Nottingham Forest were relegated in Brian Clough’s last home game as manager. He had signed a one-year contract extension only six months earlier but in April 1993 the Sunday People ran a cruel, lurid exposé of Clough’s destructive drinking, and a day later the club announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season. It had been coming for longer than anybody had been prepared to admit.
Sheffield United beat Forest at the City Ground, but there was no bitterness in the air, only waves of gratitude and sadness. In 18 often-glorious seasons Clough had led Forest to the league title and two European Cups, with a group of players who became known as the “Miracle Men”. Along the way there had been four League Cups too, and an FA Cup final appearance, more glories than they ever could have imagined. They had been hoisted on Clough’s shoulders.
“During the match, Clough stood straight-backed outside the dugout like a captain determined to be on the bridge when the ship went down,” wrote Duncan Hamilton in Provided You Don’t Kiss Me, his award-winning book on Clough’s time at Forest.
“He went through an assortment of gestures to acknowledge the accolades that came from all corners of the City Ground: thumbs up, a modest bow of the head, arms theatrically raised. There were kisses and handshakes from supporters straining to reach him from behind the perimeter wall and resounding chants of ‘Brian Clough is a football genius’.”
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In the history of football, anywhere, there can’t have been a relegation greeted with such reconciliation and good grace. Though it was the ultimate bum note for Clough’s farewell, it had all the trappings of glory.
In elite American sport, relegation doesn’t exist. In the GAA, it has had a peculiar life. At intercounty level it has always existed in the national leagues, which meant that, through the decades, it mattered a bit, but not gravely. In the championship it didn’t fit in and, for generations, there was no appetite to accommodate it.
In the football championship, especially, every county was accorded equal citizenship, and in the campaign to reform the football championship three years ago, it was this element above all others which generated agonised introspection. In that sphere, relegation is here now, and will never be absent again.
In hurling, it has been woven into the fabric of the Leinster championship, just as it is at every tier below Liam MacCarthy, but only after hot resistance too. It is just 15 years since four relegation-threatened counties brought their objections to the Disputes Resolution Authority and managed to have relegation spiked for that season. Nobody was up in arms. In those days, hurling was still obsessed with protectionism and artificially inflating its numbers in the top tier.
At club level, though, relegation is institutionalised now. At this time of the year, county finals are the biggest games in every county, and relegation play-offs are the next biggest.
Anybody who has ever experienced a relegation play-off will know the spectrum of torment. It is different from a championship match, because there are no handrails; nothing to break the fall; no way back for at least a year, or longer, if the wound becomes infected over the winter. In relegation play-offs, losing is pared back to the pure drop.
The other thing about relegation at club level is that is has no favourites. Any team that hits a skid is vulnerable, regardless of their history, or their self-image.
Kiltormer, from Galway, were famously relegated only 18 months after winning the All-Ireland club hurling championship in the late 1980s. Glen Rovers, one of the most successful clubs in the history of the Cork championship, were relegated last year after 99 years in the top tier. Ten days ago in Kilkenny, James Stephens went down, after 69 years as a senior team.
James Stephens were All-Ireland club champions in 1976. Glen Rovers succeeded them a year later. From their glittering rolls of honour that is just a sample entry.
Outside of the club All-Irelands in January, no other club game this year has attracted as much national attention as James Stephens’ relegation match. Because Brian Cody was the manager, there was an undeniable element of rubbernecking. His presence crystallised the indiscriminate nature of the beast.
Who is safe? Nobody is safe.
Alongside him on the sideline were Joe Hennessy and Eoin Larkin, two of the greatest players ever produced by the club. Between them, Cody, Hennessy and Larkin won 13 All-Irelands with Kilkenny and nine All-Stars. Cody won 11 All-Irelands as Kilkenny manager, more than anybody in the history of game. Since relegation was introduced in Kilkenny in 1979, James Stephens had never reached the last game of the relegation process. They hit a skid.
It was no surprise that Cody jumped back in with the James Stephens senior team once he finished with Kilkenny. In his 24 seasons as Kilkenny manager, he was never far away. He was still playing when he first took on the role of selector, more than 40 years ago, and that was his design for life.
In the 1980s and 90s Cody managed the club team for a total of eight years, in four different spells. He never managed anybody else outside the club, and he couldn’t understand the mentality of nomadic coaches.
While he was Kilkenny manager, he was constantly active in James Stephens. His late father, Bill, had been chair for 16 years. To be in the service of the club was in Cody’s blood. In the GAA, there is nothing more honourable than unblinking service, come what may.
After the Glenmore defeat you can imagine how Cody felt. And that was the thing. None of us can imagine what it was like for Cody to stand on the sideline in Croke Park for 20 All-Ireland finals, but thousands of GAA managers and selectors have experienced the hellish agonies of a relegation play-off. Fighting relegation has that equalising quality. It is open to all-comers.
One of the things that really irritated Clough in his final months at the City Ground was people telling him that Forest were “too good to go down”. He knew that couldn’t be true. Like water, relegation finds its level. It is a law of nature.
