THE passing of "the greatest manager England never had" is tinged with more than the customary sadness we feel when we trot out the phrase "the world will be a poorer place without him." As when George Best departs, and possibly even Gazza, we marvel at their genius and lament the fact that they didn't make more of it.

The common denominator is booze and the cruel manner in which it so often reminds us of the fine line between genius and insanity, or at least instability.

Whether or not his descent into alcoholism prevented Brian Clough from achieving more is a moot point.

Even when stone cold sober he was perceived as being too brash and outspoken to manage England, so perhaps the greatest sadness is that he never managed in his native North-East. If he could do what he did with Derby and Nottingham Forest, just imagine what he might have achieved in a "hotbed".

Clough was two years younger than Sir Bobby Robson, so it's impossible not to feel that his life has been cut cruelly short, just as his playing career was.

But he has left us plenty at which to marvel.

Genius is not too strong a word for someone who could inspire Forest to two European Cups. Whether he could have done it without Peter Taylor is doubtful, but recognising how Taylor could complement him was part of the genius. Like Wise without Morecambe, Taylor on his own was hopeless, but together they were invincible.

It was after they fell out - they were never reconciled - that Clough's descent began and the game has been the poorer for it for these past ten years. What a mind-boggling contrast we have now with the time when almost every Clough quote was potential headline material.

The other extremely sad indicator of how much and how quickly times have changed is that his methods wouldn't work now.

He inspired a number of his players to try to emulate him, such as Bruce Rioch, Colin Todd, Frank Clark, Alan Durban and John Robertson, but only Martin O'Neill has made a real success of management and he's wasting his talent in Scotland.

Among the many Clough quotes repeated this week was: "I told Roy McFarland to go and get his bloody hair cut - that's coaching at this level." Could you imagine anyone saying that to Craig Bellamy?

COLUMNISTS, particularly female ones, have been queuing up to congratulate Stephen Harmison for his moral stance in not going to Zimbabwe.

Denouncing Robert Mugabe is becoming a bit tiresome as it has long been obvious that the major powers are too preoccupied elsewhere to bother giving the Zimbabwe president his come-uppance.

Mugabe pretends to be a cricket fan, but it is as unlikely that he has heard of Harmison as it is that Harmison had heard of him until a couple of years ago.

The world's greatest bowler does not care to leave Ashington, especially now that he has two young daughters, and now that he is an indispensable member of a resurgent England team he can afford to opt out of the less significant trips.

If he is taking a moral stance then fair play to him. I think it's more likely he feels his place is at home with his family rather than playing some fairly meaningless cricket in a country where his safety cannot be guaranteed.

THERE wasn't much whoopin' and hollerin' at Oakland Hills, even when Cap'n Hal was wearing his cowboy hat, and if they keep on getting whupped this badly the American public will soon lose all interest in the Ryder Cup.

According to the world rankings they have the better players; their problem is Hal Sutton comes from the George W Bush school of battle plans, while Bernhard Langer is Field Marshall Montgomery.

Pairing Woods with Mickelson was lunacy, and the look on Tiger's face was priceless when his partner drove under a fence on the 18th when they were all square with Clarke and Westwood in their Friday foursomes.

The other problem for the US is that they have little concept of the team ethic as espoused so superbly by Colin Montgomerie when he insisted he holed the winning putt for the team and had not the slightest interest in any personal glory attached to it. Mickelson has so little understanding of such notions that he changed clubs from Titleist to Callaway just before the event to make himself a few thousand bucks. No wonder he was a shadow of the player who won the Masters.

The only mistake Langer made was to twice pair Jimenez with Levet.

They were well beaten both times, so perhaps it's time to ditch the Europeans to make it more of a contest again.

I know it won't happen - Seve Ballesteros played a huge part in popularising the event and Sergio Garcia has taken over his mantle - but as long as we had the Irish on our side we would still be competitive.