The Life of Brian’s Statue: A Load of Rubbish

Brian Clough’s statue muses on his life and what’s happening in the world today…

Well, when I wake up on a Sunday morning it always looks like someone’s dropped a bloody bomb on Market Square. There’s chip paper getting blown around me ears, polystyrene trays swirling around me feet, and I’m surrounded by half eaten pizzas and dead kebabs. The smell of grease is bloody terrible.

Now then, I’ve always been fond of a takeaway, whether it was a lovely big lot of fish ’n’ chips or a nice Indian. It’s a well known fact that when I won the European Cup for the first time, I came home, plonked the Cup on top of the telly and sent our Nigel out for a Chinese. But, I always clear up after myself. The buggers that leave all this rubbish lying around ought to be bloody well locked up!

But then, on a Sunday morning that feller in that little street sweeping machine comes along. He’s got those two, big spinning brushes on the front, and he drives around clearing up all the mess. In my eyes, he’s a proper hero. Not many people see what he does, but without him, we’d all be knee deep in rubbish.

I had a feller like him play for me, my old pal John McGovern. Now then, don’t get me wrong, John was a tidy player; he could knock the ball around, and he scored one or two cracking goals in his day. But he could also clean things up and organise the team; keep things in order. That’s why I made him captain.

Y’see, if I was managing a football team made up of ordinary people, whether they were teachers, lawyers, doctors or whatever, the first thing I’d do is make the street sweeper the captain.

If there was anyone that didn’t like it, I’d dump ’em!