Brian Clough 1974 at Leeds United: Scoundrel Days

On September 20, 2024, the 20th anniversary of Brian Howard Clough's death († 69) was commemorated. The equally brilliant and controversial coach, who led Nottingham Forest to two European Cup victories, remains one of the most successful managers in England and continues to be a topic of conversation in football circles even two decades after his death. 

The A52 connects Nottingham and Derby. Since August 2005, it has been called the "Brian Clough Way" because it represents the path between the two most successful clubs Brian Howard Clough managed. 

This is how Brian Clough lives on. Since 2008, a statue of the outspoken coach, who had a talent for making comparatively small teams great, has stood in Nottingham's city center. He represented the greatest successes of Nottingham Forest and Derby County. 

His plaque of honors: English champion in 1972 with the "Rams" from Derby, who he had brought to the First Division in 1969, and in 1978 with Nottingham Forest. European Cup winner of champions with Forest in 1979 against Malmö FF in Munich and in 1980 against the HSV in Madrid (each 1:0), UEFA Super Cup 1979 against FC Barcelona (1:0), four-time English League Cup winner (most recently in 1990) with Forest.

He witnessed the new Premier League era in his last year at Forest in 1992/93, but he was unable to replicate his old successes. 
Fifty years ago, the successful coach experienced the biggest failure of his career – the 44 days of Brian Clough at Leeds United. 

In 2009, Michael Sheen portrayed Clough in a film based on the bestseller The Damned United by David Peace. I had the opportunity in 2009 to speak with Peace about Clough for my book Absolute Dynamite! 
Let's roll out the carpet – Clough in Leeds or: Days of Wrath. 

“What's going on here?”

 

Brian Clough arrived in Leeds on July 31, 1974, just 10 days before the season started with the Community Shield against FA Cup winners FC Liverpool in Wembley on August 10. He had extended his holiday in the Balearic Islands on his own accord. 

That the reception at his first training session at Elland Road was frosty came as no surprise. Leeds club chairman Manny Cussins yelled at the new coach in the parking lot: "You're damn late!" 

Not exactly a warm welcome. For Brian Clough, everything was already lost. 

Especially after he immediately advised his players, including captain Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray, and Norman Hunter († 2020), to "throw all their medals in the trash." That was not polite.
“When he was announced as the new coach earlier that week, we waited eagerly for him,” Norman Hunter later recounted, “but Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday went by, and we kept asking: ‘When is he coming?’ ‘What's going on here?’ And when he finally showed up, he insulted us right away.” 

Well, no one in Leeds expected a charm offensive from the controversial Clough, who, unlike his predecessor and arch-rival Don Revie ("The Don" / † 1989), never prioritized results over style. 

Clough out of control. With remarks like “If you were a horse, they would have put you down years ago” (to Gray) and “You're a dirty guy, you'd love to be loved, wouldn't you?” (to Hunter), Clough turned the entire locker room against him. 

“One of the most dramatic episodes in English league football”

“His 44 poisoned days at Elland Road,” England legend Keir Radnedge summarized in the Kicker Sports Magazine on September 2, 2024, “remain one of the most dramatic episodes in English league football. The rivalry between Clough and his predecessor at Leeds, Don Revie, is legendary.” 

The British author David Peace fictionalized Clough's disaster at Leeds in 2006 under the title The Damned Utd. “I wanted to write the secret history of Leeds United,” Peace told me in the summer of 2009, “and what came out was a book about Brian Clough.” Peace drew on sources and inspiration from the biography Bremner! by Bernard Bale about the Scottish superstar from Leeds United who died in 1997, The Unforgiven about Don Revie and Leeds United, as well as the two classics Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959) by Alan Sillitoe. 

David Peace gave me a simple explanation for Clough's failure in Leeds: “He was simply the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.” 
Peace portrayed Clough’s 44 days in Leeds from the coach's perspective using the stream of consciousness technique, a special form of the inner monologue. This allowed him to distort the narrative. “It's fiction based on facts,” David Peace explained back then. 

One of these uncomfortable facts was this: Within a few days, Clough found a pile of threatening letters and death threats in his office. To get the situation in Leeds under control, he needed a spy in the team. He called striker Duncan McKenzie, who was under contract with Nottingham Forest. At a secret meeting in Sheffield, Clough promised him loyalty in exchange for 200 pounds a week. McKenzie agreed. Clough’s new “IM” (cf. “IM Lothar” at Bayern Munich in 1995), moved from Nottingham to Leeds for 250,000 pounds. Clough, as usual, remained unashamedly bold at the press conference about this controversial transfer: “There were no problems with the transfer. If someone has the chance to play for Leeds United and for Brian Clough, there are never any problems.” 

“Get out, because you're not Don Revie!”

On August 24, 1974, Clough and Leeds faced Birmingham City. After 25 days in office, no one in the locker room even acknowledged him anymore. No one wished him luck. Leeds won despite the frosty atmosphere with 1:0, and Clough rejoiced: “No one can stop us now.” It would be his only home win with the "Whites"...

Just two days later, a new warning greeted him on the way to the training ground: “Clough out” was painted on a wall. Well, was anyone surprised? 
His time was running out fast. A 1:2 loss against Manchester City, and by September 1, 1974, Clough and Leeds were in 19th place – just one point ahead of the winless “Spurs” from Tottenham. 

On September 7, 1974, Clough had reached the point where he didn’t even go into the locker room to announce the lineup before the home game against newly promoted Luton Town (1:1). He had his assistant coach Jimmy Gordon handle it instead! 

Clough had not brought his congenial assistant coach Peter Taylor († 1990), with whom he had been so successful at Derby and Nottingham, to Leeds – a cardinal mistake, as it turned out. 

In the stands at Elland Road, the atmosphere after the catastrophic start had hit rock bottom: 26,450 Leeds fans sang against Luton, “Clough, get out – because you're not Don Revie!” 

Well, “the Don” was gone – he had led Leeds to its greatest successes: Twice Fairs Cup winners (1968, 1971), English champions in 1969 and 1974, FA Cup winners in 1972. 
And if you're wondering why Leeds United always plays entirely in white: This change in the club's colors was made by the Don himself – as a tribute to the great Real Madrid.

£90,000 for 44 days 

In 1974, Don Revie became the coach of the English national team. His successor, Brian Clough, took his place on the Leeds United bench for the seventh and last time on September 10, 1974, in the League Cup match against Huddersfield Town (1:1). 

His disastrous record: Just 5 points, with 4 losses and 2 draws. On September 12, 1974, Leeds United announced the separation.

Before Clough left, however, he pocketed £90,000 in severance pay – a fortune at the time – and took his company Mercedes with him. 

In his autobiography Walking on Water, Brian Clough reflected with much self-awareness on the Leeds disaster in 2002: “Looking back, I have to say that my biggest mistake was taking that job. Leeds was nothing for me, and I was nothing for Leeds.” 

True story.