The Legend of Terry and the Hot Reds
We’ve had more than our share of cult heroes over the years. I’ve idolised quite a few in my time. Back in September 1976, there were only two names worth writing on your college work folder. Eddie and the Hot Rods – sent by God from Canvey Island to save RocknRoll. And Terry Curran – sent to God from Donny Rovers to save the Tricky Trees.
The summer of 1976 was long and hot. And dry. Day after day of temperatures in the 30s. We’re getting used to that sort of climate chaos now, but back then it was way too hot for us. And day after day without rain. A long drought that meant empty reservoirs, water rationing, and standpipes in the streets.
Forest fans were accustomed to droughts back in 76. The previous decade had been a slow procession from the footballing heights to the basement. We’d gone from runners up in the top division in ’67 to 16th in the second in ’75. Two places below Notts. And since that all time peak of 1967 we’d had five managers. We’re getting used to that sort of climate of chaos now, but back then that was far too much for us.
Music fans weren’t doing much better. Many of the bands we loved were past their prime. The Stones. Rod & the Faces. The Who. Even Bowie and Roxy were on vacation. And when you turned on the TV to watch a music show, you ended up with the likes of the Wurzels, Cliff Richard, ABBA, Kiki Dee, Twiggy, the Bay City Rollers, and Jimmy Savile.
It’s always darkest before the dawn. Into that desiccated musical climate of 1976 burst Eddie and the Hot Rods. And into that barren Forest team of the mid 70s exploded Terry Curran. Our two great hopes for salvation.
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Edward (Teddy) Curran was born in Yorkshire on March 20th 1955. His father was a Glaswegian miner who had migrated south. His mother was a member of the famous Batten clan of rugby league players. Despite growing up in a rugby household, Curran, ever the rebel, fell in love with the game of football: refusing to play league at school, supporting Sheffield Wednesday, and idolising George Best.
Teddy, as he was known as a kid, was a natural right winger. He had plenty of pace and the innate ability to beat players. He was snapped up as a youth by Doncaster Rovers and played 68 games for the fourth division outfit between 1973 and 1975, scoring 11 times and keeping them off the very bottom of the football league. Early on during his time at Rovers, Donny’s assistant manager Johnny Quigley (of 1959 Cup Final fame) mistakenly referred to him as Terry when talking to the press. It stuck, much to the amusement of one of Curran’s brothers who was actually christened Terry.
What made Terry Curran a great player to watch was his arrogance and his sheer joy in the performance. He loved turning on the style and beating his man. In one pre-season game for Doncaster playing against Don Revie’s Leeds United he skinned the opposing full back three times in three minutes then turned round and asked, in all seriousness, “How did you ever come to win an international cap?” (The story, recounted by Ken Smales in 1976, doesn’t name the full back, but it was probably English international Paul Reaney, 10 years Curran’s senior.)
Clough loved the arrogance too. Other clubs were interested, apparently including Leeds, Spurs, and Everton, but Cloughie made the first moves. He sped up the M1 to see him play, earning a speeding ticket on the way. Knowing Clough, he would have taken the fine out of Curran’s future wages. What he did do, allegedly, was to tell Curran not to sign a new contract with Doncaster so that Forest would have time to make their move. So that Curran wouldn’t be out of pocket for not signing, Clough arranged for his agents to deliver the £20 difference to Curran each week via a range of clandestine drops more reminiscent of Philby and Burgess delivering atomic secrets to their Russian controllers at the height of the cold war.
The 20-year old Terry Curran eventually signed for the Reds in August of 1975 with £50,000 plus keeper Dennis Peacock and winger Ian Miller going to Doncaster in exchange. We could have paid a lot more. Doncaster had originally wanted £150,000 before the contract shenanigans. And we could have lost Martin O’Neill, who, in his autobiography ‘Days Like These’ says that he believed he was going to be offloaded to Donny as part of the Curran deal.
Clough said he was “over the moon about this transfer” and that Curran was an ”outstanding player with bags of potential.” “Supporters will find him as exciting as I do.” Yes, we did! Forest coach, Alan Hill, said that Curran “reminds me a lot of Ian Moore and I cannot pay him a bigger compliment than that.” No, you can’t!
August 27th, 1975. The newly signed Curran turns up at the City Ground and watches Forest beat Rotherham 5-1 in the League Cup. After the game, he is introduced to the team, with Clough famously telling the resident number 7, the long-suffering Martin O’Neill, that “this is Edward, he’s the player who will be taking your place on Saturday”. As good as his word, Clough gives Curran his debut against Notts County on the Saturday in place of O’Neill. Looking at the team that day, it’s interesting how many of the miracle men are named in the programme1.
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Meanwhile, down in deepest, oiliest Essex, a couple of 17 year olds have started playing music together at school for fun. They’ve been joined by an experienced guitarist who persuades them to take it more seriously and have found a 15 year old bass player through an ad in the Southend Echo. They come from Canvey Island, from the same place as Dr Feelgood, but are faster, noisier and even more compelling. However, they need to play London to make any progress, so they blag themselves a set of gigs at a west London pub in May 75 and build up a following. By November 75, they’ve been spotted and signed to Island records. By Christmas 75, they’ve recorded their first single.
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Back in Nottingham, we’re falling in love with Terry Curran. Some players play to win. Some players play to entertain. Curran was very much “crowd first, result second”, and we loved him for it. Watching a winger beat his man is one of the best sights in football. Curran could always beat his man. He could twist and turn and weave his way through the defence. He could put the ball past the defender and simply out sprint him. And, once he’d done that, he more likely than not set up a chance for one of our forwards.
Cloughie looked after Curran and was rewarded with some magnificent performances. Maybe it was the attitude. Maybe it was the skill. Cloughie loved Terry Curran as much as we did and treated him like a son. Actually, it’s probably fair to say that Curran was treated a lot better than Nigel Clough when he was playing. One day during training, Cloughie “borrowed” Curran’s car keys. After training Curran was very pleasantly surprised to find his old Spitfire had been exchanged for a sporty new Ford Capri. Cloughie knew that Curran liked to gamble, but didn’t beat him up about it, which wouldn’t have worked, instead putting an arm round his shoulder to get him to tone it down. He also suggested that Curran settle down and get married. Curran did get married, but that was never going to work. Curran went through life partners the way Marinakis goes through managers.
Over that 75/76 season, Terry Curran played 34 league & Cup games for the Reds, always at number 7, scoring 6 times. He did suffer one or two injuries during the season, some more comical than others. There was the “suspected broken ankle” against Bristol Rovers from which he recovered in time to play the following weekend. There was the reaction to a flu jab which caused him to lose much of his curly hair (he claims his Kevin Keagan perm is 100% natural). There was the time he was elbowed in the mouth against Fulham and lost his two front teeth (which apparently may still be embedded in the Craven Cottage turf).
Forest really hit their stride as 1975 turned into 1976, especially after Curran came back from a lay off at the end of January. 9 wins and 5 draws in 17 league games was championship winning form, but the Reds had gone through a couple of dodgy patches earlier in the season meaning that we only finished 8th. However, it did mean that we went into the 76/77 season with expectation in our hearts and Terry Curran’s name on our pencil cases. Momentum was building at the City Ground and things were definitely hotting up for the Tricky Trees.
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That summer of 76, that hot sweaty summer, was also the making of Eddie and the Hot Rods. They had a residency at the World Famous Marquee Club in Wardour Street (alternating and competing with AC/DC) and massively increased their following. The July 9th show was recorded. Three tracks were released as a live 7” EP within days and found their way onto the turntables and into the hearts of thirsty young rockers like me.
Two months later, on September 9th, they were on TV. Alongside the Wurzels, Cliff Richard, ABBA, Kiki Dee, Twiggy, the Bay City Rollers, and Jimmy Savile. Now the whole of Britain could see the revolution was about to begin. Eddie and the Hot Rods: blowing away the cobwebs. Saving Rock and Roll. Like the NME said “The Hot Rods are careering through ‘Get Out of Denver’ at a speed so close to the velocity of sound itself that the song seems to end several minutes before it began.”
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The 76/77 season started well. Forest breezed through the qualifying round of the Anglo Scottish Cup and made a reasonable start in the League. In August, Curran scored an amazing goal at Fulham, dribbling past half the Fulham team and chipping the keeper. George Best was in the directors’ box standing and applauding. When we faced Burnley at home on October 23rd we were sat 8th, but were only one point behind Wolves in third. We’d hit eleven goals in our two previous home league games and had just taken a 2-1 lead in the first leg of the Anglo Scottish Cup semi final. You could believe we were going places. You can find that most recent league game on youtube – a 6-1 defeat of Sheffield United masterminded by Terry Curran. He creates the 3rd and 5th goals and scores the 4th after a mazy dribble through the Blades defence and a one-two with Viv Anderson. The boy wonder was going to win us promotion.
Then disaster struck. After scoring an early goal to put us ahead, Curran smashed his ACL which put him out for 4 months. After the game, Cloughie told reporters “Promotion has just limped out the door”. It hadn’t, because Cloughie rejigged the formation, brought in Tony Woodcock, and had Robbo take the role Terry Curran had been playing.
It’s been said that Cloughie wasn’t sympathetic to injured players; however, Curran’s injury really worried him. The concern lasted after Curran had recovered and was fit again. Cloughie was careful not to put too much pressure on the player by playing him too much. He brought Curran back for a couple of games in March, the first of which was won by a single Terry Curran goal, but after that, only had him sit on the bench a couple of times over the rest of the season. Cloughie had lost his career to the same injury and told Curran that he didn’t want to see the same happen to him. It was for his own good, but Curran wasn’t too happy. He told Clough exactly what he thought and, much to Cloughie’s amusement, trashed the door to his office. Nevertheless, Curran stuck around with the team and was on the plane to Spain with the rest of the lads when promotion was confirmed that May.
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A year after that first TV appearance, Eddie and the Hot Rods reached their peak, releasing the all time classic Do Anything You Wanna Do on July 29th, 1977, a masterpiece of power, self determination, and independence set to a rampant beat. However, that was as good as it got. By Christmas 77, they’d been forgotten. They spent much of the autumn of 77 in the US but by the time they came back, music in the UK had moved on. All the press, all of the TV, and most of the kids were into this new fangled punk rock thing.
The Hot Rods died a slow death. They weren’t making any money. Their manager took most of what they earned and spent it on drugs for himself. They wore themselves out gigging continuously whilst making themselves ill on the riders. Nowadays few folk even know their story. They started the RocknRoll revolution but didn’t stick around for the ending.
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The summer of 77 wasn’t as hot as 76, but what it lacked in temperature it more than made up for in anticipation. All eyes were on August 20th and our first game against Everton. Nottingham Forest were back in the top division where we belonged.
Forest toured Switzerland, Austria, and Germany at the start of August 77, playing five friendly games. Terry Curran played in four of them. According to Martin O’Neill, Cloughie was contemplating playing two out and out wingers (Curran and Robbo) in the first division. However, for that initial game against Everton, he reverted to just the one: Robbo. Curran watched, unused, from the bench as we destroyed Derby 3-0 and West Ham 5-0 at the end of August. However, all he wanted to do was play football. He argued with Clough and asked for a transfer. Whenever he’s asked, these days, he’ll say he was never really bothered about playing at the highest level. He’d go anywhere so long as he got a game. “It were football I loved,” he said. Clough didn’t want him to go, but Curran was never going to be a bit part player, sitting on the bench, taking his turn, playing only when the opportunity arose. He wanted full time football.
When Clough jokingly offered him a loan out to 4th division Bury in October, Curran called his bluff and went. As Curran walked out of one door, Peter Shilton and the League Championship walked in another. Curran’s mate John Middleton, who’d just been transferred down the A52 told Curran that Derby manager Tommy Docherty was interested. Clough again tried to dissuade Curran from going, but Curran insisted. He signed for Derby for £50,000 in November.
After that, he moved around a few times. Curran says that Cloughie tried to resign him a few times later in his career, but nothing came of any of the approaches. He played in the 1979 League Cup Final for Southampton and would have won a winners medal had Forest not woken up in the 2nd half. He stepped down two divisions and played for his beloved Sheffield Wednesday for three years. He signed for Everton, missed their 1984 FA Cup win through injury, and played a few games during their Championship winning season of 84/85. However, Terry Curran was all about winning hearts not medals. He was one of the entertainers. Loved by the fans wherever he went. He was voted Sheffield Wednesday’s all-time cult hero in a poll run by the BBC. That’s quite an achievement when you consider some of the fantastic footballers who have played for the Owls: footballers like Trevor Francis, Chris Bart-Williams, Des Walker, Viv Anderson, … and Gary Megson.
That’s Terry Curran. The man who walked out of the greatest side Nottingham has ever known. The man who walked out of one of the greatest teams in English football history. A nearly man. Like Eddie and the Hot Rods. Yet he’ll tell you he has no regrets. He did anything he wanted to do. He’ll tell you his two proudest moments in football are the times he’s had praise from the greatest footballing talents we’ve ever known. He’s had George Best stand up to applaud his greatest goal. And he’s had Brian Clough say: “There is not a more exciting sight in the country than seeing Curran pick the ball up in his own half and go past people as if they weren’t there.” Those are the prizes that Curran’s most proud of.
When you have to choose between reality and legend… live the legend.
- Anderson, Gunn, Clark, McGovern, O’Hare, Bowyer, Robertson, & O’Neill, plus David Needham playing for Notts. ↩︎