Memories of the golden age of Leeds United and Brian Clough’s turbulent reign have emerged after a trawl through a ‘lost’ photographic archive.
Controversial manager Brian Clough, and the golden days of Leeds in the 1970s, were the focus of Leeds photographer David Hickes for more than 20 years all told, as he sat at the touchline covering the glory years of the team, most weekends.
Elland Road
Now, old ‘lost’ pics of Clough and his troubled time at Elland Road, which have been buried in an archive for more than 30 years, have been resurrected.
While Clough himself was the focus of the recent film ‘The Damned United’, starring the versatile actor Michael Sheen, Hickes spent hours focussing on Clough himself for national newspapers, winning plaudits for his freelance coverage.
The pictures – more than 100 rolls of ‘film’ in all – are a unique snapshot of a bygone age.
Hickes, 65, who still runs a successful freelance photographic agency in Leeds, says:
“To me, the 1970s seem just like yesterday, but to many these days, they might as well be the Stone Age.
Leeds United
“I used to cover Leeds United most weekends - and midweek - for years for the major national newspapers, and the Cloughie/Revie rivalry became legendary – a favourite focus for all the snappers in Leeds and Yorkshire.
“He was an extremely charismatic character and these pictures just capture that perfectly. You don’t even have to hear his distinctive ‘Now then young man’ voice in those particular tones of his. That voice and character shines through in these pics in his expression alone.
“You can almost hear his voice just looking at his face in these pics, and via his mannerisms, which I managed to capture in my many days spent with him.
Kenneth Williams
“I’m an admirer of the acting skills of Michael Sheen, who plays Clough in the film – he only has to strike a pose and you immediately know it is Cloughie or Blair or Kenneth Williams.
“Photographers have a similarity with actors but in reverse – they manage to capture the spirit of someone on film, or digitally as it is these days, just as actors do through their art.
“My abiding memory of Clough, as will be the case for many who were members of the Yorkshire press pack at that time, was his openness.
Don Revie
“Unlike his predecessor Don Revie, who could be cagey with the reporters and photographers – Cloughie at Leeds was extremely candid in his remarks about players and transfers and the such like.
“His eccentricity was also legendary. In the book, it is alleged that Clough even chopped up Don Revie’s desk to cement his break from the past and Revie’s shadow and that he was delivered an axe for that purpose.
“Did that happen? Who is to know, but had it, I’m sure the photographers and the press who were there daily would have got to hear that he had thrown Don Revie’s old desk into the car park in pieces.
“While people have perhaps rightly questioned whether the new film is based on hearsay or ‘faction’ as is the term these days, the camera always tells it ‘as it is’ of course.
“Certainly, in the film and book’s defence, as any reporter or photographer would tell you, the amount of rumour that went around about Clough and his exploits at Leeds, compared to the taciturn Revie, certainly would fuel enough material for a book.
Max Boyce
“As Max Boyce would have said: “I (or ‘we’, referring to my esteemed colleagues) was/were there.
“Quite how much of what is fact or fiction, hence becoming this curious meld of ‘faction’, only the veiled curtain of history will really know. But we were certainly in the front line at the time.
“But what an era, what an epoch for both those in the media, in football and in Leeds.”
- Brian Clough, achieved greater fame winning back-to-back European Cups with Nottingham Forest, considered to be one of the greatest achievements in football history.
- When asked his views on the prospect of becoming England football manager, he once said:"I’m sure the England selectors thought if they took me on and gave me the job, I’d want to run the show. They were shrewd because that’s exactly what I would have done".
- The Damned United is adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace’s bestselling novel.
Martin Hickes - English Yorkshire based journalist and publicist available for PR, journalism or publicity.
