BRIAN CLOUGH OBE, 1935 – 2004: LARGER THAN LIFE

News of the maestro’s death filtered though on September 20th 2004, at the
age of 69. We’ll leave the career facts and figures to the journalists, as the
sports pages will not be short of such obituaries for one of football’s
greatest characters. The man, though, looms as large as ever in our mind’s eye.
It simply won’t sink in for a long time that he is now sadly silent, as
there is so much instant recall of his brash style and forceful personality from
any number of historical games or interviews. He’ll never be gone; he is an
immortal to so many thousands of fans as both footballer and manager.

To the Derby public caught up in the excitement of the 1966 World Cup and
flocking to the Baseball Ground to see new starlet Kevin Hector, (one of the
few quality players he inherited from Tim Ward), Brian Clough’s reign at Derby
County was an incredible whirlwind where anything seemed possible for our
club. After 1967, Brian proved that it was. We stacked the Popside in our
thousands, catching his self-belief and installing it in the team and in ourselves
from the time we put Chelsea and Everton to the sword in those momentous
floodlit Baseball Ground cup-ties in 1968.
The ensuing six years in charge at Derby - and of course his subsequent
achievements when taking himself and able assistant, Peter Taylor, to the City
Ground Nottingham - put East Midlands football at the pinnacle of the game. He
would no doubt survey the current plight of both clubs with sadness and
regret. Not for him the current dour explanations about the toughness of the
opposition or long battles ahead to stay afloat. We were the best and he told
everyone – again and again!

In Clough’s day, almost from the outset there was an expectation that we
would win promotion, then take the League title and march into Europe, fed by
Clough’s public confidence and footballing genius. It all came true under Brian
Clough. Our evenings and leisure time consisted of endless football games on
Chaddesden Park, emulating Mackay, Hector, McFarland and Gemmill, until our
energy was spent or it was time to get to the ground again to witness the
side in action.

Cloughie guaranteed a brisk opinion or outspoken headline every day; each
team we faced were there to have their reputations destroyed and came away from
the game chastened and wiser about their inferior place in the scheme of
things, or so it seemed. Derby County were big news and Manchester, Liverpool,
London and Leeds had to move over. How we all still regret that he did not
stay at the Baseball Ground to deliver the ultimate trophy to the Council House,
instead fleeing to Nottingham to claim two European Cups after one argument
too many with the Rams directors.

Brian Clough can be placed alongside legendary managers of the English game
such as Chapman, Shankly and Busby - men he matched or bettered in
achievements given the comparatively meagre resources at his disposal. He fashioned
brilliant, efficient teams, unearthing many top-class players and moulding them
into attractive winning machines that played their way to glory.

He had only weeks to live in 2003 and underwent a liver transplant; it
seemed however that he was invincible. Having seen him in top form at a Pride Park
forum only months before – when he took the trouble to say cheerio to
everyone leaving the Toyota Suite personally, shaking hands with us all on the
stairs on the way out – he was soon back larger than life with regular radio
spots and enjoying the game at grass roots, watching son Nigel Clough’s Burton
Albion as often as possible.

RamsTrust, on behalf of Derby fans, was proud to bestow their own Living
Legend tribute on Brian during his Freeman of the City of Derby celebrations.

There will be greater clamour now to ensure one of the new streets bears his
name in Normanton, at the site of the now-demolished Baseball Ground, and that
the recent Knighthood campaign is fulfilled posthumously. Let his name live
on too, please, at Pride Park, with a stand named in his honour to remind
all Derby fans and players of the standards he set.