WI: Leeds United don't sack Brian Clough after 44 days?

In conjunction with the Revie stays at Leeds thread, how would this have turned out?

I think one major factor for Clough would have been to remove Billy Bremner as soon as possible. There was clear needle between Giles and Bremner as each saw themselves as the natural successor to Revie (as in the other TL). Clough clearly saw McGovern as a natural replacement for Bremner.

If he stays at Leeds, Clough might try to exploit the Giles-Bremner divide by taking Giles' side, giving him more coaching to do and involving him more in team matters. I think Giles was the more pragmatic, and less hot-headed of the two, and he might have been able to work with Clough, and been a bridge to the likes of McQueen and Jordan who were coming up. Obviously, some players would have sided with Bremner, but I think Bremner would leave at some point late 74/early 75, possibly to a bigger club than Hull... maybe even to Man United with Docherty? That side needed an 'old head' to help it win honours... so they could have won the 76 FA Cup at least with Bremner in midfield, and might even have gone closer in the title race.

Duncan McKenzie would have a bigger role in the subsequent history of Leeds, meanwhile, and possibly McQueen and Jordan - seeing that there was a chance of creating history of their own, and not just the fag-end of the Revie years - might stay, thus affecting Dave Sexton's Manchester United, who, without those two, would not have reached the 79 Cup Final and might even have been fighting relegation battles again during the late 70s. Docherty was never the type of manager to create dynasties, so assuming Mary Brown still happens, their decline under Sexton may be hastened if he can't get those players he wants.

I think Trevor Francis would have joined Leeds fairly soon, possibly 76 or 77... there would have been none of the hype and hullabaloo surrounding the 'Million Pound Transfer', so without the pressure that seemed to crush down on him like a vice, he might have fulifilled more of his potential.

I wonder where this would have left Peter Taylor? If there was a Clough-Giles partnership, he would have been left casting around without a job after leaving Brighton. So he would probably have gone to Derby in early 77, to take the job Clough turned down. I suspect he couldn't have done much to change Derby's decline, though he wouldn't have caused the absolute chaos that Docherty left.

I suspect that, with the situation still in considerable flux, although Leeds would have comfortably avoided relegation in 74-5, I don't think they would have got past Barcelona in the semis of the European Cup. And if Barca had won the trophy that year, maybe a Dutch-orientated dynasty would have started there 15 years early, and they would have been a major factor in the subsequent seasons that, in OTL, were dominated by Liverpool and Forest.

Of course, with Clough at Leeds, the Forest European Cups never happen, so we wonder if Clough can rebuild LUFC quickly enough to win the title in 77-78, and challenge again for the European Cup the following year?


Any thoughts?
 
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And just thought... if United don't reach the 1979 FA Cup Final, Liverpool probably do the double that year... unless Leeds United are challenging hard in the league! I mean, Leeds don't have that 'difficult second season' syndrome that Forest have in 79, and have more players used to taking part in title races.
 
Never seen a football thread get many replies on this board - guess "soccer's" not widely followed on these boards. There's a "World Cup winners" thread but it's just mindless posting of a random country like "the People's Republic of Umbongo".

The thought of Billy Bremner at Manchester United is a damn unpleasant one! Thankfully we were in the old second division so I doubt he would have been interested.

I think you're oversimplifying the problems that Clough faced at Leeds. Whilst Bremner/Giles were the ringleaders, his face just didn't fit with another 10-15 players in the squad. After his comments about Revie and his abrasive style, he wouldn't have got 100% from his players - esp. without Peter Taylor. We've both seen teams that are under-performing (i.e. Liverpool this season) turn around just by a change of manager. Discontent breeds discontent.

Clough was... a man who believed in inspiring players - empowering them to shape the game themselves. Revie was far more about preparation, research stats, etc. (England players have said in interviews that they didn't understand wtf he was going on about). This made Clough appear to be doing... nothing. Wrong fit, wrong club.

Perhaps if he'd been less ballsy, less disrespectful and... if Peter Taylor had been there. But I can't see him doing as well as he did at Forest - his "failure" at Leeds IOTL tempered him, taught him a valuable lesson. I do think there's a similar thread about this somewhere buried deep within the forums from when the bio film was premiered on TV/

Would be far more interested in discussing a WI with Clough taking Revie's England job instead.... perhaps there's already a thread.
 
Clough could have made it work at Leeds but he needed Taylor with him. Taylor was a great judge of player and also charchter. Certainly with Taylor at Clough's side, Clough would never have made the famous "throw all your medals away" speech 3 day into the job.
Clough himself said he should have gone in slower than he did. He was trying to impose himself to fast on the Leeds players.
Mind you some Leeds players like Allan Clarke, Trevor Cherry, Terry Yorath and Gordon McQueen had no problem with Clough.
Clough was also right to say that Revie got out of Leeds when he did because he was scared of having to re-build the team, and break up his family. The 73-74 title winning team was its last real hurrah.
He wanted to buy Shilton to replace Harvey who he didn't rate, and I think he would have bought the likes of Trevor Francis and Kenny Burns.
 
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Funnily enough I've just finished watching The Damned United that I'd recorded on Sunday, :) IIRC even Johnny Giles said he regretted what happened at Leeds as Clough could have taken them on to even greater success. But he got it wrong right from the start, had he been more conciliatory to the senior players and changed the culture of the club gradually, Leeds were a complete shower of S.O.B's under Revie then he could have been a huge success, but he tried to change it too fast and lost the dressing room.

Then again, perhaps Clough was best suited to building up a club like Derby or Forest where he could impose his will right from the start than have to deal with established players.
 
Funnily enough I've just finished watching The Damned United that I'd recorded on Sunday, :) IIRC even Johnny Giles said he regretted what happened at Leeds as Clough could have taken them on to even greater success. But he got it wrong right from the start, had he been more conciliatory to the senior players and changed the culture of the club gradually, Leeds were a complete shower of S.O.B's under Revie then he could have been a huge success, but he tried to change it too fast and lost the dressing room.

Then again, perhaps Clough was best suited to building up a club like Derby or Forest where he could impose his will right from the start than have to deal with established players.
Just remember that The Damned United film is not a true reflection of the events. It contains loads of factual mistakes,far to many to list here.
Clough himself said he should have do things differently. He said what he should have said "Look lads I may have said somethings when I was Derby about you lads that I shouldn't have, I was motivating my lads up. You are a good team, you have won the League , you have won in Europe, but I think we can take this club onto greater sucess".
 
Just remember that The Damned United film is not a true reflection of the events. It contains loads of factual mistakes,far to many to list here.
Clough himself said he should have do things differently. He said what he should have said "Look lads I may have said somethings when I was Derby about you lads that I shouldn't have, I was motivating my lads up. You are a good team, you have won the League , you have won in Europe, but I think we can take this club onto greater sucess".

I know, I was just commenting on the coincidence! ;) Hindsight is always wonderful and had Clough offered the Leeds players an olive branch and a clean slate then it could have worked. I'd imagine that Peter Taylor would eventually have joined up with Clough at Leeds and would have helped him rebuild the team.
 
And to be fair many of the Leeds players even after the bad results and everything still backed him, Frank Gray (who Clough would go onto sign for Notts Forest in 1979 and win a European Cup Medal), Allan Clarke and Gordon McQueen, who he later tried to sign for Forest.
With Taylor with him at the start which is what Leeds wanted, and thought they where getting when they got Clough from Brighton I think he could have made it work. The problem was Taylor belived that the Leeds would be too much trouble, and he also felt a degree of loyalty to Brighton Chairman Mike Bamber who gave them the chance as they left Derby in late 1973.
 
And to be fair many of the Leeds players even after the bad results and everything still backed him, Frank Gray (who Clough would go onto sign for Notts Forest in 1979 and win a European Cup Medal), Allan Clarke and Gordon McQueen, who he later tried to sign for Forest.
With Taylor with him at the start which is what Leeds wanted, and thought they where getting when they got Clough from Brighton I think he could have made it work. The problem was Taylor belived that the Leeds would be too much trouble, and he also felt a degree of loyalty to Brighton Chairman Mike Bamber who gave them the chance as they left Derby in late 1973.

Taylor quit Brighton in 76 having failed to gain promotion to the old 2nd division, so would have been a free agent then anyway... so may well have joined Clough then rather than go to Derby in 77 as I speculated.

Good call about McQueen, I think Jordan could have been won over as well. As well as Bremner, I imagine the other ringleaders would have been Hunter and Lorimer, both of whom Clough would have moved on fairly soon as well anyway.
Shilton was so good, he could have made any side title contenders at that time. Francis would have gone there, and I think performed much better than he did at Forest as there would not have been a million pound transfer fee to pressure him.

And then... in 1977, would Derby have stood a better chance of getting Clough and Taylor to rejoin them than in OTL?
Clough was sooooo close to going back there, but didn't want to let Forest down. Would he have had the same loyalty to Leeds? He would still have had the attitude of invincibility that the 44 days knocked out of him, so maybe he would have thought Leeds was a big enough club to survive without him, and go back to his strongest managerial love with guaranteed success (in his mind).

Whether the pair could have done much to reverse Derby's decline at that stage is debatable. Archie Gemmill wouldn't have left, obviously, and probably McGovern would have followed Clough yet again. I doubt Francis would have gone there though.

Clough might have gone for similar players as he did at Forest, so possibly Larry Lloyd, Peter Withe etc. But without Viv Anderson, Martin O'Neill and Tony Woodcock, it's difficult to imagine Derby having anything like Forest's success in the late 70s. They may have had to have gone down for a season or two to rebuild anyway, they had been struggling.

Leeds would have had to have appointed a higher profile manager than Jimmy Armfield to succeed Clough had it been 1977. Maybe John Giles would have come back, or possibly Sexton.

See next post...
 
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The thought of Billy Bremner at Manchester United is a damn unpleasant one! Thankfully we were in the old second division so I doubt he would have been interested.

Don't be so sure. In 76, he stepped down to the Second division anyway, so he knew his powers were fading.

Bremner was a proud man, who would have been deeply hurt if the Leeds board had chosen Clough over him in a 'shoot-out'. I think he got on well with Docherty when the Doc was Scotland boss, so I could imagine Docherty saying to Bremner 'go on, son, you show em!'

Even in the Second Division, Manchester United would have been a tremendous pull because of their history, and with the young side they had then, I think Bremner might have fancied his chances of becoming 'the general' who could lead these young charges to greater things.

And then when Docherty was sacked in 77 (assuming things like this still happen...) maybe Bremner would be in the frame to become manager. Of course, he didn't turn out to be a very good manager, but no-one knew this in 1977 - he was regarded as one of the cleverest thinkers and biggest characters in the game. His motivational skills would add to the package which could have been very attractive to Matt Busby and the United board to try and ensure continuity after the Docherty upheaval. I'm not sure Sexton would have even been in the frame in this case....
 
Lots of that make sense.
The other thing that many have now forgotten is the other manager Derby chased after Clough said no.
Bill Shankly. Shankly had been retired from Liverpool for 2 and a bit years, and Derby wanted him, but he turned down twice as well. Blackpool would also try and tempt him back a year later in Feb 1978.
 
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