Things really aligned for City to take Brian Clough in the autumn of 1973. He left Derby in mid-October and took up the post at Brighton in early November, but inbetween those dates, Johnny Hart went on sick-leave and City already knew he wasn't coming back, even though his official departure didn't come until after Clough had signed on at the Goldstone Ground. At least one Clough biography and some media reports at the time suggest that City did hold talks with him, but we opted not to pursue the possibility of appointing him. However, it would seem that he really was ours if we wanted him.
It probably wasn't quite the no-brainer then that it seems in hindsight. At the time, he'd taken Derby to a league title and was obviously an exceptional manager. However, it was his achievements at Forest that really showed him to be a genius, and at Derby he'd tried to unseat the board while seemingly regarding his day job as less of a priority than his TV and media commitments. I can see why boards of big clubs, and not just ours, might have decided he was probably more trouble than he was worth. Hard, though, not to think of what might have been had we taken the chance. He certainly wouldn't have got on with Swales, but IMO could easily have engineered success that ensured he wouldn't be the man to step down when Maine Road proved not to be big enough for the both of them.
An intriguing one five years after those events is outlined in Tony Book's autobiography. Book writes that, in the autumn of 1978, he was in the last year of his current contract and was keen to negotiate an extension, only for the board to rebuff him. Disillusioned, he ended up being interviewed to replace Jock Stein after the Scot's very brief reign at Leeds. Having lost out to the Sunderland and former Burnley manager Jimmy Adamson, who then failed at Elland Road, Book says that he was tipped off by a City director that the club was lining up Bobby Robson of Ipswich to replace him.
If I could go back and make one managerial appointment off my own bat, bringing in Robson at that time would probably be it. Sacking Book after he'd won a domestic Cup and qualified twice for the UEFA Cup would unquestionably have been harsh. However, I don't think there's much doubt that Robson was comfortably a better manager. More importantly, we'd have been spared the utter car crash that was Big Mal's second coming. He'd probably have still departed to manage England in 1982, but would have stood a good chance of success in the interim and left us in a position to challenge as a top club through the 1980s rather than being the cash-strapped mediocrities we in fact became.
It probably wasn't quite the no-brainer then that it seems in hindsight. At the time, he'd taken Derby to a league title and was obviously an exceptional manager. However, it was his achievements at Forest that really showed him to be a genius, and at Derby he'd tried to unseat the board while seemingly regarding his day job as less of a priority than his TV and media commitments. I can see why boards of big clubs, and not just ours, might have decided he was probably more trouble than he was worth. Hard, though, not to think of what might have been had we taken the chance. He certainly wouldn't have got on with Swales, but IMO could easily have engineered success that ensured he wouldn't be the man to step down when Maine Road proved not to be big enough for the both of them.
An intriguing one five years after those events is outlined in Tony Book's autobiography. Book writes that, in the autumn of 1978, he was in the last year of his current contract and was keen to negotiate an extension, only for the board to rebuff him. Disillusioned, he ended up being interviewed to replace Jock Stein after the Scot's very brief reign at Leeds. Having lost out to the Sunderland and former Burnley manager Jimmy Adamson, who then failed at Elland Road, Book says that he was tipped off by a City director that the club was lining up Bobby Robson of Ipswich to replace him.
If I could go back and make one managerial appointment off my own bat, bringing in Robson at that time would probably be it. Sacking Book after he'd won a domestic Cup and qualified twice for the UEFA Cup would unquestionably have been harsh. However, I don't think there's much doubt that Robson was comfortably a better manager. More importantly, we'd have been spared the utter car crash that was Big Mal's second coming. He'd probably have still departed to manage England in 1982, but would have stood a good chance of success in the interim and left us in a position to challenge as a top club through the 1980s rather than being the cash-strapped mediocrities we in fact became.