Football Explained

Early Doors

Jim MorrisonThe term ‘Early Doors’ first appeared in the early nineties after a humiliating defeat for Nottingham Forest, when Forest manager Brian Clough used it as one of many analogies to 1960s and 70s psychedelia that explained his club’s downturn in form.

In the same press conference he described Nigel Jemson’s passing as middle-era Jefferson Airplane and Steve Sutton’s goalkeeping as Syd Barrett’s mental breakdown.

Clough had recently seen the film in which Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison, who co-incidentally also hated Leeds United. Asked to expound upon his theory, he said that while his team may be good movers and have a lot of female fans, they lacked substance and if they carried on performing as they were, they could lose their key performer (although probably not to a drugs overdose in Paris).

Sadly for Clough his squad were far bigger fans of Phil Collins, the burgeoning Shoegaze scene, and to a lesser extent Luther Vandross, and had no idea what he was talking about. He persisted with the analogies, comparing the defending in a home defeat to Leeds to the front cover of Santana’s Abraxus, and Scott Gemmill’s mazy but ultimately futile dribbles to a Jeff Beck solo, but the team were soon relegated. Commentators sympathetic to Clough’s mindset noted the similarities between Forest’s relegation and the criminalisation of LSD in 1966.

Outside of Nottingham ‘Early Doors’ stuck, and is now used by many managers, particularly when teams lose an early season match because they are too busy quoting French poetry they have no real understanding of.

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