Be Good, Love Brian: Growing up with Brian Clough

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One-liners, quotes from Sinatra, exchanges with Michael Parkinson or David Frost that could captivate a television audience.

As for Gillian, she forced Craig to commit fraud on her behalf – dropping him off at the post office so he could sign a false name on a stolen pension book and collect the money on behalf of his “auntie”. I think the amount of people who would have just skulked away from the situation and never faced up to it, or made silly excuses to justify what happened. This is a beautiful, inspirational story, which has never before been told, about Cloughs gentleness and capacity for generosity.I think they wanted me to go back and be honest with them and say, ‘Right, from now on it’s just me. This brought back many memories of being a Nottingham teenager during the 1980’s - people, places, players, matches, the Trent End and the legendary Brian Clough, Football Genius. Then, in 1979 and 1980, he went one further, winning the European Cup in successive years with a Forest team composed largely of rejects and has-beens.

They have told me on numerous occasions whenever I have met them that I need to forgive myself, let it go and move on. Imagine coming from where I came from and suddenly being in the dressing room at Wembley on Cup final day. For him to have saved my life, to have welcomed me into his heart and home, and given me open access to everything, and then for me to do that.

In the players’ lounge they have watched Des Lynam on television say there’s a possibility that as many as 75 have died. It's the tale of a young lad with nothing who is given the key to a world he could only of ever dreamed of and how the clash of his nurture prickled against the warm but slightly uncomfortable new world. Clough said they could go to the match with them on the team bus, but first he would have to ring their parents to check that it was OK.