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| A John Wragg exclusive in The Express, Saturday 18th September 1999 |
| 'Clough keeps tabs on No 9' |
| Nottingham
Forest, the club transformed from Lilliput to giant by Brian Clough, finally
get round to saying "thank you" tomorrow. These days, Cloughie sits quietly in Burton Albion's stand watching it all happening again. Nigel Clough and his assistant manager at Burton, Gary Crosby, are the new Clough and Taylor. The No 9, as Clough used to call his son when he played at Forest, is maturing into one of the managers for the new millenium. |
| In
the week Clough snr returns to the City Ground to be feted, with a stand
named after him and a bust unveiled, you can watch Burton play and see how
it used to be with Forest. Our Nige's team plays the same way as his dad's did - but in the Dr. Martens League. |
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| Pass, pass
and pass again. Keep the ball on the ground, pass, make the chances. "It's not surprising is it?" asks Nigel, towelling himself down in Burton's dressing room after playing midfield in a 1-1 home draw with Boston United, one of his championship rivals. "My dad did get the odd thing right and I'd be daft not to be influenced by him or listen to him. It's the way I was taught. We'll have five and 10-minute chats and he'll tell me what he thinks." He added: "One thing he keeps saying, having seen a lot of opposition teams now, is that we have nothing to be frightened of, and I try and get the message through to my lads: be confident. Winning or losing with Burton gives me the same emotions I had at Forest and Liverpool. This is my game now. It wouldn't be fair if I felt any different. If I'd have come here looking down on these players, I would have lost them right away. "I'd been let go by Manchester City and was wondering what I was going to do. I phoned Burton because I live locally and sometimes you have to take what's available. People ask why I started here, but at the time there was only one manager's job in the league, and that was at Leeds." In 10 months, Nigel Clough and Crosby - a winger Clough snr signed for Forest because he was also a qualified joiner and he wanted some shelves putting up at home - have built their own team, given Burton their best start in 16 years and taken gates to 2,000. Peter Taylor started in management at the same club before joining Clough at Hartlepool... the path from humble beginnings to success is being trod again. "This is a good breeding ground for players and managers, " said Nigel. "You're sitting here in our dressing room. It's the same dressing room at Anfield, Forest or Wembley. They don't change. Footballers are the same. The difference in these lads is that they are part-time and I have a great respect for a postman who comes off his round at eight in the morning and then plays for me. "Gary Crosby still has his joiner's job. We get finished late after a night's home game and then he's working at eight the next day. These lads were on a coach to Dorchester for six hours. We were held up so much that we scrapped the stop and went straight to the ground, got off, played and won." As Nigel talks his old pal, former England international Mark Wright walks into the dressing room. "Why am I still playing? Because I can," said Nigel. "I don't want to let go. Look at Mark - he would give anything to be playing still, but injury has taken it from him. "It's ideal for me to be starting in the management business and still playing. If nothing comes of it, I've kept playing a bit longer. But I think it will. We want to get Burton into the Nationwide Conference and then into the Football League. Cheltenham did it and they're no different from us. I've got the taste now. Gary and I will stick together as a managerial partnership. We've been mates for years and we work well together. If we're called the new Clough and Taylor, we can live with that." Nigel can hardly walk after games. He has problems with his heels which stopped an attempted comeback with Birmingham. His dad hobbles as well, a legacy of football injuries when diagnosis and treatment were not as career-saving as today. To get up into Burton's main stand, Cloughie uses the steadying hand of his grandson, Stepehen. At half-time he's brought a cup of tea and home-made cake on a tray. The sticks Clough used after operations on his knees have been thrown away and he tells a white-haired pensioner about it as he leaves. "I've thrown my sticks away and you can walk better than me," said Clough. "Eh, come on, get up." The pensioner smiles, the crowd laugh. Clough bought a Burton season ticket for £140 when Nigel got the job and he's there for every home game with his eldest son Simon, and his son Stephen - keeping an eye on the new dynasty. "He likes it here," said Nigel. "It gets him out of the house. He gets no hassle and they treat dad very well. I know he's looking forward to going back to Forest on Sunday, if slightly disappointed it has taken them six years to get round to it. "I know he wants to say goodbye to the supporters because he never had a chance to do that properly. And we'll be going as a family. For my part I feel as if I'm where I'm wanted at Burton." That was a reference to the bad time Nigel had at Manchester City, where the crowd turned against him. Ben Robinson, the kind of chairman who would show you to your seat in the stand, said of Nigel: "For what he has done so far in management I would give him eight out of ten. This is his first full season and he has put together a side of such quality that our attendances are the highest for 15 years. You look at big names who have gone straight from playing to league management and you wonder why Nigel is not there. "I have been in football at non-league level for 25 years and have had managers leave to go on to make their reputations. As soon as Nigel wins something for us he will be wanted elsewhere. It's the only problem we have - we know we have him for a limited amount of time." Nigel kept only six of the players he inherited and signed six more. "I try to create a good atmosphere and keep it relaxed, the way we knew it as players," he said. "We have a laugh and get our points across along the way. It's difficult playing the way we want to at this level." He added: "It's the easiest thing in the world to bang the ball into a corner and run after it. But I think the crowd are responding to what we do and word is spreading. In any case, I never did have any speed to go chasing after it - and what I did have has gone now. In some ways, these players are more professional than the professionals because they have to work at it harder." Nigel's team are away to Redditch in the FA Cup today. It is the one trophy that his dad didn't win, but Forest will give thanks for the rest of the glory tomorrow.
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