On Books and Football : Talking About True Legend Brian Clough

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well as my mother is getting better there are less things that I have to do as nursemaid. What this means is that for the first time in a week and a half  I've had time to concentrate on reading.

So let's go to an ebook I'd actually finished Letters On Sweden,Norway and Denmark by Mary Wollstonecraft. There is a mystery about this book to me. Wikipedia stated that it was written by Mary Shelley. However the introduction suggested that it was in fact her mother.

I don't have the time or inclination to check. Personally I'm hoping that it was her writer who wrote this. If only because it was a dull read.

Dull though is a description that I wouldn't give to the next ebook that I've read Cloughie: Walking On Water:My Life.

For those of you too young to remember Brian Clough was a legendary (when the word meant something and wasn't used to describe chicken burger) manager of the seventies and eighties. Taking two unfashionable teams Derby County and Nottingham Forest to League and (with regard to Forest) European glory.

This book, published in 2002 and ghost written by John Sadler is an autobiography of this larger than life man.

Since I've started this blog I've read three books by football managers before this one. There was the amiable tome by current Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock, the stunningly badly written Sam Allardyce biography and the weird biography cum business management book by Carlo Ancelotti.

This book is not only better than those. It's one of  the best football manager autobiography I've ever read. On a par with John Lyall's Just Like My Dreams.

The start is the key. Clough is in hospital awaiting a liver transplant due to his alcoholism. He has left Nottingham Forest following relegation. As you read it there is a sense of a man knowng that time is not on his side. The brash Brian of legend is replaced by a more reflective one. Never for example have I read an autobiography where a manager acknowledges that he was partly (because of the effects of the alcoholism) responsible for a team's relegation. He also speaks about his love of the drink and his regret about his feud with former assistant Peter Taylor and later how he handled Justin Fashanu

(And yes I forgive him for his remarks on blog hero Trevor Brooking. After all Trev answered him on the pitch)

Throughout he is not afraid to mention his failures as well as his successes.

What it reminded me of was Johnny Cash's last song Hurt. A dying genius looking back on his life.

It is a biography but it's a credit to Clough and John Sadler that rt reads as if he's chatting to you. He will speak about a subject meander and then go back to the main subject of the chapter. And you know what? It works.

Of the three books I mentioned earlier, it puts to shame the Carlo Ancelotti bio/business thing. Clough's style would not have been approved by Carlo. But we know who, given the resources at his disposal has achieved more.

Possibly if you're too young to remember him then this biography may be a difficult to understand. for those of us old enough though it's a worthwhile read of a true legend.

It will make you sad. It will make you wistful. It will make you smile as you remember him.

The next ebook is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser.

Until the next time.