On Boxing Day in 1962, a starry-eyed 13-year-old caught the train from Hartlepool to watch Brian Clough's twinkling feet lead another defence a merry dance.
As the Big Freeze which crippled English football for three months that winter set in, we know Clough was the most underrated striker in the country – because he frequently reminded us. But the ice age came too late to save a prolific goalscorer's career at Sunderland.
Clough suffered a devastating knee injury, and banged his head on the frozen Roker Park pitch, in a collision with Bury goalkeeper Chris Harker which brought his meteoric rise to a crushing full stop. Little did that schoolboy fan, John McGovern, realise that Clough would hand him his first contract in professional football three years later – and sign him as his field marshal at Derby, Leeds and Nottingham Forest.
