Clough Quotes & Sayings

I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one. — Brian Clough

If any one of my players isn't interfering with play, they're not getting paid. — Brian Clough

O let me love my love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to the world unknown,
No witness to the vision call,
Beholding, unbeheld of all... — Arthur Hugh Clough

When I go, God's going to have to give up his favourite chair. — Brian Clough

And thus the real battle of life is not the toil for bread. It is fought by all who would keep alive and fresh in their hearts the truth that man doth not live by bread alone. — Percy Clough Ainsworth

Saturday comes again, welcome or not, it comes again like it always does, welcome or not, wanted or not, another judgment day - The chance to be saved, the chance to be damned. — Brian Clough

Come and see my coaching certificates - they're called the European Cup and league championships, — Brian Clough

On occasions I have been big-headed. I think most people are when they get in the limelight. I call myself Big Head just to remind myself not to be. — Brian Clough

Anybody who can do anything in Leicester but make a jumper has got to be a genius. — Brian Clough

Players lose you games, not tactics. There's so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes. — Brian Clough

Beckham? His wife can't sing and his barber can't cut hair. — Brian Clough

Dance on, dance on, we see, we see Youth goes, alack, and with it glee, A boy the old man ne'er can be; Maternal thirty scarce can find The sweet sixteen long left behind. — Arthur Hugh Clough

I lost count of the number of referees who came to me both at Derby and Forest and said, 'I'd just like to express my thanks. I love matches involving your team. We never have any trouble with them. — Brian Howard Clough

How pleasant it is to have money. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Walk on water? I know most people out there will be saying that instead of walking on it, I should have taken more of it with my drinks. They are absolutely right. — Brian Clough

I gave my players a version of the same message at ten-to-three every Saturday: 'I would shoot my granny right now for three points this afternoon.' They knew how important it was to give everything in the cause of victory. Every time. That's why my granny enjoyed more lives than my cat. — Brian Clough

Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it. — Arthur Hugh Clough

We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass. — Brian Clough

We used to go to the pictures every Saturday night but we had to leave a little bit early and get home and watch Match of the Day - and my wife still complains she missed the last five minutes of every film we saw. — Brian Clough

Well, I know, after all, it is only juxtaposition, Juxtaposition, in short; and what is juxtaposition? — Arthur Hugh Clough

I watched them from the window, thy children at their play, And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away, And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child's own buoyant gladness Came gushing back again to me with a soft and solemn sadness; And feelings frozen up full long, and thoughts of long ago, Seemed to be thawing at my heart with a warm and sudden flow. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Grace is given of god, but knowledge is bought in the market. — Arthur Hugh Clough

I want no epitaphs of profound history and all that type of thing. I contributed. I would hope they would say that, and I would hope somebody liked me. — Brian Clough

Old things need not be therefore true, O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again! — Arthur Hugh Clough

What voice did on my spirit fall, Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? 'Tis better to have fought and lost That never to have fought at all! — Arthur Hugh Clough

Loving if the answering breast Seem not to be thus possessed, Still in hoping have a care; If it do, beware, beware! But if in yourself you find it, Above all things mind it, mind it! — Arthur Hugh Clough

My wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o'er My gay green leaves are yellow-black, Upon the dank autumnal floor; For love, departed once, comes back No more again, no more. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Ah yet, when all is thought and said,
The heart still overrules the head;
Still what we hope we must believe,
And what is given us receive;

Must still believe, for still we hope
That in a world of larger scope,
What here is faithfully begun
Will be completed, not undone.

My child, we still must think, when we
That ampler life together see,
Some true result will yet appear
Of what we are, together, here. — Arthur Hugh Clough

And almost every one, when age, Disease, or sorrows strike him, Inclines to think there is a God, Or something very like him. — Arthur Hugh Clough

The horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people. — Arthur Hugh Clough

It only takes a second to score a goal. — Brian Clough

We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right — Brian Howard Clough

Resignations are for Prime Ministers and those caught with their trousers down, not for me. — Brian Clough

I can't even spell spaghetti never mind talk Italian. How could I tell an Italian to get the ball - he might grab mine. — Brian Clough

Thou shalt not covet; but tradition approves all forms of competition. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, When it's so lucrative to cheat. — Arthur Hugh Clough

I train every time I open my mouth — Brian Howard Clough

You don't want roast beef and Yorkshire every night and twice on Sunday. — Brian Clough

There are more hooligans in the House of Commons than at a football match. — Brian Clough

Being thick isn't an affliction if you're a footballer, because your brains need to be in your feet. And Beckham works hard, he's brave and he crosses a ball superbly. He treats a football like he does a wife, lovingly, with caresses. — Brian Clough

Thought may well be ever ranging, And opinion ever changing, Task-work be, though ill begun, Dealt with by experience better; By the law and by the letter Duty done is duty done Do it, Time is on the wing! — Arthur Hugh Clough

When you get to a certain age, there is no coming back. — Brian Clough

Allah isgreat, no doubt, and Juxtaposition his prophet. — Arthur Hugh Clough

If he'd been English or Swedish, he'd have walked the England job. — Brian Clough

Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them? — Arthur Hugh Clough

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars. — Arthur Hugh Clough

If I had an argument with a player we would sit down for twenty minutes, talk about it and then decide I was right! — Brian Clough

That Seaman is a handsome young man but he spends too much time looking in his mirror rather than at the ball. You can't keep goal with hair like that. — Brian Clough

Don't send me flowers when I'm dead. If you like me, send them while I'm alive. — Brian Clough

As I sat at the Cafe I said to myself, They may talk as they please about what they call pelf, They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking, But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho! How pleasant it is to have money! — Arthur Hugh Clough

In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, but westward, look, the land is bright. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Museums matter only to the extent that they are perceived to provide communities they serve with something of value beyond their mere existence." - STEPHEN WEIL — G. Wayne Clough

The highest political buzz word is not liberty, equality, fraternity or solidarity; it is service. — Arthur Hugh Clough

They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job. — Brian Clough

Who the hell wants 14 pairs of shoes when you go on holiday? I haven't had 14 pairs in my life. — Brian Howard Clough

Come back again, old heart! Ah me! Methinks in those thy coward fears There might, perchance, a courage be, That fails in these the manlier years; Courage to let the courage sink, Itself a coward base to think, Rather than not for heavenly light Wait on to show the truly right. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Telling the entire world and his dog how good a manager I was. I knew I was the best but I should have said nowt and kept the pressure off 'cos they'd have worked it out for themselves. — Brian Clough

If God had wanted us to play football in the sky, He'd have put grass up there. — Brian Clough

Who the hell wants fourteen pairs of shoes when they go on holiday? I haven't had fourteen pairs in my life. — Brian Clough

There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The ugliest player I ever signed was Kenny Burns. — Brian Clough

If a tree falls in the woods when no one is there, does it still make a noise? If a girl dies in the woods when no one is there, does anyone care? If no one knows I am here, do I even exist? — Lisa Jahn-Clough

Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo, Merelya marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Bill eventually became Mr Tottenham Hotspur, and produced such a dazzling team at White Hart Lane that they won the double and played the game in a way that was an object lesson to everybody. — Brian Clough

If a chairman sacks the manager he initially appointed, he should go as well. — Brian Clough

It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip Thou dost not fall. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Acne is a bigger problem than injuries. — Brian Clough

I've decided to pick my moment to retire very carefully - in about 200 years time. — Brian Clough

A world where nothing is had for nothing. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive officiously to keep alive. — Arthur Hugh Clough

Rather than being a product of life, they could allow life to be a product of what they created. They were love in its purest form. — Joseph Clough

I'm sure the England selectors thought if they took me on and gave me the job, I'd want to run the show. They were shrewd, because that's exactly what I would have done. — Brian Clough

There is no God', the wicked saith, 'And truly it's a blessing, For what he might have done with us It's better only guessing. — Arthur Hugh Clough

For all his horses, knighthoods and championships, he hasn't got two of what I've got. And I don't mean balls! — Brian Clough

My wife says OBE stands for Old Big 'Ead. — Brian Clough

I like my women to be feminine, not sliding into tackles and covered in mud. — Brian Clough

The river Trent is lovely, I know because I have walked on it for 18 years. — Brian Clough