User:DaveJB/Jimmy Gordon (footballer born 1915)

Jimmy Gordon (October 23, 1915 - 29 August 1996) was a Scottish football player and coach. While he was involved in football for a span of almost five decades, he is best known for his association with manager Brian Clough, whom Gordon coached under at Derby County, Leeds United and Nottingham Forest.

Playing Career
Gordon worked as a miner early in his life, while also occasionally turning out for amateur side Wishaw Juniors. He turned professional in 1935, being signed by Newcastle United. Though he stayed with them for ten years, he actually only played for them for four seasons due to the outbreak of World War II and the cessation of the English football league. During the war, Gordon chose to join the army rather than continue playing in the wartime leagues. After the war ended, Gordon was released by the club, and joined local rivals Middlesbrough. He would go on to play for the club for a total of eight seasons, eventually becoming the club's captain in 1952. During this time Bill Shankly, then manager of Grimsby Town said of him "If you had to play against Jimmy every week you would never sleep at night."

Coaching Career
Following Middlesbrough's relegation from the First Division in 1954, Gordon decided to retire as a player, though was persuaded to stay on as a coach by new manager Bob Dennison. He coached at the club for the next seven years before being recruited as coach at Blackburn Rovers. After a further eight years at Blackburn, Gordon was approached by Derby County manager Brian Clough, with whom he had briefly been team-mates with at Middlesbrough, to be the club's trainer. During his time at the club, Derby won the League championship in 1972, and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup in 1973. However, Clough left the club later that year after a falling-out with the board, leading to Gordon being appointed as temporary manager. After two games in charge (of which he won one and drew one), Gordon reverted to his previous role as trainer upon the appointment of Dave Mackay as manager, and remained with the club until the season ended.

In the summer of 1974, Clough was appointed to what would be an infamous 44-day spell at Leeds United. With his usual assistant Peter Taylor opting to take the manager's job at Brighton & Hove Albion, Clough appointed Gordon as his assistant at Leeds. While Gordon would prove to be fairly popular with the Leeds players, even he was unable to fix the very poor relationship between Clough and the mainstays of former manager Don Revie's team, and was sacked alongside Clough after just over six weeks.

Neither Clough nor Gordon would be out of football for very long, and in January 1975 they were appointed as manager and assistant respectively at Nottingham Forest. When Peter Taylor opted to rejoin Clough in the summer of 1976, Gordon gladly stepped down to a role as the club's first-team coach while Taylor took the assistant's job. In the years that followed, Forest won promotion from Division Two, then a year later won the Division One title, and followed this up by winning two European Cups in as many years. Gordon stepped down from day-to-day involvement with football in the summer of 1981, though continued to be involved in a part-time capacity as an occasional matchday scout for several more years.

In popular culture
Gordon was a key character in the novel The Damned Utd, and its associated film adaptation, The Damned United. He was portrayed by actor Maurice Roëves in the latter.