Sad day. Brian Clough died. Coming from Derby I have to mention this. I was in the same class as Nigel at junior school and we hung out a bit when we were very young. (Too young for it to be clear that I was no good at football.) We got taken to a Forest game once for Nigel's birthday treat, so I became a Forest fan. Brian was a lovely and scary man. Excellent to be around as a kid. He did stuff other Dads didn't do. Like drive a big flash car and be at home all day. I never knew him after I was about 10 or something but I always thought he was an excellent man. It's a very sad day.
I always wanted to get him into the agency to talk about management and stuff but never did - he would have been excellent, he had a intuitive genius for leadership. I guess I was slightly embarrased to be in advertising and not doing something he would have admired like being a Doctor. Saw Nigel in a park a few months back and said hello. It was all very awkward, I imagine he had no memory of me at all, but he was, of course, unfailingly polite. His Dad would have been proud.
Though not lucky enough to be that close to Forest as a boy I did follow them in the mid to late 70's and onwards into the 80's from Scotland where the pull of Celtic eventually proved too much. Thanks for this piece. He will indeed be very much missed.
Posted by: Sean | September 22, 2004 at 10:46 AM