“I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business, but I’m in the top one” is how legendary English football coach Brian Clough famously described himself, and with his impressive trophy record achieved whilst at traditionally ‘smaller’ clubs such as Derby County and Nottingham Forest, who would disagree with him? As well as this success on the pitch, Clough was just as well known for his entertaining quotes and forthright opinions off it, and it is therefore easy to imagine these quotes going viral today, and bringing a lot of value to the social media activity of his clubs.
Who would be the closest equivalent to Clough today? We have looked at some of the most outspoken personalities in Europe, to see who is bringing the most value to the social media performance of their clubs…
Looking at the graphs, it is clear that although posts about the coaches are not the top post for the clubs by any of the KPIs, they still have a high media value and reach a lot of Contacts. It is in the Engagement where the gap is the biggest, from the top post about the coach to the top post overall. Perhaps it is the fact that the job of the coach provokes less of a reaction in general? For example, a post celebrating a goal could gain a “great goal” type reaction, and a post celebrating a coach is maybe harder to quantify what the success is? Fans are maybe less likely to be inclined to comment something niche along the lines of “great substitution to switch to three at the back”!
Where we would need to further look into this study would be to look into any correlation on the performance of the team versus the performance of the posts related to the coach. We chose these 4 coaches to take an introductory look as they are high profile and this has been correctly shown in the graphs. But are they truly as unique as Clough was?
FAMOUS BRIAN CLOUGH QUOTES
· They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job
· The River Trent is lovely, I know because I have walked on it for 18 years
· If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there
· We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IRIS International Sales Manager and Brian Clough superfan Stuart Levy