Sunderland finally get a sight of what might have been

Having worked with Sunderland's youth team in the wake of the injury that brought a premature end to his playing career, Clough was removed from the club's staff list when Ian McColl replaced George Hardwick as manager and decided he did not want such a potentially disruptive presence in his backroom.

The rest is history, with Clough going on to become one of the most successful managers in the English game and Sunderland struggling for the best part of four decades to establish themselves as a top-flight force.

But in Martin O'Neill, who will be formally unveiled as the club's new manager this afternoon, the Wearsiders have appointed the nearest thing to a Clough clone.

The pair worked together for six successful seasons at Nottingham Forest, and O'Neill's managerial style clearly owes much to his mentor.

There is the dry, sardonic wit that masks an occasionally harsh interior. There is the authority and regimentation that manifests itself in so many facets of both managers' preferred way of working. And there is the unshakeable belief in playing a certain brand of football that prioritises passing and movement ahead of anything that could be deemed 'long ball'.

Even today, Clough's Sunderland career is remembered with great affection. The hope is that O'Neill will be showered with similar praise when he eventually departs.

BORN in Kilrea, a small town in the north of Northern Ireland, in 1952, O'Neill had already developed something of a maverick streak by the time he moved to England almost two decades later.

He was the sixth child born into a family of Irish nationalists, and while his formative years were spent playing football, the game was of the Gaelic variety rather than the sport that eventually came to dominate his life.

He played at youth level for Kilrea and Derry, and his brothers, Gerry and Leo, were part of the senior Derry side that won the Ulster Championships in 1958 and reached the All-Ireland final.

O'Neill continued to play Gaelic football while a student at St Malachy's College, Belfast, but by the time he entered his later teenage years he was also crossing the sporting divide to play what we would know as football with leading Northern Irish club, Distillery.

This caused problems, as many Gaelic clubs had rules prohibiting anyone who also played so-called 'foreign' sports.

Most people had to choose one or the other, but O'Neill, displaying the kind of belligerent streak that has been evident on a number of occasions during his career, helped lobby to have the final of the leading inter-school competition in Ulster moved to a neutral venue in County Tyrone to enable him to take part. It was, and O'Neill's side proved victorious.

"I think in my life, I'm full of anomalies, ironies and contradictions," said O'Neill, in a lecture on Irishness that was broadcast on RTE. "My father had a great tolerance of things and I felt this tolerance that he had shown so strongly.

"I loved Gaelic football. It was part of my strong Irishness that I felt. I remember travelling to Croke Park in 1958 - which was the holy grail for a family like ours - and being so enraptured with the whole experience. It was exactly the identity that I wanted.

"But it was around that time that TV was coming to the fore and suddenly I saw a soccer world that I wanted to be part of.

"The dilemma was that the GAA were having fierce battles with soccer. I deliberated greatly. I wanted to play games in the English league in front of huge crowds at Old Trafford and Anfield, but at the same time I loved my Irishness and loved everything about Gaelic football.

"But then I was playing in an inter-school final and, initially, the rules didn't allow me to play. For the first time ever, I felt they (the GAA) were questioning my Irishness. My father was desperately disappointed by it all. I think he felt let down, and I certainly did.

"It left a real foul taste within our family, and perhaps then I started to reflect about my own identity, my Irishness, where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. That was when an opportunity came about to play professional football with Nottingham Forest. I took it."

O'Neill gave up a law degree at Belfast's Queens University in order to join Forest at the age of 19, but his early days at the City Ground were hardly a resounding success as the club was relegated in 1972.

Like Forest's prospects in general, his career was transformed by Clough's arrival three years later, and after surviving the new manager's cull of the playing squad, he went on to become an integral member of the team that became champions of Europe.

Despite professing to prefer a central midfield role, O'Neill spent most of his Forest career playing on the right-hand side.

He made almost 300 senior appearances during his ten years with Forest, scoring 48 goals, as a Clough-inspired team claimed a First Division title and two European Cups.

He was unable to recover from injury in time for Forest's first European final win in 1979, but played a pivotal role 12 months later as they retained their crown.

His relationship with Clough was always more complex than that of most of his team-mates, perhaps because his background made him less willing to toe the line, perhaps because he was one of the few players with the bottle and vocabulary to take his manager on.

"Cloughie could never get the better of Martin," said Duncan Hamilton, former sportswriter with the Nottingham Evening Post and author of "Provided You Don't Kiss Me," an acclaimed biography of Clough. "That was because Martin was so intelligent. He was the most intelligent footballer I've ever met - by a country mile.

"Cloughie would say something to him, then Martin would answer back with all these long words. When he was in the mood, Martin was as articulate as the great Irish novelist, James Joyce.

"That had Cloughie totally bamboozled. So he would come to me and ask what all the long words meant."

O'Neill's Forest days were his high point as a player, although he went on to make more than 100 more appearances for Norwich, Manchester City and Notts County.

He also won 64 caps for Northern Ireland, claiming two Home Championships and captaining the side that reached the World Cup quarter-finals in 1982 courtesy of a victory over the host nation, Spain.

HAVING hung up his boots in 1985, O'Neill's first two managerial jobs were with Grantham Town and Shepshed.

He was appointed manager of Wycombe Wanderers in 1990, and led the non-league club to fifth and second-place finishes in the Conference in his first two seasons in charge.

The following season, he took Wycombe into the Football League for the first time in their history, and a year later they were in what is now League One thanks to a play-off final victory over Preston.

His achievements at Adams Park caught the eye of a number of clubs, and he eventually left to join Norwich City in 1995. However, his stay at Carrow Road lasted just six months before a disagreement with chairman Robert Chase resulted in a hasty departure.

He immediately joined Leicester, and in terms of his managerial career, his five-year spell at Filbert Street was the making of him.

Despite lacking established big-name stars, his Leicester side reached three League Cup finals, winning two in 1997 and 2000. They finished in the top ten in the league for four seasons in succession and also enjoyed two UEFA Cup campaigns.

O'Neill left English football in 2000 and headed north to join a Celtic side that were at a low ebb following a disastrous spell under the tutelage of John Barnes.

He enjoyed immediate success, with his first season ending in a domestic treble, and his instant impact perhaps provides a hint as to how he will attempt to turn Sunderland around.

"He asked for the lads' opinions, and a lot of us said we just weren't good enough the season before," remembers Paul Lambert. "And his words were, 'I'll tell you what I am going to do, I'm going to keep the better ones here and the ones who don't want to be here can go and I'll bring in better ones to help you'.

"Lo and behold, he was good to his word, (Neil) Lennon, (Chris) Sutton and (Alan) Thompson came in. Three massive players came into the football club and helped the ones who were already there. So he got the players vibrant and got the crowd on his side.

"We needed somebody like him with that personality and hunger and drive to drag us through. We had some really good players at the club at that time, but we needed help."

In total, O'Neill won seven major honours with Celtic, and also guided the club to the 2003 UEFA Cup final, before leaving to join Aston Villa.

He spent four years at Villa Park, establishing his new employers as a permanent presence in the top half of the Premier League. They finished in the top six for three seasons in succession, with O'Neill moulding an exciting, youthful line-up that featured the likes of Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor and James Milner.

He left under something of a cloud in August 2010, amid rumours of a fall out with chairman Randy Lerner because of a perceived reluctance to invest in order to take Villa to the next level.

His exile from management lasted 15 months, but he will return to the dug out on Sunday as Sunderland entertain Blackburn.

"All I can say, without promising the earth, moon and stars is I will

do my utmost to bring a bit of success to Sunderland," said O'Neill over the weekend.

If, when he eventually retires, the Wearside faithful are still talking about him like they speak about Clough, he will certainly have made his mark.