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Alchemy

Brian Clough & Peter Taylor at Hartlepools United

Christopher Hull

$39.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English
The History Press Ltd
15 August 2024
The origins of football's greatest managerial partnership is told in full for the first time.

Boxing Day 1962. Injury has curtailed Brian Clough's playing career. He persuades ex-teammate Peter Taylor to join him in managing perennial Fourth Division strugglers Hartlepools United. An intuitive chemistry develops as quiet Taylor talent-spots bargain players, and charismatic Clough man-manages them. They apply their magic formula to transform a threadbare team over 19 months – a blueprint that later wins them League Championship and European Cup trophies at unfashionable Derby County and Nottingham Forest. Clough & Taylor's names still resonate with football fans and the general public alike. Exploiting interviews with surviving players, Alchemy relates the bittersweet prelude to the pair's 1970s glory days in the context of Hartlepool's mid-60s industrial decline. Shipbuilding in the North-East town had just ended, and its coal trade was disappearing. A real-life kitchen-sink drama, the pair sack their No. 1 goalkeeper for ill-treating his wife, and a trainer they hire is released when players discover he's homosexual. Narrative tension builds from the club's financial struggles, battles with their chairman, the threat of expulsion from the Football League, and the team's promotion push.

AUTHOR: Despite being born and raised in London, Christopher Hull has been following Hartlepool United since 1978. He is the author of Our Man Down in Havana (Pegasus, 2019), which William Boyd described as 'A revelation and a delight.'

20 b/w illustrations
By:  
Imprint:   The History Press Ltd
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm, 
ISBN:   9781803996905
ISBN 10:   1803996900
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Despite being born and raised in London, Christopher Hull has been following Hartlepool United since 1978. He is the author of Our Man Down in Havana (Pegasus, 2019), which William Boyd described as 'A revelation and a delight.'

Reviews for Alchemy: Brian Clough & Peter Taylor at Hartlepools United

'In my early years as a BBC commentator, I regularly crossed paths with Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in their halcyon days in charge of Derby County and Nottingham Forest. But it was only upon reading Alchemy and its account of their time at Hartlepools United that I realised how their philosophy and initial success were shaped by their two eventful years in the basement of the Football League. What a place to start!' -- John Motson ‘Hull gives a comprehensive account of Clough and Taylor’s time in charge and it makes for riveting reading. It was clear that Clough had maximum belief in what he and his trusted right-hand man could go on to achieve, even in those days down near the bottom of the football ladder … Hull has done their maiden journey justice.’ * Late Tackle Magazine * 'A fascinating, very readable and highly recommended account of a chapter of the Brian Clough story that is sometimes ignored because of glories further down the line.' -- Phil McNulty


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