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21 years with Clough and Taylor
by Maurice Edwards
DB Publishing, £16.99
Reviewed by Mark Rowe
From WSC 279 May 2010

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Peter Taylor and Brian Clough – the author, their long-time scout, puts them in that order – were an East Midlands phenomenon. The region’s publishers love this story for its guaranteed readership; few local sports reporters of that era have not published memoirs. Maurice Edwards learned scouting from Taylor, when he was starting as a manager at Burton Albion, so long ago that David Pleat was a teenager.

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Villa and Ipswich battle it out for the title. By Josh Widdicombe

The long-term significance
The new decade brought the first signs of a new England team. West Brom captain Bryan Robson made his international debut, becoming Captain Marvel for club and country for a decade before taking to management like a duck to oil. Terry Butcher also established himself at the centre of the England defence, becoming the youngest England player at Spain 1982. Gary Lineker made his first appearance in the top flight for Leicester, often playing out wide, while Chris Waddle, Peter Beardsley and Mark Wright were also starting out. After this campaign the rule of three points for a win was introduced, replacing the system that had operated since the Football League’s formation in 1888-89.

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Cameron Carter gets more than an eyeful

Often technology, while improving the quality of one part of our lives, has an adverse effect on another. And so it is with widescreen television, because, while it allows us to see Alan Shearer, Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker’s arm and shoulder in one shot – wider than we’ve ever seen before – it also gives us the unholy spectacle of Shearer’s too-tight trousers in fuller detail than we could ever need. Watching the England v Argentina punditry in widescreen “cinema” mode, I could descry the exact lie of the man’s genitals, right down to the fact that he is clearly not of Orthodox Jewish faith. This detracted from my enjoyment of thousands of Argentina fans looking shell-shocked and, indeed, if I know in advance that Shearer is guesting again in the studio I shall make sure I am watching on the grainy upstairs portable. Also his trousers are shiny grey, like an employee of the Trumpton biscuit factory.

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Nottingham Forest have lost another manager and are playing their worst football of most fans’ lifetimes. Al Needham looks around frantically for signs of hope

When Joe Kinnear accused the supporters of Nottingham Forest of living in a time warp last month after resigning as manager, it was hard to deny that he had a point. After all, fans in pubs, factories and offices across the city have done little else this season than casting their minds back and trying to remember a Forest team as uniformly lamentable as the current one. The relegation teams of 1993, ’97 or ’99? The Matt Gillies-Dave Mackay-Allan Brown era of the early 70s, when Forest trod water in the old Second Division?

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Dear WSC
I’m sure this is very old hat and we’re just being ignorant, but in a recent pub conversation I asked a Brighton fan which team Charlie Oatway was named after. He had no idea. Oatway does indeed have 11 first names. It’s presumably a 1970s outfit, but we couldn’t get past the goalie, Ant­hony. The rest is Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway. Can anyone help?
Jeff Moffat, London NW6

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