ON October 15, 1973, Derby County FC players and fans and the greater footballing world was rocked by newspaper headlines that screamed out from the front and back pages: "Clough and Taylor Resign."
During their six years at Derby the management duo had dragged the club from the Second Division doldrums to winning the League Championship for the first time. Only the season before we had beaten some of the best teams in Europe and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup and, but for the dubious refereeing against Juventus, we might well have gone on to win the competition.
For some time there had been behind-the-scenes rumblings about Brian and the fact that he was becoming bigger than the club. He wasn't just a football manager, he was a character who transcended sport and had become a celebrity.
The TV people always knew they were going to get a show when Brian was on the screens. He was brutally candid and that made him watchable, even to people who had no interest in football.
His relationship with Derby chairman, Sam Longson, was certainly not what it once was. Clough's outspokenness and his love of a TV camera had probably driven a wedge between them.
Things came to a head when Brian told the board that he and Peter wanted to resign. Longson promptly accepted the resignations.
The players had some meetings and, despite various crazy ideas which included taking off for a holiday to Cala Millor instead of playing, sanity prevailed.
My own feeling was that Brian had been unwise and very hasty indeed. He had been building something special at Derby and he was really only at the beginning of it. He'd gone in and said he was going to resign and the chairman had called his bluff.
Going over old ground and attending reinstatement meetings just seemed wrong and pointless and I never felt comfortable with it.
The club realised that if there was anyone who might have a chance of replacing a Derby legend, it would be another.
And so they turned to Dave Mackay . . .
