Extraordinary book about extraordinary times recreates the golden era of Nottingham Forest

A guest review by Jeremy Culley, editor of www.lostintheforest-nffc.co.uk

ALL clubs with distant glories are beset by the same problem.

Younger fans are forced to cling to past triumphs of which they have no recollection, experiencing a mixture of frustration at missing out and blissful ignorance of just how bad the current crop are compared with the stars of yesteryear.

In the same way that those of a certain vintage describe their partying days in the 1960s and 70s with wistful smiles and glints in their eyes, older Forest fans turn to children and grandchildren and say: "I've been there and done it all, me. Munich, Madrid the lot."

Sadly for those fascinated by their ancestors' memories of European Cup and Wembley success, their own tales of watching Forest away may extend no further than Yeovil, Grimsby and Woking in the LDV Vans Trophy.

Daniel Taylor has done much to ease their annoyance, however.

'I Believe in Miracles: The Remarkable Story of Brian Clough's European Cup-Winning Team' recounts the glory days of the late 1970s and early 1980s so skilfully and vividly readers almost feel they didn't miss out at all.

Told through the eyes of the players who made it all happen, the eccentricities and magic of Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor are revealed in all their glory.

And lifelong Forest fan Taylor, who writes for The Guardian, manages to weave together the comic and maverick side with the impact the astonishing achievements of Forest at that time had on the wider city of Nottingham.

He vividly portrays a crumbling provincial club with a disenchanted fanbase living in a city rife with growing post-industrial social problems.

Brian Clough's unique management
style transformed Nottingham Forest

But then in sweeps Brian Clough, a manager whose potential brilliance is without question but one whose career hangs in the balance after a disastrous spell as Don Revie's successor at Leeds United.

He shakes down and reinvigorates some of the club’s journeyman stars, transforming the careers of Martin O’Neill and Ian Bowyer, and moving portly winger John Robertson away from chip shops and chain smoking to scoring the winner in the European Cup final at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid.

The achievements are widely known but the anecdotes from the players involved are not.

And Taylor brings them together wonderfully, illustrating the fearless spirit in the Forest camp.

A brilliant story comes from Larry Lloyd, a towering centre-half from Liverpool and a slightly opinionated character with whom Clough perennially clashed.

David Needham had been signed from Notts County as cover when Lloyd became injured and performed so extraordinarily well that his more renowned teammate faced a battle to get back into the side.

Clough dealt with it in the expert way only he could: by making them both feel a million dollars.

Watch the goals from Forest's 1978-79 European Cup campaign

The team was announced and Lloyd was in it.

Clough told Needham: “David, you’re probably wondering why I’ve left you out and you’re entitled to. David you’ve done ever so well since I bought you. You know you’ve done brilliantly and I can’t fault you. David you’re a lovely boy. If my daughter were looking to bring home a man to marry, you’d be that man. You’re that nice I’d have you as a son-in-law.

“You see him over there, Larry Lloyd? I hate that f***ing b*****d. Absolutely hate him. And that David is why you’re not in the team. You’re not a b*****d like Larry Lloyd. And son, I want a b*****d in my defence.”

Another story is how Forest were taken to an FA Cup replay with Queens Park Rangers.

The inability to finish off the Hoops had the regrettable effect of cutting short a Spanish getaway for Clough.

In the run-up to the match, there was no sign of Old Big ‘Ead until five minutes before kick-off.

Lloyd recalls: “There he was, tanned and healthy, but with a face like thunder. ‘You f***ing b*****ds’ he shouted. ‘You’ve dragged me back from Majorca to get you through this FA Cup tie against a load of s*** from London’.”

Forest won the match 3-1.

Watch the goals from Forest's 1979-80 European Cup campaign

Clough was not like most managers, taking his players for walks in the park rather than training in European stadia, and keeping them up late drinking wine and playing cards instead of sleeping before a big match.

And author Taylor, in a more subtle way, has written something unlike most football books of its kind.

Released to accompany the film of the same name, it reads as if the players have gathered in a living room or cosy bar to share anecdotes over some scotch or a bottle of wine.

It is not a biographical or historical account of Forest’s greatest triumphs, but an intimate, charming and incredibly funny insight.

Buy I Believe in Miracles: The Remarkable Story of Brian Clough's European Cup-Winning Team, by Daniel Taylor (Headline)

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New e-book taster brings together some classic Cloughie stories

Nottingham Forest and Derby fans have been paying tribute to the memory of Brian Clough in the last few days, 10 years on from his death at the age of 69 on September 20, 2003.  

Supporters set aside their differences joined in a minute's applause when the East Midlands rivals met at the City Ground while at Forest's match with Fulham last week, the players entered the field with a guard of honour made up of Forest season ticket holders, all dressed in the green sweatshirt that was the great manager's matchday uniform.

Hundreds of Forest fans at the Capital One Cup match against Tottenham wore green sweatshirts provided by the competition sponsors, who are based in Nottingham.

Everyone who encountered Cloughie seems to have a favourite story about him, among them the Midlands journalist Dave Armitage, who gathered together 150 of them -- some of his own and a great many shared by others -- in a book cleverly titled 150 BC and had enough left over to follow up with a second volume, Clough Confidential.

Both are now available as Kindle e-books.  Alternatively, readers can sample a flavour of both books in Clough Gold, which draws on both in a collection of 50 stories as a taste of the entertainment on offer in the full versions.

Armitage has been covering football in the Midlands since the 1980s and was still a young and inexperienced reporter when he set foot in Clough's office at the City Ground for the first time.  Subsequently, he became on good enough terms with the maverick manager to be invited to his home in Derbyshire, although not on the occasion of one his own personal Clough stories.

That was the time he surprised Clough with an unusual gift of a couple of packets of seeds.  They were for a variety of sweet pea named 'Brian Clough' that he had spotted at the Shrewsbury Flower Show.  The young Armitage feared the gift might bring him only ridicule but in fact it was accepted graciously and gratefully by Clough, who recalled being asked some years earlier for permission to use his name and how beautiful the blooms were.

Months later, Clough spotted Armitage in the City Ground car park and hailed him in customary style. "Hey, shithouse," he said. "My missus was talking about you this morning.  You know those sweet peas you gave me.  She's grown them all up the back of our house and they are absolutely beautiful.

"She said 'You ought to ask that nice young man around to come and see them now they're out.'

"'Hey', I told her, 'I'm not having shithouse reporters up at my house'.  But thanks very much anyway!"

Clough Gold is available from Amazon as a Kindle e-book

Buy 150 BC from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.

Buy Clough Confidential from Amazon or Waterstones.

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After Clough fallout, The Damned United author David Peace turns his novelist's eye to Shankly

Controversial author David Peace, who generated both anger and acclaim with his fictional account of Brian Clough's torrid 44 days as Leeds United manager, is to place another football legend at the heart of a novel.

Almost six years after his dark portrayal of Clough's imagined inner torment in The Damned United, Peace has turned his attention to a man whose greatness he makes no attempt to deny, the former Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly.

Red or Dead, to be published by Faber in August -- a month ahead of the centenary of Shankly's birth -- will focus on how Shankly, who had previously managed Carlisle United, Workington, Grimsby Town and Huddersfield Town, emerged from relative obscurity to transform then down-at-heel Liverpool into the team that would dominate English football and conquer Europe.

It will dwell, too, on Shankly's life after Liverpool, following his surprise decision to retire in 1974, which to an extent was a rather sad time, in which he struggled to let go of the club he had handed over to Bob Paisley, his trusted lieutenant, and was told ultimately to stay away, his regular appearances at Melwood considered unhelpful.

"I have written about corruption, I've written about crime, I've written about bad men and I've written about the demons," Peace said, in the Faber press release announcing the book. "But now I've had enough of the bad men and the demons. Now I want to write about a good man. And a saint. A Red Saint.

"Bill Shankly was not just a great football manager. Bill Shankly was one of the greatest men who ever lived. And the supporters of Liverpool Football Club, and the people of Liverpool the city, know that and remember him.

"But many people outside of football, outside of Liverpool, do not know or do not remember him. And now – more than ever – it's time everybody knew about Bill Shankly. About what he achieved, about what he believed. And how he led his life. Not for himself, for other people."

Red or Dead promises to be a very different book from The Damned United, which echoed the stark prose style of Peace's Red Riding series, novels about police corruption against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders.

David Peace

The Damned United was roundly condemned by the Clough family, who felt its depiction of Brian as ruthless, obsessional and foul-mouthed was unfair, particularly on a man no longer around to defend himself.  Others, notably his biographer, Pat Murphy, complained that it was full of inaccuracies that made the Clough portrayed by Martin Sheen in the film version almost unrecognisable from the real person.

The family were particularly vexed by scenes that suggested Clough was a whisky-drinking chain smoker who was once so anxious about the outcome of an important match when he was Derby manager that he spent its entirety cowering in the dressing room.  They argued that his heavy drinking days came much later in his life, that he had given up smoking and that the idea of him deserting his post on the touchline for a critical match was too ludicrous even to contemplate.

Johnny Giles, one of the Leeds players Clough inherited from his predecessor, Don Revie, sued Peace for libel over the way he was depicted in the story and won.

Now 45, Yorkshire-born Peace now lives in Tokyo, where he has been writing his Tokyo Trilogy, another series of dark novels, about crime and corruption in post-War Japan.  The third volume, following on from Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City, will be published after Red or Dead.

Click on these links for more information about the The Damned Utd book and the DVD

Other novels by David Peace:

Red Riding: 1974
Red Riding: 1977
Red Riding: 1980
Red Riding: 1983

GB84
Tokyo Year Zero (Tokyo Trilogy 1)
Occupied City (Tokyo Trilogy 2)

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