, he moved a season later as a coach to the reigning champions Leeds United , one of the most successful clubs in the English league at the time. His time in Leeds lasted only 44 days; the players had resented the allegations against coach Don Revie and the players from the past. Current Leeds players like Billy Bremner , Norman Hunter and Johnny Giles also didn't get along with Clough. After a false start with just one win after six games, Clough was fired.

The Damned United

In 2009, the British feature film The Damned United , in which the actors Michael Sheen and Timothy Spall play the coaching duo. The film describes the close collaboration between Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in Derby County, the rivalry with Don Revie and the move to Leeds United. In 2006 a novel by David Peace was published under the title that dealt with this topic. The novel and the film created a great public discussion about the veracity of this published story. Many players and especially the family of the late Brian Clough made very negative comments.

Nottingham Forest

On January 6, 1975 Clough took over the coaching post at Nottingham Forest , which were at that time in 13th place in the English second division. After relegation and an eighth place in the 1975/76 season one rose in the 1976/77 season as third in the Football League First Division 1977/78 . Even before the promotion season, Peter Taylor had rejoined Forest as assistant coach in 1976 and also played his part in the promotion. In the first season in the first division, Clough and his team were English champions and league cup winners. In the following season he signed the English striker Trevor Francis for a little over 1,000,000 pounds and thus achieved a record transfer fee in English football. Francis scored the winning goal to make it 1-0 against Malmö FF in the final of the 1979 national championship after the English defeated German champions 1. FC Köln 3: 3 and 1: 0 in the semifinals. In addition, the team won the league cup again with a 3-2 win against Southampton FC . A year later, Forest defended his title in the national championship with a 1-0 win by John Robertson in the final in Madrid against the German champions Hamburger SV . No other English club has succeeded in this until today.

Between November 26, 1977 and December 9, 1978 Forest remained in cross-season 42 league games without defeat, a record that was only increased to 49 games by Arsenal in August 2004, shortly before Brian Clough's death . After this very successful period, Clough had to change his team, as players like Tony Woodcock , Peter Shilton and Martin O'Neill left the club. He succeeded in doing this with obligations such as Stuart Pearce , Hans van Breukelen and Neil Webb . He was also able to regularly access youth players from his own excellent youth academy. Players like Steve Hodge , Des Walker and their own son Nigel Clough made it to the professional team and later to the English national team. After learning that Justin Fashanu had been seen in gay bars, he resigned in 1982. His friendship with his assistant coach Peter Taylor came to an abrupt end in 1983 when Taylor, who had switched to Derby County six months earlier , signed John Robertson from Forest without telling Clough beforehand. The rift had not been resolved until Taylor's death in October 1990. When Clough learned of the death of his longtime companion, he burst into tears. He later dedicated his 1994 biography to him.

1989 against Luton Town and 1990 against Oldham Athletic get two more successes in the League Cup, and in 1991 the team reached the final of the FA Cup in 1991 against Tottenham Hotspur , but lost it by an own goal by Des Walker in extra time. In the English championship, Clough had reached third place with his team in the Football League First Division 1987/88 and the Football League First Division 1988/89 , but could not participate in the European Cup due to the international ban for all English clubs.

The 1992/93 season was Clough's 18th and last at Nottingham Forest. The transfer policy in recent years had not brought the successes of previous seasons, and the coach's alcohol addiction, which had been known for years, had become an increasing problem. Forest rose after an indisputable season from bottom of the table and Brian Clough ended his coaching career.

Many English football fans consider his success with relatively small clubs to be the greatest coaching achievement in English football history. The largest grandstand in the City Ground was named after him in his honor. In 2002 he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame because of his services as a coach . A statue of Brian Clough was erected in downtown Nottingham on November 6, 2008 . Since 2007, the "Brian Clough Trophy" has been played in duels between Derby County and Nottingham Forest. In August 2005, the A52, the road that connects Nottingham and Derby - the two clubs where Clough had his greatest coaching successes - was renamed the Brian Clough Way.

Clough underwent a liver transplant in January 2003 and died of stomach cancer on September 20, 2004 in Derby Hospital.

successes

• European champion cup : 1979 (1-0 against Malmö FF), 1980 (1-0 against Hamburger SV)
• UEFA Super Cup winners: 1979 (1-0 and 1-1 against FC Barcelona)
• English champion : 1972 , 1978
• English league cup winner : 1978, 1979, 1989, 1990
• Charity Shield winner: 1978 (5-0 against Ipswich Town)

Web links

• Website for Brian Clough
• Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest
• Brian Clough at Derby County
• Article about Brian Clough on 11freunde.de

literature

• Clough: The Autobiography - by Brian Clough (Partridge Press, 1994)
• Cloughie: Walking on Water - by Brian Clough (Headline, 2005)
• We are the Damned United: The Real Story of Brian Clough at Leeds United - by Phil Rostron (Mainstream Publishing, 2009)