Cloughie's Up There with a few good managers

We had been friends and foes since we both started in management. His health problems had been well documented and in recent years Brian had become something of a recluse compared to the times when he was always on television and in the papers.

He had a liver transplant nearly two years ago and, although he looked much better, sadly stomach cancer was discovered. The fighting qualities he always showed extended the medical forecast of two months to live to ten times that

He will never be forgotten, particularly at the two clubs he won championships with. Derby made a him a freeman of the city many years ago, as did Nottingham later. Forest also named part of the ground after him and have a bust in the foyer. There is now talk of a statue or some sort of permanent tribute. He was also awarded the OBE.

Brian was an amazing man who had so much influence on so many other people. The after-dinner circuit has been regaled with countless stories about him and other legends like Bill Shankly for years now.

One that always amuses me is when he said: "I don't know where I would come in the list of top managers, but I'm definitely in the top one." - always said with a twinkle in the eye. He called himself "big head" before others got the chance.

He had a terrific wife and family and his son Nigel followed in his footsteps. He was in the England team when I was involved and you couldn't wish to meet a nicer person.

There were many similarities between Brian, Bobby Robson and myself. We cut our management teeth in the lower divisions and were all from roughly the same area in the north-east and chose to spend the bulk of our careers at so-called unfashionable clubs.

We all had opportunities to move on, but chose to tweak the tails of the big ones as we all finished regularly in the top six. Bobby and I achieved second place but Brian came first at both Derby and Forest, but what made him extra special was winning the European Cup and retaining it with Forest.

The three of us were called up to Lancaster Gate in 1977 to be interviewed for the England job and each spent an hour before the committee. Ron Greenwood was not there - as he was in semi-retirement - and he, of course, got the job.

I was not too disappointed, being totally surprised at being asked in the first place, and Bobby felt a little bit like me.

Brian wondered why anybody else was in the frame except him. He thought he was the best man for the job, but he also knew deep down he wouldn't get it.

Many times in the years after I reminded him of a much earlier visit we'd made to FA headquarters when we each had a player called before the disciplinary committee.

We were sitting in the foyer waiting when an elderly gentleman struggled to open the front door with his stick in one hand and briefcase in the other.

Brian helped him up the stairs and on his way back and in a voice loud enough to be heard three floors up, he said: "What bloody chance have we got - he's one of the younger ones running our game!"

At Forest there was a period when they would turn up to play us with two buses - one with the team and management, the other with the directors. That was usually a minibus.

He had once famously told the driver to drive straight past one of the board members who was waiting to be picked up. They got the message.

On another occasion I was attending the first meeting of the newly-formed League Managers Association. I rang him to say he should be there and that I would call at the City Ground to pick him up.

Lew Chatterley and I got there to be greeted by him in his usual sloppy tracksuit sitting with his chairman.

He saw Lew and I in suits, collars and ties and turned to his chairman and said: "Hey, do me a favour, chairman - nip over to the club shop and get me a shirt and tie."

The meeting had just started when we got there so we sat at the back. The top table included Gordon Taylor from the PFA and Steve Coppell, who had just finished playing and had been appointed the first chief executive of the LMA having had lots of committee experience with the PFA.

The formal side of the meeting finished without anyone realising Brian and I were sitting at the back. The chairman asked for any questions to which Brian stood up and, in his distinctive voice, said: "I thought this was about managers. What the hell is Gordon Taylor doing sitting up there?"

He then turned on young Coppell and came up with the immortal line: "Young man, are you one of us or are you one of them?'

I suppose there was no answer to that but, with everything Cloughie said, there was an element of truth in it.

We didn't really need Gordon there. And Steve had to realise the difference between the dressing room and the manager's office.

Cloughie hadn't wanted to attend but, as ever, he made a contribution.

We rarely hear about the many favours he did, particularly for players of his who had perhaps fallen on hard times.

His formative years as a manager had Peter Taylor alongside him as assistant; like Bobby and me, the experiences at the lowest levels became invaluable later on.

Brian even took his heavy goods licence to drive the team bus when he was Hartlepool.

I was at their old Victoria Ground with him when there was a bucket in the office to catch the rain as it came through the roof.

I was one of the first to congratulate him when Forest won the European Cup in Munich. I was there with the BBC and, while he would not necessarily have given them the time of day, they knew he would welcome a fellow manager.

Then of course we met head to head in one of the best League Cup finals to be staged at Wembley in 1979.

Peter Taylor and Brian were the most formidable duo since Shankly and Paisley and I nicknamed them 'the exorcists' because whenever they appeared the spirits used to vanish.

While Bill and Bob would have a cup of tea before a game, they would have a brandy.

Well, now they're all together - I hope there is plenty of good players Up There because there's certainly a few good managers with Shankly, Stein, Busby, Mercer, Catterick and his old friend Taylor waiting to greet him.

Even 'old big head' would show that crowd some reverence.

But heaven help any chairmen that tried to get in the way...