Despite the inordinately large place it occupies in my life, I am not a particular football fan. If I am ever really passionate about a football team, it is undoubtedly the red-shirted St-Michel, in its under-15 and under-13 manifestations. Yet, like anyone else, I am not immune to the pull of the big match, or entirely able to ignore the vicissitudes of the top national teams.
All that said, I never thought I'd be reader of football books.
But then again, this book is not so much about football as about an extraordinary individual, one who occupied a huge place in national life in my formative years. But, more than that, Brian Clough, or "Cloughie" (pron. 'Clooffie'), is a genuine local hero in my home town, Nottingham. To this day, the so-called "Football" section in the main Nottingham Waterstones bookshop is in reality the "Brian Clough" section. This indeed is the place where one of my sons, prompted perhaps by recently having seen the (excellent) film The Damned United, must have purchased Duncan Hamilton's book. The book subsequently languished in and around the boys' bedroom, and eventually got picked up by me and leafed through. In the end, I read most of the book that way, in parallel with my regular reading, in snippets while the boys got ready for bed. Until I decided to knock it on the head and finished it off on a flight back to (where else?) Nottingham.
Perhaps this is the time to explain, for the benefit of the young, ignorant and (possibly) foreign, who Brian Clough was. He was a football manager, famed for taking two languishing second division football clubs from obscurity to the first division and then to victory in the national league. This was a phenomenal achievement once - with Derby County - but a truly astonishing feat to repeat the trick with another team only a few years later, Nottingham Forest. But there's more. With Forest, Clough also won the European Cup (now the Champions' League) two years in succession in 1979 and 1980, as well as collecting all sorts of other significant silverware. This is stuff which impinged on the consciousness of even this non-football addict teenager. How could it not?
Perhaps even more than for these prodigious achievements, Clough was famous for his style. He was conceited, irascible, publicity-grabbing, ostentatious, opinionated and, in latter days, increasingly unpredictable because of the ravages of alcoholism. He could be, and frequently was, utterly obnoxious. He was completely lacking in diplomacy, something which is generally considered the reason the best manager in the country never got the England job (probably just as well). Of course, he was also, at his best, brilliant, a great motivator, an inspired spotter of untapped potential, a builder of great teams from unpromising raw materials. He was also absurdly generous, incredibly loyal to his friends, implacable in his enmities, and - according to persistent tabloid rumour - a bit dodgy.
I didn't have a clear recollection of this, but then, of course, I read this book. The author is a journalist who worked during the Clough era at Nottingham Forest as the football reporter at the Nottingham Evening Post, then (and perhaps now, for all I know) one of the foremost local papers in the country. Subject to the whim of Clough, over 20 years Hamilton developed an improbably close relationship with the club and its management team (never forget Clough's sadly-neglected associate in the glory years, Peter Taylor), and ultimately became almost a confidant of the often mistrustful Clough.
The insights into this frequently bizarre character are real, albeit limited essentially to the professional arena (there is little about the family, for example). Though ultimately, Hamiliton's affection and admiration for Clough are clear, he portrays his faults with relentless clarity. There is no question that Clough was very often some-one you simply wouldn't want to be around. His descent into outright alcoholism is related unsparingly and makes tragic reading. At the same time, even though this is by no means a fan-book or hagiography, the genuine magnificence of his achievements are celebrated.
Recommendation? This is not really a football book, not really a biography, but a sincere, revealing, rather personal and anecdotal account of a famous individual who was at the centre of British popular culture in the seventies and eighties. It is written in a well-paced journalistic style, not high-lit, but several cuts above hackery, and the pages fly by. And, yes, Clough was a fascinating character, worth a book. So if you're, say, around 45-50, British, possibly from the Nottingham area, this book is irresistible. Otherwise, you might fancy it or you might not. If you do though, you'll enjoy it!
Obnoxious but brilliant. Insights into a local legend
No comments:
Post a Comment