Brian Clough quotes

The best of old big 'ead (1935-2004)

"I certainly wouldn't say I'm the best manager in the business, but I'm in the top one."

"Get in there - that's what I pay you for!" - to Derby County players at a training session.

"As far as I'm concerned you can throw all those medals you've won in the bin, because you won them all by cheating" - to the Leeds United players on his first day as manager.

"They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job".

" This is a terrible day.....for Leeds United" - exiting Elland Road after being sacked after 44 days as manager.

"If a chairman sacks a manager that he initially appointed, then he should go as well."

"John Robertson was a very unattractive young man. If, one day, I was feeling a bit off colour, I would sit next to him. I was bloody Errol Flynn compared to him, but give him a yard of grass and he was an artist. The Picasso of our game."

"If God had intended for us to play football in the clouds he wouldn't have put grass on the ground." - referring to the long ball game.

"If a player had said to Bill Shankly 'I've got to speak to my agent', Bill would have hit him. And I would have held him while he hit him."

"It was like a morgue in the dressing room after the game, and it's still like a morgue now. If that's what defeat feels like, we don't want to go through it again - oh, it's rotten" - interview with ITV after defeat for Forest in the 1980 League Cup final.

"I'm a Derby man. Derby County were here a long time before Robert Maxwell" - on agreeing with a protest by Derby fans against Maxwell's ownership of the club.

"They thought I was going to change it lock, stock and barrel. They were shrewd because that's exactly what I would have done" - on why he was rejected by the FA for the England job.

"I'd ask him how he thinks it should be done, have a chat about it for twenty minutes and then decide I was right" - on dealing with players disagreeing with his methods.

"I like my women to be feminine and not rolling around in mud" on what he thought of women's football.

"Don't send me flowers when I'm dead, send them to me now if you like me."

"I want no epitaphs of profound history or all that kind of thing. I contributed, I hope they would say that and I hope that somebody liked me."

"For all his horses, knighthoods and championships, he hasn't got two of what I've got. And I don't mean balls." - on Sir Alex Ferguson's failure to match his record of two European Cup wins, prior to Ferguson's second in 2007/2008. Clough has however got the distinction of winning the European Cup back-to-back, an achievement that still eludes Ferguson.

"Who thought Derby County could be turned into League champions; that any manager could bounce back from getting the bullet after 44 days with a great club and go on to prove himself among the best managers of all time; that what was done at Derby could be repeated at Forest; that after winning one European Cup, we could retain it; that a brash, self-opinionated young footballer, cut down by injury in his prime, would go on to achieve more impressive fame as a brash, highly successful manager?"

"It only takes a second to score a goal."

"If a player is not interfering with play then he shouldn't be on the pitch." - referring to the application of the off-side law. * Also attributed to Bill Shankly

" what I tell my players about defending a lead is this: 'if YOU have the ball and you are in THEIR half'... THEY CANNOT SCORE"

"There are more hooligans in the House Of Commons than there are at a football match." - on football hooliganism.

During a press conference when Nottingham Forest had signed Trevor Francis, the first £1 million pound footballer: Journalist - "When will you be making your debut for Nottingham Forest?" Clough - "When I pick him."

During a televised 1986 England World Cup game:

Mick Channon: "We've got to get bodies into the box! The French do it, the Italians do it." Clough: "Even educated fleas do it."