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Brian Clough, OBE (March 21, 1935–September 20 2004) was a talented footballer and subsequently a football manager, most notable for his success with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He joked that his OBE stood for "Old Big 'Ead".
Playing career
Clough was a prolific striker for his home town Middlesbrough and for Sunderland, scoring 251 goals in 274 games before his career was ended by damage to his cruciate ligaments in a game on December 26 1962 against Bury. He played twice for England, without scoring.
Management career
Clough then went on to manage Hartlepools United (now Hartlepool United) with Peter Taylor as his assistant manager, before they both joined Derby County as manager and assistant manager in 1967. At Derby, Clough and Taylor won promotion to the Football League First Division (then the highest echelon of English football) and then won the Championship with Derby in the 1971-72 season.
Clough's outspoken comments against football's establishment (which led to Derby being threatened with expulsion from the League) led to him falling out with the board of directors at Derby, and Clough and Taylor left the club. Together they spent a brief period at Brighton and Hove Albion before Clough on his own took over as manager of Leeds United when Don Revie was appointed manager of England. Clough was manager of Leeds for only 44 days before he was fired after upsetting many of Leeds's star players. He was then reunited with Taylor at Nottingham Forest. Forest went on to win one league championship (in 1978) before winning and retaining the European Cup in 1979 and 1980.
Many consider that taking two relatively small and unfashionable clubs to such heights ranks as one of the great -- if not the greatest -- managerial achievements in the history of English football.
During these years Clough was the English public's pick for manager of England, but he was never given the job by the Football Association, presumably because FA officials were nervous about his outspoken nature and habit of causing controversy.
Clough and Taylor fell out in 1984 when Taylor returned to manage Derby County. Taylor died before they had a chance to reconcile.
Under Clough, Forest also won the League Cup in 1978, 1979, 1989 and 1990, but he never won the FA Cup, losing in the final to Tottenham Hotspur F.C. in 1991.
His stay at Forest ended in disappointment as the club was relegated in 1993. In the years prior to the relegation Clough's behaviour became increasingly erratic as he battled with a - later acknowledged - alcohol problem.
Retirement
Clough spent the majority of his retirement living in Quarndon, Derbyshire before moving to Derby itself. He stopped drinking alcohol but in January 2003 he had to go into hospital for a liver transplant. He died of stomach cancer at Derby City General Hospital on September 20 2004.
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