With Clough, By Taylor by Peter Taylor (Biteback Publishing 1980)

 

Harry’s message about being the boss, finding the best players and standing no nonsense was so simple  that it went unheeded, but not by me. I was Storer’s pupil. He taught me what to look for in a player and I disagreed only with his emphasis on defence and overemphasis on physical courage and bodily contact. Joe Mercer, when manager of Sheffield United, phoned Harry to protest after a bruising visit by Derby.

‘I don’t know why you bothered to bring a ball,’ said Joe. ‘Two of your players didn’t need one. They kicked us, instead.’

‘Which two?’ snapped Harry, who had missed the match to go scouting. ‘Give me their names.’

Joe, always the nice guy, demurred. ‘Oh, no. I don’t wish to get them into trouble.’

‘Give me their names!’

Joe considered it. ‘Only if you promise not to punish them.’

‘I’ll do nothing to them,’ cried Harry. ‘I’m going to crucify the other nine!’

Harry admired skilful footballers provided they also shaped like prospective VCs. I can still hear him musing, ‘Yes, I agree that lad can play – but can he play when some big, angry bloke is trying to stop him?’ He scouted for Everton as an old man when he was out of management and they still remember receiving from him the shortest possible report on a player. It was one word in capitals  across the reporting form: COWARD.

I was fascinated by Storer and would go out of my way after leaving Coventry to consult the oracle, often in just a few minutes of conversation on railway platforms as our teams waited for Saturday night trains – but I disliked his prejudice against cowards and told him so. I prefer to sign brave footballers but have always seen plenty of scope for those who are less foolhardy; indeed, the word coward is one that I never apply to players. Harry remained adamant, though, that a footballer was useless if he shrank from challenges and the risk of injury. He said, ‘There’s never been a player who enjoyed being kicked but some endure it better than others. They are my kind of player.'

I Believe In Miracles: The Remarkable Story of Brian Clough’s European Cup-winning Team by Daniel Taylor (Headline 2015)

The only player Clough doted on was the podgy little Scot he once described as ‘the Picasso of our game’. When Clough walked into Forest’s dressing room for the first time, John Robertson had a chip-fat grin, a slapdash attitude and a packet of Polos strategically hidden in his back pocket to help cover up his fag-breath. Robertson’s career was drifting and it took a “while for the chemistry between him and Clough to work. Yet he has never forgotten Clough’s first day and the instinctive feeling that something better might be on the way. It wasn’t anything Clough said that resonated. It was the aura. It was the moment the dressing-room door almost flew off its hinges. It was the way, before uttering a single word, that in one swift movement Clough was already taking off his jacket and flinging it at a wall peg, as if he had been there years. Clough being Clough, it landed plum on the hook. ‘It was like a whirlwind coming in,’ Robertson says, with the awe still apparent in his voice. ‘I’d never seen anyone in my life with so much charisma. All I could think was: “Jesus, this guy means business.” Right from the very first minute.

That, That and That: It's an 80s thing . . .

Aston Villa's Nigel Spink.

Don't mind me, I'm just clearing out the desktop for 2018. A cracking picture which, for some reason, gives me a warm glow. Of course I remember his appearance in that final. At the time, Aston Villa were my 'English team' . . .  possibly still are, as I'm not sure I ever replaced them. (PS - don't watch the highlights of the final on YouTube. It will shatter old pre-pubescent dreams. Munich 'mullered' Villa that night, and Withe's goal was a bit of a smash and grab.

Before I get accused of glory hunting . . . in my defence: 1) I was 10 or 11. A funny age at the best of times. 2) I've always been a sucker for teams in claret and blue. Trabzonspor, here I come. 3) Not so much naked glory hunting per se, as falling in love with that Tony Morley goal of the season against Everton. 

And, yes, I will get round to reading that Ron Saunders biography in 2018. Not in a million years would I have pegged Miserable Ron as centre forward in his playing days. That nugget alone is intriguing enough.

I Believe In Miracles (2015)

Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough by Duncan Hamilton (Harper Perennial 2007)

He wasn't satisfied with the eulogies written about Taylor. Not because each one did not describe him generously, but because in Clough's eyes none did Taylor sufficient justice or apportioned enough credit for the work he had done in the partnership. It was as if he'd become the guardian of Taylor's posthumous reputation.

'Your obit on my mate was crap, utter crap,' he yelled at me, his face flushed, the voice rising in protest. 'You're all the same, you journalists - crap. Every paper missed the point, the real story. No one showed him the way he was. No one managed to give him the send-off he deserved. He was funny - you know that. He was intelligent - you know that too. He had a football brain - everybody could see it. And he was my mate. And we had some great times. And now . . .'

Clough slumped into a chair. He seemed to be stringing together in his mind all the bright days he had shared with Taylor.

'What a waste,' he said after a long pause. 'All those years when we could have been sitting together having a beer. All those years when he could have come, as an honoured guest, to watch us play. All those years without the laughter he was capable of providing. No one - absolutely no one - has made me laugh like him. I always missed that, and now . . . he's gone. I can hear his voice . . . telling joke after joke. But all we did at the end was slag one another off. Oh, fuck.' He shook his head slowly, his eyes staring at the floor.