Brian Clough was the great maverick English football manager of the 70's and 80's who managed the rare feat of winning the English First Division, as it was then called, twice with different teams. Moreover Clough achieved with two distinctly unfashionable teams, Derby County and Nottingham Forest. This film is concerned with his time at Forest, in particular his early years when, with his brilliant assistant manager alongside him, Peter Taylor, they transformed a side languishing in the lower regions of the second division into not only English champions, but also, even more amazingly, into twice winning the European Cup.
Unlike almost every other manager of the team, with the possible exceptions of Liverpool's Bill Shankly and Man City's Malcolm Allison, Clough was outspoken and openly courted the media. A frequent chat-show guest and TV personality of the time, he thought nothing of making provocative statements, usually on football but occasionally on social and political matters too.
It can't be stated enough just how remarkable his achievements with Forest were. Don't forget, he had arrived at Forest after a disastrous 44 day stint at champions Leeds United, later forensically documented in David Peace's book "The Damned United", later filmed, starring Michael Sheen. Even at Derby, he'd taken over a successful team which had lately won the championship under Dave Mackay, but here at Forest, after his failure at Leeds, he had almost nothing to work with, but with a series of canny signings allied to an eye for who to retain in the current squad and having reunited himself with Taylor, who'd not gone with him to Leeds, the rebuild started.
And what a rebuild it was. Within a few years his remade team of the untried and misfits was challenging the mighty Liverpool for domestic supremacy. He brought on players who had looked well past their sell-by date like defender Larry Lloyd, striker-turned-centre-back Kenny Burns and probably most importantly, mercurial winger John Robertson among others as well as nurturing young talent like strikers Tony Woodcock and Garry Birtles and midfielder Martin O'Neill. Playing a refreshing brand of attacking football but with a rock-solid defence behind them, especially after he bought England's great goalkeeper Peter Stilton, for the next few years they carried pretty much all before them.
In this candid but unusually put-together film, we get to see just what made Cloughy tick. For some reason though, the director has chosen to tell the story to a backdrop of early 70's soul records, such as the Jackson Sisters single which gives the film its name. Then, inexplicably, when the team take the obligatory bus-tour of the city with the trophy, it's with the Velvet Underground track "Rock and Roll" playing behind it. Clough was well known to be an aficionado of Frank Sinatra so I'm guessing this eclectic mix represents the director's own taste. And why the concentration on just the 1977-1978 season when they returned to win the European Cup again the next season.
Still, it was good to see so many of his old players eulogising old Bigmouth, not forgetting Taylor's massive contribution, plus the numerous football clips which show just how good they were on the pitch. My own favourite clip was the mischievous story hard man Kenny Burns told of the time he got the boss's unique sign of approval for clattering an opposition striker but there were many other entertaining bon-mots although strangely no sign of the famous clip of Clough on the training-ground "("You're a bloody disgrace!) or the man's numerous encounters with BBC commentator and great admirer John Motson.
With so many managers today who talk impenetrable jargon and quote statistics ad infinitum, this warm, loving film (there's little or no reference to his either staying just too long in the job (the team was eventually relegated on his watch, several years later) or his own fight with alcoholism, this was an enjoyable portrait of a football great, the likes of which we'll probably not see again.
