Brian Cloughs 2 weirdest decisions

lysglimt

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I have never read Cloughs autobiography - but I probably must do that to find the answer to 2 questions which still puzzle me.

We are going back to the start of the Premier League - which was gonna be the last season in management for Clough. After a decent season the year before (Forest ended 8th), they started the Premier League by beating Liverpool, goal scored by Sheringham. Within a week Sheringham was sold to Tottenham for £2 million - which in itself was a strange decision but that could have been triggered by Teddy himself so I wont hold that against Clough.

Clough needed a replacement - and picked up Gary Bannister for free. Bannister had been a highly competent striker in the first 6-7 seasons of the 80s - he was a 1 goal in 2 matches-player for both Wednesday and QPR. However at the age of 32 - his last 4 seasons had been spent at WBA and Oxford in both the 2nd and 3rd division - where he scored roughly 20 goals in 80+ matches. Hardly the player you would expect to score a lot of goals for a struggling side. However Bannister did ok for Forest at the start of the season- his all-round play wasn't good enough but he actually managed to score 8 goals. However the goals quickly dried up and basically Forest was left without a striker who scored goals.

It was however quickly going to get worse for Clough. After christmas Clough decided he needed to get a striker who could score goals and get Forest away from the relegation-zone. His choice was one of the worst goalscorers the old first division had ever seen - Robert Rosario. Rosario was a tall striker who failed trials with several clubs Before getting contracts with non-League clubs Harrow and Hillingdon. Norwich City saw potential in the 17 year old and signed him. He stayed at Norwich for almost 8 seasons - during that time he played 161 League matches and scored 29 goals. In 1991 Terry Butcher paid £600.000 to get Rosario to Coventry - at one stage he did make a nice partnership with Mickey Quinn, it should however be added that Quinn scored the goals - Rosario was the lump flicking the ball on to Quinn. He spent 1.5 season at Coventry scoring 8 goals in 59 matches.

So by March 1993 - Robert Rosario had 37 goals in 220 League matches. Forest were struggling near the bottom and couldn't score goals. Just to make the situation more bizarre - the night before he was unveiled as a Forest-player - the club made an announcement saying they had announced a well known Premier League-player who would address their goalscoring problem. So you had every Forest-fan going to bed that night pondering which quality player they had signed. And they woke up to Robert Rosario.

Needless to say it didn't work out - he scored 1 goal in 10 matches - and Forest got relegated.
 

sully07

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Clough created sides that scored from all over and rarely had a prolific striker. Woodcock, Birtles, Francis, Sheringham and Nigel Clough never reached one in two returns for goals in their careers at NF but the team won league titles and European cups. The issue he had at the end of his career (apart from his love of vodka) was the rest of the team weren't of the quality he had in the past.
 

gormless

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A lot of player recruitment was down to Peter Taylor. After Taylor left Clough whilst still a good manager didn’t have someone who would reel him in or recognise talent as well as Taylor did
 

Grinner

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I'd have said his two weirdest decisions were thumping that fan and sending out the unknown youth player to pretend to be the goalscorer from the match to be interviewed by the Beeb. The interviewer didn't clock on!
 

sunama

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Becoming manager at Leeds has to be his strangest decision.
I think it made perfect sense.
Leeds were the biggest club in the league at the time.
Clough was arguably the best manager at the time (alongside Revvie, who was taking over the England National team).
It made perfect sense for Leeds to hire the best available manager. And it made perfect sense for Clough, to move to the biggest/best team in the league.
 

SteveJ

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Anyone know the reason for his dislike of Revie?
 

Kag

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Choosing to dish out homophobic abuse to a player that eventually killed himself? Drinking himself to death?
 

simplyared

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Anyone know the reason for his dislike of Revie?
Clough was obsessed with excelling what Revie had done with Leeds in the 70,s in terms of success, trophies etc. It frustrated him, along with a many other managers at the time, that he couldn't overcome the force that was Leeds Utd. The fact they were the dirtiest team on the planet didn't help either. Revie getting the England job another aspect which probably put more fuel on the fire.
 

Canuckred64

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Clough was obsessed with excelling what Revie had done with Leeds in the 70,s in terms of success, trophies etc. It frustrated him, along with a many other managers at the time, that he couldn't overcome the force that was Leeds Utd. The fact they were the dirtiest team on the planet didn't help either. Revie getting the England job another aspect which probably put more fuel on the fire.
It goes back before Clough took the Leeds job. Leeds and Derby had challenged for the old First division title practically every year since Clough got Derby out of the Second division.
 

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Choosing to dish out homophobic abuse to a player that eventually killed himself? Drinking himself to death?
Not defending Clough but Fashanu would have got the same treatment everywhere. Even his own brother gave him abuse.

Different times sadly.