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| David Kidd 'on the FA Cup trail' - The Sun, Monday 18th October 1999 |
| 'Yes, old big 'ead must be proud of boss Nigel' |
| It's fitting
Nigel Clough should be Burton Albion's messiah. After all, his dad would
point out, he is the son of God. Young Cloughie, 33, has been spreading his
father's footballing gospel for almost a year now as player/manager of Doc
Martens Premier Division Albion. He has set out in management in the Staffordshire backwater of Burton-On-Trent. That's the same River Trent on which his old man used to walk, 25 miles upstream at Nottingham. |
| And
Albion are bubbling. They are unbeaten in 14 matches, challenging for promotion
to the Conference and in the draw for the FA Cup First Round, after this
fourth qualifying round finished all square. Clough has got the Brewers playing such attractive football that a certain elderly gent in a cloth cap has coughed up the princely sum of £140 for a season ticket. Nigel said: "Dad wrote out a cheque and gave it to the chairman in person. Now he never misses a home game. It's lucky he has reserved himself a seat, otherwise he might have been locked out for the Woking replay." Some Burton players might be too young to remember Old Big 'Ead's glory days but they play with a style, a guile and a smile so reminiscent of the great man's teams. In these overblown days, words like legend, genius and miracle worker are regularly lifted off the shelves of the Premiership hypermarket. But Brian Clough was the genuine article. Suffice to say he took over a Forest side, struggling in the old Division Two and led them to two European Cups. |
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| Nigel, of course,
has heard it all before and it's easy to forget he was one helluva player
in his own right, who won seven times as many England caps as his father. These days he is a midfield playmaker, a little stockier than in his heyday and even weighing in with a few bone-crunching Stuart Pearce-style tackles. With Clough providing the class, Burton looked a slicker outfit than Conference club Woking. But they squandered a series of first half chances and Grant Payne fired the home side in front with a 58th minute strike that ponged of offside. Just 10 minutes later, Albion were level with a goal that had the Clough family hallmark stamped all over it. Darren Stride polished off an incisive attack, that was packed with first-time passing and intelligent movement. The old man in the cloth cap doesn't make it to away games. Let's hope someone shows him a video replay of Burton's equalizer. Nigel said: "Everything about that goal was absolutely magnificent. It was everything we believe in. This team are playing football the right way and with a smile on their faces. This game can be a joy at any level and I am loving every minute of it here. "It's similar for Dad. He hadn't gone to live football regularly in years. But at Burton he can go along, enjoy the game and nobody hassles him. It's done him the world of good." While Nigel approaches tomorrow night's replay with relish, another former top-flight player will travel to Burton's Eton Park in trepedation. Woking chief Brian McDermott, a former Arsenal winger, is under pressure as the Surrey side struggle. But a successful football club seems strangely out of place in a town like Woking. The affluent commuter haven is so leafy that the trees have to apply for planning permission just to get naked every autumn. And Woking is so sedate that it's football fans even curse their team in a mild and mellow way. Gordon Bennett wasn't on my team sheet but according to the chap behind me, he was responsible for every blinking error his flipping hopeless team made. As Woking battle relegation, there is talk among the natives of a protest against McDermott. You can imagine the vitriolic chants: "What do we want? McDermott sacking! When do we want it? Well, no rush, whenever you've got the time and by the way, sorry to be such a nuisance." Burton's fans are a more forthright bunch. Many of their 400 travelling army converged on the Kingfield clubhouse for the first round draw which would reward the winner of this tie with a visit from Rochdale. And when the face of David Davies first beamed from the TV screen, I have never heard the word "tosser" growled by so many people in such perfect harmony. What's this, people being disrespectful to a puffed-up FA bigwig? No wonder Cloughie's a Burton fan. |
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