You may remember last week, a story of Brian Clough told by Dean Saunders went viral. Saunders appeared alongside Colin Muray on TalkSport, and told a tale of how a drunken Clough tried to sign Saunders. We ran it, and you can listen to the entire story here.
To sum it up, Saunders says that he met with Clough in the home of Alan Hill, Clough's assistant. Saunders claims that Clough crawled along the carpet, referred to Saunders' agent as "fatso", grabbed a flowerpot from outside and brought it inside, sat staring at the wall for a while, and went on to cajole Saunders into signing Frank Sinatra's Chicago with him in the living room. Saunders says that he realised early on that Clough had been drinking.
The Guardian's Daniel Taylor - a Nottingham Forest fan, who has recently written a book entitled I Believe In Miracles, which tells the story of Brian Clough's European Cup winners at Forest - writes today that Saunders has embellished his story.
Taylor criticises Saunders approaching Clough's issues with alcohol in such a jocular manner, and then goes on to publish quotes by Hill, who refutes much of the content of Saunders' story:
It’s a good after-dinner speech but unfortunately most of it isn’t true.
Brian wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t crawling on his hands and knees, he didn’t sit facing a wall, he didn’t mention the carpet once and there was no flowerpot… it just feels like he [Saunders] has put this story through a very imaginative scriptwriter and this is what they’ve come up with.
Brian liked a drink and we all know he had a situation towards the end but he wasn’t drunk that day at all.
He didn’t do the things that have been said, and I’ve no idea why he [Saunders] would say them...
Brian wasn’t drunk, and it’s not fair. There are all sorts of different Brian Clough stories – I tell some myself, but not derogatory ones, not ones like this.
Taylor writes that he contacted Saunders to tell him his story is disputed, but has received no comment.
Taylor also interrogates exactly how fair it is to talk of Clough's alcoholism, which you can read in full here.
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