Brian Clough Character Analysis

The atmosphere of the game, the crack of the bat, and the smell of the turf are what fans love most about sports, especially baseball and soccer. Baseball has been around since 1839 in America, and soccer is an early nineteenth century sport originated in England. The 1969 World Series winning “Miracle” New York Mets and the Cinderella story of the 1978 European Cup winning Nottingham Forest are stories that are remembered to this day. The phenomenon of the underdog stories from the United States with the 1969 Mets and in England with the 1978 Nottingham Forest teams rely on their initial failures in previous years.
Both Gil Hodges and Brian Clough played their respective sports professionally, but each dreamt of becoming a successful manager
Forest’s team did not have many superstars. They succeeded with Martin O’Neill. “O'Neill's mind flits back to another era… to moments when the impossible starts to seem possible… he was 25 years old and in the prime of a brilliant playing career at Forest that brought him top honours in the game under Brian Clough.” (Holt). Holt writes about O’Neill, and his career with Forest. Holt indicates that O’Neill was highly respected as one of the best players at the time in the league due to the leadership and management of Brian Clough (Holt). “It was the start of Forest's own miracle. Clough's side, newly promoted from the old Division Two, had started the day one point clear of Everton at the top of Division One, with everybody asking when reality was going to eventually intrude on their fairy-tale season.” (Holt). Forest kept playing, and with a little luck seemingly won every game with the help of two world-class attackers, Tony Woodcock and John Robertson. The Mets? “Outside of their catcher, Jerry Grote, they didn't have one position player who would start for our team”, (Rosenthal) recalled Merv Rettenmund. Rettenmund (1969 Baltimore Orioles) recalled the Mets’ players, and that the Orioles players were bigger and better than the nobodies that the Mets had on the field (Rosenthal). “To New Yorkers, especially, Buddy Harrelson, and Ed Kranepool are the '69 Mets. Kranepool played his entire career, from 1962 through 1979 with the Mets. (Bamberger). Michael Bamberger writes about how Kranepool played his whole career as a Met, and how successful he was with the “stadium records for most hits, most plate appearances, most games.” (Bamberger). This indicates how dominant Kranepool was at Shea. Neither the Mets nor Forest had a roster full of talent, but the scrappiness and the heart that these players had for the game made up for the lack of