January 7 – It was 50 years ago today that a small club in the Midlands welcomed the most controversial, flamboyant, and self-confident English manager ever.
Brian Clough, aka Old Big ‘Ead, arrived at the City Ground like a human hurricane, category five, and turned Nottingham Forest from a sleepy 2nd division club into the kings of Europe.
The pace of change at Forest was breathtaking as two years later, Clough and his long-time sidekick, Peter Taylor won promotion to the old first division before winning it a season later.
12 months later they followed up that feat by winning the first of back-to-back European Cups (Champions League) versus Malmo and the next year with victory over Hamburg.
In that first 1-0 triumph over Malmo, the goal scorer was Trevor Francis who Clough made the first ever million-pound player when he moved from Birmingham City to Forest in 1979. In typical trademark style, Clough insisted that the price he paid was in fact £999,999 to avoid putting pressure on the player, however, it was later revealed to be a tongue-in-cheek remark, as the actual fee exceeded £1 million.
This fee doubled the previous transfer record and ushered in the era of multi-million-pound deals.
One of his original players from the first day he arrived in the Forrest dressing room was Martin O’Neill who went on to manage Leicester City, Celtic, Aston Villa, Sunderland and the Republic of Ireland before a brief spell as Forest boss in 2019. The Irishman told BBC East Midlands Today: “We were lucky, or, as Brian Clough kept saying, we were really lucky to get him.”
“He would also say that we were a two-bit second-division club going nowhere until he arrived. All of those things may or may not be true, but they probably were.”
“He arrived on a dark and dismal morning way back in January 1975, and for a number of players in the dressing room – younger players like myself, Tony Woodcock, Viv Anderson, John Robertson, and Ian Bowyer – he changed our lives, absolutely.”
Clough became a media goldmine with a stream of quotes like “If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there”, “They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, I wouldn’t know as I wasn’t on that job”, and “I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one”.
To emphasise the profound impact he made at the City Ground, one only needs to look at how many major trophies the club has won since he left in May of 1993, and the answer is none.
Under the steady leadership of Portuguese manager, Nuno Espírito Santo, the good times could be returning as the club currently sit in 3rd place in the Premier League.
Contact the writer of this story, Nick Webster, at moc.l1736237236labto1736237236ofdlr1736237236owedi1736237236sni@o1736237236fni1736237236
