Nigel Clough

Nigel Clough

Personal information
Full name	Nigel Howard Clough
Date of birth	19 March 1966 (1966-03-19) (age 45)
Place of birth	Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, England
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Playing position	Striker, Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Derby County (manager)
Youth career
1982–1984	Nottingham Forest
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1984–1993	Nottingham Forest	311	(101)
1993–1996	Liverpool	39	(7)
1996–1998	Manchester City	39	(4)
1996–1997	→ Nottingham Forest (loan)	13	(1)
1997	→ Sheffield Wednesday (loan)	1	(0)
1998–2006	Burton Albion	227	(16)
Total		630	(131)
National team
1986–1988	England U21	15	(3)
1989–1993	England	14	(0)
1990–1991	England B	3	(1)
Teams managed
1998–2009	Burton Albion
2009–	Derby County
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Nigel Howard Clough (born 19 March 1966) is an English former footballer and the current manager of Derby County. Playing predominately as a striker, but later in his career was used as a midfielder, Clough was capped by England 14 times in the early 1990s.

Clough is most notable for his time at Nottingham Forest, where he played over 400 times in two separate spells, mostly under the managership of his father Brian and scored 131 goals, making him the second highest scorer in the club's history. He subsequently had spells with Liverpool, Manchester City and Sheffield Wednesday before moving into non league football at the age of 32 when he became player manager with Southern Football League Premier Division side Burton Albion in 1998. Over the next decade, during half of which he continued to play a regular role on the field, Clough took Burton up from the seventh tier of the English football league system to the brink of promotion to League Two before leaving halfway through the 2008-09 season to follow in his father's footsteps and take over at Derby County.

Playing career

Born in Sunderland but raised in Allestree, Derby, he is most famous as a Nottingham Forest player, where he was coached by his father Brian Clough, who publicly referred to him as "The Number 9". He made a total of 403 appearances in two spells at the club and is the club's second highest goalscorer of all time with 131. He also won 14 caps for England.

Clough joined Forest on leaving school in 1982 but did not become a regular first team player until the 1986–87 season, when he was the club's joint leading goalscorer with 14 league goals. He helped Forest win two League Cups in successive seasons (1989 and 1990). In the 1989 Final, he scored two goals as Forest came from behind to beat holders Luton Town 3–1. He was also on the losing side for Forest in the 1991 FA Cup final and 1992 League Cup final. He received great plaudits from football writers who appreciated the unhurried intelligence of his play and unflappable demeanour and was touted by some as a possible replacement for Gary Lineker, who retired from the England team in 1992, although he seemed the absolute opposite of the type of player favoured by manager Graham Taylor.

However, a steady decline in his career began in that year perhaps adversely affected by the scandals which marred his father's departure from the game. He was also one of the Forest players who had to cope with the horrors of the Hillsborough disaster during the opening minutes of their FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool. Clough played in the rescheduled game at Old Trafford, which Liverpool won 3–1.

He was Forest's leading scorer with 10 league goals in the inaugural FA Premier League campaign (1992–93) but the club finished bottom of the league and were relegated after 16 years in the top flight. Clough senior retired as manager while Clough junior was sold to Liverpool in a £2.75 million deal as manager Graeme Souness had been searching for a new striker following the injuries and disappointing form of Paul Stewart. With the introduction of squad numbers for the 1993–94 season, Clough was allocated the legendary number 7 shirt which had been worn in the past by legendary players including Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Peter Beardsley. At first, things appeared to be going very smoothly. Clough scored twice on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday on 14 August 1993,^[1] and scored again in his next game (a 3–1 win at QPR) four days later. However, a five-match goalless run in the league for Liverpool (starting in early September) put Clough and fellow striker Ian Rush under pressure, and when the deadlock was broken in mid October against Oldham Athletic the goal came for 18-year-old Robbie Fowler, who scored a hat-trick for Liverpool against Southampton at the end of the month to put Clough's place in the first team under serious threat. In the next game, however, Clough broke his own personal goalscoring duck against West Ham United. He did not score again until 4 January, when he scored twice against Manchester United in a superb 3–3 draw at Anfield when Liverpool clawed back after being 3–0 down after 24 minutes. However, he did not score again that season as Fowler was looking firmly established as strike-partner to Ian Rush.^[2]

1994–95 was a frustrating campaign for Clough, who managed just 10 league appearances and failed to score, as Fowler and Rush's partnership become even more unbreakable and Fowler managed over 20 goals in all competitions, while the ageing Rush was still playing well with his tally for the season being well into double figures. Liverpool did win the Football League Cup that season but Clough was not included in the squad. The close season arrival of Stan Collymore made his first team chances look even more remote, and he made just two more appearances for Liverpool before a £1.5million transfer to Manchester City, managed by Alan Ball, in January 1996.

Clough played in all of City's remaining 15 league appearances after his arrival at Maine Road, scoring twice, but could not stave off relegation and shortly afterwards he lost his place in the team due to injury. He returned to Nottingham Forest on loan in December 1996, scoring once against Leicester City^[3] in 13 league games, before returning to Manchester City. He did not play for the club again, though he did make another Premier League comeback in 1997–98 when he was loaned to struggling Sheffield Wednesday, but his only game for the South Yorkshire club was a 5–2 home defeat by Derby County. When City were relegated to Division Two at the end of the 1997–98, Clough was given a free transfer and his senior football career, which had once promised so much, was over at the age of 32.^[4]

International career

After playing 15 times for the England under-21 side from 1986 to 1988, scoring three goals, Clough finally made his senior international debut on 23 May 1989 against Chile at the age of 23. He made the final full international appearance of his career on 19 June 1993 against Germany. By this time, he had been capped 14 times by England at senior level, but failed to score.^[5]

He also turned out three times for England at 'B' level in 1990 and 1991, scoring once.

Managerial career

Burton Albion

In October 1998, he moved into management when he accepted the role of player-manager at Burton Albion in the Southern League Premier Division, where his father's close associate and friend and long time assistant Peter Taylor managed from 1962–65. In his fourth season, 2001/02, Clough's side were champions of the Northern Premier League and gained promotion to the Conference. On 8 January 2006 his side held FA Premier League side Manchester United to a 0–0 draw, earning a replay at Old Trafford. The replay was staged on 18 January, ending with a 5–0 loss for Clough's side, but Burton battled bravely and Clough said he was extremely proud of his men.

Having passed his 42nd birthday, Clough was still registered as a player which possibly explained his apparent lack of ambition to move into League management (his father bitterly lamented the premature curtailment of his own playing career). However, Clough had not played regularly for Burton since the early stages of the 2005/06 season, though he did play in the team's 6–3 win over Sutton Coldfield in the Birmingham Senior Cup on 27 October 2008.^[6]

Clough won the Conference National Manager of the Month for December 2008, after completing 11 straight wins in the division and guiding Burton to the top of the table.

Derby County

On 5 January 2009 he was officially approached by Derby County, the club his father famously managed, to take over as their manager as a replacement for Paul Jewell.^[7] He was appointed the next day,^[8] prior to his taking charge, on 8 January,^[9] Academy Head Coach David Lowe guided Derby to a victory over Manchester United 1–0 in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final.^[10] His first victory in charge of The Rams came on 31 January 2009, when Derby beat Coventry City 2–1. Results improved after Clough's arrival, with a run of four consecutive wins. However, a series of injuries to key players such as Miles Addison, Dean Leacock, Steve Davies, Chris Porter, Kris Commons and Paul Green saw a loss of form for the Rams. Safety in the Championship was not confirmed until the penultimate game of the season against Charlton Athletic, with a 1–0 victory.

Clough's first full season saw large changes to the playing staff as he bought in nine players and moved on fourteen as well as making substantial dealings in the loan market. Despite this, The Rams again struggled with injuries, at one point being without thirteen first team players, including Dean Leacock, Rob Hulse, Kris Commons, Paul Green, Chris Porter, Miles Addison, Gary Teale, Shaun Barker and Stephen Pearson. When key players returned from injury, Clough was able to start picking a regular team, and results began to improve. Derby finished two points and four places better off than the previous campaign.^[11] Clough was involved with several altercations throughout the campaign. During Derby's 1–0 victory over local rivals Nottingham Forest he was accused by counterpart Billy Davies of kicking him in the knee during a pitch side altercation. Clough denies the claim and, though Davies put in an official complaint to the league, nothing came of the incident.^[12] Clough was also in trouble again when he was sent to the stands during Derby's 3–1 home defeat to Ipswich Town on April 5. He was fined £1,000 and given a one match ban, which he served during Derby's final match of the campaign at home to Cardiff City.^[13] Clough also gave himself some game time during the course of the season, coming on as a late substitute for the reserve side in their 2–1 victory over West Bromwich Albion reserves in their Central League Central Section clash.^[14]

Clough's restructuring of the Derby squad continued into the 2010-11 season, with 37 transactions over the 9 months between the opening of the summer transfer window and the closing of the January transfer window. The season started slowly but the club's formed improved to see the club fitting fourth in the table on November 20 after a run of 8 wins from 11 fixtures. However, the club's form faltered badly as key loanees Shefki Kuqi and Frank Fielding returned to their parent clubs and the club picked up just 1 win from its next 11 league fixtures to slip to 17th in the table come February 2011, and suffered a shock 2-1 FA Cup defeat to Crawley Town, a result described as one of the "biggest shocks" in FA Cup history. The result saw Clough's job at the club reportedly come under threat^[15] as he issued an apology to the club's supporters,^[15] many of whom responded with demands for his dismissal^[16] Derby's Chief Executive Tom Glick answered fan's concerns by reiterating the club's support for Clough, saying "Nigel is absolutely our guy. We have been clear about that continuously"^[17] During Derby's post-November struggles Clough came under focus for his consistent criticism of individual players, such as Dean Leacock and Paul Green,^[18] which came to a head when he strongly criticised Tomasz Cywka after his mistake led to a late Portsmouth equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Fratton Park. Of Cywka, Clough said "He's an extremely inexperienced and not very bright footballer... he can go back to Wigan or wherever he came from - I'm not really bothered - until he learns the game." These incidents led PFA Chief Gordon Taylor to criticise Clough, saying "It cannot be appropriate to criticise your team in such a way in public. We'll sort things out...otherwise it looks an untenable situation." ^[19] Ultimately, nothing came of the incident but the outbursts, coupled with Derby's continuing struggles (having won just 2 from 16 between December 2010 and March 2011) saw his stock drop amongst the support, who accorded him with chants of "You don't know what you're doing" during a 3-1 home defeat against Doncaster Rovers.^[20] Whilst ultimately Derby staved off relegation, they did so whilst failing to match the points total from the previous campaign (or even the one before it) putting question marks next to the "year-on-year" progress they were aiming for and won only 4 of the last 28 matches of the season. The underachievement led to speculation in the press that Clough would quit his position at Derby to return to Burton Albion.^[21]

Regardless of such rumours, Clough stayed at Derby and was rewarded by overseeing the clubs's best start to the season in 106 years as they opened the season with four victories from four and earned a Championship Manager of the Month nomination, losing out to Brighton & Hove Albion's Gus Poyet.^[22] A 1-1 draw with Barnsley on 28th September 2011 took Derby into second place and the automatic promotion spots for the first time in over a year. The results came in midst of discussion over Clough's contract - which was due to expire at the end of the season^[23] with Forest allegedly interested in securing their former-player's services.^[24] Despite these reports however, there was no evidence that Clough was on Forest's radar nor that he and his staff were looking to go elsewhere and Clough entered into new contract discussions with Derby, stating "It has never been a question of if we wanted to stay or not. This is where our heart is."^[25] He signed a new 3 year deal, to take him through until summer 2015, on October 17th, two days after a 1-1 draw with league leaders Southampton had kept Derby in the play-off places.^[26] After signing the deal, Derby took just four points from their next five fixtures and slipped out of the playoff places. A 3-2 defeat at Peterborough United, after Derby had held a 2-0 lead, saw Clough hit out at the officials enough for the FA to impose a £2,000 fine.^[27]

Honours

As a player

Nottingham Forest

• League Cup winner: 1988–89, 1989–90
• League Cup finalist: 1991–92
• FA Cup finalist: 1990–91
• Full Members Cup winner: 1989, 1992

As a manager

Burton Albion

• Northern Premier League Premier Division Championship winner (1): 2001–02
• Conference National Championship winner (1): 2008–09 leaving in January 2009 to manage Derby County As he was in charge for a majority of the club's season he was awarded a medal

Statistics

Manager

As of 19 November 2011

Team	Nation	From	To	Matches	Won	Drawn	Lost	Win %
Burton Albion	England	October 1998	7 January 2009	709	310	101	298	43.7
Derby County	England	8 January 2009	Present	141	44	31	66	31.21

Portrayals

In 2009, a film called The Damned United was released and centred on Brian Clough's ill fated 44-day reign as Leeds United manager in 1974, though there were scenes in the film dated from his appointment as Derby County manager in 1967. Nigel Clough, aged between two and eight years old, appeared in several scenes played by Oliver Stokes.

Irish band The Sultans of Ping FC wrote a song about Clough, which was given away free as a one track flexi-disk with a Nottingham Forest fanzine. Entitled "Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass'", the lyric is from a quote by his father Brian about former Forest and Scotland winger John Robertson.

References

1. ^ "Nigel Clough Liverpool". SportingHeroes. http://www.sporting-heroes.net/football-heroes/displayhero_club.asp?HeroID=36605. 
2. ^ "Liverpool all time playing records 1993/94 Season". Liverweb. http://www.liverweb.org.uk/season.asp?season=199394. 
3. ^ Culley, Jon (28 December 1996). "Clough's creativity enlivens Forest". London: The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-cloughs-creativity-enlivens-forest-1316426.html. Retrieved 16 February 2010. 
4. ^ "Nigel Clough Liverpool". SportingHeroes. http://www.sporting-heroes.net/football-heroes/displayhero_club.asp?HeroID=39074. 
5. ^ [1]
6. ^ "Brewers go goal crazy in the Birmingham Senior Cup". http://www.burtonalbionfc.co.uk/ba_newsDt.asp?nUID=414. Retrieved 2009-01-02. ^{[dead link]}
7. ^ "Rams make their first approach for Clough as manager". dcfc.co.uk. 5 January 2009. http://therams.co.uk/stories/rams-make-their-first-approach-for-clough-as-manager. Retrieved 4 February 2009. 
8. ^ "Clough takes over as Derby boss". BBC Sport. 6 January 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/7813858.stm. Retrieved 4 February 2009. 
9. ^ "Rams confirm Clough as manager". dcfc.co.uk. 6 January 2009. http://therams.co.uk/stories/rams-set-to-name-clough-as-manager. Retrieved 4 February 2009. 
10. ^ Bevan, Chris (7 January 2009). "Derby 1–0 Man Utd". BBC Sport. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/7808017.stm. Retrieved 4 February 2009. 
11. ^ "Top half not so far away as the Rams almost fulfill pre-season predictions". Derby Evening Telegraph. 6 May 2010. http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/sport/half-far-away-Rams-fulfill-pre-season-predictions/article-2113983-detail/article.html?. 
12. ^ Taylor, Daniel (1 February 2010). "Nigel Clough expected to deny Billy Davies's claim of 'cowardly' assault". London: TheGuardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/01/nigel-clough-billy-davies-cowardly-assault?. Retrieved 20 May 2010. 
13. ^ "Rams manager Clough receives one-match ban from FA". TheRams.co.uk. 27 April 2010. http://www.therams.co.uk/news/Rams-manager-Clough-receives-match-ban-FA/article-2078280-detail/article.html. 
14. ^ "DERBY COUNTY RES 2–1 WBA RES". dcfc.co.uk. 10 Dec 2010. http://www.dcfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10270~1900244,00.html?. 
15. ^ ^{a b} "Clough set for axe as Posh talk to Ferguson". The Independent. 12 January 2011. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/clough-set-for-axe-as-posh-talk-to-ferguson-2181998.html. 
16. ^ "Derby County fans' fury at shock FA Cup exit". BBC Sport. 11 January 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/9357230.stm. 
17. ^ "Derby chief Tom Glick says Nigel Clough's job is safe". BBC Sport. 12 January 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/9359060.stm. 
18. ^ "Nigel Clough lashes out at Dean Leacock and Paul Green". BBC Sport. 29 December 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/9326949.stm. 
19. ^ "Nigel Clough wrong to slam Tomasz Cywka - Gordon Taylor". BBC Sport. 8 February 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/9390909.stm. 
20. ^ "Clough: The fans should have given us more stick". thisisderbyshire. 2 March 2011. http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/sport/Clough-fans-given-stick/article-3283661-detail/article.html. 
21. ^ "Clough considering return to Burton Albion in summer". Mirror.co.uk. 1 May 2011. http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Transfer-news-Derby-Nigel-Clough-considering-returning-to-Burton-Albion-in-summer-article730158.html#ixzz1L3NDTSTP. 
22. ^ "NPOWER FOOTBALL LEAGUE MANAGER OF THE MONTH". 12 September 2011. http://www.leaguemanagers.com/news/news-6854.html. 
23. ^ "Time for swift end to Clough contract issue for long-term good of Rams' future stability". thisisderbyshire.co.uk. 27 September 2011. http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/story-13411419-detail/story.html. 
24. ^ "Nigel Clough could follow in his fathers footsteps and become Nottingham Forest boss if Steve McClaren fails to turn things around". thepeople.co.uk. 25 September 2011. http://www.people.co.uk/sport/football/news/2011/09/25/nigel-clough-could-follow-in-his-fathers-footsteps-and-become-nottingham-forest-boss-if-steve-mcclaren-fails-to-turn-things-around-102039-23444085/. 
25. ^ "Clough: We want to finish what we started". thisisderbyshire.co.uk. 13 October 2011. http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/story-13542673-detail/story.html?. 
26. ^ "Clough & Backroom Team Sign New Deals". dcfc.co.uk. 17 October 2011. http://www.dcfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10270~2482766,00.html?. 
27. ^ "Clough fined for comments". derbycounty-mad.co.uk. 15 November 2011. http://www.derbycounty-mad.co.uk/news/tmnw/clough_fined_for_comments_713019/index.shtml?. 

External links

• Nigel Clough career stats at Soccerbase
• Nigel Clough management career stats at Soccerbase
• Nigel Clough profile at the Liverpool website

Persondata
Name	Clough, Nigel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	19 March 1966
Place of birth	Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, England
Date of death
Place of death