‘Clough and Alex Ferguson were good friends, and Brian would often arrange friendlies between the youth teams so he and Fergie could enjoy a few wines’ Paul McGregor lifts the lid on an iconic rivalry

Football is a game dominated by big personalities and in the 1990s they didn’t come much bigger than those of Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United side.

The Scot oversaw one of the most dominant periods of English football history during his time at Old Trafford and his mid-90s team was packed full of huge characters.

So what was it like for a young player to go up against that side at that time? It was an opportunity that former Nottingham Forest youngster Paul McGregor grasped with both hands in November 1995, as he made his first-team breakthrough by netting in a 1-1 draw against the Red Devils.

Paul McGregor on Clough and Fergie

“I’d only made my home debut earlier that week, in Europe, so it was a huge deal for me to start,” McGregor recalls to FourFourTwo. “I remember in the tunnel before the match, Stuart Pearce was screaming, “Come on boys, let’s f**king get stuck straight into ’em!”

“At some point, Eric Cantona calmly pushes his way to the front, looks Stuart up and down, sniffs nonchalantly and pops his collar up. I just thought, ‘F**king hell, he’s so cool!’

“It was a vintage team we were up against that day: Cantona, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Peter Schmeichel. I’d actually played against Beckham and that whole Class of ’92 plenty of times – Clough and Alex Ferguson were good friends, and Brian would often arrange friendlies between the youth teams so he and Fergie could enjoy a few wines.

“It felt like we were always playing them. Anyway, I remember my chance falling to me in that match and banging one past Schmeichel, who’s up there with the greatest keepers of all time. It was such a special moment.”

For McGregor, his goal against Manchester United capped a memorable week that included a strike against Lyon to send Forest into the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, something supporters still remind him of to this day.

“All the time!,” McGregor continues. “That season in Europe was mad – we were played off the park in just about every game. Against Auxerre in the previous round, I remember us being camped inside our own penalty box, bar the one moment when Steve Stone ran up the other end and scored.

“It was the same against Lyon. They were all over us for 70 minutes when Frank Clark chucked me on. I was desperately chasing every long ball. I could run like the wind and their defenders dropped deep, giving us a foothold. We won a penalty late on and I had this premonition that I’d score the rebound if the goalkeeper stopped it.

“The keeper parried Pearcey’s effort, I got there and banged it home. It was like an out-of-body experience. One of the best moments of my life.”