Brian Clough - 20 years on from death of a football genius

For those first weaned onto football at the outset of the Premier League, Brian Clough might have seemed a sad, almost tragic figure.

The date of 1 May, 1993 was the end of the beginning for the new-look top flight, but for Clough it was the final curtain as his Nottingham Forest side lost 2-0 at home to Sheffield United and ended the season bottom.

The manager, ruddy-faced through years of heavy drinking, had just led Forest down and seemed a jarring anachronism in this new razzmatazz-and-fireworks era, yet the reception for Clough at the start and end of the match at the City Ground was one befitting a hero.

The plaudits could not have been more richly deserved. Here was a manager who, in the opinion of many - including himself - could make a valid claim to be the greatest British football had ever seen.

Two European Cups, two league titles, four League Cups, one European Super Cup and one second-tier title is an excellent record in anyone's book.

To have achieved all that with two teams - Forest and Derby - who had never been as successful before, or indeed since, makes it extraordinary, and is the reason why, 20 years on from his death from stomach cancer on September 20, 2004, he is still so fondly remembered.

His success as a manager perhaps wrongly masks his achievements as a player.

He joined Middlesbrough as a 17-year-old in 1952 but it took the dark-haired striker three years to break into the first team. Once he did, however, he did not look back and he was Boro's top scorer for three seasons in a row.

Finishing his Ayresome Park career with 204 goals from 213 games, Clough made the short journey north to join Sunderland where his career was cruelly cut short after colliding with a goalkeeper. Nevertheless, he ended