Still struggling in Cloughie’s shadow
09/05/05 | by Nick Miller

Relegation, although expected, is of course horrific. If it isn’t enough to suffer the ignominy of being in the third division, it is infinitely worse to have every Tom, Dick and Jeff Stelling saying: "Well, isn’t it sad – they used to be European champions don’t you know." Even worse is the standard response from any lazy broadcaster or journalist: wheel out a ‘distinguished’ former player to explain where it all went wrong, and what a shame it is and what Brian would have done. The fact is, Brian Clough is almost as much of a curse to Forest as he was a blessing.

And before blood starts to boil, I should make it clear that I idolised the man. In eighteen years he won four times as many trophies gained in the other century of our history. Winning promotion, the League and the European Cup in successive seasons is the most extraordinary footballing achievement of all time. Balls to Shankly, Ferguson and Stein – he was the best.

But he raised expectations. He basically gave us an inflated sense of our own importance. We’re a small, provincial club who had the fortune to have a genius as a manager for a while. My Dad put this best in one of the number of distraught messages that have passed between us over the season: "At the time of Clough's demise, we had a giant always teetering the edge of the abyss."

Clough’s success basically made him an impossible act to follow. Every manager post 1993 has, and will be, compared to him – all, of course, incredibly unfairly. One of the few things that I agreed with Joe Kinnear (other than an apparent mutual love of bacon sarnies) on was when he noted that they "don’t have pictures of the relegation teams up in here do they?"

The force of his personality allowed the other deficiencies in the way the club was run to be overlooked, and as Dad said, until Doughty, the club tolerated being run by two crooked chairmen and a pub landlord. So, in short, while Clough brought about the most successful period in our history, the aftermath of his reign has perhaps brought about the most disastrous.

We haven’t had stability since 1993. Take Charlton – Alan Curbishley fully took over in 1995, and in that time we have been managed by (in chronological order) Frank Clark, Stuart Pearce, Dave Bassett, Micky Adams, Ron Atkinson, David Platt, Paul Hart, Joe Kinnear, Mick Harford and Gary Megson. That’s ten managers in ten years, four in the last two seasons.

In that time, Charlton have been relegated and promoted, and so have we, but while we have suffered from a series of knee-jerk reactions to bad situations, Charlton have stood by their manager. I’m not saying that Frank Clark should necessarily still be in charge, but look at the pattern: in that ten years we have been relegated three times and seriously threatened once – each time we have sacked the boss at around the turn of the year and it only worked with Kinnear, who was always going to be a short-term solution.

Even the team has had no continuity. The play-offs were only two seasons ago, and comparing the starting teams from that Game at Bramhall Lane and the Sheffield United match a couple of weeks ago is, interesting to say the least:

2003: Ward, Louis-Jean, Thompson, Walker, Brennan, Williams, Scimeca, Reid, Huckerby, Johnson, Harewood.
2005: Gerrard, Morgan, Melville, Thompson, Louis-Jean, Powell, Rogers, Evans, Perch, Commons, Taylor.

Two players. That’s all. One of whom hasn’t been a first team regular and was only playing in 2003 because of Dawson’s suspension.

The point is this: it is absolutely the right decision to stick with Gary Megson. There are those of you that don’t agree with the style of play we’ve seen over the past few months. Well, tough. Megson found a bunch of ill-disciplined, overweight, unfit, uncommitted wasters, the most talented of which knew it and didn’t want to be there. Anyone who can think of a better way to survive than tightening the defence, improving fitness and trying to fight, please raise your hands.

A manager has to have good, dedicated players to perform for him, or at least players that he even half rates. And how many of the squad does Megson think fit this description? Six. Half a team – a fifth of the squad.

Being rid of the Ginger Man – as some want – would be so ludicrous as to defy logical comprehension. We need continuity, stability – we need someone to build a team that can first get out of the Third Division, consolidate, and who knows – maybe get us back into the Premiership in a few years. 

I’ll leave the last word to My Old Man again. After all, he was in Munich and Cologne in 1979, and at Crewe and Coventry in 2005 – he knows more than me: "Everything is cyclical…we’re at the bottom now and can only rise again…keep the faith…although I would have liked to show you Munich again."