Just reading that on today in 1961 Brian Clough joined SAFC from Boro, for a whopping 40k. Scoring an incredible 63 goals in just 74 appearances. In 62/63 season he had scored 24 goals by december. Many know about his fantastic managers career in later years, but what about Clough the player, going by those stats he was fantastic, anyone enlighten us on just how good he was? Would he have faired as well in todays game? (hard to compare i know)
I was only a kid then but never missed a home game. Pre game banter was about how many goals he would score, no one opted for one!
He was a class act, scored most of his goals from inside the box if you know what I mean, I was there the day he was crocked against Bury, I,m convinced had we kept him fit we would have got promoted a year earlier and coped better in the old first division with him up front, a great bloke treated pretty badly by the clipboard his injury, I was also their the day he made his return to action against Leeds, you could visibly see his injured leg was much thinner than his other, it's a shame that the same injury now doesn't end Career,s like it did then,
Bit of both Really, never saw him pass the ball in the box mind, he just knew where the onion bag was and usually found it, he was known as old big head and he was always like that, would let his team mates know if he thought he was better placed to score than them but the guy was just class.
As he said in his book he didn't,t fit the England set up he couldn't,t keep his gob shut if he saw something he didn't,t agree with, mind he's not the only Sunderland player treated badly by the FA Super Kev never get the chances his goal tally deserved same as Cloughie.
Agree SKP should have had more games, but he had stiff competition from Shearer and co, and played for unfashionable SAFC. Clough i have no idea about, who was the competition for him at the time? Was SAFC so unfashionable back then also? Was it just a case that Clough ruffled to many feathers with his big gob? so many questions.
Don't know about Sunderland, but he scored five for Middlesbrough twice. He scored five in a 9-0 win over Brighton (which I believe is still Boro's highest ever win). But the other game had nasty undertones. He soored five in a game (I don't know who against) but the result was 5-5. Clough knew there was some illegal betting and match fixing in their defence - five of them were later banned for life - and that day, he exploded : "Just how many do I have to score before we can f***ing win?" I think it was that which caused him to leave Boro. Good player? - I wouldn't have said so. I think Phillips (and possibly Billy Hughes) was miles better. The modern SAFC player that reminds me most of Clough is Darren Bent - far from a great player, but if you needed a goal 5 minutes from the end of a Cup Final, you wouldn't look any further. If it was possible to get a goal out of a situation, he'd find it. Like Jimmy Greaves, he was very single-minded.
****. Love your posts. Opens up a whole can of worms. Clough not as good as skp. Love the info on the boro bit
I wouldn't say one was better than the other really. It's horses for courses, isn't it? If I was going into a cup final looking to play good football on a fine surface, I'd pick Phillips or Gyan ahead of Clough or Bent any time. But five minutes from the end with the score 0-0? No way! There are times when you want a player with more to his game, and there are other times when you need that sheer bloody-mindedness. In the 1980s, I worked with the Boro centre-half who had been banned for life. He told me Clough had come to blows with players in the Boro dressing room several times for fiddling games. He was dying to get out of Boro.
When he was still at Boro he was made captain which did not go down well with the others mainly because of his attitude. They sent a letter to the manager signed in a circle of names so he could not see who the ring leader was. Bets at the time that it was Alan Peacock who played alongside Clough at inside left and was a full England international and Clough fed off him very nicely.
I saw Clough play just about every home game he played for us, he was very good. Yes he would have cut it in todays game if for no other reason than his attitude and desire,something missing in many of today's overpaid prima-donnas. Anytime Clough got the ball within 25 yards of the goal there was a high degree of possibility that he would score, even from the tightest of angles. He scored goals with both feet and unlike his main competition for an England place ,Jimmy Greaves, he also scored plenty with his head. He was also a brave player and would not shirk a challenge which was ultimately his downfall when he collided with Bury Goalkeeper Chris Harker. That season he was on track to break Dixie Dean's goal scoring record. I believe he still holds the record for the fastest 250 league goals scored. If he was in our side today I do not for a moment think we would be short of goals as he would have demanded the ball and woe betide any team mate who did not give it to him and when he had it he would score. Undoubtedly a Sunderland Legend up there with any of them.
