I Believe in Miracles

By January 1975, Brian Clough had fallen from grace. He was once regarded as one of English football’s most exciting young managers but was now widely perceived as someone with whom it was impossible to enjoy a healthy working relationship. After walking out on Derby County, leaving Brighton & Hove Albion under a cloud and then being sacked as manager of an illustrious Leeds United side after just 44 days, his reputation appeared irrevocably sullied. No one would touch him with a barge pole, said one famous interview.

His only offer of work came from a Second Division club called Nottingham Forest whose brief glory days in the late 1950s appeared consigned to the distant past. It was thought that Clough would last less than a season. Yet within five years, he’d won promotion, scooped the First Division title, two League Cups and a remarkable two European Cups, which he won back to back with one of the greatest domestic football teams in the history of the game.