Brian Clough was an extraordinary soccer manager. He took over Derby County when they were in the Second Division in England, after which they were crowned champions two years later, won the First Division title two years later, then reached the semi-finals of the European Cup two more years later.
Shortly after that, he became the manager of another Second Division club, Nottingham Forest, where he again won promotion, then won the First Division title a year later before winning the European Cup two years later (and retaining it the following year).
That is unparalleled.
He was charismatic, outspoken and often controversial with his outrageous personality, often coming up with memorable (perhaps for all the wrong reasons) statements, as when he declared,
“Rome wasn’t built in a day. But I wasn’t on that particular job” and “I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.” He was the sports journalist’s (plus current article writers) delight, coming up with other statements such as “We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right”.
He was not afraid to speak his mind.
When he spoke, it was worth listening, so when he said that “If [a player] starts whining when things go wrong, get rid of him. You want a dressing room full of men who stand up when the tough times come”.
Get rid of the players if they whine — simple! In doing so, give them more reason to whine (on their own) and if they do whine more, as a consequence, they have found their own better sport.
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In a similar vein, George Foreman, the American former two-time world heavyweight champion and an Olympic gold medallist boxer, had a similar opinion: “When problems arise, you will usually find two types of people: whiners and winners”.
What then is the difference?
Whiners generally complain in a childish or excessive, self-pitying, petulant, persistent, peevish manner which only wastes energy and effort while winners step up and exchange victimhood for victory.
Foreman for his part explained the difference as: “Whiners obstruct progress; they spend hours complaining about this point or that, without offering positive solutions.
"Winners acknowledge the existence of a problem, but they try to offer practical ideas that can help resolve the matter in a manner that is satisfactory to both parties”.
Whiners breed negativity. They complain about behaviours, conditions, decisions for no reason; they complain about the number of injuries they have, ignoring that other teams have also had numerous injuries (and they did not complain when it was to their advantage). As a result, they lose focus.
Winners will learn to accept that such things happen; they happen to everyone at some stage; they happen to our advantage and disadvantage; they happen to test us, as Clough said: “Football will test you, that’s a guarantee. It’s not all about the glory; it’s about how you handle the bad times. You need players who rise to it, not those who fold”.
Winners laugh at adversity; they suck it up, they take the knocks and get on with it.
Before he became a manager, Clough had been a striker for Middlesbrough and Sunderland, scoring an incredible 251 league goals in 274 matches, winning two England caps, before his playing career was ended by a serious injury at the age of 29.
He certainly could not be defined as a whiner, though he would have reason to do so. On another occasion, he said of the captain of his successful Derby County side, Roy McFarland, that: “I only ever hit Roy once. He got up so I couldn’t have hit him very hard.”
Hitting someone could well be an appropriate reason to whine, but McFarland did not.
Steve Martin jokingly observed on the subject of whining that: “Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol”, while Anthony JD Angelo, the author, speaker and entrepreneur, highlighted that: “If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.”
Finally, though, Dennis Prager, an American talkshow host and writer, sums it all up well in a statement that we as coaches and parents should follow closely: “Do you want to raise children who will be happy adults? Teach them not to whine.” Simple!
You want them to win? You know what to do. For crying out loud, please spare us the crying. That is the end of whining; we want to win.
