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Brian Clough achieved extraordinary things during his managerial career – and he was known for being unpredictable.
Having guided Derby County to the league title in 1972, Clough then joined neighbours Nottingham Forest and repeated the feat six years later, having initially taken over when they were in the second tier.
TV star's first Clough meeting
Most people who met Clough have fascinating tales to tell about his eccentric nature, and Darren Fletcher is no different.
The TNT Sports commentator grew up in Nottingham, before moving into radio and quickly encountering Clough at Forest, the club he’d always supported.
“The first interview I ever did was with Cloughie, I was 18,” he tells FourFourTwo. “I used to put up suspended ceilings, I had no desire to be a football broadcaster, but my stepfather was the accountant of a guy who owned a gym in Nottingham, and the sports editor at the radio station trained at this gym.
“He had a PR company who were doing this event called the Sun Life Great Race. I went on this event for three weeks as a lackey, then he offered me a job.
“Within a couple of weeks, he said ‘Right, I need you to go to the City Ground and get an interview’. “I asked ‘Who am I speaking to?’ He said ‘That’s up to you, don’t f*** it up’. I’d been standing on the Trent End four weeks earlier, queueing for autographs.
“I got the stadium and walked in at the front door, absolutely bricking it, and said ‘I’m from Radio Trent, I’ve come to do an interview’. The secretary said ‘Who with?’ I just said ‘Brian Clough’.
“She said ‘I’ll see if he’s available’, then came back and said ‘Yes, he’ll see you, go and sit in the corridor’. I sat there for about three hours, no sign of anybody.
“Eventually I get asked to go into his room – I’d written questions on a piece of paper. Clough had Archie Gemmill and Ron Fenton, his assistant and first team coach, sat around a circular table.
“I started to ask the first question, pouring with sweat, shaking like a leaf, and he leant across the table, pulled my questions towards him, screwed them up and put them on the floor!
“I ended up doing this interview, and it was fine because it was him. I was a mess, a complete mess, but I got on really well with him, and realised in time, that was the initiation. I ended up doing a lot with him.”
A shoulder charge to remember
Despite building a rapport with Clough, it didn’t stop a bizarre moment occurring during a subsequent meeting.
“They were playing Plymouth Argyle in a League Cup match,” Fletcher explains. “Brian came out early and sat on the edge of the dugout, signing a few autographs, chatting to people.
“My boss said to me ‘Get yourself down there, he likes you, go and get him to do another interview’. So I wandered down, and as I was walking along the touchline, I hear him say ‘Get away from me’.
“I’m thinking ‘He’s not talking to me, we’re mates’. I carry on walking, he says ‘Get away from me’, slightly more aggressively than the first time.
“I’m still thinking, ‘It can’t be me, it’s all these people bothering him’. But he stood up, walked across to where I was, made out that he tripped, shoulder-charged me right in the chest, and actually knocked me on to the pitch. ‘Now get away from me,’ he said.
“Everybody in the main stand had seen it, I was 18, wet behind the ears and completely embarrassed. The boss was giving me s*** for it when I got back up there!
“But Clough is the only person I’ve ever met that if he stood behind you now, you’d know he was there. Certain people have that charisma and presence – even when you don’t see them, you feel them, but he’d always test you.”
Clough's dress rehearsal
Later, Fletcher would receive a special invite from Clough, when he received the Freedom of the City of Nottingham, shortly before his retirement as a manager in 1993.
“The day before the event, Carol his secretary rang and said ‘Can you come and see the boss at 1pm?’” he remembers.
“I’m stood outside, and out he comes, suited and booted – you never saw him suited and booted, it was always the green jumper.
“A big green car came and he said ‘Get in the car’. We both get in and I said ‘What are we doing?’ He said ‘We’re doing the dress rehearsal for tomorrow’, so he took me on this rehearsal for his freedom of the city.
"We went to the castle, he was going to pose in front of the Robin Hood statue, then he was going to plant a tree. We eventually ended up in the council chamber and I was playing the part of the Lord Mayor.
“He dropped me back off at the radio station, then the following day, I covered the event, knowing what was happening, because we’d done it the day before.
“He just had that ability to knock you down one minute, then make you feel like you were the most important person the next.”
After Clough retired, he even became colleagues with Fletcher. “I used to work with Garry Birtles on the radio, he got on really well with Brian and I said ‘Why don’t you see if the gaffer wants to do anything?’” the commentator explains.
“Nobody had heard from Brian for a while, so Garry rang Nigel Clough. Nigel said ‘You’re the first people to ask, my dad would love to, what do you want to do?’
“We ended up getting him in to do a phone-in once a month. He also came and did two or three co-commentaries with us – we turned up at grounds with Brian Clough, it’d be like turning up with Fergie now.
“Clubs would see this application for a pass for ‘Brian Clough’, then Cloughie would turn up. We did Derby at Pride Park, we did England versus Serbia & Montenegro at Leicester, and we did Forest vs Derby at the City Ground.
“He was great, Archie or Ron would bring him to do the phone-ins, then he’d stay behind, have a bite to eat and reminisce about the past.
“I don’t think I could ever sit down in the presence of anybody connected to sport and feel the way he made me feel, because I’d grown up in Nottingham when they were winning European Cups, and then he was working alongside me.
“It was such an honour and a privilege to have had that experience. I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life.”
An FA Cup honour
This Saturday, Fletcher will commentate for TNT Sports at the FA Cup final between Manchester City and Chelsea, and he’s proud of how far he’s come during his career in football.
“I’ve only done two cup finals before, Arsenal vs Villa and Arsenal vs Chelsea, but I go back to the late 70s with the FA Cup,” he says.
“The first one I watched was when Ipswich beat Arsenal, then the first I really remember was the year after, when Alan Sunderland won it with the last kick of the game for Arsenal.
“That was the day I really fell in love with the FA Cup and I’ve never missed a final since. I never missed a minute of FA Cup final day when it started at the crack of dawn – you'd see Bruce Forsyth doing something on Wembley Way, or Paul Daniels would rock up, and you’d think ‘What’s happening here?’
“So for me to stand at Wembley will be just an absolute honour. It’s going to be such a thrill.”
Fletcher was talking ahead of a month like no other, with five major football finals live on TNT Sports & HBO Max kicking off with the Emirates FA Cup this Saturday. Enjoy a full day of FA Cup coverage live on TNT Sports & HBO Max from 9am.
