da brdice： This Sunday, Nottingham Forest will meet Derby County in the East Midlands Derby in a game which carries added significance for both sides for a number of reasons.
da cassino online： In a purely footballing context, the two rivals will be determined to maintain their impressive starts to the campaign – Forest especially, who are unbeaten in the league – which promises an exciting game, especially if one team falls behind. The game also sees the sides contesting the fifteenth edition of the Brian Clough Trophy, introduced in 2007 as a kind of ceremonial mini-competition for whenever the sides meet, and it is the man whose name adorns the cup that makes this derby particularly special.
Clough is a legitimate legend, not just of both clubs, but of English football as a whole. The ‘Greatest manager England never had’ oversaw the greatest periods in both club’s histories, his crowning achievement coming when in charge of Nottingham Forest as he led them to back-to-back European Cup triumphs in 1979 and 1980. With the tenth anniversary of Clough’s death falling on the following Sunday, the East Midlands rivals have decided to unite in a rare act of footballing solidarity by rising to their feet after ten minutes of the game to applause, paying tribute to a man whom they both revere in equal measure.
The special occasion allows us to reflect on Clough’s managerial achievements with pride as well as a tinge of regret. For what made Clough such an exceptional manager was the way in which he built up his Forest and Derby sides, seeing the potential in the players he had and firmly believing in their capabilities, enabling both teams to rise from mid-table anonymity in the second-tier to First Division glory under his guidance. By taking a small provincial club such as Forest from the Second Division to European Cup triumph within the space of five years, Clough succeeded in making the fanciful ideal of transforming any team into the ‘best team in the world’ a reality. The ultimate aim of competitive sport is to be the best, and through his achievements, Clough showed that this was not merely an impossible dream, an abstract idea. His successes gave meaning to the very notion of sport.
Sadly, Clough’s legacy puts the modern footballing landscape into perspective. The prospect of seeing a lowly club climb the football ladder until one day its players lift the ultimate prize of the Premier League trophy – the same players who started the journey and helped the club develop and grow – has become an impossible dream. Money – with football being treated as a business first, and a sport second – is to blame for this, leading to a decrease in mobility and a rigid hierarchical structure which sees the same sides occupy the top positions every year. Money has given excessive financial might to the most ‘lucrative’ clubs, and if any other team displays the slightest sign of potential, of disrupting the established order, the chequebook is the ultimate sedative.
Southampton have been the most noteworthy victims of modern football’s hierarchical structure. Boasting exciting talent in the form of Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw, Dejan Lovren and Calum Chambers last season, as well as a young, ambitious manager in Mauricio Pochettino, the team was decimated over the course of a single summer as the financial behemoths of Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham rolled into town, lobotomizing a once youthful, skiful and dangerous side and wrecking any hopes it may once have had of achieving greater things. Although a rapid rise from the lower leagues to the Premier League has been a surprisingly regular occurrence in recent times – Southampton being joined by Swansea and Norwich as the standout examples – the transition from Premier League mid-table club to Premier League top-four finisher or even Premier League champion remains unattainable. The one exception has been Manchester City, and it is money that has been the sole reason for their success.
Southampton’s academy continues to be held in high regard – it is there that the world’s most expensive footballer received his footballing education, and the frequency with which it produces Premier League-level footballers is impressive. What is the point of an academy, however, if its players inevitably end up at other clubs? Is Southampton content with nurturing talent for the purpose of selling it to the highest bidder in the future, rather than to build and develop a legacy with it?
Brian Clough’s successes – the likes of which will sadly never be witnessed again – will be commemorated this weekend at the City Ground, during the tenth minute of a match between two teams with serious ambitions of reaching the ‘promised land’ of the Premier League. And as the applause rings out around the old stadium, let us remember a man who regarded football as a sport, not a business, a player as a human being, not a commodity, and who achieved wonderful things as a consequence.
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