Brian Clough

I am sure that all of you will have your own thoughts and any tributes that you wish to pay will be published here on site.

His record with not one, but two, small town East Midlands clubs speaks for itself.

To build a side to compete with the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal with limited resources was little short of miraculous and to repeat the feat with a second club is unbelievable.

He made it seem so easy that it probably spoiled things for those of us of a certain generation. He certainly spoilt it for future managers. We all thought that if it had happened once it would happen again.

Not without another Cloughie it won't.

For me Brian Clough was the reason that I became a supporter in the first place. Having built a promotion winning side from the old Second Division he was mightily peeved at the attendances he was getting from the people of Derby (although looking back they seemed pretty good ).

He said that we would all regret it if we did not go and see the side that he had built.

I took him at his word and went along and got hooked.

Not everyone took him at his word of course. He dropped repeated hints that he was the best man for the England job. The chances are that he was right, although the committee who picked the new managers were seemingly more interested in a YES man than the right one for the job.

The country's loss was the club game's gain though as he continued to work miracles until the final few seasons of his reign at the City Ground.

Dave McKay, who was arguably his greatest ever signing, said in response to the question of what made Cloughie so special and his reply was “there had never been one like him before him and there will never be one like him again.”

For now we should probably just give thanks that we were around when he was.