Brian Clough RIP: Hartlepools United Memories

Farewell Cloughie
By Albatross
September 20 2004

Brian Clough has passed away at the age of 69. No doubt there are tributes and obituries everywhere - but here are some reflections on his time at Hartlepools United, the first team he managed and where he showed the first signs of his great talent as a manager and coach.

Brian Clough was already a legend in the North-East when he arrived at Pools in 1965; as a forward for Middlesbrough and then Sunderland he scored over 250 goals in not many more matches and was capped twice for England before injury cut short his career. After a spell coaching with Sunderland, he was given the opportunity to take the managerial Hotseat - and at that time it certainly was - at the Victoria Ground.

In his Autobiography he doesn't say too much about his time at Pools, but for someone that was in charge for less than two seasons he certainly showed that he started as he meant to go on. His opinion of then chairman Ernie Ord was not exactly high, but he still managed to persuade Ord to allow him to sign an assistant manager - almost unheard of for a club like Pools at that time. Clough and Taylor were expected to do far more than just manage and coach the team - even repainting the stadium in the close season was one of their duties.

Clough though soon found that he could turn such necessities into a virtue. One of the widest-known stories from the Clough era is that he even took lessons in driving the team bus as an economy measure; and he did, although he was never asked to actually drive the team to a game. He also probably wasn't the first Hartlepools boss to be asked to do this. Clough however did things his way - and invited the press to come and watch him trundling the bus about. It gained publicity for the young Manager, for the club, and no doubt gave him a little more leverage with the board of directors! This streak of the showman in Cloughie was a pattern that was repeated over many years.

Another thing that Clough did that he would repeat was to sign a particular player: John McGovern, who would follow Clough to most of his clubs and eventually lift the European Cup. McGovern was still a schoolboy when Clough signed him on, and he was the youngest player to appear for the club's first team until Steven Istead and then David Foley took that title the best part of 40 years later.

Pools finished in a relatively lowly 18th place in Clough's first season in charge; and possibly because of this the improvement the next season caught a number of eyes. Hartlepools finished 8th in Division 4, and may even have gone higher if not for an inconsistent end to the season that saw them lose half of their last ten games. Even so, it was enough to persuade Derby County to take a chance on the Clough/Taylor partnership, and as they say the rest is history: Promotion, League Titles, European Cups, League Cups - the only failures being the FA Cup that always eluded him, and the unwillingness of the FA to appoint Clough as England Manager - despite being the obvious candidate on a couple of occasions. Pools meanwhile were promoted the season after his departure as Gus McClean added the final polish onto what many still thought of as Clough's team.

After years of decline fueled by alcohol, it was wonderful to see a sober Clough interviewed during our televised Cup Tie at Burton last season, supporting the team managed by his son against the team that gave him his first managerial job. He seemed well, on good form, and much more like the character most Football Fans would like to remember - and in other interviews it was obvious he still had interesting opinions to give on the game of Football that had been part of his life for so many years. Rest in Peace Brian Clough: still a legend to Pools Fans as well as many others across the footballing world.