Town boss Roy Keane has hailed his former Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough as a “genius”. The Blues manager expects one or two boos from Forest supporters at the City Ground on Saturday but says that will take nothing away from his love of his time with Forest.
Keane has experienced some abuse when returning in the past but says it has little effect on him: "I went back as a player and as a manager with Sunderland and you always get a few boos, but I’m comfortable with that, that won’t take away my feelings towards the club.
"All my memories of Forest are happy ones, unfortunately just at the end we got relegated.
"Other than that, they gave me a great education, a great foundation to go on and become a footballer. I learnt my trade under a brilliant manager and brilliant coaches, it was a great environment - the way we played the game and the players who were there. I enjoyed living in the city and I was in digs with some good lads.
"It was everything you could have dreamed of, to be honest with you, absolutely brilliant. If it wasn’t for Brian Clough and Forest, I wouldn’t be sitting here today.
"I’ll always be grateful to them for that, so a few boos won’t put me off enjoying going back, but I’ll be going back to try and beat them.”
Keane says he loved his three years working with Clough: "A brilliant, brilliant manager. The man was a genius, he was good to me, good to my family, he never lied to me, he treated me with respect and gave me time off when I was homesick.
"He didn’t give me too much money early on, he was clever like that, a clever, clever man. He knew his football and on top of that he had good coaching staff, Liam O’Kane, Archie Gemmill, Ron Fenton, all top, top people who looked after me.”
The Blues boss says Clough didn’t overcomplicate the game: "What I remember most about him was how he kept it simple. But maybe that was just with me because he felt that was all I could understand!
"Before my debut at Liverpool he said, ‘All I want you to do is pass to a red shirt’, we were playing in red that day. I said, ‘I think I can do that’ and I did it for the next 17 or 18 years, passing and moving.”
The Town manager says he still senses Clough’s presence when he has returns to the City Ground: "You walk down in the dressing room area and you feel the man in the building. The same at Derby, I know it’s a different ground, but you can sense the mark he’s left on that football club. And that’s what top people do, they leave a mark on a place and they move on.”
Keane dismisses suggestions that could become ‘another Brian Clough’: "You hope you learn from them, but you’ve got to be your own man. Imagine trying to be like Brian Clough. It’s impossible, because the man was a genius.
"You look what Brian Clough achieved and it’s scary. Winning the European Cup back to back with a club like Forest, unbelievable. I don’t think we’ll ever appreciate what the man did.
"A good honest man. Unfortunately, towards the end people were very critical of his lifestyle, what he might have done, blah, blah, blah, drinking and stuff. A load of nonsense. Just remember him for what he was, a genius, that sums him up I think.”
Asked whether he’d be adopting Clough’s habit of kissing people — former Blues manager John Lyall having been a recipient after the former Forest boss’s final match at Portman Road in 1993 - Keane quipped: "I only kiss my dogs!”