Brian Clough's Wit and Wisdom

Brian Clough was one of those men who deserved a place at the top table in life: he was the best manager of a football club England has ever seen. Be that as it may, Clough was never given the chance to manage the national football side. One of life's mysteries and England football has suffered because of the decision not to employ him.

This page comprises nothing more than a series of quotations from his autobiography that I have recently read and reviewed. I admire the, and his abilities and his achievements speak for themselves.

Since he was such a successful manager for so long, Clough must have much to teach us: here are the things that I thought most important from his book.

The Rules of Life and Football According to Brian Clough

Taking Decisions
Always do your best
Make the most of your abilities
Managers must manage
Football Club Directors
Responsibility Management
Directors Responsibility and Accountability
Discipline
Footballers Should Practice with a ball
Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat
Laughter the Best Medicine
Participative Management

Management by Exception

Certainty
Rules are Rules
Referees are doing their best
Your Reputation Precedes you
Over Scrutiny
Plus ça change …
Management Skills
Golden Rule of Management

Taking Decisions

I know now my judgement was impaired when I allowed [people] to convince me of the ability of a young centre half, Carl Tiler. I paid £1.5 million to Barnsley for him and I continued to play him in the side not only to justify the money I'd shelled out but because my pride seemed to be at stake as well. In the years before, given the way he was playing, poor lad, I'd have dropped him. I should have dropped him but here I was, the manager who left Martin O'Neill and Archie Gemmill out of the European Cup final when they both swore blind they were fit, sticking by a lad who I now believe was not right for the job I expected him to do.

I'm not blaming Carl Tiler for the fact that Forest went down; that would be cruel and wrong. I'm blaming myself because if I'd been totally with it I wouldn't have signed him. If I hadn't been boozing to excess already, Carl Tiler might have driven me to it. But I was worse than I thought I was. I suppose that can be said of all drinkers. I started missing things on the field. I was the one who used to take the [mickey] out of managers who sat in the directors' box scribbling notes. What the hell were they scribbling? I was the one who used to brag that I never missed a thing and would leave players aghast, asking, 'How on earth do you remember that, Gaffer?' I remembered the lot. I remembered when they spat, when they kicked the ball away, when they didn't get back to defend, every single time they conceded the ball to the opposition nothing escaped my attention. But in that last season, several things escaped me.

There was another particular blind spot I fell out with Alan Hill, totally. I'm not in touch with him even now. He wanted me to play Steve Stone, who was eventually sold to Aston Villa and briefly made the England team, I seem to remember. Hill couldn't, daren't, insist that I put Stone in the side but he kept on suggesting it. I was loyal to Gary Crosby, Bing we called him, on the right wing. He played with such enormous courage and I suppose I remained loyal because I knew that only courageous players would get us out of trouble. Young Stone had had terrible bad luck with injuries, two broken legs, so I ignored Hill's well intended advice. I was wrong. I should have listened. I persevered with Crosby for too long.

So I was stubborn on the one hand and made a
pages 20 - 21

Always do your best

[Bill] Shankly… used to say that a man should always do his best at whatever he attempted. 'If you're going to sweep the street, then make sure your street is the cleanest in town,'
page 95

Make the most of your abilities

The sudden and premature end of my playing days had an important subconscious effect. I would make damned sure that every footballer with whom I came into contact made the most of whatever ability he had. If he didn't, he wouldn't remain in my company for very long. The ability to play football for your living, or any sport for that matter, is a gift that should be cherished and relished by those who have it. Those who abuse it to the extent that they reduce their capacity to perform at their very best are guilty of a criminal waste.
page 104

Managers must manage

Dennison had been a defender in his time. You'd have thought he would recognise the problem, and even if he didn't know the underlying reason, it was his duty as manager to try to put it right. The need for a team to defend effectively was like a message imprinted on my mind from those infuriating days. Dennison taught me by accident, through incompetence. I learned what not to do.

I was awestruck but fascinated as old Harry [Storer] reeled off home truths about football: 'Once you're a manager, if it ever happens, do a quick check before away games. Look at your players prior to the coach leaving and count the hearts. If there are less than five, don't bother setting off. A team's no good without courage.
page 112

Football Club Directors

'Something to remember about football club directors whatever you do for them, as a player or a manager, you'll be lucky if you ever hear them say thank you.
page 113

Responsibility Management

'Once you're a manager, everything lands on your doorstep. If a fan trips up on his way into the ground, if a player gets barracked from the terraces, if a seat doesn't work properly, if a season ticket holder can't find a programme seller, if the postman brings a sackful of letters saying the team's no bloody good it will all end up in the manager's office. You can stake your life on it.'
page 113

Directors, Responsibility and Accountability

… why weren't serious questions asked of those who shoved [an inexperienced manager] in at the deep end? Why weren't any of them [the directors] held responsible? Why didn't any of them pay the price of losing his own position with the club? Why? Because they rarely do. Football chairmen and directors at any club you care to look at are among the great survivors in life. page 138

I think those Derby directors had a few doubts in that first season when we finished lower than Tim Ward had managed the season before, but they changed their tune a year later. They were all there to be seen in the front row of the stand, no longer uncomfortable, no longer worried about the crowd on their backs. They wanted the lot. They were revelling in it, lapping it up. That's how directors re emerge when the good times come to call, and for those at Derby there had never been a day like the one when we celebrated winning the second division championship.

Clough and Taylor had arrived on the scene and shaken a few egos in the process. We had transformed an ordinary, small town club in the space of two seasons and there were many, no doubt, who believed it had been done as much by luck as by judgement. I don't think they were saying the same thing three years later when we won the league title. True to form, I was sitting on the beach in the Scilly Isles the day the championship was confirmed, relaxing in the grand manner, having no doubt been for a nice long walk on the water.
pages 146 -147

Discipline

Alan Brown taught me about discipline. I knew plenty about that from my mam, of course, but Browny's discipline was applied to the team as a whole as well as to the individual. It was collective discipline. If you need an example, remember how my teams at Derby and Nottingham Forest went about their work: not by effing and blinding at match officials, not by intimidating referees or hacking the ball away in disgust at free kicks given against us. Referees regarded my teams as their favourites because we simplified their jobs. We made refereeing easier than it was with other teams. We didn't antagonise them or chase them with angry words and gestures.
pages 113 - 114

Footballers Should Practice with a ball

… I changed the training. They didn't spend their time jogging lap after lap around the training ground; they spent almost all the session with a ball.

It struck me as barmy then, and any manager or coach who pays scant respect to the constant need for practice with a ball is barmy now.
pages 120 - 121

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat

At the end of most matches as a manager, even as a coach with L plates at Sunderland, my shirt used to be as sweat stained as any of the players'. Total involvement is what you must have. You must be on the same wavelength as the players, share their emotion whether that's elation or disappointment, and always believe you know why and where it has gone right or wrong. page 124

There were other important things to establish in those initial stages and I knew I would be at my strongest during the first three months. A manager always is anybody starting a new job should make emphatic decisions in that time if they want to establish working conditions to suit them.
page 130

Laughter the Best Medicine

I would far rather have my players rolling about the dressing room floor laughing than have them trying to fathom a list of instructions and tactics before they went out to play a match. In fact, Taylor had them laughing like that on countless occasions, in training, on the coach, around the ground and on match days.
page 153

Discipline is Crucial

Discipline was crucial. Without discipline you have no team, or at least you don't have a team that will do itself full justice and operate to its full potential. I could never have players who set out, or were even prepared, to make life more difficult than it already was for referees and their linesmen. I couldn't abide players being late for training. Alan Brown, I'm certain, would have liked nothing more than to fine me for turning up late at Sunderland. He'd glance at his watch every single morning but he never caught me out and my money was safe in my pocket.

Discipline was no great issue, no big deal, at Derby or at Forest later on. It was routine. They knew that I would be the same bloke every day awkward, inevitably bad tempered and for ever talking, reminding them that this was the good life. Playing for your living, being able to look forward to your work every day, was a great privilege afforded to very few people. I suppose it was only when we'd won or when the close season arrived that I was totally relaxed and liveable with. One of the first things I'd hear when I arrived at the ground in the morning would be somebody whispering, 'I wonder what kind of mood he's in?' The moment I heard it I'd shout, 'I'm in a rotten mood. Start off believing that and you won't go wrong. Believe I'm in a rotten mood every time you see me and you'll be fine. On that basis, I can only get better.'
pages 153 - 154

Participative Management

But the principles of management remain the same. Ground rules apply just as much to millionaires as to those who can hardly afford to pay the mortgage. I applied them from the start, telling my players exactly what was expected and what would happen if those rules were broken, and I always ended by asking, 'Have you heard everything I've said?'

It usually met with the stock reply, 'Yeah, yeah, Gaffer. We've heard it that many times we know it off by heart.'

'Right, then,' I said. 'And do you agree? Is there anybody who wants to say anything? If you all agree to a fifty pound fine if you're late, then that's the rule. No point in cribbing when I demand the fifty quid.'
pages 155 - 156

Management by Exception

Somebody would say something like, 'But what happens if we get caught in heavy traffic on the way or we're involved in an accident?'

'An accident, that's different. That's exceptional. But busy roads? Don't give me that. We all have to contend with traffic and if it's that bad where you live, set off a bit earlier. What do you want a ten o'clock start for training or ten thirty? And don't tell me ten thirty would have your missus complaining it made you late for lunch. It's up to you.' It usually became ten thirty on a majority vote. That became the rule and they'd laid it down themselves.

I wasn't programming my players or turning them into robots in any shape or form. I was simplifying their lives, spelling out with their agreement what would happen in a given set of circumstances: lateness for instance, failure to dress properly when required, getting booked for things that could be avoided such as kicking the ball away in disgust or anger and mouthing off at a referee or a linesman.

I wasn't being heavy handed or dictatorial although, yes, I was a bit of a dictator in my time. Had to be. But in laying down the rules with them, I always had their interests at heart because whatever else I might be, I'm a players' man. After all, they're the ones who win matches for you. On the other hand, they won't win as many as they should if half of them are getting themselves banned through their own stupid irresponsibility.

Little things mean a lot in management.
page 155 - 156

Certainty

Do you know why they loved it? [routine, joint decision making, discipline, that is] It was because I was X doing the thinking for them. It suited them not to have / \ too many decisions to make. Some players don't like making decisions and when I made them, I did it in the interests of their families as well. It suited the wives
page 157

Rules are Rules

The rules are the rules. We all have to abide by them, on and off the field, because somebody has written them down. They might be good or they might be bad but the rules enable us to have a game. Without them, there is no game at all. Everybody makes mistakes. I haven't seen a goalkeeper yet who hasn't let a ball slip through his hands when he should have stopped it with his eyes closed. I've never seen a centre forward who hasn't missed a simple chance to score. I've never seen a perfect referee, either. In fact, I've not seen a perfect anything in life (apart from me!).
page 159

Referees are doing their best

My players learned to understand that referees were doing their best, honestly and in keeping with whatever talent they had for the job. It developed into a kind of mutual respect for one another: my lot made life as comfortable as possible for match officials, and they were quick to appreciate it. 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.'
pages 161 - 162

Your Reputation Precedes you

It worked to our benefit. A team of mine was the referees' best friend. It was only human nature that they should have a sympathetic outlook towards us. They wouldn't bend the rules or do us any particular favours but they knew that my players were not cheating or taking liberties. A mistimed tackle was exactly that and nothing more sinister. When a player of mine stayed down with an injury, no one was in the slightest doubt that he was genuinely hurt.

I made a point of going to talk to referees at their meetings. Inevitably, I was asked about the badly behaved sides and I told them, 'That problem could be eliminated overnight. If a team persistently has players in trouble, especially for dissent, arguing and cussing and swearing, they should fine the managers concerned a month's wages. If a manager was hit in his pocket, he'd be quick to get rid of the rotten apples in his barrel. He wouldn't stand for some yob or thug costing him his wages.'
page 162

Over Scrutiny

Scrutiny is the referees' greatest enemy. Their performance is watched and recorded from just about every imaginable angle. Eventually, after as many re runs of the slow motion replay as it takes, the experts make up their minds and declare whether the referee was right or wrong. Would you like to have your every move at work recorded and analysed by some smart arsed expert who hasn't a clue what it's like to do your job in the first place? Of course you wouldn't and neither would I. The only thing that surprises me about modern refereeing is that so many people volunteer to do it.
page 164

Plus ça change

… Not a lot alters in football when you think about it, apart from the number of noughts on the players' wage slips. The dimensions of the pitch remain virtually the same and the goalposts are where they've always been, even though some strikers still have a lot of trouble hitting the target that's never been known to move.
page 169

Management Skills

The skill of good management lies in assessment, judgement and motivation. It lies in knowing what your team needs, recognising the player or players capable of providing it and making bloody sure that every single one of them in your dressing room gives absolutely everything, match in match out, in the interests of the team. Defenders defend, midfield players provide the link and create and, if you're lucky, strikers score goals. It never ceases to amaze me that so many people have so much difficulty in assembling a good football team. How can they make such a simple job so complex?
page 169

Golden Rule of Management

You can't afford to be everybody's friend as the manager. There are [reprimands] to be handed out; there are players to be told their performance was unacceptable and that any repeat will be the last. There are some who need cuddling and reassuring, of course, but there are those who have to be dropped as well. Always there is the need for improvement, the necessity to be constantly striving to make the team a better team, however successful it might be already. You can't be totally pally with footballers you are secretly trying to replace.
pages 174 – 175

Source: Brian Clough (2003) Cloughie Walking on Water: my life Headline