the goalfood interview:
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Unless they’re associated with ‘football royalty’ the round ball biographies rarely trouble the printers. But after winning the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, Duncan Hamilton’s warts-and-blotches account of his working relationship with the incomparable Brian Clough attracted rave reviews. Now a paperback version of “Provided You Don’t Kiss Me” has hit the shelves with an additional chapter of fans’ recollections of Cloughie. Hamilton’s unique perspective came from a 20-odd(literally)-year working relationship as he accompanied The Green Shirted One, waiting at his side for a story from youth team matches to the great European campaigns and everything inbetween. Goalfood’s Simon Harvey caught up with Duncan, former Nottingham Evening Post sports reporter and now Deputy Editor of the Yorkshire Post, to ask him about his life and times with the original Mr Bombastic.
Has the book’s success surprised you?
Yes it has and I’m delighted. Myself and the publishers knew that it would be of interest to every Forest fan, some Derby supporters and people in Nottingham and the East Midlands generally but outside that it was difficult to judge. It’s rare that you reach the thousands in double figures with a football book unless it’s about a star name like Sir Bobby Charlton. I think David Peace’s book The Damned Utd paved the way for me and winning the William Hill prize did sales a lot of good but we genuinely didn’t know how well it was going to do.
His grilling of you the first time you met almost matched that of Hannibal Lecter’s incisive verbal dissection of Clarice Starling in the Silence of the Lambs. Do you think he would have made such a long-standing connection with you if you had been a young middle class boy from the leafy suburbs of Nottingham?
No, I don’t think he would. During that early conversation we discovered a lot of shared experiences in terms of our backgrounds and the fact that we were both from working class families. We both had an interest in culture and politics as well. I think he also saw me as something of a waif. He liked to take you under his wing and mould you into something if he thought you had a spark about you. I’d waited a long time to interview him and so he knew I was the type of person who wasn’t going to give up. I once waited nine hours in the corridor outside his room for an interview. I used to sit in one of the MFI office chairs outside his room. The club later offered to give me the chair because I’d spent more time in it than any other chair in my life.
Do you think he liked you?
I have no idea. But I suppose I got invited round to his house and spent some time with his family so he must have liked me in some way. He also respected me enough and trusted me enough to write his column for the Evening Post. It was impossible to strike up a relationship with him in the first year or so but the Evening Post knew what he was so it was ok for me to spend the time waiting for him, but I used to feel sorry for reporters from other newspapers or radio stations. It was very difficult for them to carve out a relationship looking for a quick quote or a story. Their newsdesks just didn’t understand what Clough could be like.
Do you think he used you?
Yes, absolutely. He was a manipulator of the press but I think every evening newspaper journalist would be delighted to be manipulated in such a way because of the wealth of material he gave me. He also specifically chose which players he wanted to speak to the media in post-match press conferences. But he was wise enough to know that the people of Nottingham and Forest supporters were readers of the Nottingham Evening Post and if he wanted to contact them and get a message to them I represented the best way of doing that.
How do you begin to tackle a subject about which so much has already been said or written?
The only thing you can do is to sit down and write it. There was already a biography which had been written about his life and so mine was never meant to be a full-scale biography. My book was an attempt to write abut him the way I saw him. That’s why the book is not in sequence - it’s as I remember my time with him. I have reference notes for all the things I’ve written about him. I made entire books of notes of our conversations over the years and I just felt that if anyone had the right to write such a book, I did.
Were there stories you felt you couldn’t include or were advised not to repeat?
Yes there were. As I’ve said, I have notes for virtually everything I’ve written about him but there were times when he told me something in confidence which he didn’t want others to know and I still believe that since I was told the information on that understanding, I should still hold to that confidence.
But we’re talking about journalistic days of the past and the depth of access I was given to players is certainly not the case nowadays. The degree of separation now between journalist and footballer is enormous whereas I had the telephone numbers of each of the Forest first team and if there was a story involving them I just rang them up to talk about it. I didn’t have to go through an agent or club press officer.
Have you had any feedback from Clough’s family on what they thought of the book?
No but I’ve had feedback from people who knew him and they’ve said I got him spot on. I’ve had e-mails from people who’ve read the book and liked it and we’ve included lots of those stories in the new paperback. People have written pages and pages to me telling me their own Clough stories. They say things like: ‘I tried to get his autograph and he told me to piss off but I still loved him.’ Others talked of his kindness and generosity. The response was what I’d expected but it also made me think to what extent one life can touch so many others.
What do you think his response would be if he was alive to read the book?
Well, I say in the book that I can seem him walking past me now and turning to say: ‘Not bad shithouse.’
Do you believe a so-called backwater club could ever match Forest’s achievements at home or abroad in today’s Premiership climate?
Not even close. The Forest team cost less that Jose Mourinho’s winter coat. If you were 13th in the Championship today, you’d need an equivalent of Roman Abramovich to walk in and plough in millions firstly just to get promotion, then survive in the Premiership and even more to win the European Cup. Abramovich has poured in millions and still hasn’t won it. Forest’s story really was an incredible one and a story of its time. The best stories about sport are the ones which are not actually about the sport itself.
My overwhelming feeling after reading the book was one of an incredible sadness. Was he a flawed genius?
If genius means you’re a person who thinks in a different way then perhaps. The pressures on him were enormous. At times it was less than pleasant to be in the same room with him and later his behaviour changed as he tipped over into the drinking but the sad thing was that he lost control of his drinking. Otherwise he could have carried on for another 10 years. I’m always sad that he didn’t win the FA Cup and, as I explain in the book, if he had done I think he would have walked away earlier.