FA barking up wrong tree

Five years ago Brian Clough retired as manager of Nottingham Forest to spend more time with his Ink Spots records. Now he has been charged with misconduct by the Football Association over allegations which, for a long time, the trees did not wish to know.

Being charged is not the same as being found guilty and rumour is not evidence, whatever the headlines may imply. Unless the FA has found a whispering grass Clough's lawyers could well make mincemeat of the bungs accusations which Lancaster Gate is now demanding that he answer.

But it is a sad business all the same. Brian Clough is unwell. He did not look that well on a sunny May Day afternoon in 1993 when his last home league match at the City Ground coincided with the first of Nottingham Forest's last two relegations from the Premiership.

A 2-0 defeat by Sheffield United had sent Forest down, circumstances which at other clubs would have had supporters noisily demanding the manager's dismissal and the board's resignation. On this occasion, however, Clough's departure after 18 years overshadowed all else.

After the match, as the reporters gathered round, a tearful young woman pushed through them to hand Cloughie a red rose before collapsing, weeping, into his arms. They really loved the ruddy-faced old iconoclast in Nottingham just as the fans of Derby County had worshipped the fresh-featured younger Clough before his acerbic departure from the Baseball Ground in 1973.

Will they still love him should he be found guilty? Well, the official reactions from supporters' organisations have already talked about any illegal payments on transfers taking money out of fans' pockets. But they said that about George Graham and when he reappeared at Arsenal as manager of Leeds United, having served a one-year ban on a similar charge, he was given a standing ovation by supporters of the club that had sacked him.

Charged or discharged, guilty or innocent, Brian Clough was never going to return to football. And his name is so deeply etched in the game's history that nothing proved against him now will erase the memories of what he achieved with two East Midlands clubs for whom obscurity had become a matter of routine before Clough arrived.

Considering the verbosity of his Derby days it is no small irony that he should now be brought to book by the consequences of three little words, those of Alan Sugar, the Tottenham chairman, who during his High Court battle with Terry Venables in 1993 observed that Brian Clough "liked a bung". Now that this has been formalised by the FA into a charge of misconduct Clough is entitled to replay with two of his own: "Prove it!"

Since the subsequent Premier League inquiry into certain transfers lasted nearly four years before announcing findings which, while damning in some respects, were inconclusive in others it would be wrong to assume that the case is open and shut. How can it be when the three-man investigation team quickly discovered that the deeper they delved the more complex matters became?

Some of Clough's devotees may feel that their man has been charged simply because the FA, having been urged to root out corruption by Sir John Smith, the expoliceman it asked to report on the financial state of the game in the wake of the inquiry, felt a big fish was needed in the dock.

While this is hardly likely, it cannot be denied that if Clough was to be found guilty the FA would be on safer ground banning an ailing ex-manager for life than trying to impose a similar punishment on someone still seeking to earn a living from football.

If, in terms of big names, the FA's retribution starts with Graham and ends with Clough the suspicion will remain that the greater part of an unsavoury recent past has been buried.

The reality is that, even after just five years, the name of Brian Clough belongs to football's past.

"Success?" said Cloughie in 1973. "Tell me when my obituary is going to appear and I'll tell you whether I've been successful or not. If I get to 60 I shall have done pretty well."

He is now in his 63rd year and nobody who experienced his great days will want to think about obituaries just yet. Charging him now does seem a little futile.