The statue of Brian Clough in Middlesbrough's Albert Park is set to be absent for two months while specialist repairs are carried out, after years of damage left the bronze monument in need of careful attention.

The work means the figure honouring the Boro and Nottingham Forest icon will be taken away from public view for the repair period, a step that has become unavoidable after the statue was fenced off in 2022. The monument has needed specialist attention for some time.

This is not the first time the Clough statue has had to be patched up. An initial repair in 2009 dealt with a stress fracture to the standing leg, then a new crack appeared in the same leg in 2016. Further work to reinforce the base offered only a short-term fix, and the latest intervention is now being carried out because the damage has gone beyond what stopgap repairs can hold together.

That history matters because the statue is more than a piece of public art. It is a bronze monument tied to one of the most recognisable names in the region's football story, and its condition has been watched closely in Middlesbrough as the years of deterioration have piled up. Albert Park has been the setting for a long-running problem that has gradually shifted from preservation to protection.

The statue was already behind fencing when visitors reached it in 2022, a sign that the damage had reached a stage where exposure was no longer an option. Now the latest repairs are expected to keep it away for two months, a period that should allow specialists to address the structural problems that have returned again and again in the same part of the figure.

For Middlesbrough, the absence will be temporary, but the story behind it is not. Brian Clough's monument has needed repeated intervention for more than a decade, and the latest repair underlines how fragile the bronze has become. When it returns to Albert Park, the real test will be whether the new work finally holds.