As some of you probably know I am a Forest fan. I became one someone later in life (i.e AFTER the big cups!!!) as in my teens and beyond Tamworth FC was my team but as they also became my 'work' (bizarre I know) I missed having a league team to follow as a distraction. However, I found that my devotion to Cloughie meant Forest were always the team I looked out for first. So, for about 25 years or so it is the City Ground boys who I follow and I try to see them as and when I can (which isn't very often now).
So this week has been a bit of a rollercoater for we Forest fans. A week when one of my greatest heroes (Nigel Clough), the son of my gretatest non-Strangler hero (Brian Clough) has just become manager of the one club Forest fans hate more than anyone else - Derby.
Forest fans are pretty confused today I can tell you. Most people like me love him and want him to do well (but not his team if that can work!) but many see this as the ultimate betrayal as the two clubs hate each other so much. It is like seeing one of your best mates with his hand up your girlfriend’s top (something that happened once to me with both Nig and Gaz at a party with a gal called Louise!!!)
The thing is though where Derby is concerned the Clough family see it as ‘unfinished business’. Clough Snr had his biggest success down the A52 from the old Baseball Ground but he never lost his love for Derby or indeed his anger at himself for walking out on them (which will be detailed in the soon to be released film The Damned United which looks a brilliant adapation of any amazing book).
Everyone remembers Forest’s two European Cups but it is often forgotten just what an amazing side Cloughie built at Derby – we all rememeber those vintage Star Soccer days – and Clough maintained to his dying day that he could have made Derby the biggest club in the country if he had stayed. That may sound ridiculous – but how ridiculous was it to take a club the size of Forest to two European Cups? The fella was a genius
As a result Clough both loved and hated Derby – in Pearce’s autobiography he said it was made very clear on pain of torture that whatever happened you did not lose to them – and so I think the Derby story was ingrained in Nigel from an early age and the family knew they hadn’t quite finished with this particular club..
In saying that though I wonder if Nigel Clough knows what is coming. He has never looked comfortable in front of the camera and now the media pressure will increase 100 times on him. He could get away with it at Burton to a certain extent but now every time his team wins or loses the national press will be comparing his results to Brian’s era. That is quite a burden – but I hope knows what he is doing..
As for leaving Burton, well no-one can deny he hasn’t done a good, solid, honest job there and he may well think this is exactly the right time to leave as he has put them in a fantastic position to get promoted. And let’s face it how many managers stay somewhere for ten years and get to leave on top at the time of their choosing? His loyalty cannot be questioned. And it also means I can go back to hating Burton again as every self-respecting Tamworth fans should.
So Forest have appointed Derby’s old manager (which I am pleased about) and Derby have appointed a former Forest legend who is the son of the two club’s greatest ever managerial hero. And now they meet in the FA Cup.
Football? Don’t you just love it…
As a result Clough both loved and hated Derby – in Pearce’s autobiography he said it was made very clear on pain of torture that whatever happened you did not lose to them – and so I think the Derby story was ingrained in Nigel from an early age and the family knew they hadn’t quite finished with this particular club..
In saying that though I wonder if Nigel Clough knows what is coming. He has never looked comfortable in front of the camera and now the media pressure will increase 100 times on him. He could get away with it at Burton to a certain extent but now every time his team wins or loses the national press will be comparing his results to Brian’s era. That is quite a burden – but I hope knows what he is doing..
As for leaving Burton, well no-one can deny he hasn’t done a good, solid, honest job there and he may well think this is exactly the right time to leave as he has put them in a fantastic position to get promoted. And let’s face it how many managers stay somewhere for ten years and get to leave on top at the time of their choosing? His loyalty cannot be questioned. And it also means I can go back to hating Burton again as every self-respecting Tamworth fans should.
So Forest have appointed Derby’s old manager (which I am pleased about) and Derby have appointed a former Forest legend who is the son of the two club’s greatest ever managerial hero. And now they meet in the FA Cup.
Football? Don’t you just love it…
Interesting postscript to your missive this evening Sam...
ReplyDeleteThe Damned United is an awesome book. Amazing! Amazing!
ReplyDeleteI had the pleasure of seeing a old footage of Austin Mitchell's 70s TV show not so long back. I think it was Yorkshire TV only. But he had Don Revie and Brian Clough on together, just after Clough had been sacked from Leeds. It's quite astonishing, Clough actually says that Leeds, despite their success, "weren't loved." Revie bristles, but just doesn't understand how it matters if they were winning everything in sight.
I think that Don Revie was the UK's Richard Nixon. I won't elaborate, but will instead leave it up to your imaginations to make the uncanny parallels.
Don Revie is Richard Nixon....brilliant analogy Mas and I know exactly what you mean.
ReplyDeleteI have that footage on one of my Cloughie DVDs and you are right about how the two men were poles apart. Revie says 'you can't win more than me at Leeds Brian' and he says 'yes, but I want to win BETTER'. And again - I know, I just know, what he meant.
Glad you liked The Damned United too. It is probably the most literary footi book I have ever read and I was absorbed. The Clough family hate it by the way.
The man playing Clough is the one (Michael Sheen?) who has played Blair so brilliantly (in The Queen among others) and I think he will do the role justice.
By the way it is just possible that the Cloughs read the Mem Book.
On Wednesday morning I said here..
‘The thing is though where Derby is concerned the Clough family see it as ‘unfinished business’
and a few hours later at his first press conference, the boy wonder said..
‘I know he (Brian) said never go back but he was tempted over the years to come back because he felt there was ‘unfinished business’
We even used the same 'inverted commas'!!!!
Keep reading Nigel.
PS Talking of literary books, I asked my daughter to buy me White Tiger, the Booker Prize winning novel about modern India by Aravind Adiga. I rather enjoyed it but like the other book everyone raved about last year -Joseph O' Neill's book about cricket in America called 'Netherland' - I didn't think it quite deserved the hype. White Tiger was the better of the two though.