Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6005 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Review
'A unique insight!a captivating memoir.' News of the World 'He drank on duty, punched employees, called journalists "shithouses", produced classic one-liners and was rumoured to like a bung -- but he got results. No, not Gene Hunt from "Life on Mars", but another Seventies icon, Brian Clough. Playing the Sam Tyler role here is Duncan Hamilton, a teenage reporter on the Nottingham Evening Post. Readers of David Peace's novel "The Damned Utd", set in 1974, will be familiar with Clough's boozy, brilliant, bombastic world. Hamilton's reality is just as entertaining.' Pete May, Independent '"Provided You Don't Kiss Me" is a case of great title, great book.' Sunday Express 'Exhibiting a refreshing turn of phrase, Hamilton explains why the mercurial Clough would not survive in today's game.' Arena 'This gem of a book successfully casts fresh light on numerous facets of Clough's complex personality and managerial style. A brilliantly insightful, superbly crafted book and essential reading for anyone who wonders what made the great Brian Clough tick.' Jon Spurling, FourFourTwo***** 'Best Book' 'The best sports book you'll read all year!Duncan Hamilton's biography is that rare thing -- a work of sporting non-fiction that has genuine literary resonance!I recommend you buy a copy.' Independent Magazine 'This memoir superbly captures the force of Clough's defiance and the weakness that made him, ultimately, a tragic figure.' FT Hamilton has unusual gifts of empathy, and he brings us the real, visceral Clough, a driven and driving man.' The Times 'He deftly recalls the beautiful game! a tender depiction of Clough.' The Independent 'A Refreshing biography!a book that celebrates the north.' The Guardian 'An intensely personal memoir!fascinating.' Scotland on Sunday 'Hamilton's willingness to reveal Clough's lust for money and the drinking problems, but also to revel in his naked talent and genius, make this a supreme biography.' Herald 'Compelling anecdotal detail. This is an intimate portrait of the man in full rather than the bombastic media image Clough helped so much to create.' Alan Chadwick, Metro 'This is a strikingly intimate portrait!read this book, for we will never know genius like this again.' Irish Examiner 'The story in between -- the memoirs of nearly two decades serving as Clough's mouthpiece in the Nottingham Evening Post -- blows away anything "The Damned Utd" came up with. I wouldn't say that this was the best book about Brian Clough ever written -- but for now it's in the top one.' Al Needham, 'When Saturday Comes' 'The local footballer is in a unique position. He is part of the club's fabric: friend, agony aunt and punch bag for players and manager alike. But when he went to Nottingham Forest, Hamilton was gifted with a tale with resonance well beyond the provincial. Clough was a huge figure, his face and mannerisms known outside the confines of football. On virtually every page of this book is evidence of an unsurpassed talent for motivation.' Daily Telegraph 'An affectionate and funny portrait of this often eccentric football legend.' Big Issue 'A vivid, often painful memoir of Brian Clough's triumphs and subsequent decline into the dark pit of alcoholism. By September 2004, Duncan Hamilton was deputy editor of the Yorkshire Post. A decade earlier, he had decided to give up writing about football. Or even watching it. He was sick of the game. Now he learned of Brian Clough's death. A million images came swimming back. Eventually, he cried. And then, thank goodness, he wrote this book.' Derby Evening Telegraph 'His account of those extraordinary days adds to the mountain of anecdotes surrounding his subject.' Sunday Times 'Anyone who remembers Clough should read this book, and one can only hope the younger generation of fans will seek out the tale of one of the true characters of the game that existed before Sky TV. While accepting the enigma of Clough will endure, Hamilton has probably come closer than anyone ever will to distilling a remarkable football coach and unforgettable man.' Sean O'Connor

Scotland on Sunday
`An intensely personal memoir...fascinating.'

FT
'This memoir superbly captures the force of Clough's defiance and the weakness that made him, ultimately, a tragic figure.'

Customer Reviews

A sad ending to a colourful life
Brian Clough was a real character, much missed when modern day football is full of dull, two dimensional players & managers. Not only was he a character though, he was first and foremost a very, very good manager. Even today his management feats at two such unlikely teams like Derby County & Nottingham Forest - two league championships and two European Cups - is remarkable. His partnership with Peter Taylor, who this book quite rightly stresses played a vital role in those successes, was without equal in the world of football.
Unfortunately the latter years of his managerial career, when alcohol finally got the better of him, as taken a little of the gloss off of Brian Cloughs achievements.
This book, whilst excellent, is to me also very sad book as it explains better than anything else I have read the decline of Brian Clough. The author, Duncan Hamilton, obviously got very close to his subject and he could watch at first hand the ravaging effect that whisky and vodka had on Brian Clough. His descriptions of his fading management skills and increasingly bad judgement are very poignant, as are the chapters regarding Brian Cloughs death and its aftermath.
No book about Brian Clough cannot be without humour and this book is no exception, as it is full of stories that portray Brian Cloughs eccentric style of management, but it is the bad times that this book best describes.
This is a must read for all those football watchers who admired Brian Clough and miss his presence in todays game.

With Clough, By Hamilton
This is the book that Duncan Hamilton was born to write - at least, that's what Cloughie must have told him when he sat him down, offered him a glass, scared the wispy moustache off the young journalist's top lip, and instructed 'You can put this in the book' almost as soon as they first met.

Much has been written about the Great Man and his sidekick, Peter Taylor (including 'With Clough, By Taylor' which, as we learn, was the beginning of the end for the greatest ever double-act in English football). This biography is up there with the best of them - but it' s no hagiography. As someone else mentions, this is warts-and-all stuff - there's a lot about the booze, the short temper and the unpredictable behaviour, knocking players down a peg or two or putting the Directors in their rightful place. However, it becomes clear why Clough was, and still is, so revered by the people of Nottingham. We see the warmth of the man - handing a few twenty pound notes to a hard-up fan for his young son, or planting a kiss on anyone lucky enough to cross his path. Nice!

This is the world of football pre-Premiership and Sky Sports, ie a time when Forest were actually good. I'd advise all Trickies to get their hands on it and wallow in a dose of nostalgia. And if you're not a Forest fan, enjoy some of the eccentricities of one of the most charismatic Englishmen of recent years.

There have been some great books written recently about football - Gordon Burn's 'Best and Edwards', Richard Williams on 'The Perfect 10' for example. Both those books feature some of football's greatest characters, but they don't come much greater than Brian.

The definitive insight into Cloughie?
If you want to know about Clough, this is the book. Duncan Hamilton saw him, close up, over twenty years covering Forest (i.e., covering Clough) for the Nottingham Evening Post. It's a memoir that's painful at times - Hamilton doesn't spare Clough the way the man did himself in his autobiographies. The alcoholism is properly and fully described (although there is no real insight into the bung saga) and, for all his magnetism, it's clear Clough could be pretty dislikeable. Peter Taylor suffered at his hands until his death brought remorse and Hamilton rightly accords him, Taylor, full credit for the successes of the 1970s. But it's best for the close-up picture of Cloughie it paints by a man who acknowledges him as a father-figure. This is our Brian, who brought glory to unfashionable Nottingham, who was irascible, opinionated, unbeatable, resilient, both eminently repeatable and wholly unrepeatable and who left so many of the people of Nottingham and Derby in tears when he died. If you care about Forest, about football or about life read this book, for we will never know genius like his again.