For modern football fans, those who think that the sport began in 1992 with the advent of the Premier League, the idea of Nottingham Forest being the most successful club in England, let alone Europe more widely, is something that they wouldn’t even begin to be able to get their heads around.
That is very much what happened after Brian Clough arrived on the scene, however, transforming them into a veritable powerhouse of a football club. One thing that not many will know, however, is that not everyone loved the man known as ‘Cloughie’.
His Early Years in Football
It was on Thursday, the 21st of March 1935, that Brian Howard Clough was born in an inter-war council house in Middlesbrough. The sixth of nine children, although his eldest sister Elizabeth died before he was born, he would later say that everything he achieved in his life ‘stemmed from my childhood’. At school, he neglected his lessons in favour of sport, failing his Eleven-plus before going on to become Head Boy. Cricket was his first love, once saying that he’d rather score a century at Lord’s than netting a hat-trick at Wembley.
Having left school without any qualifications, he took up a job working for a company called ICI and it was there that he started playing football. Even when he took up his national service, he continued to play and eventually signed up to play for his hometown club of Middlesbrough, becoming a prolific striker. He moved to local rivals Sunderland in 1961, suffering a medial and cruciate ligament injury that eventually ended his playing career. He briefly managed Sunderland’s youth team before becoming the manager of Hartlepools United.
Clough the Manager
Clough almost immediately struck up an excellent working relationship with Peter Taylor, even to the point that he refused to accept Taylor’s sacking by the Chairman of Hartlepools United, as the club was known then, which resulted in him being sacked too. A boardroom coup ended up with Ernest Ord being ousted and Clough and Taylor reinstated. The pair then joined Derby County in the Second Division, taking them up to the top-flight before challenging the likes of Liverpool and Leeds United for the First Division title, eventually winning it for the first time in the club’s history.
@brandsutd Brian Clough Was Right In an era where football has become obsessed with stats, spreadsheets, and corporate speak, it’s worth remembering a man who cut through the noise with brutal honesty and brilliant simplicity — Brian Clough. Clough wasn’t just a manager. He was a leader, a motivator, and a man who understood that football was ultimately about people — not data. His belief in man-management, team spirit, and playing with heart built two of the most legendary teams in English football history: Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He didn’t care for directors interfering, agents controlling players, or the media circus that surrounded the game. He believed in winning the right way — with discipline, flair, and fearlessness. Today, as we watch the game being swallowed up by money and bureaucracy, Clough’s words and legacy feel more relevant than ever. Football needs more Cloughies. Brian Clough was right. #BrianClough #FootballLegend #OldSchoolManager #FootballWisdom #NottinghamForest #DerbyCounty #FootballHistory #Cloughie ♬ original sound – Brands Utd
As became something of a common thread in Clough’s career, he fell out with the Derby County board, to say nothing of the fact that he once called his club’s own supporters a ‘disgraceful lot’ for not making noise until the team went a goal ahead in a game against Liverpool. He did get his first taste of the European Cup that season, though, when Derby reached the semi-finals before losing to Juventus. More trouble occurred in the months that followed, before he eventually resigned on the 15th of October 1973, having come to the attention of the wider footballing world.
Clough at Forest
After departing Derby, Clough ended up briefly at Brighton & Hove Albion, where he struggled to make an impact, before joining Leeds United as the replacement for Don Revie. He spent just 44 days in charge at Leeds during a period that was documented in the book The Damned United, which was later turned into a film. This lack of success didn’t put Nottingham Forest off, though, who hired Clough as the replacement for Allan Brown on the sixth of January 1976. It was at Forest that ‘Cloughie’ enjoyed the majority of his success.
Although he and Taylor had failed out during the ill-fated spell at Leeds, Clough brought him back in the July of 1976, with Taylor saying that finishing eighth in the Second Division with the players was ‘a feat’. They won the club’s first silverware of the new era when they picked up the Anglo-Scottish Cup in 1976, gaining promotion to the First Division at the end of the season. In the club’s first season back in the top-flight, they won the title, finishing seven points clear of Liverpool, as well as the League Cup, defeating the Merseysiders in a replay.
This allowed Forest to enter the European Cup, knocking out the holders, Liverpool again, on their route to the final against Hamburg. They won that 1-0 to all but ensure Clough’s place in the upper echelons of the club’s best ever managers. If that needed cementing, they won it again a year later, having also won the European Super Cup. It is perhaps down to the run-ins with Liverpool that Clough would later blame the Liverpool supporters for the Hillsborough Disaster, which proved to be a false narrative spread by the police who were guilty of negligence and have avoided any repercussions for it in the years since.