I'm a bighead, not a figurehead.
If ever I'm feeling a bit uppity, whenever I get on my high horse, I go and take another look at my dear Mam's mangle that has pride of place in the dining-room at my home in Quarndon.
It had stood for a dozen years or so in our Joe's garage before being beautifully restored. Now it serves as a reminder of the days when I learned what life was all about. On top of it is the casket holding the scroll to my Freedom of the City of Nottingham. My whole life is there in one small part of one room.
The mangle has the greatest significance. It is the symbol of my beginnings. I spent my formative years mangling the sheets for my Mam, Sarah. My wife, Barbara, berates me to this day because she believes I wasted my education. I never managed to progress further than a secondary-modern school, no O levels, no A levels, but that mangle taught me more than any teacher in any classroom.
My values stemmed from the family. Anything I have achieved in life has been rooted in my upbringing. Some might have thought No. 11 Valley Road, Middlesbrough, the end of the terrace, was just another council house, but to me it was heaven. Growing up in a hard-working, often hard-up home I was as happy as a pig in the proverbial. I absolutely adored that red-brick house, with its lovely wooden gate and the garden round the side where Dad grew his rhubarb and his sprouts. Council houses had big rooms in those days, so we didn't live like sardines even though we slept three to a bed.
The first memory I have is of running down the alley for my dinner. Now we call it lunch, but it was dinner to us then. I can still recall the lovely, welcoming smell that greeted me as I skipped round the corner.
Mam had eight of us to feed, eight pairs of shoes to clean every night. Joe, my eldest brother, was head of the family, as he still is today. After him came sister Doreen, brothers Des and Bill, me, Gerald, little sister Deanna, and Barry. Another sister, Betty, had died before I arrived. I was born on the first day of spring, 21 March 1935.
Dad, Joseph, seemed to work all the hours God sent. A sugar boiler originally and then manager at Garnett's sweet factory, near Middlesbrough's football ground, Ayresome Park, Dad was obsessed with football and footballers. The great Middlesbrough players of the time, men like Wilf Mannion and George Hardwick, would go to the factory and Dad would give them sweets. Nowadays footballers get cars and too much money. The pendulum has swung the other way and swung too far.
We didn't see that much of Dad. He was off to work by seven-thirty and not home until six or so. But Mam was always there. She ran the house, as most women did in those days. She made my childhood warm and cosy and safe – the most precious gift parents can give their offspring. The smell of liver and onions and the thought of dumplings, always crispy, and then her own rice pudding with nutmeg on the top to follow ...
Dinner was always on the table and we had to be there to eat it. On time, on the dot. It was the equivalent of a crime to let the dinner go cold. She put it down, piping hot, always with the warning, 'Eat it from around the edges where it's cooler.' I've never forgotten that.
Afterwards there would be Mam's rice pudding, made with Carnation milk. Everything we did, the way we lived, the way the house was run, was controlled by Mam, because she was the one who did the work and the organising. When I look back now to those early days of sheer contentment one factor stands out above all others. My mother was there. All the time, when we got out of bed in the mornings, raced home from school for dinner, again in the afternoon and after playing cricket or football on Clairville Common or Albert Park, she was there.
It's not the fashion to say this nowadays, but a woman's job is to be there. If she is going to have children, she has to look after them. It is not the only part of her job, but it is the most important part. Women who choose to stay at home and raise their families make one of the most valuable contributions to society as far as I am concerned. It is a source of intense annoyance to me when people talk of such women as 'only' housewives. As if it is not a proper job – when in reality it is the toughest and most worthwhile job of all. To come home to an empty house must be petrifying for a small child. I remain certain that the character and disposition of children is established during those formative years. Women today have broader interests and involvements, but I will always be grateful for the security and peace of mind the Clough clan gained from Mam always being there and making our home the best place to be.
She turned that little house into a palace. The front step was scrubbed regularly. I remember how she was so proud of her net curtains and the fact that she managed to keep the same stair carpet for thirty years. Sunday was the only day of the week we were allowed into what we called 'the other room' – that's where the piano was kept and that was the day the whole family gathered round while Mam played and we sang along, songs like 'Come on to my house – I'm going to give you everything'. And she did.
She wouldn't let Dad smoke in that room. He was a Woodbine man and she'd say, 'Dad, if you want to smoke – get out.' No questions, he'd just go out. If he ever dared to do the washing-up with a fag on she would ask, 'Are you dropping ash in that sink?' That had the same effect – he'd go and smoke outside.
Sunday was special but not necessarily popular. Not with me, because Mam would drag us all to the Anglican church where she somehow found the time to scrub their steps as well, every Thursday. All we boys in Fair Isle jumpers looked forward to the walk back when we were allowed an ice-cream. If you were clumsy the blob fell off your cornet and there would be tears but no replacement. Mine never fell off!
There was no playing on Sundays. We wore our Sunday best and that was it. Mam took us to the early service so that she could be home in time to get the dinner ready. We were not allowed out to play on wet days either. The roofs of neighbouring houses were the guide. 'You're not going out until the slates are dry,' she would say – and the message was clearly understood.
There was discipline in our house because, with eight of us, there had to be. I remember my parents arguing and shouting at times but it didn't upset me. We all got out of the way. Mam and Dad didn't swear, but she did get annoyed when he walked into the house with his Woodbine going. She would shout 'Out' and out he'd go.
Dad had our respect, too. He was a calm, gentle, lovely man but he wasn't in charge of that family – Mam was. He'd go to work on his bike, taking his sandwiches in a carrier bag strung on the handlebars. We looked forward to Dad coming in because we didn't have as much time with him as with our Mam. Once we were told 'Dad's coming home', we'd stop messing about and settle down. There was no television, we were brought up on the wireless, gramophone and piano.
Sport – cricket and football – was everything to me from those very early days. My early memories are full of football talk around the house, of Dad standing on the terraces at Ayresome Park, of the occasional precious new pair of boots. I used to practise all the time, and soon I knew that I was better than the others. You don't know you're learning in those lovely, innocent, childhood days in the park or beneath the lamp-post, you're just kicking a ball. The more natural talent you have, the easier it comes to you. Just think how good I might have been if we'd had a school team! But there wasn't one at Marton Grove, not in the junior section, only games lessons for practice. And only after the 'long march'. On Tuesdays we were assembled for the walk, half a mile or more, to another local school, a snobby one. Any school that had a pitch, at that time, was regarded as snobby. A whole column of us walked two-by-two, as if instructed by Noah himself. By the time we reached the pitch we were knackered. But I was out of the classroom, all that mattered to a lad who was besotted, consumed by football.
Academically I was thick. School wasn't bad, but I was. In many ways I was a disgrace, such was my lack of interest in everything other than games. All I wanted in the early days at school was to get out into the open air. I'm not sure school taught me that Columbus discovered America, I learned that in later life. Some people might wish he never had, because if they are the leading lights in this world, my God, they leave a lot to be desired.
Some weekends Dad would bike to the factory and I can still feel that warm glow when I recall his invitation: 'If you want to come, son, you walk up there.' I ran the entire mile and a half and was never out of breath. As you might imagine, the sweet factory was an Aladdin's Cave to one so young. We were allowed a quarter of sweets on those occasions, but I stole much more. I used to pinch as a kid: apples, pears, and sometimes stamps from Woolworths. I don't know why, because I gave the stamps away.
I still shudder at the thought of the day, the only day, I played truant. What makes a lad skip school? Fear, maybe? Perhaps it was a history lesson or geography lesson I didn't fancy, I can't recall exactly, but I vividly remember a scary feeling inside when I decided to do a bunk and spend the afternoon in Albert Park, tadpoling in the stream. I fell in. I was terrified of Mam and Dad finding out. I was wet through up to the waist of my shorts and my sandals were squeaking, but somehow I managed to talk my way out of trouble and they never discovered the truth.
The only time I embarrassed them was when a Wool-worths girl who used to five opposite us caught me nicking stamps and blabbed to Mam. I didn't exactly look forward to Dad returning from work that night because I had to confess. I wasn't allowed out again until the next day and that, to me, was purgatory. All I ever wanted was to get out and run around and play with a ball – mainly cricket. I really wanted to be a cricketer. Believe it or not, cricket was my first love. I would genuinely have swapped the dream of a winning goal at Wembley for a century against the Australians at Lord's. I wanted to be Len Hutton. I spent long, idyllic summers believing I could be just like him. Hutton was, of course, a Yorkshireman, and since I was Yorkshire through and through, he was my boyhood hero. I was to meet him, indeed, to sit alongside him, at a match years later, and he was such a let-down. He bored me to tears.
In my school days, though, he was the sporting figure I idolised. Someone else for whom I have the greatest respect and admiration is Geoffrey Boycott, who became a close family friend. Unlike many, Geoffrey did not slip down the batting order as he got older. He spent his entire career going first to face that hard, shiny, dangerous new ball – even at forty years of age – and never shirked it. Now he is among the most accomplished of cricket's commentators.
I still take delight, though, in reminding him of the day I got him out, caught-and-bowled, at Lord's in a charity match with the Taverners. He will say he spooned it back deliberately, but don't you believe it. He couldn't read my wrong-'un.
Winters were just as wonderful as the summer days when the sun shone. I was always outside with a pal called Wogger Gibson who had been to Borstal: I never found out why and wasn't bothered enough to ask. He was a couple of years older than me. Mam would warn: 'You keep away from him,' but he was always around and, like me, not put off by the cold.
One of the highlights was to wee in the snow. We've all done it, haven't we? When you come out of the house and into the cold you want to wee. I was the best in the neighbourhood at spelling my name. To be fair, though, I only used to write 'Brian' because whenever I attempted 'Clough' I always soaked my shoes.
Winter meant Christmas and we believed in Father Christmas at our house because it never crossed our minds that our Mam or Dad would tell us any lies. It was a stocking each, not a pillowcase as in some houses – Mam and Dad couldn't afford to fill one of those. Oh, that sense of wonder and excitement as we woke on Christmas morning and the stocking arrived as if by magic! A tangerine, an apple and a packet of sweets. Some nuts and, at the very bottom, a two-shilling piece or the old half-crown. Dad used to go to the bank to make sure the coins were shiny, new ones.
They couldn't afford to give us lavish presents, although I do remember Dad giving me a fort with soldiers and Indians. Everything was shared, and the others joined in when I played with it on the stairs. Mostly, though, play was with a ball. Summer meant cricket, and tennis in Albert Park with my first racket that was the pride and joy of my life and which my eldest son, Simon, still possesses to this day. Winter meant football through the darker nights. Many an FA Cup Final was played beneath street lamps.
My first physical training was 'doing the messages', the errands we shared for Mam. I used to run everywhere. When I fetched a couple of stones of spuds, for instance, I split them into two bags. Running hard with a bag in each hand created an excellent sense of balance. They said that was one of my gifts as a player, years later – always balanced. I suppose there were times when the young Clough actually walked, apart from to church on Sunday mornings and reluctantly into a history lesson, but I don't remember many. It was run, run, run.
A man on a bike came down Valley Road so regularly you could set your watch by him if you had one. I never knew his name, he was just a bloke on his way home from work, but I'd run with him for as far as I could. I'd be about ten years old and he once asked me if I was using him as a pacemaker. I hadn't a clue what he was talking about but I suppose I was doing exactly that. He was somebody to run with or against – just another opportunity, another challenge, another chance to run. Maybe he was the reason why I eventually won the school marathon.
I ran to fetch the herrings from the bloke who came round once a week with his horse and cart. I ran for the pease-pudding and faggots. Now that little task needed balance, because I had to take a dish: if I spilled any on the way back I'd get a clip from anyone who was handy. Our Joe used to clip me on occasions – elder brothers did in those days.
The back-kitchen was the nerve centre of the Clough operation. It was where Mam did the cooking and the washing and cleaned all those bloody shoes and suffered her persistent headaches, from which she found relief with a couple of aspirins and the request, 'Draw the curtains a while, son. I'll rest a little.' I suppose it was what we'd call a migraine, these days. It worried me to see her in any kind of distress.
It pleased me to see her smile. I remember how much she used to look forward to her weekly night out at the local cinema and theatre, the Empire and Palladium. That was her way out of the back-kitchen, her break from looking after eight of us. Everybody has to get the hell out of it sooner or later. I have to, even now.
Every year Mam and Dad somehow scraped together enough money to take us all for a two-week holiday in Blackpool. What joy and adventure the youngsters of today are missing as they sit indoors mucking about with computer games and videos!
Such an upbringing relied heavily on discipline and routine. The boys had to be cleaned up when we came in muddy and bedraggled from the latest 'cup tie' in the park. We 'did' for one another. Knees and feet had to be washed in the kitchen sink. Eventually we were all warm and clean – you had to be when you slept three to a bed and possessed two sets of clothes, one for school and Sundays and the other, with holes in, for everything else. Little wonder we weren't allowed out to play unless the slates were dry.
When I got home I was expected to help mangle the sheets, so that it was all done before Dad got home at six. He would nearly always ask, 'What have you been doing all day?'
Mam was not one to be impressed by relatively unimportant things. She was never carried away by my later success in football and so-called fame as a manager but I know it pleased her when they made me Head Boy of Marton Grove. Thick, but Head Boy all the same and, before you ask, no, I was not a stroppy one. If I caught the late-comers I didn't clout them but just reminded them of the importance of being on time. I had been caught out arriving at ten past nine once myself, and I was ashamed and embarrassed. Mam had done her bit. She had got me up, fed me and thrown me out with the rest as usual.
It was a Monday – it must have been because Mondays were murder. It was school again, after the sheer bliss of the weekend at home, and I didn't want to go. It was washing day and Mam was always up earlier than in the rest of the week. If it was a good drying day she'd be out there in her little woollen hat pegging the sheets before nine o'clock. The only time my mother ever bragged was when she said, 'Mrs Fisher, next door, never has her washing out until after ten o'clock in the morning.' Mam was always on time and yet there I was, turning up at school at ten past nine.
Becoming Head Boy – that still makes me as proud as my OBE, my Honorary Degree, or my Freedom of Nottingham. Thick, but Head Boy – I think one of the senior teachers with an interest in sport brought some influence to bear. The school gave me a cap for being Head Boy – England only gave me two, years later, for being the best goal-scorer around!
Yet I was never Mam's favourite son – that was our Bill, who once won a teapot in a 'lovely baby' contest. She used to say that Bill was a big lad, and gave him 'seconds' at dinner. He always got more food than any of us. Why? Because he won the teapot and later went to grammar school. He is the most placid and charming of men and now lives in the Lake District. But I remember to this day how he once humiliated me. One of my pals had told him that I'd failed my Eleven Plus; Bill came home on his bike, walked into the house and blurted it out for everyone to hear. I was feeling bad enough without that.
I was the one out of the family who did least well at school. Although I was to go on and 'make it' in terms of fame and fortune, the surviving members of the family know that if ever I'm in danger of getting uppity they only need to tell me to walk into my dining-room.
And take one more look at Mam's mangle.