We Are the Damned United

by Phil Rostron

  Old Big ’Ead was here now. And so to the job in hand. Says Eddie Gray: ‘When Cloughie came, he brought with him a little, for want of a better word, trainer – not a coach – in Jimmy Gordon. Don’t forget, I wasn’t training because of my injuries, but I was watching with interest from the sidelines. Under Don, we were used to reporting for training at ten o’clock precisely and when ten o’clock came it was all systems go. Jimmy would come up, fair play to him, at ten o’clock, but he would simply jog the boys around the park, avoiding doing anything until Cloughie came up. The boys thought, “What’s going on here?”’

  Peter Hampton, a defender who joined Leeds as an apprentice in 1971, relates: ‘On his second day at Leeds, Clough organised a practice match at Fullerton. He wasn’t there to blow the whistle for the kick-off, but we decided to start without him and kick off we did. It was some time later when he emerged up the steps with his two young boys, and without so much as a sideways glance, he went over with them to the pitch next door and started kicking a ball about. He completely ignored this practice match. So what were we to deduce from that? My interpretation was that he was not out to be impressed by anyone. He had made up his mind what he was going to do – what team he was going to pick and so on – and would not be dissuaded from his set course of action. In fact, much of the training was taken by Jimmy Gordon and this was a bit of a joke, really. He would walk around like a sergeant major, with a brush in his hand that he used as a prop as he barked the instruction: “And . . . stand to attention!” You would have to stop what you were doing and stretch yourself to your tallest to listen to the latest battle plan. Crackers! It was just so daft it was pathetic.’

  And Lorimer remembers: ‘The Charity Shield was ten days away. To say that, as a squad, we were amazed by events would be an understatement. Usually, when a new manager arrives to take over a club, the priority on the first morning is an introductory meeting in which there is a chat with everybody, the manager reveals his hopes, plans and ambitions, and announces what his first steps will be. Clough didn’t do anything. He had sent in ahead of him his physio and fitness trainer, Jimmy Gordon, and his first two player signings for Leeds, John McGovern and John O’Hare. So on Clough’s first morning, Jimmy initiated training as he had been doing for the previous few days while we all thought that after 20 minutes or so the gaffer would appear and we would soon be working on tactics, ball skills, set pieces and the like, as is the norm. Not a bit of it. Jimmy kept looking over anxiously to see if the boss was coming over the horizon, but there was no sign. It was a deliberate ploy.

  ‘When he did arrive, we were all sitting down on the grass having completed our routines. There was a bit more training, though nothing specialised, before Clough announced that there would be a five-a-side game in which upon his instruction the next goal would be the winner. We were soon to learn, as this became part of our daily training ritual, just how babyish the man could be. You simply could not get off the training field until his team had got the last goal. If you were on the opposing team to him, you could score five goals and every one would be ruled out by him for some imaginary indiscretion. Then his team would contrive a goal out of handballs, fouls, offsides and skulduggery, and it would be declared the winner. Very childish. Anyway, we soon worked out that the quicker his side got a goal, the sooner we would be home from training, so plans were laid accordingly. But all of this was most strange, not at all what you would expect in a Leeds United set-up.’

  It was certainly not Revie’s idea of productive management, nor a situation he would have tolerated. For a group of players used to the fatherly presence of their long-time manager, Clough’s idiosyncrasies were difficult to embrace. Eddie Gray remembers: ‘Every pre-season, the boys would have a get-together at The Mansion at Roundhay. It was a smart do, with all the directors, the players, the staff and their wives and girlfriends, and there would be a lavish dinner with a band playing. It was always 7.30 p.m. for 8 p.m. Cloughie came at 10.30 p.m. in a tracksuit on this night of all nights, the first opportunity for everybody to meet the man. In so doing, I think he was trying to stamp his authority on the club. The message he wanted to impart, I think, was that he was tougher than Don, a man who was such an idol to the players and the fans and the city in general. Such a powerful character. You can understand it in a way. What Cloughie was saying was, “Forget about him. I’m here now.”’

  The business of setting about retaining their league title and embarking on another tension-packed European campaign was due to start any day now. But first, the new manager had something to say . . .

  3

  CHARACTER ASSASSINATIONS

  Players lose you games, not tactics. There’s so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes.

  Brian Clough

  Friday, 2 August, the players’ lounge, Elland Road. Clough has gathered together the full squad. He wants to make an address. And Peter Lorimer, all these years later, still cannot believe its tone. ‘After about seven days, Clough did what had been expected on day one and he called a meeting,’ says Lorimer. ‘The oratory went thus: “You might have wondered why I haven’t done this earlier but I wanted to have a look at everything that was going on here, what happens and to form my own opinions. I did not want to be influenced by the opinions of others. I wanted to make up my own mind.” You thought that was fair, that what he was saying was sensible and measured.

  ‘However, he then ventured, in those sort of semi-sentences in which he spoke, “But. There’s something I’ve got to tell you. You lot. Before I start working with you, I’ve got to tell you that you may have won everything – league titles, cup competitions, big European games – but in my book you have never won any one of those things fairly.” And then he went through everyone individually, starting with the goalkeepers, through the defenders, midfielders and forwards, basically hurling gratuitous criticisms man for man. In my own case, he repeated what he had said at that awards dinner: that I was a good player but I had this habit of going down too easily, which got people into trouble. He classed this as cheating.

  ‘Last in line was Eddie Gray, who, unfortunately, had had more than his share of injuries in the game. He had major problems with a thigh strain – a nightmare injury, actually – and Clough’s compassionate view on this was: “And you . . . if you had been a racehorse, they’d have put you down years ago. You’re always injured.” Very unsympathetic. And quite insulting. Nobody who saw Eddie Gray play would tell you anything other than he was a quite brilliant winger who teased and tormented defenders, was an excellent crosser of a ball and scored his share of goals, some of them breathtaking in their quality.

  ‘Throughout this series of character assassinations, we remained silent, affording the new boss the respect he deserved as he delivered his opening address. At the end, to our complete amazement, the first player to put his hand up to speak was Paul Madeley, who, generally in life, never said anything to anybody. Paul said, “We have listened to what you have had to say, and I for one have found it a total insult. I don’t agree with anything you have said. Nothing was constructive. It was a demolition job.” We were starting the new season in a matter of days.’

  Gray observes: ‘Because we had won the league, the first big game of the new season – and Cloughie’s first in charge – was the Charity Shield. If Brian had come in and just thought, “I know I’m a bit of a character and I’ve got this reputation, but I’ll just play it cool and let them get on with it and slowly stamp my authority,” he would probably have been fine. Instead, he went about things in the wrong way. He came in like a bull in a china shop. Saying things like, “You can throw your medals in the bin,” brought a response from people like Bremner and Giles of, “What the hell are you on about?” And quite rightly. It was insulting. We had just won the league on the back of going the first 29 games unbeaten.

  ‘I later became a manager myself and the first golden rule is that you have to get the players onside. You
can be hard with them and, if you’re Sir Alex Ferguson, you can be harsh with them, but you need them to be playing for you. If the players are not allies of yours, then you have got nothing. You also want the directors and the supporters on your side. I remember taking over as manager of Rochdale and the old chairman, Mr Kilpatrick, saying to me, “We’ve got a good nucleus of support here.”

  ‘“How many’s that?” I asked.

  ‘“Oh, about a thousand.”

  ‘Fair enough. That was the size of the task. Cloughie should have come into Leeds and thought about the quality of the players already there, the crowds of 40,000 to 45,000, the great financial stability of the club, the standing of the club both at home and abroad. Instead, he wades in with, “You, you should be shot. You, you’re a cheat. You lot, medals in the bin.”

  ‘Players are in football to train and play, play and train. That’s all they are there for. Everything else is politics. I suffered badly with injuries throughout the 1973–74 season and barely played. Indeed, when Cloughie came I was waiting to hear from the Football League insurers about packing the game in. There’s the famous story about him telling me that I would have been shot if I were a horse, but in truth there were times when I felt I could have saved someone the trouble and shot myself!

  ‘I remember that famous first meeting with Clough in the players’ lounge as though it were yesterday. Our boys were disgusted. And after he came out with that immortal line to me, I said, “Thinking about the way your own career finished, I would have thought you’d have had a bit more sympathy.” Clough had been a prolific goal-scorer in his playing career. I’d read his book in which he spoke of his feelings when a bad injury brought an abrupt end to his playing days, and I added, “It’s a funny thing to say that to a player who’s struggling with injury in the way that you did. Remember?” He seemed a little taken aback by that, and there was something of a climbdown when he said that he had only been joking. “Well, it didn’t come across like that,” I insisted. He went a bit sheepish.

  ‘I don’t know if the way his career finished made him bitter. Maybe it did. He went on, though, to adopt an even more arrogant air, and I think this was because the lads were not slow in taking him to task with questions like “What are you on about?” and “What do you mean by that?”’

  Says Peter Hampton: ‘I first became aware that Clough was about to take over from Revie at Leeds – everyone had been away on their summer holidays – through a rumour sweeping the camp that Clough had invited Billy Bremner over to Majorca to join his family on holiday and that Billy had thrown a custard pie by refusing to do so.

  ‘The time to report for pre-season training duly comes, and we’re all waiting for the Big Arrival. He marches in, but he hasn’t got Peter Taylor with him, he’s got Jimmy Gordon. Straight away, he’s on the front foot. I think he thought he had to be after all he had said about the club and its players in the past. Like a whirlwind, he goes round the squad and is not very complimentary to people. One of his first gambits is to give the evil eye to one of the young pros sitting just along the bench from me – I think it was Gary Liddell – and tell him to bugger off home, have a shave and come back when he’s clean-shaven.

  ‘It was an aggressive stance, and I’m sure it was born out of fear. It was very tense. Some of the Scottish lads had just come back from the World Cup, and he started an open forum about them in terms of who he planned to let go and who he planned to retain, when such matters, surely, would have been better discussed in the confines of an office. He was saying, “You’re going . . . you’re on your way,” and this was to international footballers. I am sure that, as brassy as he came over, he had his insecurities like everybody else. But he just got stuck in. Rule by fear is the way some people operate, and he appeared to have adopted this as his stance from day one. But it was a big mistake. The worst thing he could have done. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife, and it’s not hard to imagine what it was like when he left that room. It was almost with one voice that people were saying, “Who does he think he is?” and “Cheeky bastard!” There was no attempt to get people onside and therefore battle lines had been drawn.’

  Midfield stalwart Terry Yorath has his own recollections. ‘I was met with an immediate problem when Don Revie vacated Elland Road for the England job in that my contract was expiring,’ says Yorath. ‘I was on £125 a week and Don had promised to double this to £250 a week, but I suppose that would be the last thing on his mind when he collected his things and headed for FA headquarters. So I didn’t know what to expect when Brian Clough walked in. All I knew was that I had been an integral part of the team that had just won the championship, I was still young – 24 years old – and had, I hoped, plenty to offer Leeds for years to come. But I had no contract. This was a pressing problem, and I thought that maybe a good way of approaching the issue was to go through Maurice Lindley, who had been Don’s assistant and was something of a fixture at the club.

  ‘I duly knocked on Maurice’s door and got as far as saying that I had been hoping to speak to Brian Clough when a booming voice from an unseen source rasped, “Boss to you!” I hadn’t realised Clough was in the room, but there he was, behind the door. “What’s the problem?” he asked. I explained that just before he had left, Don Revie had promised that he would double my wages, but there hadn’t been time to do the paperwork and I was, in fact, out of contract. “How much is involved?” asked Clough. I told him that I had been on £125 a week and I was sure clearance had been given for this to be raised to £250 a week. He looked at me with utter contempt all over his face and said, “You? £250 a week? What makes you think you’re deserving of that kind of money?” I said that the previous season I had played 35 matches in a championship-winning team, and this seemed to mellow his mood a little. “Does the chairman know about this?” he asked, in a much more reasonable tone. I assured him that he did.

  ‘Ten days passed with no response, so I thought it was about time the subject was brought up again. “The chairman knows nothing about it,” he said. My heart had begun to sink when he added, “But I think the chairman is a liar. You’ve got your money.”

  ‘There were lots of strands to that little episode. Firstly, the man has been at a new club for no time at all and already he’s calling the chairman a liar. Next, if you wanted to undermine the confidence of a young player, then delaying such an important issue so long is probably the right way to go about it. And further, more positively, it showed he could be persuaded to do the right thing.’

  David Harvey had no doubt from the outset about the folly of the decision to bring Clough to Leeds. ‘My first reaction to the appointment – and it holds good to this day – was to question how the directors could have been stupid enough to give the job of managing one of the most successful club teams in Britain and Europe to a man who so openly and so viciously criticised the club, its previous manager and the players at every conceivable opportunity, and how such an embittered man with such a vendetta against this club could even contemplate becoming its manager. It simply did not add up and, as an arrangement, was always surely destined to be very temporary.

  ‘To my mind, the chairman and directors had a responsibility to the club, its players and its fans to get the very best possible man for the job in place, and if they had needed time to sort that out they could always have appointed a caretaker manager to hold the fort until the best became available or could be persuaded to join Leeds. Instead, they rushed into things and could not have made a worse choice if they’d tried. Anybody, anybody at all, would have been better than Clough. No one could have treated the Leeds players in the way that he did and expect to get results. Like chalk and cheese, Leeds and Clough simply did not go together.

  ‘Having said that, we, as a bunch of players, gave him every chance. We worked hard, giving just as much effort in training as we had done under Don Revie, and did nothing at all that could be construed as undermining him or attempting to destabilise him. In the eve
nt, he did a pretty good job of that himself. The thing about Clough was that he achieved all his success with players who were just embarking on their careers, youngsters he could mould into his ways. At Leeds, he was inheriting a squad full of highly experienced players who were household names and most of whom were internationals. I think that freaked him out a bit. Players who have been there, seen it and done it and got the shirt will invariably listen to a new manager and be open-minded about his views, opinions and modus operandi, but when all you’re getting is a verbal onslaught, life becomes very difficult.

  ‘Clough’s first duty was to attend the pre-season party, which was a fixture in the club’s social calendar. Wives and girlfriends were invited, and it was always a thoroughly enjoyable occasion, at which the highlight was the presentation of awards. I had won the Players’ Player of the Year award and was eagerly looking forward to the handover by the new boss of this prestigious piece of crystal. The evening was thrown into disarray because Clough took it upon himself to arrive two hours late. However, upon his arrival he was soon taking to the stage and his observation upon handing over my trophy was: “How the fuck you’ve won this, I will never know.” Thanks a bunch, pal. How rude.

  ‘It was interesting to get an insight from conversations with the ex-Derby players who had joined Leeds, like John O’Hare and John McGovern, into how much Clough had been liked at Derby, because as far as I could see there was not much to like. I felt a little bit sorry for his trainer, Jimmy Gordon, who, in his role as middleman, would leap to Clough’s defence with asides like “His bark is worse than his bite”, “Don’t get upset with him, he doesn’t mean what he says” and so on. But it certainly came over as heartfelt when Clough delivered his infamous “You can throw your medals away” speech in his first proper meeting with the players.