CAN I recommend a book to you. It’s called ‘Provided You Don’t Kiss Me’ and it’s written by Duncan Hamilton who, for 20 years, followed Brian Clough around the football grounds and back streets of Europe.

And although I have my reservations about the quality of its critics: ‘one of the best football books I’ve read’ (John Motson) it really is a book to savour.

For if ever a writer has known a football manager, Duncan Hamilton knew Brian Clough.

I won’t bore you with all of the details, but I will end this comment piece with two or three paragraphs from the book which sum up the simplicity of what a good manager will say or do.

‘How do you think I won two League Championships and two European Cups? I can tell, from the moment I see someone in the dressing room, whether he’s off colour, had a row with his missus, kicked the cat or just doesn’t fancy it that particular day. I know who needs lifting. I know who needs to have his arse kicked. I know who needs leaving alone to get on with it.

‘It only takes a minute to score a goal, and it takes less than a minute to change someone’s outlook with a word or two. That’s just another form of coaching that you won’t find in the manuals, which is why I’ve never read them. It’s a special kind of coaching done only by very, very good managers – like me.’

Brian Clough would never have survived, at the highest level, in today’s game. I was privileged to have met him, just the once, when his managerial career at Nottingham Forest was already in decline.

He lived a few doors away from my uncle Harold, and I dare say they’d speak on occasions when they went to the village shop.

But enough of sentiment. I like the Daily Telegraph cartoonist’s appreciation of Brian Clough’s life when he drew a headstone with the inscription: ‘Brian Clough: 1935-2004. The greatest manager of all time, even if I do say so myself.’

I won’t be writing about Cloughie again, in years to come. But as a complete one-off, no matter which football team you support, he darn well takes some beating.