5 famous Manager and Assistant Manager duos in football

#1 Brian Clough and Peter Taylor

Brian Clough (Centre) with Peter Taylor (right) at a press conference

Eyebrows were raised when Brian Clough was announced as the new manager of Derby county. No, nobody was questioning the former striker’s abilities. It was the fact that he brought an assistant manager with him. This was in 1967, a period where managers did not have a full backroom staff to perform a variety of duties and managers mostly stayed behind the curtains. So, having an assistant manager in a second division club like Derby was a luxury.

But this decision laid the foundation of one of the most famous partnerships in football.

When Peter Taylor joined Middlesbrough, he was their first-choice goalkeeper for four seasons. There, he made an alliance with the club’s controversial striker; a certain Brian Clough. The pair were so great friends with each other that when other players handed a petition to sack Clough as club captain, Taylor refused to sign.

When Derby appointed Clough as manager, he insisted on having his pal from Boro as an assistant. There was no Clough without Taylor.

What followed next was nothing short of a glorious period for Derby. During the pair’s six-year stay, they were promoted to the first division, won the first division in 1971-72 season and reached the semifinal of the European Cup.

Clough-Taylor left Derby after a rift with club’s board of directors. Reuniting to manage Nottingham Forest, the duo transformed the club’s fortunes. Forest went from being a mid-table club in Second Division to winning their first League title. The epitome of their success came when Forest won two consecutive European Cups. The club went on a 42-game unbeaten run between 26 November 1977 and 9 December 1978, a record only surpassed by Arsenal in their Invincible season.

Although the pair later fell out in 1982, their partnership still remains football’s most iconic manager-assistant manager partnership.