Clough Brian - Old big ead: the wit and wisdom of Brian Clough

Brian Clough knew how to work the levers and pulleys of the media better than any football manager Ive ever known. The proof of it exists in the book youre holding.

No one else in the trade (which is how Brian frequently described his job) justifies having his thoughts bound between hard covers. Thats because no one ever had more of them, or could articulate an argument as cogently or as compellingly as he could. None of his contemporaries were as consistently quotable. As for those who have trod the managerial path since his retirement... well, lets just say football has changed. In the stagey protocol of the Premiership press conference often banal, stiff and predictable occasions the questions often carry a higher value than the answers, which lean towards the anodyne. Even when the answers are worth writing down and printing, the words usually dont linger or stay hot in the mind for long. If only Brian was still around...

He diligently made it his business to understand the mechanics of the press print and broadcast and did so specifically so he could benefit from that knowledge. What he gave in return was good copy. He was footballs Mr Punch, always putting on a show.

The glib assumption, usually espoused by people who didnt know him, is that Brian was foremost a skillful self-publicist. But long before he became a manager in 1965, he had the foresight and nous to reach, independently, two important conclusions. First, that he could use the media the way a fairground barker uses a loud-hailer to whip up a crowd. If he talked well and loudly enough on the back pages, he could chastise his players, rouse supporters, intimidate the opposition, rebuke authority (especially the Football Association) and burnish his own image; sometimes all at once. Second, that he was perfectly placed to take advantage of the television age. He was young and handsome and prepared to say in public what others would only whisper in private. The camera loved him.

Talking is easy, he once said. If I have an opinion, theres nowt wrong with sharing it. All I have to do is open my mouth and say it.

Three of his most famous quotes girdle the eight-foot high statue erected in his honour near Nottinghams Old Market Square. You can probably recite them verbatim.

If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, Hed have put grass up there.

We talk about it for twenty minutes and then we decide I was right.

I wouldnt say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.

This is the quintessential Brian. The first emphasises his approach to football. The second highlights his uncompromising approach to club discipline. The third cheekily reflects how he saw himself. That well judged selection nonetheless amounts to no more than the narrow tip of a vast, mountainous heap of Cloughisms that informed, entertained or quite frequently got him into trouble. Each quote is the equivalent of a snapshot, catching him for a split second in a slightly different pose. Strung together and seen as a whole, the quotes reveal glimpses of his personality and upbringing as well as mapping the landscape of his life: his prejudices and foibles, his philosophy and aesthetic approach to the game, his peaks and troughs as both player and manager. For me, what each one demonstrates is the complexity and contradictory nature of his character. He could be infuriatingly brusque and bitter, compassionate and tender, provocative and funny; so funny, in fact, that he could make me weep convulsively.

During my time as a sports reporter for the Nottingham Evening Post I was ostensibly tasked with covering Nottingham Forest. In reality, I was attached to Brian rather than to the team. He was the source of 99 per cent of my stories.

I always went to see him with an amalgam of hope and trepidation. What mood would he be in? Which Brian would turn up? The curt, bombastic Brian or the emollient and considerate one? How long would he make me wait? Five minutes or five and a half hours? Sitting on a chair in the corridor outside his office, I felt like and resembled one of Becketts forlorn tramps waiting for Godot. But, however long this torturous process took, I dont remember leaving without a story.

Often he gave me the complete structure too, as if hed been trained to write on a sports desk himself. Ive got an intro for you, hed say and then dictate it before Id found my pen and notebook. Hed soon be in full flow, often discussing things only tangentially linked to the central subject, before ending with a flourish. Thats your out, hed say, meaning the final paragraph or punch-line.

Belatedly I realised that he sometimes rehearsed in his own mind what to say beforehand to players as well as to journalists far more often than he ever let on. But his theatrical tendencies made it seem as though the angle for a piece had only just occurred to him.

I can see and hear him now. His hands are behind his head, his feet resting on the corner of his cluttered desk. Hes leaning back in his chair. Youll miss me when I go, hes saying. Cos youll have nowt interesting to put in that rag of yours.

And, of course, he was right.

Born:

21 March 1935

Player record:

Middlesbrough (1955-61): 197 goals in 213 games

Sunderland (1961-64): 54 goals in 61 games

Brian was born in a council house in Middlesbrough, the fifth of eight children. We kicked a ball around for hours. We were still at it late at night when we couldnt see the ball, the makeshift posts or one another, he once said, adding later that: There were always about six pairs of boots hanging behind the coalhouse door. His father Joe worked in a sweet factory. Wed get all the misshapen sweets that couldnt be sold in shops, he said. His mother Sarah was an indefatigable housewife, always cooking and cleaning and bringing up her children to behave properly and be considerate to others.

His playing career effectively ended on Boxing Day, 1962. On a frosty pitch he collided with Bury goalkeeper Chris Harker and damaged his cruciate ligaments. He never properly recovered and made only another three appearances before his premature retirement.

The most vivid Christmas of all was the year I got the turkey leg. You see, I had a long wait for it. There were eight in the family and only two legs on the turkey. 1985

In the North East, the front step of your house was important. It had to be so spotless that you could have eaten your Sunday dinner off it. Ours was it was the best in the street. It gave our mam a great deal of pride. 1983

When I was a bairn, in the era of baggy shorts, growing up in the North East meant that you were raised on stories of great centre forwards. 1981

My dad was a football fanatic and he worked in a sweet factory. What else does a boy need? 1976

Wilf Mannion was my hero. It was as if hed walked straight out of the cinema screen. In Middlesbrough, he was like a movie star. Hollywood on our streets. 1976

I was taught the importance of clean shoes. Mind you, I had to polish them hard. I wore the toes out of most of them kicking a ball around. 1972

At school I was a failure. I suppose I was thick ... I cried when I failed my 11-plus. 1972

We used to sleep three to a bed. There was me, our Bill and our Gerald. We were never cold. 1990

At first Middlesbrough thought I was crap too mouthy, too awkward. The club used that as an excuse not to see what I could do on the pitch. 1989