Brian Clough never forgot. Not only those surgeons, doctors, nurses and NHS staff who helped save his life after he underwent a liver transplant in the Freeman Hospital but, also, the countless messages of support he received during his stay there.
"Up there on Tyneside, they couldn't have been kinder to me if I'd been their own father, son, brother or uncle," the legendary manager later wrote in his memoirs. "In fact, I think they were kinder to me than they are to one of their own."
Perhaps you can see why Clough once teased that he would walk back to the North East if he was ever asked - and the two-time European Cup winner came mightily close to doing just that in 1981.
