Brian Clough Quotes

1. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but then again I wasn’t on that particular job.”

2. On dealing with player disagreements: “We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right.”

3. ”David 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.”

4. On aerial football: ”If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there.”

6. On Martin O’Neil’s success at Leicester City: ”Anybody who can do anything in Leicester other than knit a jumper has got to be a genius. If he’d been English or Swedish, he’d have walked the England job.”

8. On Sven getting the England job: ”At last we’ve appointed a manager who speaks English better than the players.”

9. After a streaker interrupted Derby’s game against Man Utd: ”The Derby players saw more of his balls than the one they’re meant to be playing with!”








19. To the Forest physio after Stuart Pearce suffered a concussion in an FA Cup game: ”Tell him he’s Pele and that he’s playing up front for the last 10 minutes.”

20. After Martin O’Neil asked why he’d been dropped to the reserves: “Because you’re too good for the first team.”

21. “Beckham? His wife can’t sing and his barber can’t cut hair.” 

22. On guessing who nominated him for a knighthood: “I thought it was my next-door neighbour because I think she felt that if I got something like that I would have to move.”


24. On pasty Forest midfielder Brian Rice: “I’m not saying he’s pale and thin, but the maid in our hotel room pulled back the sheets and remade the bed without realising he was still in it!”

25. “Ah yes, Frank Sinatra. He met me once y’know?”

26. “Telling a player to get his hair cut counts as coaching as far as I’m concerned.”