Derby v Nottingham Forest; Arsenal v Man City; West Ham v Crystal Palace
Three fixtures this weekend evoke memories of two of football’s most celebrated double acts: Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, and Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison.
With Derby and Forest currently both in the doldrums and meeting this weekend, fans at Saturday’s Championship match will no doubt be hoping that their current management teams can galvanise their clubs in the way that Clough and Taylor did.
Arriving from Hartlepool Utd in 1967, Clough and Taylor found Derby languishing in the old Second Division. By the time they left (in controversial circumstances) six years later, Derby had been Champions and extremely unlucky to lose to Juventus in a European Cup semi-final. That contentious defeat robbed football fans of a potentially great match-up between Johan Cruyff’s Ajax and the Clough-Taylor inspired Derby. Given what we know of Ajax, a Dutch triumph would seem likely; but given what we know of Clough and Taylor, how many would have bet against Derby?
Nottingham Forest certainly weren’t pulling up any trees when Clough arrived in 1975. Once Taylor had signed up too to renew the partnership, good times rolled culminating in two European Cup wins in 1979 and 1980.
Central to both of Clough and Taylor’s great teams were John McGovern and John O’Hare, the former captaining both and having a decent claim to be the most under-rated player of the seventies. O’Hare, having led the line for Derby, was the man who was tripped for the penalty that beat Liverpool in the 1978 League Cup Final replay. Victory in this match gave Forest their first major trophy for almost twenty years, although Phil Thompson would probably still have an opinion about the penalty decision if asked.
In the Premiership this weekend, Manchester City take on Arsenal, while West Ham and Crystal Palace compete in a London derby.
Joe Mercer is a name embedded in the history of both Arsenal and City. As a player, he helped the Gunners win the FA Cup and the League in the post-war years. Meanwhile, the legendary coach Malcolm Allison learned his trade at West Ham, where he mentored a certain Bobby Moore and later brought flamboyance on and off the pitch at Palace.
Yet it is the years Allison coached alongside manager Mercer that provided both with their greatest spell of success in football. Like Clough and Taylor, they took a club from the Second Division to the top of the First Division and on to success in Europe. Champions in 1968, City won the FA Cup in 1969 and in the following year doubled up with the League Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup. This was an incredible achievement given the strength of English football in the late sixties: Leeds under Don Revie were reaching their peak; Manchester United under Matt Busby ruled Europe. It is worth considering, as Eamon Dunphy has pointed out, that West Ham, despite boasting the World Cup winning trio of Moore, Hurst and Peters, were never close to being title contenders.
Sadly, both these great double-acts foundered after the success of the earlier years, but all four men still contributed much to football. Mercer was a popular caretaker manager of England in the immediate post-Ramsey months; Allison took Third Division Crystal Palace to the FA Cup semi-finals; Clough, solo after Taylor’s departure, established Forest in the top division and won two more League Cups; Taylor, like Allison returning to City, tried to restore Derby’s fortunes in the early 80s but, like Allison with City, was unable to repeat his earlier success.
Further similarities can be found among these football giants: Clough and Mercer saw their playing careers ended by injury; Allison had to quit because of TB. Mercer endured relegation when managing Aston Villa, while Clough had a difficult 44 days in charge of Leeds in 1974. Yet through intense hard work and self-belief, all reached the peaks of success and, for several years, were able to maintain those standards.
SteveTLooksBack 