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What would Brian Clough have made of today’s footballing coverage?

Nottingham Forest might have been sixth this season, but last season they had finished in the Champions League without too much hassle. They’d seen off a late resurgence from both Liverpool and Arsenal, and they were financially comfortable. It was another season of overperforming compared to salary levels and expectation. There was a realism about future prospects, obviously, but it seemed as if Brian Clough remained the man to not just keeping Forest in the Premier League, but helping them to thrive too. That was how it seemed from the outside, at least.

But things were not going as well as hoped at the City Ground. The football was fine. The money, too, was better than fine. It was a well funded club that covered costs, and stood to benefit from the continued boom in sponsorship and television deals. Forest was a club that considered itself solid, as far as football clubs went. Just as importantly, the players who were at the club wanted to stay. He joked with them that if they ever really played well, he’d follow them on Twitter. Right now, though, he only followed a bot that tweeted Bob Monkhouse gags, and Ginsters.

Loyalty wasn’t limited to the players. The fans were thankful for what he’d done for them. They worshipped Clough and knew that they would probably never see such success under any manager who could come now. Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Phil Brown and others, they all took some of their lessons from Clough, but nobody who supported Forest felt like taking the risk of giving them the job in the near future. But still, there was trouble brewing.

It had started a couple of seasons ago, when Sky started asking more of managers in their publicity operations. With BT starting to cut into their presence, there was an arms race to get the managers doing more. You had to be genial, the press team kept telling him, because you’d need them eventually. The chairman, too, had suggested that Clough might even enjoy the back-and-forth between the presenters

And, that was sound reasoning in some ways, Clough was happy to admit. He enjoyed the television, and he enjoyed being able to get his point across when it suited him. But there was something about Sky, BT and the creeping but obvious hyperbole, which just put him on edge. He tried to keep it under control - he’d grown more mellow with age, but he found it increasingly hard to keep his patience when confronted with what was going on now.

It started, famously, on Monday Night Football, with Gary Neville, Ed Chamberlin and Jamie Carragher. He insisted, despite their insurances that his full first name was ‘Gary’ on calling Neville ‘Gareth’. Having refused to listen, he watched with barely concealed contempt as ‘Gareth, James and Edward’ moved graphics around on their giant tablet table, he started asking them if they’d taken their advice from ‘Tubes’ from Soccer AM, before openly wondering allowed whether it might be more use of their time to ask the manager standing next to them, rather than two defenders and a man who’d soon be presenting the lottery on Wednesday night.

And, while the wins on the pitch kept coming, the antagonism off it persisted. Henry Winter was kept waiting for a full 14 hours outside Clough’s office at the Forest training ground, as Clough repeatedly texted him to say that he was on his way to the office but stuck in traffic. It turned out that Clough had been in his office for the whole day, strolling on brusquely at 10pm with his coat and hat, explaining that next time, Winter might like to call him ‘Mr Clough’ in his articles, and not ‘Brian’ - and especially not to do the same on Sunday Supplement.

Everyone knew what was the real catalyst for the controversies, though: Twitter. As a result of the City Ground being used as a concert venue, and because of the various deals with companies at Forest, Clough had been given a smartphone and taught how to use Twitter. He’d yawned openly at the social media training employees, though, and things quickly fell apart.

Two days into using his account, he had to be told in no uncertain terms that ‘shithouse’ was not an appropriate term to be using, certainly not in public messages, and most certainly not to describe Jake Humphrey for yet again boasting about some facet of his life. He was also told that he was not using any hashtags in his messages, and it wasn’t helping the social media team effectively analyse his Twitter presence and social media influence. Instead of going to scout Anderlecht for a Champions League qualifier, he was kept back in an office as three 20-somethings explained why hashtags were of the utmost importance to the club, and therefore, Clough.

Since then, Clough had typed ‘#shithouse’ about two or three times a month, and the suspensions and fines had started to make a dent in the media coverage, and Clough’s salary. Particularly for the message wishing the Queen a happy birthday.

That was not it, as the Chairman and press team told him over the course of last week’s three-hour disciplinary meeting. Each incident of transgression was described in front of Clough and his LMA representative. He’d called the Kaiser Chiefs ‘vile Leeds scum’ when told provide a link for tickets at their City Ground concert. In what he thought was a direct message to a famous tactics blogger, he suggested that it wouldn’t be his wingers that he was going to invert. His tweet to Sam Matterface - ‘if it comes out of your face, it doesn’t matter, son’ - went viral and was covered by seven different blogs on the Independent website, and resulted in a ban from ITV’s international coverage.

Clough might have been the best manager Forest would ever have, but because of the internet, he was clinging onto his job by a #thread.