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Brian set about personalising the club as he once had. Instead of the youthful vibrant club that Cooper was cultivating, Clough stripped away anything promising, selling Adam Boyd to Real Sociedad for £95,000 in a key example. He was building a team in his own image, grey, arrogant, senile and overrated.
Brian spent much time deciding who the least interesting signings possibly could be. The Scottish league seemed a good place to start and nobodies like St Johnstone's Paul Bernard, Ayr's Craig Conway and Gareth Wardlaw, Queen's Park's Stephen Canning, Ross County's Steven McGarry and Forfar's Grant Lawson on loan were added.
Loan signings were another way to get players nobody else wanted, not even the team paying them. Arsenal's Seb Larsson, Villa's Stephen Cooke, Sunderland's Ben Alnwick and Chris Brown and most spectacularly Weymouth's Chukki Eribenne were added.
That wasn't quite dull enough, no siree. Oldham's Ashlew Winn and Grimsby's Graham Hockless were so uninspired that the local press didn't even report the additions and paying money for Gillingham's Tommy Johnson was risible. Other boring players like Eoin Jess of Forest, Liam Burns of Bristol Rovers, Steve Jenkins of Peterbrough and freebies Matthew Turner, Lee Briscoe and David Perpetuini came in. One marginally interesting player also signed, but even the most optimistic fan suspected former Kyiv Dinamo and Arsenal man Oleg Luzhnyi was past his best.
Still, it was McGarry, of all people, who surprised pundits and fans alike when he finally got his chance in November with four goals in his first three starts, passing the laughable two managed by Boyd in his whole spell as the starter. Mark Tinkler was the other revelation on the goalscoring front with five to that point of the season despite missing a month to injury and being a defensive midfield player. It was as well he was a very boring player otherwise or his place may have been at stake.
With Clough winning second prize in the November manager of the month stakes he spoke briefly to the press.
When you play Monopoly sometimes you turn over a card that says, "You win Second Prize in a Beauty Contest, collect Ten Pounds". This is much like that, except I'm not beautiful and i didn't get ten pounds.
Clough sighed. He had hoped for so much more, but at his age the old timing was out. Winning the last nine games of the season had been insufficient and there would be no playoffs, no promotion for Hartlepool this year. So a number of players were sold, the old recruiting magic was put in place and for some reason a number of international stars failed to realise that not only was Brian likely to drive them insane with coachspeak and old-style drivel, but that they would have to play in League One and move to Hartlepool. What a to-do. Brian Clough had his own take:
It's like this, when you kidnap a man's wife he'll do whatever you say.
Go Easy On Me, I'm An Old Man (BCC) 
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