Giant soaperstar who was given a used washing machine as signing-on fee by Cloughie
HIS signing-on fee at Nottingham Forest was a second-hand washing machine Brian Clough had lifted from the club laundry.
And Larry Lloyd repaid him by cleaning out opposition strikers for the next five years.
In the tunnel before the 1980 European Cup final in Madrid, Lloyd sidled up to Hamburg’s star import Kevin Keegan – his former Liverpool team-mate – to warn him Forest sidekick Kenny Burns would spare the England captain no mercy.
“No one should have to go face-to-face with Kenny,” recalled Lloyd. “There stood a man who fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
“But he was a magnificent player, and that night in Spain will go with me to the grave, if only for my attempt to scare the s*** out of Keegan.
“I’d played with Kev for four years at Anfield so exchanging ‘pleasantries’ in the tunnel wasn’t something anyone would have found unusual.
“But I told him, ‘I’ve got to tell you something, mate, Burns’ job tonight is to break you in two if you ever come near him.
“As luck would have it, Kenny was just removing his teeth and ramming some pink gum in his mouth. It might just as well have been a piece of raw meat. Keegan’s face was a picture.”
With Forest’s biggest threat duly scared into submission, Lloyd went on to lift the European Cup for a second consecutive season to cement his place among City
Ground royalty, and he was later surprised to be voted the club’s hardestever player – ahead of Burns and Stuart
Pearce.
“I wasn’t that hard, really – just a bit clumsy at times,” he said.
Lloyd, one of English football’s finest ‘old-school’ central defenders, has died at the age of 75.
Before winning the title and back-to-back European Cups as Clough’s robust sentry, he had also won the League and UEFA Cup in the same season with Liverpool, for whom he made 218 appearances before joining Forest.
Lloyd admitted he knew nothing of Clough’s ingenious – and abrasive – management skills before his move to the City Ground, except that he recognised the “mouthy git on the television”.
When he was trying to squeeze a few extra quid on top of his £180-a-week wages, Lloyd revealed Ol’ Big ’Ead asked him: “Have you got a washing machine?” Lloyd replied that he owed one, but it had broken down, so he was surprised when two delivery men appeared at his front door the next day with a second-hand washing machine dripping water.
When he reported for training later, two kit ladies from the laundry room said that Clough had sequestered it from their workplace.
Lloyd endured a rocky relationship with Clough, and claimed to be the mostfined player in the club’s history.
But, at £60,000, he was a bargain – winning four England caps spread across eight years and making 599 appearances for five clubs.
Never a centre-back to stand on ceremony, he was once docked a week’s wages by Clough for clumping Southampton’s Peter Osgood off the ball, hoping the curtain of fog rolling in off the Trent
DATE OF BIRTH: October 6, 1948 SENIOR CAREER
1967–1969: Bristol Rovers (51 appearances, 1 goal) 1969–1974: Liverpool (218 appearances, 5 goals)
First Division and UEFA Cup winner in 1972-73
1974–1976: Coventry City (54 appearances, 6 goals) 1976–1981: Nottingham Forest (214 appearances, 12 goals) Back-to-back European Cup winner (1979 and 1980) European Super Cup winner in 1979
Back-to-back League Cup winner (1978 and 1979)
First Division winner in 1978
1981–1983: Wigan Athletic (57 appearances, 4 goals) MANAGERIAL CAREER
1981-1983: Wigan Athletic 1983-1984: Notts County ENGLAND CAPS: Four would cover his indiscretion. “The ref was out there somewhere, and the linesman was lost, so when Ossie came over, wallop, I landed him one, b ***** d,” Lloyd told the U Reds website.
“He had a go at me, saying, ‘F ****** hell, what’s going on?’ I said, ‘That’s for all the years I was at Liverpool and you were with Chelsea, trying to break my leg’ because he was a dirty b ***** d. But Cloughie saw it and it cost me £200.”
Clough was more appreciative of Lloyd’s bravery and defiance when within the laws, once explaining to David Needham why he was being dropped after Lloyd had recovered from injury.
“David, you’re a lovely young man and if my daughter was looking to bring someone home to marry, you’d be that man – and that’s why you’re not in the team,” said Clough.
“You are a nice lad,” before pointing at Lloyd and adding, “not a horrible b ***** d like him.”
I wasn’t that hard, really – I was just a bit clumsy at times