Brian Clough: Mark Crossley on his former Nottingham Forest boss

Clough was renowned for spending little time with the players during the week, but delivering simple and clear messages to them the day of games.

“We only saw him on a match day and it was very brief. He never coached. It was 4-4-2 back then and he used to make it as simple as possible.

“‘So goalkeeper, what’s your job?’ he’d say. ‘Stop the ball from going in the goal. That’s what I pay you £200 a week for’.”

Crossley continues.

“‘Full-back – stop crosses and when you get the ball back, play forward, preferably to a red shirt’.

“‘Centre-backs, head and kick it as far away from my goal as possible. You think you can play, but you can’t’.

“‘Wingers, beat your full-backs, cross the ball into an area where my centre-forward can score a goal. Centre-midfield players – three touches maximum, play forward, score me five goals a season and be good in both boxes’.

“Centre-forward, your job is to get hold of the ball and keep it and when you’ve got it, pass it to someone that can play football.”

Not everyone got the message, though. And the legend of David Currie lives clearly in Crossley’s mind after all these years.

“I think it was QPR at home and the ball got played into David Currie, who we’d signed from Barnsley, but he lost it on the halfway line. They went down the other end and scored.

“As I’ve thrown the ball back to the halfway line, I can see the gaffer on the halfway line with the number 10 aloft, which was David Curry’s number. ‘Off, off. We don’t flick the ball at this club son’, he was saying to him!”

There is more from the Currie files, though…

“David was from Barnsley like me, so we shared lifts. The next day at training, he parked in the gaffer’s spot. I didn’t say anything,” recalls Crossley.

“The gaffer asks whose car is in his spot and Currie puts his hand up. The gaffer goes to him, ‘have you bought an house in the Nottingham area yet?’

“He said, ‘no boss, I haven’t, but I’m looking’.

“Cloughie said, ‘let me stop you there son. Don’t bother’. And that was more or less the end of David Currie.”

Currie was sold to Oldham after eight games.