“CLOUGHIE WOULD TAKE THE PLAYERS TO MALLORCA AND SEND ALL THE WIVES FLOWERS – IT KEPT US OUT OF TROUBLE”
Forest’s ex- goal machine on miracles under Old Big ’ Ead and pressure in Deutschland
You came through the Nottingham Forest academy but were loaned out early on in your career. How useful were those spells?
They were a lifesaver really, because I wasn’t getting on too well with Mr Clough at Forest. Lincoln were top of the Fourth Division and sold out every home match – about 15,000 fans at Sincil Bank. Suddenly I had someone believing that I could actually play the game. After doing well at Lincoln, there were more lower- league clubs taking an interest in me. That built my confidence and I later went to Doncaster. I thought, ‘ I’m never going to play for Forest again’. But after returning, I went to see Clough and asked him if he’d give me an opportunity. I was thrown out of his office three times until he finally agreed to play me against Ayr United in the Anglo- Scottish Cup.
Forest were called ‘ The Miracle Men’ after getting promoted to the top flight, winning it, then bagging back- to- back European Cups. How special was that achievement?
It won’t happen again; someone mid- table in the Championship securing promotion by the skin of their teeth, then becoming English champions and European Cup winners. After I left, they were European champions again. We also won a few League Cups and Charity Shields – virtually every trophy going was in Forest’s trophy cabinet by the end of Clough’s reign. They called us ‘ Miracle Men’ and it was a miracle – it’s a football fairytale which I’m very proud to be part of.
You won PFA Young Player of the Year in that first top- flight season. How good was it to know you were playing a huge part in your local team’s historic achievements? Of course, it’s something a little bit special if you’re coming from your home area, playing
for your local club and you’re winning things. Viv Anderson, Garry Birtles and myself, we all came from Nottingham. We were so proud of that, being local, and having an association with the city. You’re lucky to get three players from one country in a Champions League side these days, never mind three English players from one city.
Everyone has a favourite Brian Clough tale. What’s yours?
With Clough, all you could do was expect the unexpected. You could arrive for training and he’d say, “Right, get your passports, we’re off to Mallorca for a few days.” For people like Viv and myself it was brilliant, as we were young, but the ones who were married knew they’d get earache from their wives. Clough would then send them flowers – he was a one- off.
Why did you join Köln in 1979 and how was life in Germany back then?
We’d won virtually everything at Forest and Kevin Keegan had been a success in Hamburg at that time. In Germany, there were some of the world’s best players, whether that was at Köln or Bayern Munich. I was also offered the chance to go to Spain and Italy, but I’d made up my mind after chatting to Kevin. He’d said the standard of football was top- notch, and off I went. It was still nerve- wracking to give up my hometown team. Few players moved abroad back in those days, so there was extra stress and pressure, but it was the best thing I could have done. I loved it.
How much pressure did you feel joining for a then- Bundesliga record fee of £ 600,000?
I thought I was cheap! If I’d gone to another English club, I’d have cost double. I know that Forest could have sold me for £ 1 million – the same sum Trevor Francis joined Birmingham for. It was a deal that Köln couldn’t possibly regret. I didn’t view it as risky, but the whole German press and everyone else in Germany thought, ‘ Wow, it’s costing the most money ever. How can they afford this sort of thing?’ They said wages would get sky high after the contract I signed, but what was I supposed to be earning? I was the league’s record buy!
The great Rinus Michels was your coach at Köln – what was he like?
We had a brilliant training base in the middle of the woods, and I got to know 90 per cent of the trees by constantly running past them. He used to run us like dogs – he was a tough one. He once said, “I know you can play the game, all of you, you’re international players. But you need to be fit and do what I tell you.” Rinus was an authoritarian but he was good.
After returning home with Arsenal in 1982, you didn’t win anything despite reaching two semi- finals and being their top scorer for three years. How frustrating was that?
I knew it was going to be a transitional spell at the club. But the fact that it was Arsenal, the fact that it was Highbury and the fact it was London appealed to me. I just hoped the transitional period would pass a little quicker rather than not really happening at all. While individually it went well for me, it just shows that it’s a team game and you need talanted players in the squad. Although we had lots of decent lads, it wasn’t a solid functioning side that was very consistent. You have to put that down to management [ Terry Neill, then Don Howe]. It’s up to the manager to pick a team that’s going to win things. We could either be phenomenal or awful on any given weekend.
During 1983- 84, you scored a post- war club record of five goals in one match against Aston Villa. How much do you remember?
Someone recently said, which I’d forgotten, that I scored all five goals in the first 50- odd minutes. I had another 40 minutes to score the three goals that would have broken Ted Drake’s all- time record! [ Seven in one game, also against Villa in 1935] I should have been going crazy at every Arsenal player to get the ball to me, but I just played the game. If I’d had the mentality of a Dieter Muller, I’d have known the timing when number five went in and would have gone to break Drake’s record. So, in hindsight, that’s what’s disappointing.
You knew Toni Schumacher at Köln. What did you think when you saw him wipe out Patrick Battiston at the 1982 World Cup?
I know Toni well and it looked like he tried to do him, but he insisted his timing was wrong. What appeared like arrogance after the injury was just that Toni didn’t know what to do, as no one was near him and could believe what was happening. He apologised to Patrick and went to see him in France afterwards. He got set up, because they went to a hotel room to talk and it was full of press, which wasn’t nice.