Feuds, ‘fixes’ & betrayal
MANY people love the stories about the outrageous but successful, larger-than-life Brian Clough. This is my final instalment after the past few weeks of tales about Cloughie before I move on to other memories from my 50 years presenting TV sport.
These last stories are of a more serious note – as Cloughie experienced cheating on the European stage for the first time and his resignation at Derby County, which undoubtably fuelled his dislike and distrust of football chairmen.
Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor joined Second Division Derby in 1967 and soon achieved promotion to the top division – the first division in those days – and within three years were English champions.
In their first season in the European Cup, they reached the semi-finals and were drawn away to Juventus of Italy in the first leg.
They lost 3-1 in controversial circumstances. Clough was convinced that German referee Gerhard Schulenberg had been “got at” because he unfairly booked two key Derby players, Archie Gemmill and Roy Mcfarland, although they did not appear to foul opponents who went to ground too easily.
Clough believed that those two players were deliberately targeted because they had been cautioned in a previous round and it meant now they would miss the return leg.
UEFA never proved anything against the official, but in the return at Derby, the Portuguese referee reported to UEFA that he had been offered by a third party $5,000 and a new car if Juventus won at the Baseball Ground.
Back to the Olimpico di Torino, where I was in the dressing room corridor with commentator Hugh Johns and my best friend, Birmingham Italian restauranteur Lorenzo Ferrari, who was asked by Clough to tell the Italians what he thought. Lorenzo said Clough was nasty and abusive and refused.
However, the day before the return leg Lorenzo and I took his great friend, the legendary Juventus chairman Giampiero Boniperti, who
Clough signed Leicester City fullback David Nish for a record fee of £225,000 without the board knowing!
did not speak English, into Clough’s office at the ground.
Boniperti spent all his football life with Juventus and was one of their greatest players from 1946 to 1961.
Lorenzo explained that Boniperti was only third behind the Pope and the President to Italians.
Clough asked, “What the f*** does he want?” and Lorenzo said, “Senor Boniperti wants to see the pitch and walk on it.”
Clough took us to the Directors’ Box saying, “That’s the pitch, now f*** off” and with that we left!
That return leg finished goalless – Derby missed chances, Alan Hinton fired a penalty wide and Roger
Davies was sent off for a headbutt.
Clough’s successful reign at Derby ended in tears. His relationship with the board and particularly chairman Sam Longson was deteriorating fast.
There were several incidents, including Clough signing Leicester City full-back David Nish for a record fee of £225,000 without the board knowing!
Clough made an unsuccessful £440,000 offer to West Ham for Bobby Moore as well as Trevor Brooking, which Longson did not know about for six months!
Longson was also trying to stop Cloughie giving controversial interviews to the press and appearing regularly on ITV.
Clough wanted Longson out, but I can reveal a scheme that backfired on the manager. He offered his resignation, which was accepted.
A board member and club official had plotted with Clough to do this and then bring him back after deposing of the chairman. It was a double cross and he knew who had done it, but it never came out.
Clough and Taylor eventually turned up at Nottingham Forest and the rest is history. Glorious success both at home and in Europe.
Eventually, Clough sadly developed a terrible drink problem, but stopped in time to have a liver transplant in January 2003. The surgeon said afterwards that they had found cancer in the liver and that Cloughie had been two months from death, but now the operation had been successful.
Later that year, I took Brian and his wife Barbara out for a private lunch at one of his favourite spots – the Dovecliff Hall Hotel near Burton-ontrent. Three quality hours in the sunshine capped by Barbara revealing how Brian was awoken before the operation at the Newcastle Freeman Hospital by a helicopter landing next to his ward. When he complained, he was told, “But Mr Clough, it was carrying your new liver!”
Barbara was later to say that Brian would have wanted me to compere the unveiling of his statue in the Nottingham Market Square on the November 6, 2008. So I did so in front of the first 7,000 public to enter the area, Forest players past and present, the Clough family and a big media presence.
It was going well until I asked the Nottingham Council Leader John Davies what Clough meant to the
City of BIRMINGHAM! I thought, as the booing rang out, where did Birmingham come from?
Two days later, Ron Atkinson asked me to name the capital of Peru. “Lima,” I replied, to which he then asked, “How come you know that and you do not know where Nottingham is!”
Brian Clough died on September 20, 2004, aged 69. He will always top the list of my favourite interviewees – even ahead of Muhammad Ali and Pele.