Alchemy : Brian Clough & Peter Taylor at Hartlepools United (New ed)

Boxing Day 1962: Sunderland’s star striker Brian Clough suffers a career-ending knee injury when he collides with an outrushing goalkeeper.

After a forlorn battle to regain fitness, he retires early and sinks into deep despair. October 1965: Clough persuades ex-’Boro teammate Peter Taylor to join him in managing perennial North-East strugglers Hartlepools United, lying next to bottom of the Fourth Division. A magical football odyssey has begun. Alchemy reveals the bittersweet reality of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor’s first management job together.

Lower-league Hartlepools United are penniless, with a meddling chairman, a ramshackle ground and want-away players.

Yet the management pair tackle every challenge head-on, forging a winning blueprint that later transforms unfashionable Derby County and Nottingham Forest into League and European Cup champions. Exploiting a wealth of archive newspapers, plus interviews with those present at the creation, Alchemy exposes the humble origins of Clough & Taylor’s meteoric rise to the top of the football tree.