Former Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough finally gets the last laugh over Leeds United He was the genius never properly acknowledged by the establishment, the man who could - should - have led his nation to glory were he not so laughably spurned. Even now, the Football Association's odd reluctance to embrace Harry Redknapp, the obvious candidate as England manager, is being nervously compared by many to the manner in which they ignored Cloughie, more than three decades ago. It was his birthday on Wednesday; 77 he would have been. And while we still give reverence to other departed football figures - Bill Shankly, Matt Busby, Jock Stein - it is clear that it is Cloughie who gleams brightest in the collective memory. In part, that is thanks to his immortalisation by David Peace in The Damned United, a work which beautifully captures the universal in an individual's tale. That story of his humiliation at Leeds is largely what fuelled Tuesday night's Twitter conversation. Understandably so: his ill-advised detour into West Yorkshire was the necessary precursor to his phenomenal run at Forest. Like many who succeed in sport, an eagerness to confound those who doubted him was the engine of his triumph. But what the pen of Peace, and the dramatic interpretation by Michael Sheen in the movie of the book, most pointed up was what a modern figure Cloughie cut. In an era of stuffiness, insularity and decline, he shone as a beacon of forward thinking. He understood the power of the soundbite, he brilliantly manipulated the media, he knew how to ease the pressure on his players by making himself the centre of attention. He was a pioneer of methods now considered essential to the job of the football manager. Most of all, however, he instinctively understood that the most important organ a player possesses lies inside his head. As a psychologist, he was a master. He extracted title-winning performances out of players others had overlooked, finding true value in the market long before Billy Beane turned the idea into the Moneyball philosophy. The tales of his dressing-room tricks, the ways he drew the best out of his charges, are unrivalled. Some - like punching Roy Keane - are hardly subtle. Others, though, would have the modern motivational experts like Jose Mourinho and Arsène Wenger cooing in wonderment. Like the occasion when Forest were losing at half-time. The players returned with some trepidation to the dressing room, expecting a mighty rollicking from the manager. But Clough wasn't there. Nor did he appear for the duration of the break. Instead, the players sorted things out themselves. Then, just as they were about to return to the pitch, the boss stuck his head round the door. "Sorry lads, all my fault," he said with a cheery smile. Picked the wrong team. It goes without saying, his players - as he recognised, suckers all for the chance to prove themselves to him - went on to win the game. It is this modernity that makes him the most likely of past managerial figures to thrive in today's game. You could easily imagine him today spinning lines at a Premier League press conference, joshing with Gary Lineker on Match of the Day, fomenting faux outrage on social media. Of course, he would need to adapt. He could not be so cavalier about his team's fitness, drinking habits, tactical analysis; it might be an idea, too, not to be as dismissive of chairmen as he was in his early days. And he would have to control his own demons. Nobody in charge of a leading club in 2012 can abuse the bottle as he did 20 years ago. But Clough had the intellectual capacity to understand all that. Any man who achieved what he did, winning the title with not one but two unheralded clubs - before the Leeds journey he took Derby to the First Division summit in1972 - then taking one of them on to the summit of the European game - could thrive now. Because no matter how the legend might be buffed by literature, its substance is derived entirely from one source: the record book. Allen's tale exposes game's realities As Henry Winter so poignantly reported from Bolton, since Fabrice Muamba collapsed at White Hart Lane on Saturday, football fans have demonstrated their compassion. Taking the opportunity to show that they are not all terrace trolls, fans of every club have laid tributes outside the Reebok. Heart-warming stuff. But also this week came a reminder that not everyone within the game is as inclined to see the wider picture in such circumstances. Interviewed on Radio 5 Live on Sunday, Martin Allen recalled how he had coped when one of his players had suffered a cardiac arrest similar to Muamba. In August 2007 Clive Clarke collapsed in the dressing room at half-time of a Carling Cup game between Nottingham Forest and Leicester. As Leicester manager, Allen was in the thick of things, clearing the dressing room, tending to the player, accompanying him to hospital. Watching Owen Coyle go through similar emotions with Muamba, Ian Payne, 5 Live's interviewer, asked how Allen had managed the aftermath. He answered that he hadn't. He revealed he was sacked by the chairman, Milan Mandaric, even as he sat vigil at Clarke's bedside. It was a shocking reminder that for some football can have no room for compassion. But then again, such actions put the decency of the response to Muamba's distress into even sharper perspective. The truth is, football needs its baddies to make the good guys look all the better.