United vs Forest: The Clough years

This extract is from the latest edition of Inside United, for January 2023. Purchase your copy here.

As football fairytales go, only the hardest heart could ignore the alchemy Brian Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor worked at Nottingham Forest in the late 1970s.

Like United, Forest were demoted from the top flight in the first half of the 1970s, at the end of 1971/72 in their case. The two clubs met in the second tier of English football when the Reds were exiled there in 1974/75. Gerry Daly’s first-half goal settled the City Ground affair as the Reds closed in on promotion in March; the sides had shared four goals at Old Trafford in September.

But Forest stunned the football world in…