Not knowing Brian Clough, I’d always assumed he’d treat strong and opinionated football club owners with disdain.
A bit like the former player Len Shackleton, who famously named a chapter in his autobiography The Average Director’s Knowledge of Football and left a blank page.
I was pleasantly surprised therefore when Martin O’Neill, part of Clough’s iconic Nottingham Forest side that won England’s top division and dominated Europe in the late 1970s, told me Clough would have really liked me because the legendary manager loved forthright people who could stand up their views, and he would know where he stood.
It got me thinking about outspoken Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, who has been given a five-match stadium ban after the FA successfully argued he’d deliberately spat on the floor as referee Josh Smith walked past him.
There might be a tendency to paint Clough and Marinakis as opposite symbols of Nottingham Forest but I don’t see it quite like that, quite frankly. Both should occupy legendary status for this football club, one for what he turned them into and one for what he returned them to.
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis (pictured) recently received a five-match stadium ban for spitting on the floor as a referee walked past
Marinakis has caused plenty of controversy during his time in England, and we will never know how he would have got on with Forest’s most successful manager ever, Brian Clough (right)
I feel Clough would have thrived under Marinakis as he loved forthright people
I actually think they would have formed a workable partnership. An odd couple perhaps, both fuelled by a signal-minded determination and belief but they’d have understood each other’s forthright personalities, and respected each other’s complementary talents.
I’m not shying away from agreeing that Marinakis can behave boorishly and has made some absurd decisions. Signing Jesse Lingard for one, appointing Mark Clattenburg as a referees’ analyst another, which fuelled some kind of victims’ complex.
But look at the big picture. As a powerful Greek shipping magnate, Marinakis has a lot of money and put it where his mouth is for Forest’s benefit. He is a successful and powerful leader.
After 23 years outside the Premier League, he has taken Forest back and they are now into their third season, riding high in seventh position and only two points off third, despite my rather misguided prediction this season they may get relegated after having circled that particular plughole for the last two years.
Despite O’Neill’s often-exhibited disdain, given how he was handled at Forest in his last managerial role and jettisoned by Marinakis after only 19 games, I think the club are lucky to have their owner.
I didn’t even join the pile-on when he signed 29 players the season after promotion. We can’t demand owners be visible spending money and then demand they are more circumspect when they do!
I was also impressed he kept faith with Steve Cooper during that difficult first season. He struck me as an owner who was close enough to their business to look beyond the weekly results and judge the work going on behind the scenes.
Marinakis has made some absurd decisions, such as signing Jesse Lingard
Bringing in Mark Clattenburg as a referees’ analyst last season was also an unwise move
By the time a change of managers was made, Cooper had stayed long enough for Forest to have a framework that Nuno Espirito Santo was able to build from.
I think Clough would have been fine with Marinakis because Clough would have delivered for him. Contrary to what others may think, managers delivering for owners is all owners really want.
Clough would have likely laid down where he saw the different divisions of labour and I’m sure Marinakis – as dictatorial as he can appear – would have been bright enough to know you don’t guide geniuses, you leave them to run the way they run.
Clough was a very forthright individual who liked people to be forthright with him. They’d have understood each others’ areas of expertise.
If you took Clough on, you had to be right. A shrewd owner gives world-class managers the opportunity to express themselves, then every now and again have a discussion about how they do that.
Both men, Clough and Marinakis, have undoubtedly been committed to Forest in different eras and I think any fan likes to see their owner invested in the club, emotionally as well as financially.
Marinakis deserves credit for standing by Steve Cooper during a difficult first season back in the Premier League
Forest now have Nuno Espirito Santo at the helm and are flying in the top-flight
There do have to be standards of behaviour of course. Marinakis has erred. Clough himself wasn’t a stranger to controversy.
He was both applauded and criticised when he confronted pitch invaders after a win against QPR, catching one with a left hook, grabbing another by the scruff of the neck and then slapping a couple more.
I had altercations with referees and even in the boardroom on one occasion when I threw a cup of coffee. I’ve said some dreadful things too, not particularly edifying.
Some of Marinakis’ antics needs reining in. But it doesn’t undo his excellent work at Forest. I’m sure Cloughie would have recognised that.
Rumble in the Jungle remains sport’s most iconic event
Fifty years ago, the momentous Rumble in the Jungle reverberated around the world. It wasn’t lost on this six-year-old boy in south London, who already collected football stickers but also developed a love for boxing from that day.
For young British kids, like everyone else, Muhammad Ali was at the pinnacle of sport because of his flamboyance, charisma and remarkable talent.
The match-up between such a wonderful athlete, as glamorous as any Hollywood star, and the goliath George Foreman in what was then known as Zaire on October 30, 1974 still feels remarkable.
I find it almost absurd now that the statistics show Foreman went into the ring at just under 16st, some 3st lighter than Tyson Fury. George looked like a mountain to us then. Things have got bigger over time, if not necessarily better!
The classic documentary When We Were Kings captured the nuances and significance of this world heavyweight title fight. Some details particularly fascinated me, such as how Foreman misguidedly brought over his German Shepherd dog from America, the breed that Belgian police had once used to help oppress the local population.
Muhammad Ali upset the odds to beat George Foreman in Rumble in the Jungle 50 years ago
Ali’s charisma, aura and talent made him the biggest star boxing has ever seen
But few gave Ali a chance of beating Foreman, who seemed like a mountain back in 1974, despite weighing three stone less than Tyson Fury does now
There won’t ever be another event like it. Host President Mobutu was propped up by secret police with a reputation for torture. Promoter Don King was a numbers runner from Cleveland with a conviction for manslaughter, and most American cities didn’t want to deal with him.
The incomparable Ali was considered washed up and over the hill at 32. There were fears he’d get killed by Foreman’s power. Today, some fighters don’t properly begin until 30.
Nobody transcended his sport like Ali. Even if King’s claim of a global TV audience of one billion people was fanciful, interest around the whole planet was unprecedented. Long before social media and digital connectivity, it is reported that 26 million people in Britain tuned in.
It was phenomenal, ground-breaking, iconic. Made possible by the cache and kudos and sheer personality of one absolute superstar. Even at a very young age, I sensed this heady Ali aura.
You still have to rank it as the greatest single sporting event ever. The football World Cup lasts a month. The magic of the Olympics is engendered by thousands of different athletes.
This was Ali creating seismic interest on his own, and the contrast with Foreman. On top of Ali’s history – his change of name, relationship with the Nation of Islam, not accepting the military draft and romantic boxing comeback – was the dazzling panache.
Ali used his famous rope-a-dope tactics, before landing a spiteful combination that sent Foreman to the canvas
There has never been a more iconic single sporting event in history
Some phrases associated with Ali became part of the sporting lexicon. After Kinshasa, the term rope-a-dope – the tactic he used to diffuse Foreman’s savage punches – became as famous as ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’.
My interest in boxing was advanced by the raft of movies that came out in the few years following The Rumble. Rocky, The Champ, later Raging Bull.
Would they have been as popular, without Ali-Foreman? Half-a-century on, it remains the most iconic sporting contest in history.
