The Boro had been relegated from the First Division at the end of season 1953/54 for the first time since 1929, and in fact had been ever present in the top tier except for four years (the Camsell era) since 1902. Mickey Fenton had retired in 1950 and Wilf Mannion had left in 1954, so it was a transitional period for the club. Boro had drawn their first match in the Second Division, but then lost the next 8 matches and a second relegation seemed to be a probability. In actual fact they bought several players including an ageing centre forward Charlie Wayman from Preston, and recovered to finish safely in 12th position.
The following season Wayman was injured after 3 matches, so they bought Ken McPherson who, after scoring 3 goals in his first 3 matches, also got injured so they had no option than to give Brian Clough, a teenager at the time, his debut on 17th September until Wayman recovered with McPherson as his strike partner. Alan Peacock made his debut as an inside forward in a 2-7 thrashing against Bristol Rovers on 26th November, was then dropped until 10th March when he played as the centre forward. Clough and Peacock never played together that season at the end of which Wayman retired and McPherson left. It had been a miserable season and Boro finished 14th.
The end of the 1950s had finished disappointingly with 13th position in the 1958/59 season. I had missed the previous two seasons having spent 18 months doing my National Service in Singapore. In the 1956/57 season, Doug Cooper played in the first match as centre forward to be replaced by Brian Clough in the next match, and went on to score 38 goals in his 41 matches. Peacock only played 4 times as his partner and scored just the once as Boro finished 6th. Clough scored another 40 the following season with Alan Peacock supporting him with 15 goals when Boro finished 7th.
So I was quite excited on my arrival back in England to hear that Boro had beaten newly promoted Brighton 9-0 in the opening match of the 1958/59 season with Clough scoring 5, Peacock 2 and Bill Harris converting 2 early penalties. What a pity Clough hadn’t taken the penalties I thought. But truth to tell, despite 6-1, 5-0 and 6-2 home wins against Scunthorpe, Derby and Swansea respectively, a 6-4 win at Brighton after having led 5-0, and Clough scoring 43 goals and Peacock another 19, Boro finished as lowly 13th.
In September 1959, Boro had their first win of the season away at Derby 7-1 yet Clough failed to score and he wasn’t too pleased despite the win, for it was Peacock who scored 4 with Billy Day, Eddie Holliday and Bill Harris also on the scoresheet. That was followed by three home matches – Cardiff 1-1 (a Harris penalty), Plymouth 6-2 ( Clough 4, Peacock 2) and Hull 4-0. Then followed a 2-1 away win at Liverpool (Boro’s 4th successive win at Anfield), a 3-3 draw at Hull and after a 3-0 home win against Charlton, Boro had reached 2nd position in the league. Unfortunately they never reached that lofty position again despite an unbeaten home record of 11 wins in 13 matches.
After the Liverpool win Boro simply couldn’t win away from home, only one draw in 6 matches which included a 0-5 battering at Leyton Orient. December started with several players unhappy about Clough’s criticism of them, although Boro won the first match of the month against Brighton 4-1 starting a sequence of 17 goals in 5 matches including three successive away matches – Stoke 5-2, Portsmouth 3-6, and a Christmas double over 2nd place Rotherham 2-0 and 3-0, so when that was followed by a 3-0 home win over Derby, hopes were high that a promotion push could be made.
By March Boro had reached 3rd having beaten Bristol City 6-3 with another Clough hat-trick, and then came the crunch match with a crowd of 39,432 anticipating that a win over league leaders Aston Villa would push us into 2nd place and only a couple of points behind. Unfortunately a 0-1 defeat followed by 2-5 defeat at lowly Lincoln scuppered our chances and Boro eventually finished 5th some eleven points behind Champions Villa and ten behind Cardiff. Yet Boro had scored 90 goals with Clough bagging another 39, but had conceded 64. Boro only lost two home matches, but only won five away from home, and that together with a defence like a colander was the main reason why. But what an exciting season it had been, pity there was no playoff system then, because if Boro had got promotion they would certainly have had a strike force to at least make an impression in the First Division.
Despite missing that 9-0 thrashing of Brighton in 1958 after just arriving in England awaiting demob, I did see Clough and Peacock play together in most of the home games in the next three seasons when Clough scored another 116 league goals in 123 matches and Peacock scored 47 in 103 matches. What I can confirm is that Peacock was an unselfish player, and that Clough had a large ego. It was well documented at the time that Clough told his team-mates that he was the goal scorer and that it was their job to provide the passes; it was NOT their job to score. Clough was never an easy colleague to play with, was often described as arrogant and very single minded, and his headstrong approach didn’t endear him to others in the dressing room. A fact emphasised during that 7-1 away win at Derby when he was reported as not being too pleased that Peacock scored 4 goals and he was goalless. Then in late November some of his team-mates signed a “round robin” letter to try to have him stripped of the captaincy, a tactic that failed as the crowd were vociferous in their support of him. I suspect it was a minority of his colleagues, probably mainly defenders who he had openly criticised for conceding 64 goals whilst the forwards scored 90, 52 of which were scored by himself and Peacock.
Peacock was, and still is a gentleman, in the Harold Shepherdson mould, and seemed quite happy to be the unselfish provider of many of Clough’s goals. Clough was not known as a goalscorer’s assistant; he saw himself as a finisher, and one cannot really quibble at that as his goal tally in league matches for Boro was a phenomenal 197 in 213 matches, a ratio beating Camsell’s 325 in 418 league matches, but it’s interesting to note that Alan Peacock in the three seasons after Clough left, scored 60 league goals in 83 matches, and in total 125 goals in 218 matches which is the fourth best strike rate of those who have scored 100 or more goals for Boro albeit in the Second Division, and goodness knows how many assists he made.
The following table emphasises his value to the Boro :-
▫George Camsell ... (1925 to 1939) 325/418 = 77.75%
▫George Elliott ... (1909 to 1925) 203/344 = 59.01%
▫Brian Clough ..... (1955 to 1961) 197/213 = 92.49%
▫John Hickton ..... (1966 to 1978) 159/415 = 38.31%
▫Mickey Fenton .... (1932 to 1950) 147/240 = 61.25%
▫Alan Peacock * ... (1955 to 1964) 125/218 = 57.34%
▫Bernie Slaven .... (1985 to 1993) 118/307 = 38.44%
▫Wilf Mannion ..... (1936 to 1954) 100/350 = 28.57%
* Peacock’s record as the main striker when Clough left was 60/83 = 72.29%
Incidentally Brian Clough only played 2 matches for England, but didn’t score, although he did once score all 5 goals for Football League Xl in a match. Alan Peacock played 6 matches for England including 2 World Cup matches scoring 3 times.
One thing to note about Alan Peacock was his heading ability. He was and still is a tall man, much taller than Brian Clough. Both men were rivals as well as team-mates – though it didn’t necessarily mean that the two men didn’t get on, but Clough has always had a big opinion of himself and was certainly a tad jealous of Peacock, because he didn’t have his heading ability. I can’t recall Clough ever scoring with his head, although I suppose he must have done sometimes. In those days all teams played with 5 forwards and Boro played with two wingers, Billy Day on the right and Eddie Holliday on the left, two inside forwards Derek McLean and Alan Peacock, with Brian Clough in the middle. Peacock certainly provided Clough with many chances because of his height, but I recall that McLean (a Brotton lad) and Bill Harris (a Welsh International right half back) also set up Clough with many of his goals.
Clough and Peacock were completely different types of strikers, most of Peacock’s goals coming by courtesy of the wingers. Clough was a goal poacher, a bit like Jimmy Greaves, but was a deadly finisher yet like George Camsell before him, never took penalties. That was left to Bill Harris who rarely missed, so had Clough taken them, he might have finished his career scoring with a ratio of a goal a game. At the time he was considered to be the best striker in the country, but was overlooked by the England selectors because he didn’t play for a First Division team, and when he was picked for England along with Eddie Holliday, he rarely got a scoring opportunity with Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Charlton also in the team.
Alan Peacock was certainly a good header of a ball, but I always considered a young Bill Gates, although playing in a different position, a more accurate one. Peacock of course won his England caps in the days of wingers which Alf Ramsey discarded for the 1966 World Cup.
The 1960/61 season more or less followed the same pattern – 5th with the same number of points 48, only two home defeats but only five away wins, but it did include the 6-6 away draw at Charlton which I think was the final straw for Brian Clough. He was very forceful in his comments about Boro’s defending. “How is it possible not to win a match after scoring six goals” was the gist of his anger, for having scored another 34 times it turned out to be his last season before signing for Sunderland.
In the 1961/62 season, Joe Livingstone took over Clough’s number 9 jersey but only for the first two matches, then swapping numbers with Alan Peacock who had accumulated 65 goals whilst playing alongside Clough in the five previous seasons. Peacock went on to increase that number to 125 league goals before his transfer to Leeds and he eventually earned six England caps including two at Rancagua, Brazil against Argentina and Bulgaria in the 1962 World Cup group matches.
It seemed to be the norm in those years that Boro conceded far more goals than we do nowadays, but also scored many more because we had Brian Clough and Alan Peacock. It was never dull in those days with goals aplenty for and against. Although Boro finished 5th twice and 4th once, we never quite looked like getting promotion, but if there had been play-offs at the time we probably would have done.