Brian Clough is one of the most iconic managers the World have ever seen, if someone is the special one it has to be him. Over the years he was of course mostly known for his time in management at Derby County and Nottingham Forest, where he was part of iconic history at both places.
Mr. Clough started his manager career with Hartlepool United, and from there he moved to Derby County. After leaving Derby he moved to Brighton & Hove Albion and from there to Leeds United.
After his 44 days with Leeds United he left the game for a while before taking on the challenge at Nottingham Forest, then in the 2nd tier completing a masters piece with the way he transformed everything at City Ground in a way that makes you believe everything is possible.
Often wondered what Brian Clough could have done at Leicester City, a club he interacted with buying and selling players. The first to be mentioned is Willie Carlin, winning the 2nd division with Rams in 1969 and later doing the same with Leicester City in 1971. Brian Clough signed Wille Carlin from Sheffield United with a certain Arthur Rowley being the manager for The Blades making the deal possible.
The next player to be seen in the company of Brian Clough in a direct move from Leicester City was David Nish. Clough made an offer Jimmy Bloomfield couldn’t turn down as it became a record transfer fee in English football, £225,000.
Roger Davies was allready at Derby County when Nish arrived, and as we all know became a record transfer buy when he joined Leicester City. Brian Clough had an eye for a good player as he decided to bring young Davies out of amateur football with Worcester City.
Clough’s short lived 44 days management at Leeds United made him the boss of Allan Clarke, a former Leicester City player, and the only one at Leeds with a Leicester connection to have worked under him in this “special” period at Elland Road.
During Clough’s 18 years in charge of Nottingham Forest from 1975 to 1993 he had a number of “foxes” under his wings, but never made a single signing from Leicester City, but players either joined from a new club or he could sell or loan out a player to be seen at Filbert Street.
Peter Shilton was the only former Leicester City player to be part of that special league winning set up and later winning the European Cup twice. Gary Mills also took part in that European glory and later joined Leicester City.
Kjetil Osvold spent time on loan at Leicester City, so did Lee Glover and Gary Charles all of them coming from Forest to play at Leicester in short loans. Franz Carr did play under Brian Clough and later joined Leicester City, the same to be said about Garry Parker.
Trevor Christie was a big money signing by Brian Clough when he bought him from neighbor Notts County. Scot Gemmill who joined Leicester City in his latter days in football was given his debut by Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest.
Scot is the son of Archie Gemmill who both were managed by Brian Clough, and as far as we know the only son and father to have made it into his Nottingham Forest teams. Ian and Gary Bowyer came close, but Gary (the son) never made a single appearance in the first team, but can be said to have had Brian Clough as manager.
Martin O’Neill never played for Leicester City but was a pupil of Brian Clough as a player at Nottingham Forest, so was John Robertson, both iconic figures at Leicester City during a great run as manager and assistant manager back in the 90’s.
We never experienced Brian Clough as manager of Leicester City, but he was at Filbert Street on a number of occasions with Derby and Nottingham Forest, and he was in charge of some of a number of former foxes!
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