Clough, Brian Howard

▪ 2005

      British association football (soccer) player and manager (b. March 21, 1935, Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, Eng.—d. Sept. 20, 2004, Derby, Eng.), was a brilliant and charismatic but abrasive and egocentric club manager who twice transformed a Second Division football club into the Premier League champion. After scoring 251 goals in 274 games as a player with Middlesbrough (1952–61) and Sunderland (1961–64)—and failing to score in two matches for England (1959)—Clough suffered a career-ending injury and turned to managing Hartlepools in the Fourth Division. In 1967 he joined Derby County, pushing that club to the Second Division title (1969) and the League title (1972). At Nottingham Forest (1975–93), he guided that club from the bottom half of the Second Division to promotion to the First Division (1977), the league championship (1978), four League Cups (1978–79, 1989–90), and two European Cups (1979–80). Unfortunately, he never again had such success, and when he retired at the end of the 1993 season, Nottingham was relegated back to the Second Division. Clough was named Manager of the Year in 1978 and was made OBE in 1991.

* * *