[Wittmann 44]

I think that the book is supposed to be “faction” which is a fictional novel but with a very sizable element of facts sprinkled through it. I read an interview with Peace at the time who said that almost all the incidents in the book took place and are documented in the reading list at the back. Much of the “action” however takes place in Clough’s head as he thinks about the past and what is happening around him and bar a few lifts from a biography and some supposition on Peace’s part this is obviously his interpretation and not Cloughs.

If you take the incidents in the book as factual, Clough definitely comes across as a hugely temperamental egomaniac. His policy at Leeds was divide and conquer and confrontation which didn’t work against a team as closely bound together as Leeds. His early alcoholism is also plain to see as is the terrible way he treated people whom he felt betrayed him.

How much you can draw from Clough’s interior thoughts which show him haunted by the possibility of failure, bitter at the premature end of his playing career and his treatment by England management and of not being able to provide for his family is another matter altogether. Personally I find Peace’s take on Clough’s thought process convincing and again the man doesn’t necessarily come of it too well as a human being but as I said above it is fiction and it would be dangerous to think that the “real” Clough necessarily thought like this.

Whether you view it as fact, fiction or a mix of both it is still a brilliant read.