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He did make England the best side in the world though... Look whats happeded to them without him!
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Clive himself hardly has been stellar since the Rugby World Cup - there was that less than stellar 6 Nations, the spankings when he came South, and who could forgot the Historical Spanking that was the Lions tour.
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Allot of coaches peak and then fall from grace pretty quickly. Sir Alf Ramsey is one, won the dive-ball world cup in 1966 and was overall an excellent coach but he had a very very rough ride after that. Duncan Fletcher, again, an excellent and skillful coach and a professor in preparation won England cricket their best winning record for decades as well as an Ashes victory but came a cropper when he let adulation and success get to his head.
Then there is Ron Dennis in F1, masterful team manager in the 1980s, blinded himself up Senna's arse and didn't realise that teams like Benetton and Williams were developing at a faster pace than McClaren and paid the price. Frank Williams & Patrick Head also fall under this category.
All of the above are excellent coaches and managers, superb when at their peak but utterly awful afterwards or when they have a dull patch. Sir Clive definitely falls into this category. I know you've researched this well Ripper, but just because he has an dodgy tour doesn't mean he wasn't an excellent coach in his day.
People mention 'spankings' but you conveiniently forget that he was the first coach to lead England to comprehensive glory over the SH in 2003. You may nit pick and, frankly, whinge about narrow score lines and the like but answer me these two questions: 1) which team went to three of the most difficult arenas of test rugby and pulled off something unthinkable only 18 months previously? And 2) who coached, constructed and maintained that winning team.
The answers are England and Sir Clive.
The man is a very divisive character. He is like marmite, you're either going to love him or hate him. The SH guys will always hate him because he had the temerity and the gall to take them on in their home ground and remind them that South Africa, Australia and New Zealand
don't in fact have the god given right to win rugby games after all. On the other hand, NH guys might hate him because of his selection, or how he put in place the conditions for spats and dissagreements which would eventually rock European rugby to the core, or even for reccomending sodding Andy Robinson (or, in the case of the lions tour, Alistair f***ing Campbell).
He pulled off some tremendous feats, introduced new innovations to rugby borrowed from other sports such as American Football, League and even *shudder* fag-ball. On the other hand, in making a side that would be unbeatable, he set in motion a series of events that would lead to the most bloody, vicious and violent civil war in Rugby since the decision of the northern clubs to split from the RFU and form their own, professional, league in the 19th century.
Does he deserve to be in the wall of shame? No, its illogical considering what he has acheived and smacks of the SH guys trying to re-write history to black out the fact that they had been out-foxed so comprehensively in 2002/3. In my opinion, if Mike Ruddock had managed to stay on in Wales and take the fight directly to the SH, we'd see a similar attempt to cover him in cow-**** and play him down as well.
But, does he deserve to be covered in plaudits? No, he did some excellent things, but also some horrible things. Some people might be lazy and quote the Lions Tour but there were far worse things that he did such as bypass and undermine the whole structure of the RFU by reporting directly to the top for example.
