Tom Hopkinson on the day Juventus did an Italian job on England’s finest How a World Cup star’s visit to the referee’s room left Cloughie livid... and Derby out of Europe
Tom Hopkinson
BRIAN CLOUGH was seething, but his anger was nothing compared to that of his assistant Peter Taylor, whose fury was off the scale.
“What the f*** is going on here?” Taylor demanded, as he tried to get his head around the information that John Charles had just passed him.
King John, the Welsh colossus, was in Turin in an ambassadorial capacity as his old club Juventus took on Clough and Taylor’s Derby County in the first leg of their European Cup semi-final on April 11, 1973.
He had spotted Juve substitute Helmut Haller – the man who had scored West Germany’s opener against England in the 1966 World Cup Final – entering the dressing room of the referee, his fellow German Gerhard Schulenburg, 30 minutes before the game. “Hey, lads, we need to be careful,” Taylor told a Derby dressing room, which included stars such as Roy Mcfarland, Colin Todd, John Mcgovern and Kevin Hector.
Derby were as careful as they could be without shirking challenges.
But that didn’t stop Mcfarland and Archie Gemmill – the only two men on bookings from their quarter-final victory over Spartak Trnava – having their names taken in the first half.
Those bookings would rule both out of the second leg at the Baseball Ground – a coincidence or not?
Gerald Mortimer, a journalist with the Derby Telegraph, wrote: “Gemmill had his name taken for a trip on Giuseppe Furino, retaliation after Furino’s elbow had smashed into his face.
“Mcfarland’s booking was totally absurd. He went up to challenge Antontello Cuccerddu for a high ball and the two heads clashed.
“For that, and only that, he was cautioned. It looked like a put-up job.”
At half-time, Haller was again spotted entering the referee’s room and Taylor, who by then had gone apoplectic, barged in after them.
In his autobiography With Clough, By Taylor, he wrote: “I speak German, gentlemen. Do you mind if I listen?”
He didn’t, of course. And all he got for his troubles was an elbow in the ribs from Haller.
“Haller barked something that brought a squad of heavies into action,” Taylor added.
“They shoved me against a wall and kept me there.
“I didn’t know who they were, except that some were uniformed, and possibly club stewards, and others looked like plain-clothed police.”
Taylor and Stuart Webb, Derby’s club secretary, went looking for a
UEFA delegate but nobody, it seemed, wanted to listen.
In his memoirs, Clough, Maxwell and Me, Webb said: “From the moment Big John told us he’d seen their lad going in to see the referee we had known something was wrong.
“I sat in the stand, gazing down, watching the whole farce play out and there was nothing I, nor anyone else associated with Derby, could do about it.”
Juve won the first leg 3-1 and things would get worse for Derby, ahead of the second leg on April 25, with Portuguese referee Francisco Lobo revealing he’d been offered $5,000 and a car if he assured Juve’s safe passage to the final.
Lobo told UEFA of the approach, but, following an enquiry, Juventus were let off.
The finger of blame was instead pointed at notorious Hungarian matchfixer Dezso Solti, who was ruled to have been acting independently.
Years later, in his autobiography, Clough wrote: “The lousy stench still fills my nostrils when I think of the attempts at corruption.”
The second leg ended 0-0, with Alan Hinton missing a penalty for Derby and Lobo adjudged to have refereed the game fairly.
At his post-match press conference, Clough refused to speak to the Italian media.
All he would say was: “No cheating b ******* do I talk to, I will not talk to any cheating b ******* .”
With that, he slammed a door behind him.
Only to reopen it a few moments later, pick out the Italian-speaking English journalist Brian Glanville, and implore: “Tell them what I said, Brian.”
Haller was in the ref’s room again at half-time. Taylor went apoplectic and barged in saying: ‘I speak German, mind if I listen’... at which point a squad of heavies pinned him up against the wall