Ask anyone who played for Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest and they will have plenty of tales to tell.
Clough was unique and undoubtedly the best English manager never to manage the national team.
The Forest legend put the football club on the map, winning back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980 against all the odds.
Clough was never bothered by what the opposition were doing. Instead, he made a group of players believe they were ten feet tall and conquered Europe at the City Ground.
The icon was never backwards in coming forward. Clough famously had a run-in with Muhammad Ali, which summed up the great man’s persona and confidence in the media.
Sean Dyche was sacked by Everton earlier this season but for him, it all started at Forest and he’s now let the world know of his favourite Clough anecdote.
Photo by Robin Jones - AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images
Photo by Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images
The weekend job Brian Clough paid Sean Dyche to do
Nigel Clough famously recalled his dad delivering brutal honesty to him as a player but with other young players, it was a bit different.
Clough had so many managerial secrets and one of them, it seems, was to keep the club’s younger players grounded.
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Dyche has explained how he started at Forest and also shared what weekend job Clough used to pay him to do.
He told The Rest is Football podcast: “I really enjoyed my time at Forest, to be honest, but it didn’t really work out for me there.
“In my first year, I broke my leg, along with my mate, good mate, Steve Stone, he broke his leg four days after me, and that’s why we’re good friends now.
“I liked Forest, I liked what they stood for and the way they played at that time, they had a lot of good young players there.
“Everyone had interactions with Brian at Forest.
“Strangely, we used to go out and do his garden. I think he just wanted some of his younger players around. We didn’t overly garden, I can assure you.
“Just the little quirky things, I remember at the bottom of his garden, he had this lovely place in Quarndon, and at the bottom of the garden, you could jump over the fence and in the neighbour’s garden there was a tennis ball,l and we were playing head tennis over the fences.
“We earned £28.50 a week and he used to give us a tenner for doing his garden!”
Dyche never made the grade at Forest
The Kettering-born manager might have enjoyed his time at Forest, but it never worked out for him.
Dyche breaking his leg really killed his chances of making an impact on Trentside and it held him back as a player massively.
In 1990 he was left heartbroken by Clough as he released him without making a first team appearance.
Dyche did enjoy a solid career. He went to Chesterfield and helped them reach the FA Cup semi-final in 1997 where they lost to Middlesbrough after a replay.
Following that, he spent time with Bristol City, Luton, Millwall, Watford and Northampton before going into management in 2011.
Dyche was spotted at Forest on a number of occasions when he was out of work and he still has a property in Nottingham.
His story about Clough is once again another amusing tale and the great man’s legacy lives on for supporters of Forest.