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To understand the true nature of what happened to Brian Clough in 1965, some history is in order. Until the Great War, the Football League had two divisions. In 1919, that became three through the simple expedient of incorporating the top division of the Southern League. (Grimsby Town were also elected to Division Three: their…

Herbert Chapman became become Northampton Town’s secretary-manager in 1907, ending his playing career just as the development of football in Britain took on a second wind. The number of clubs administered by the Football Association went from 50 in 1871 to 10,000 in 1905, and five million fans passed through the nation’s football turnstiles in…

From today’s Times: Ask Guus Hiddink, another former Holland coach, for his three priorities in developing players and his list is simple. “Technique, technique, technique,” he said. “You have to be boss of the ball,” De Haan elaborated. “It’s very important, the technical skills. If you are not the boss of the ball, you cannot…

When the nineteen year old Herbert Chapman signed amateur forms for Stalybridge in 1897, the FA Cup was a quarter of a century old, professional football was twelve years old and the Football League itself nine. Not that Stalybridge had a great deal to do with the likes of Aston Villa, Sunderland or Newcastle. But…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_QRB1xyTiI]

Football grows in young soil and greenfield sites. England’s ancient cities – Norwich, Bath, Durham, Chester, Canterbury, Westminster, Gloucester, Hereford, Lincoln, Oxford, Cambridge, Lancaster, Salisbury, Chichester, York, Ripon, Shrewsbury and the rest – aren’t football hotbeds and never have been. Football was an emergent phenomenon of industrialization. It still grows in relatively new places today…

Thanks are due to Dave Heasman for pointing out my mistake in the last article in this series. Chelsea beat Sunderland to promotion in 1962-3, Clough’s second full season at Roker Park, on GOAL AVERAGE, not goal difference. Goal average – the number of goals scored by a team over a season divided by the…

The irony behind Brian Clough’s transfer to Sunderland is that, according to the tables at least, Middlesbrough were marginally the better side. In season 1960-61, Middlesbrough finished fifth, one place above Sunderland. But the story is stranger than that narrow gap would indicate. Middlesbrough enjoyed a fine season at home, winning thirteen of their 21…

Thanks to Gary for pointing this one out to me – it’s another half-time team talk of the Churchillian variety. Watch the faces of the players. (You’ll have to follow the link, but it’s well worth it..)

George Szirtes is asking his readers to tell him which opening passages to pieces of music marked changed times for them – his e.gs include the opening chord of “Hard Days Night,” and my own reply would be another sixties moment, the drum sequence that opens the Rolling Stones collectivist anthem “Get Off Of My…