The East German journalists looked bemused and the Nottingham Forest secretary Ken Smales smiled uncomfortably. Forest had just beaten Vorwaerts Frankfurt in a UEFA Cup match and the victorious manager, Herr Brian Clough, was addressing the press conference as UEFA had demanded. Eyebrows began to rise as the East German interpreter translated Herr Clough's words: "My directors have been swanning around your beautiful city for three days and now they are out celebrating, doing this (and here he levered his drinking arm). They are the ones that should be here.
"I finished my day's work when the whistle went, and I want you to know where the directors are. UEFA are wrong to insist I have to come here." He made some quick comments on the match, quickly finished his beer, pointed to the pressmen and said "Gentlemen, I must go."
To the man from the Deutsches Sportecho and his colleagues his first look at Brian Clough must have been extraordinary. Managers do not criticise their directors in England, unless they are looking for the sack, let alone in East Germany. Clough does, continually, and he survives and prospers simply because Nottingham Forest would be nothing without him and the directors know it.
Since his arrival they have been promoted to the First Division, won the League and the European and League Cups twice. His name sells more newspapers than anyone in football and just recently he has taken to using his popularity with the tabloid press to earn wheelchairs for crippled children in Derbyshire. He is prepared to talk his mind and slag off anybody he disagrees with as he heads for 20 chairs. So far he has 18.
He is a man of extraordinary contradictions. He can be famously polite or infamously rude, minutely attentive or witheringly dismissive, mean or generous. Waiting in the airport a certain journalist saw his Scotch grabbed off the table by Clough and dispatched with little ado, yet the players' duty-frees were put on Clough's table.
He does not suffer fools gladly and when he has had enough of someone he will tell them so. His preparations for a match and the well-being of his players come before anything else and anyone getting in the way is made aware of it. Even before a game when, especially in European competitions, there is an interminable amount of hanging around, he will buy them a drink. They are all "my players."
From the dugout at the Friendship Stadium in Frankfurt-am-Oder a constant stream of industrial language could be heard in the heat of the moment. "Gentlemen, no swearing please. Brian." was the sign he had planted before Forest's more vociferous supporters a few years ago.
Dealing with the press is a chore to most managers and some find it difficult. Clough does it with ease - when he wants to. A journalist can be kept waiting for hours. One colleague recently put in nine calls to the City Ground to check on injured players. Eight were met with a reply from the switchboard that Clough was not around at the moment, the ninth with the news that he had gone home.
But he knows exactly what the papers want. On Monday morning his press conference lasted only five minutes but by the end of it, after remarks about his present team being "absolute crap" compared to the last one, the tabloids all had a back page "lead" and, more importantly, Clough had guaranteed that no one would bother his players for the rest of the day.
His public image is one of being a loudmouth with little concern for people's feelings, but an acquaintance said this week: "Deep down he is a very caring person. There is nobody who would go to the lengths he would if you were in trouble and he thought you were sincere or there was a just cause."
Long may the Clough roller-coaster continue. The game will be a lot less exciting when he calls it a day.
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