Saturday Spotlight: The full-blown Clough chronicles

Unsurprisingly, two of that number are autobiographies - Clough The Autobiography later followed by Walking on Water, as well as the numerous collection of Clough memories that were published either after his 1993 retirement or his death in 2004.

But what is most surprising is that none has been a definitive birth-to-death story of a man who created history for Middlesbrough and Sunderland as a player and Derby County and Nottingham Forest as a manager.

That is, until now.

Journalist Jonathan Wilson has written what he hopes is the definitive Clough biography. Nobody Ever Says Thank You, which was released on Thursday, chronicles Clough's journey from birth in Middlesbrough, to playing for his hometown team, signing for Sunderland, where a serious knee injury ended his playing days, managing the Rokerites' youth team, leaving the club, managing Hartlepools United, then Derby County, then Brighton and Hove Albion, falling out with Peter Taylor, 44 days at Leeds United, then, lastly, seeing out his days with Nottingham Forest where, arguably, his greatest successes came.

It's a long haul, and, weighing in at 566 pages, is certainly the biggest volume on Clough. There is reason for that, as Wilson explains.

"I knew it was going to be bigger," he said. "The publishers decided to make it look bigger, make it look like the definitive biography, which I hope it is."

So why has he written a book on someone whose life story we all know?

"I was slightly anxious about that at first," he explained. "But with the exception of Tony Francis' biography, which was written in 1987 and updated in 1993, there hadn't been a full biography. There were memoirs, a collection of memories.

"There are two dangers in that. One is that a lot of the stories are about Derby, Nottingham Forest or Leeds, and the stuff about his youth, at Middlesbrough, then Sunderland, then Hartlepool and Brighton, hasn't really been told. So there is some fresh stuff there. It's not stuff we already know, there is actually new material there.

"The other danger is that while a memoir can get you emotionally close to a subject and an insight into how Clough made people feel, what does happen is that people forget details. Footballers often get the basic details of a match wrong.

"They say 'we won 3-0, I scored twice in the second half' and it turns out that it was 2-1 and that player didn't score. They confuse matches. Memories are fallible.

"One thing about Clough is that because he was a great anecdotalist, he loved telling stories about himself and he loved bolstering his own legend. If you tell the same story over and over again you polish it, you fit it to a better narrative structure, you exaggerate certain elements, you probably unconsciously deliberately downplay a role someone you don't like plays in a story, or play up your own role. If you tell a story repeatedly it does change."

In order to retell the story, Wilson had some serious research to do. Hours were spent in the British Library, with microfiche copies of The Northern Echo, Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, Sunderland Echo, Hartlepool Mail, Derby Evening Telegraph, Brighton Argus, Yorkshire Post and Nottingham Evening Post, checking facts, corroborating anecdotes, and, ultimately, dispelling myths that had been created by stories long told by Clough at after-dinner speeches.

In the process of his research, Wilson discovered one mistake that surely could not have been made. In Clough's first autobiography, Derby's 1973 European Cup exit to Juventus was a sore point, with allegations of bribery from the Italian giants. Derby lost the first leg 3-1 and drew the second leg - at home - 0-0.

The return leg, said Clough, was on the night of his birthday, March 21, and when he returned home from the Baseball Ground, he was met with the news that his mother had died.

But while Clough's mother did indeed die on March 21, it was the night of Derby's European Cup 2-0 quarter final win over Spartak Trnava.

Wilson explains: "When his mother died I think he was desperate for his mother's approbation.

"On the day that they won the quarter-final, for Clough, winning the European Cup then became the final part of the deal, the final thing to thank his mother for. The final approbation for her.

"But Derby don't just lose to Juventus later down the line, they are cheated out of it. The European Cup then becomes this grail, this quest to satisfy his mother's memory.

"Those two aspects: the death and losing to Juventus fused together into this one great force driving him on."

However, as Wilson explains, such mistakes were not the reason why he decided to take the book on. He said: "There was a gap in the Clough market. There are probably more great books written about Clough than anyone else in football or even British sport, but there is a gap for a full and complete biography that checks facts carefully and questions some of these anecdotes."

Through life, Clough's embellishment of stories was entirely natural. But the biggest embellishment of them all came from novelist David Peace, whose 2006 book The Damned United retold the story of Clough's wretched 44 days in charge at Leeds.

Clough's family, including son Nigel - now manager at Derby County - were furious with the retelling of that era. And they were not entirely receptive of Wilson's book, however much it seeks to tell the real story of Clough.

"When I signed the deal to write the book I wrote to Nigel," Wilson said. "I didn't expect him to help me with it but I thought it was only fair and polite to tell him I was doing the book.

"He wrote back, and he was very fair to say that he'd rather I wasn't doing the book, he couldn't stop me from doing it, but equally he wouldn't stop anyone from talking to me. I think that's very fair of him and I hope he thinks it's fair of me.

"I've made a point of not chasing anyone from the family. If you're doing a biography there are two ways you can do it, you can address the stuff that's already in the public domain and try to find out more that is out there.

"With Clough that is fair enough, because he was a public figure and he played the media, he manipulated the media to an extent, so I think dealing with that was all fair.

"I think if I started delving into the deeper aspects of his family life, then that would be unfair and it starts to become an encroachment on things that should remain private. I hope I've been respectful in that regard."

CLOUGH'S relationship with his assistant Peter Taylor forms a crucial part of the book.

It was there from the early days at Middlesbrough, while Clough wasted no time in bringing Taylor in as Hartlepools' 'trainer' when he took the job at Victoria Park in 1965.

It was a partnership made in heaven. Taylor had an eye for a player, spotting the potential in John McGovern at Pools long before Clough did - while Clough knew what players to slot into the system. It was lethal in its simplicity.

But what may surprise many is that Clough was no master tactician, as Wilson explains.

He said: "I got a tape from a Romanian man who lives in Canada of the game where Forest lost to Anderlecht in the European Cup in 1984 - where he was again cheated out of Europe when Constant Vanden Stock paid the referee - it's 2-0 from the first leg, they go to Brussels and lose 3-0.

"There was a penalty given that was a nonsense, and Paul Hart has a late goal chalked off, which wasn't even disputed by the Anderlecht players.

"It was interesting watching that footage knowing the game had been fixed, but what was fascinating was that on the Belgian coverage, the effects mic picks up Clough speaking all the way through the first half.

"What is slightly surprising is how basic it is. There's no complicated instructions, it's just Clough saying 'come on, come on, come on, why are you standing there, move' and he sounds like a basic Sunday league manager.

"I suppose we sort of knew that he wasn't tactically complex. He liked to keep things simple. What he was good at was the strategy rather than the tactics, buying the players to fit in the system, and he possibly struggled to articulate that.

"He didn't need to though, because he sent out teams which were balanced and did the job they needed to do. But it is fascinating to hear him, and to hear what his players heard from him on the touchline."

While the likes of Duncan Hamilton, John Sadler and Tony Francis all spent long hours with Clough before writing their books, Wilson had spent about a minute with the man.

He remembered: "It was a year or 18 months before he died, England played Serbia in a friendly in Leicester, and he was doing co-commentary for local radio, and by chance I was queuing to buy coffee at half-time and there he was.

"I had never done this to anybody, but I said to him: "You were one of my dad's favourite players", which is totally true, and he was very charming and thanked me. I then stupidly went on, blathering on about how much my dad liked him, then I mentioned Boxing Day in 1962 when he did his knee, I told him that it ruined my dad's Christmas.

"I realised as soon as I said it what a stupid thing it was to say. He looked at me and said: "Tell you what son, it ruined mine." I felt an inch tall. He said two lines to me, and one made me feel like an idiot."

THE RETELLING of the Clough story will undoubtedly jog the memories of those who are old enough to say they saw him play.

Inevitably, because of the aura of the man, it is also quite easy to suggest "if only".

And for Wilson, a Sunderland fan, whose Sunderland-supporting father died last year after complications as a result of Alzheimer's, knows only too well that Clough could have been a legend in the North-East as opposed to the East Midlands.

Of course, that 1962 injury after colliding with Bury goalkeeper Chris Harker ended Clough's playing days, while the Sunderland board moved Clough out of the club in 1965, despite the young coach realising success with the club's youth team.

Wilson said: "It fascinated me that my dad was so enamoured with Clough, because my dad, like me, was quite suspicious of goalscorers, and he thought that goal figures were an easy way to disguise a lazy player.

"I never quite understood why they were so taken by Clough when he only played for 18 months at Sunderland.

"After I signed the book I went to see my dad. You couldn't have a conversation with him by then, his memory was gone, I knew he couldn't remember what he had for lunch.

"I was telling him that I had this deal to write a biography of Clough, and I asked him if he remembers him. And my dad looked at me like I was an absolute idiot and told me about a hat-trick he scored against Grimsby in 1962. That was indicative of the impact he made at Sunderland.

"I suppose at Sunderland it was a bit like the James Dean effect, he never had time to disappoint anybody, he was brilliant for 18 months and then that was it.

"If you look at that team, they missed out on promotion by one point in 1961-62, and they'd have gone up with a great side with Mulhall and Herd, Anderson, Hurley, Montgomery. If they'd gone up with momentum they'd have had an impact.

"Had Sunderland gone up with Clough leading the line with George Hardwick as manager, maybe they'd have been as good as Leeds or Liverpool in the 60s.

"They had money and a board who were prepared to spend it. The following season, 61-62, was the one where Clough got his injury, but then there are three months where Sunderland barely played because of the weather and the momentum had gone by then. They had drawn games where they had dominated and I think if they had Clough in the team, they'd have won them, they'd have been promoted.

"Then you see as a manager what might have been. He was clearly doing very well with the youth team at Sunderland, then he was kicked out of the club in 1965 because the board wanted the insurance money to buy a replacement, and they got rid of Hardwick too.

"You think had Clough stayed on, Hardwick had him in mind as his assistant, maybe he'd have taken over later on and maybe it could have been Sunderland rather than Derby or Forest who came from nowhere to so much success. Those are two massive 'if onlys'.

"He offered you a dream, to make the impossible possible, and to people of my dad's generation, they know it could have been so much better."

Brian Clough: The Biography - Nobody Ever Says Thank You, is published by Orion Books and is available in bookshops for £20.