Chris Fairclough ⭑ From A-Z since '92
The acts of persuasion that Howard Wilkinson and Bill Fotherby used to tempt Chris Fairclough to Second Division Leeds United must rank among the greatest lobbying feats in football history.
This is part of my (eight year long, it'll fly by) attempt to write about every Leeds United player since 1992. For more about why I'm doing this, go back to Aapo Halme, and to read all the players so far, browse the archive here.
The same sort of adjectives were being used about Chris Fairclough's last games, for Bolton and York City, as about his first for Nottingham Forest. Calm. Efficient. Commanding. Steely. Composed. Elegant. All that had changed was that nobody, as he neared retirement, could claim he was mature for his age anymore. Instead it was hard to believe his babyface held so much experience. Behind his headline qualities of consistency, reliability, the sort of low maintenance high performance player Howard Wilkinson loved, was a ruthless streak and an indomitable temper that helped make him a strong defender, a benchmark of the art.
Brian Clough picked him out from the start. Seventeen-year-old Fairclough had only been with Forest's youth team a few months when the manager went, specifically, to watch him play. He immediately promoted Fairclough to the reserves, and a few months later picked him at the City Ground for a friendly with Vancouver Whitecaps, although the programme called him 'Nigel'. Steve Hodge made an appearance too in a Leeds-flavoured 2-2 draw, featuring 44-day Clough of course, but also David Harvey, Terry Yorath, Ray Hankin and Peter Lorimer with the visitors.
Fairclough started playing in the First Division soon after turning eighteen, but attracting Clough's attention meant some special treatment, like going back to the reserves to learn how to be a midfielder. "Not only has he taken to the position, but he has also looked convincing in it, which says even more for his ability," said Clough. Within a year Fairclough was fully established in the first team — in defence — and Clough was still quick to praise him, although in this case he was also quick to regret saying so much by suggesting the now nineteen-year-old would be England's first Black centre-half.
"On reflection, I realise how daft I was to say it," said Clough. "What that statement did was put pressure on Chris at a time when he didn't need it. If anything, I should have been trying to take the pressure off him. Instead, he had to go out onto the pitch with the burden of what I'd said on his shoulders."
Clough added, "It hasn't affected his form to such an extent that anyone would notice," and he'd been helped by one of Fairclough's key traits, that by nature he seemed eternally unperturbed. Which may not have been entirely true. When he was suspended early in his Forest career for accumulating too many bookings, Fairclough said his friends were surprised because they didn't think he was that sort of player. But he also got two first-half red cards for Forest, the second for lashing out and kicking Manchester United's Norman Whiteside while he was on the floor; later, for Spurs, he was sent off for punching John Aldridge. It seemed impossible for him to look angry. But that didn't mean he couldn't be angry.
In a strong partnership with former Leeds defender Paul Hart the main thing on display was Chris Fairclough's quality. Forest finished 3rd in the First Division in 1983/84, and lost a UEFA Cup semi-final to Anderlecht that was later known to have been corrupt, and twenty-year-old Fairclough was the landslide winner of the fans' player of the year vote.
England manager Bobby Robson was impressed: "He captures your eye because he has a bit of everything," he said. "He is sturdy and strong and never looks like making a mistake. He's accomplished in the air and on the ground; a firm tackler and he's beginning to use the ball better now. He's difficult to get past and with more experience and maturity he could turn out to be one of the best centre-halves in the First Division."
By the end of 1984/85, Fairclough was a candidate for England's pre-World Cup summer tour of Mexico, but tearing ankle ligaments in April ruled him out. He had a minor calf operation pencilled in for summer as well. And, somehow, that was the start of a seventeen month injury nightmare that spread to his groin, of setbacks every time he returned to training being followed by more operations. He didn't play at all during 1985/86, meaning interest from Spurs didn't go anywhere, Fairclough didn't go to the World Cup, and Des Walker went into the team in his place, becoming Clough's new golden defender. "He's found things tough, which was entirely to be expected," Clough said, a few months after Fairclough had returned to the side. "I think he's coped remarkably in the circumstances. But at the same time I've had to point the finger at him for some of the goals we've conceded."
Clough's archetypical bluntness may have cost him. A combination of Nottingham Forest's creaking finances and Clough's erratic nature was leaking good players from the City Ground. Letting Paul Hart go was "the clanger of the year," in Clough's own words. Viv Anderson had gone to Arsenal, Steve Hodge to Aston Villa, Peter Davenport to Old Trafford. Johnny Metgod was forthright about his reasons for moving to Spurs when his contract expired. "The problem isn't purely down to cash," he said. "But it seems to me — and I've explained it all to the gaffer — that I'm the one who normally gets punished whenever we suffer an indifferent result." When his own contract was expiring, like Metgod's in summer 1987, Fairclough was ready to leave.
He was not applying his easy-going demeanour to his career prospects. "After several meetings, I made Chris what I regarded as a generous offer," said the manager. "Mr Clough might think it was a generous offer, but I didn't share his view," was the defender's reported reply. Fairclough then said he was "extremely embarrassed" by reports announcing he was signing for Howard Wilkinson's Sheffield Wednesday, although a week later the move was again reported as happening. Then, as not happening. "The straightforward reason is that I simply changed my mind about Wednesday," Fairclough said. "I appreciate the fact that Howard Wilkinson wanted the matter sorted out there and then, but I didn't feel I could make my mind up so quickly." Other offers were arriving, and three weeks later Fairclough agreed to join Tottenham Hotspur and let a tribunal set the fee.
Fairclough's future was not solved at Spurs. Within a few months David Pleat had resigned and Terry Venables took over, with designs on rebuilding the team. By March, although Fairclough had been ever-present for Spurs, Clough was publicly trying to buy him back. "I didn't want him to leave in the first place, so I'd be absolutely delighted to see him walk through the door again. I've been thinking about trying to get him back for some time and I'd like to think we can get something off the floor."
"If he insists on doing business that way, all I can say is that I will consider releasing Fairclough if he is ready to let me have Neil Webb," Venables replied. In the end Clough paid £600,000 to take Steve Hodge back and kept Webb, while Fairclough stayed where he was and stayed in the team until 1989, when Venables settled on Gary Mabbutt, Guy Butters and Terry Fenwick as his centre-backs.
Fairclough was still in the picture, playing twice for Spurs in February 1989, mid-table in Division One. "I felt that I wanted to prove myself at that club," he said later, and prove himself worthy of a big club in the First Division. "I thought I had in my first season there."
The acts of persuasion that Howard Wilkinson and his new managing director, Bill Fotherby, used to tempt Fairclough to Second Division Leeds United must rank among the greatest lobbying feats in football history. Fotherby waved away Mrs Fairclough's impending labour — "People in Leeds have babies, you know" — but after failing to get him to Hillsborough, Wilkinson must have sold an incredible future to persuade a 24-year-old with England ambitions to drop down a division. That Gordon Strachan had done the same thing a day or two earlier helped. "It showed that the plans they were trying to sell me were true," Fairclough said. At lunchtime on deadline day the deal was off, but Fotherby and Wilkinson's combined efforts ensured Fairclough followed Strachan through the door.
Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman
You can read about some of Fotherby's less successful manoeuvres here
This series is focused on the Premier League era at Leeds, with the glory years of 1989-92 being their own story. But it's not hyperbole to suggest that week of work laid the foundations for Leeds United winning two titles, returning to Europe and becoming a modern Premier League club.
In the 1989/90 promotion season Fairclough was the Supporters' Club player of the year, faultless at the back alongside Peter Haddock, and he proved himself many times over in the top flight as Leeds went right to its top. Now partnered by Chris Whyte, he wielded a knack for vital goals — his header to break a deadlock with Coventry at Easter 1992 unlocked the title — while locking down one of the best defences in the country, particularly at home. In three seasons Leeds only lost six league games at Elland Road — none at all in the title season — and conceded on average just 0.86 goals per game.
Fairclough also unlocked tactical flexibility for Wilkinson that was both a help and a hindrance. Fairclough was a superb man-marker, famously sticking to Aston Villa winger Tony Daley while the rest of the team got on with winning 4-1 at Villa Park in 1991, and with Fairclough's help Wilkinson's game plans were often more intricate than they initially appeared. After the title was won, though, came a season of failing to deal with Mel Sterland's absence through injury. Fairclough was struggling for form after missing pre-season injured and, like many players, was used to cover right-back. Sometimes he was moving there in-game to bail out Jon Newsome, at one point he was almost moving back to Clough's Forest in exchange for their right-back Gary Charles. Then, when David Batty was sold in autumn 1993, Fairclough was asked to anchor the midfield and practise what Clough had made him learn in the reserves. He was an able stopper in front of the defence, but United's midfield sorely missed the use Batty made of all the balls he won and Fairclough did not have that dimension. When Carlton Palmer arrived, Fairclough was sometimes alongside him and David Wetherall in a back three, and sometimes employed as a man-marker — Eric Cantona and Matt Le Tissier were among the playmakers he kept quiet. And sometimes Fairclough was left out altogether.
Fairclough's drift to the fringes was compounded by missing most of 1994/95 injured. His contract was running down, "And I just saw total frustration ahead of me if I stayed at Leeds," he told Leeds Leeds Leeds magazine in 2001. He asked for a transfer and, after declining offers from Vissel Kobe and two other Japanese clubs, moved to Bolton Wanderers for £500,000 in summer 1995, after 240 games and 23 goals for Leeds. The Trotters had just won promotion to the Premier League, and while Fairclough couldn't keep them up, he played every game and scored seven goals as they came back up as champions. Whence they went down again, missing Fairclough for most of the season with a knee ligament injury.
Throughout his time at Bolton, and in his final seasons at York City, the classic Fairclough adjectives remained in use: imperious, ultra-consistent, cultured, authoritative. The strongest testament to Fairclough is that all those words still get used by fans of Forest, Bolton and Leeds to describe the high watermark for quality he still represents for those teams. ⭑彡