Welcome to our collection of quotes by Brian Clough. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Brian Clough
Brian Howard Clough ( KLUF; 21 March 1935 – 20 September 2004) was an English football player and manager, being one of only four managers to have won the English league while managing two different clubs. He played as a striker and remains one of the Football League's highest goalscorers, but his career was shortened by a serious injury. As a manager, Clough's name is closely associated with that of Peter Taylor, who served as his assistant manager at various clubs in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They achieved great successes with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. Clough is also remembered for giving frequent radio and television interviews in which he made controversial remarks about players, other managers and the overall state of the game.
During his playing career with Middlesbrough and Sunderland, Clough scored 251 league goals from 274 starts, making him the third most prolific scorer in the league. He also won two England caps, both in 1959. Clough retired from playing at the age of 29, after sustaining anterior cruciate ligament damage. In 1965, Clough took the manager's job at Fourth Division Hartlepools United and appointed Peter Taylor as his assistant, the start of an enduring partnership that would bring them success at several clubs over the next two decades. In 1967, the duo moved on to Second Division Derby County. In 1968–69, Derby were promoted as Second Division champions. Three years later, Derby were crowned champions of England for the first time in the club's history. In 1973, they reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. However, by this point, Clough's relationship with chairman Sam Longson had deteriorated; he and Taylor resigned. This was followed by an eight-month spell in charge of Third Division Brighton & Hove Albion, before Clough (without Taylor) returned north in the summer of 1974 to become manager of Leeds United. This was widely regarded as a surprise appointment, given his previous outspoken criticism of the Leeds players and their manager Don Revie. He was sacked after just 44 days in the job. Within months, Clough had joined Second Division Nottingham Forest and he was re-united with Taylor in the summer of 1976.
In 1977, Forest were promoted to the top flight and the following season won the league title (the first in the club's history), making Clough one of only four managers to have won the English league with two clubs. Forest also won two consecutive European Cups (in 1979 and 1980) and two League Cups (1978 and 1979), before Taylor retired in 1982. Clough stayed on as Forest manager for another decade and won two more League Cups (1989 and 1990) and reached the FA Cup final in 1991, but could not emulate his earlier successes. Forest were relegated from the Premier League in 1993, after which Clough retired from football.
Charismatic, outspoken and often controversial, Clough is considered one of the greatest managers of the English game. His achievements with Derby and Forest, two struggling provincial clubs with little prior history of success, are rated among the greatest in football history. His teams were also noted for playing attractive football and for their good sportsmanship. Despite applying several times and being a popular choice for the job, he was never appointed England manager and has been dubbed the "greatest manager England never had".
To me, scoring goals was just like other boys might regard delivering papers. I just did it -- every day.
Women who choose to stay home and raise their families make one of the most valuable contributions to society. as far as I am concerned.
My early memories are full of football talk around the house, of Dad standing on the terraces at Ayresome Park, of the occasional precious new pair of boots.
Being thick isn't an affliction if you're a footballer, because your brains need to be in your feet. And Beckham works hard, he's brave and he crosses a ball superbly. He treats a football like he does a wife, lovingly, with caresses.
The ugliest player I ever signed was Kenny Burns.
I can't even spell spaghetti never mind talk Italian. How could I tell an Italian to get the ball -- he might grab mine.
If he'd been English or Swedish, he'd have walked the England job.
Resignations are for Prime Ministers and those caught with their trousers down, not for me.
Academically, I was thick. School wasn't bad, but I was.
There are more hooligans in the House of Commons than at a football match.
Acne is a bigger problem than injuries.
Come and see my coaching certificates -- they're called the European Cup and league championships.
We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass.
Anybody who can do anything in Leicester but make a jumper has got to be a genius.
They love me for what I'm not They hate me for what I am.
I'm dealing with my drinking problem and I have a reputation for getting things done.
Bill eventually became Mr Tottenham Hotspur, and produced such a dazzling team at White Hart Lane that they won the double and played the game in a way that was an object lesson to everybody.
The RAF allowed me to play a lot of football, but like England later, they failed to recognise real talent when it was under their noses.
You don't want roast beef and Yorkshire every night and twice on Sunday.
My values stemmed from the family. Anything I have achieved in life has been rooted in my upbringing.
What young men nowadays don't realise is that ballroom dancing can be such a source of enjoyment.
What joy and adventure the youngsters of today are missing as they sit indoors mucking about with computer games and videos!
I was never, ever physically afraid. My terms of reference were basic and simple: put the ball in the net. That was my job, that's the way I saw it, and I allowed nothing and nobody to distract me from that purpose.
I lost count of the number of referees who came to me both at Derby and Forest and said, 'I'd just like to express my thanks. I love matches involving your team. We never have any trouble with them.
If God had wanted us to play football in the sky, He'd have put grass up there.
Believe it or not, cricket was my first love. I would genuinely have swapped the dream of a winning goal at Wembley for a century against the Australians at Lord's.
Saturday comes again, welcome or not, it comes again like it always does, welcome or not, wanted or not, another judgment day -- The chance to be saved, the chance to be damned.
The river Trent is lovely, I know because I have walked on it for 18 years.
When you get to a certain age, there is no coming back.
I want no epitaphs of profound history and all that type of thing. I contributed. I would hope they would say that, and I would hope somebody liked me.
Telling the entire world and his dog how good a manager I was. I knew I was the best but I should have said nowt and kept the pressure off 'cos they'd have worked it out for themselves.
We used to go to the pictures every Saturday night but we had to leave a little bit early and get home and watch Match of the Day -- and my wife still complains she missed the last five minutes of every film we saw.
Who the hell wants fourteen pairs of shoes when they go on holiday? I haven't had fourteen pairs in my life.
I've decided to pick my moment to retire very carefully -- in about 200 years time.
Walk on water? I know most people out there will be saying that instead of walking on it, I should have taken more of it with my drinks. They are absolutely right.
If a chairman sacks the manager he initially appointed, he should go as well.
I like my women to be feminine, not sliding into tackles and covered in mud.
I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.
Players lose you games, not tactics. There's so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes.
On occasions I have been big-headed. I think most people are when they get in the limelight. I call myself Big Head just to remind myself not to be.
Beckham? His wife can't sing and his barber can't cut hair.
They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job.
That Seaman is a handsome young man but he spends too much time looking in his mirror rather than at the ball. You can't keep goal with hair like that.
When I go, God's going to have to give up his favourite chair.
Don't send me flowers when I'm dead. If you like me, send them while I'm alive.