The man who ghosted Brian Clough's long-running column in the Nottingham Evening Post has recalled his time being the great man's mouthpiece.

Duncan Hamilton was the Nottingham Forest writer at the Post during the team's glory years.

Cloughie's column was a regular feature, which Duncan, now deputy editor at the Yorkshire Post, honed into shape to give Brian a reader-friendly voice.

When the paper carried the column it almost always made the back pages of the tabloids because of the outspoken content.

Duncan said: "It was one of the best-read columns in the regional press.

"We used to do the column walking around the training ground together, on the team coach or in Brian's office at the City Ground, where he would play Frank Sinatra records on his gramophone.

"Despite the fact all the obits say he was so outspoken, he was also incredibly generous. He got a vast amount of money for the column and said to me one day he wanted some of the fee given back to me because of the work I did on it.

"He didn't actually need the money from the column but could see the value of it."

The day after Clough left Forest, Duncan took his family around to his house. This was when the Post was broadsheet and was probably the only time such a paper had a ghost-written column as the front page lead.

The column ran for around ten years from 1982 to 1991, when Clough retired from football.

Duncan said: "I also remember the bollockings he gave me. He dragged me down to the cutting room to tackle me about a previous match report and banned me from the ground - which he did several times.

Forty-eight hours later he called me to find out why I hadn't turned up to the match and when reminded him that he had banned me from the ground all he said was 'I just said that'.

"It was a remarkable period that I'll never forget. Whatever he said sold papers. It wasn't so much a case of covering the club - you covered Brian. He knew if he spoke to me he'd reach his target audience.

"His death was such a shock and caused all the memories to come flooding back.

"For a decade I'd travelled with the team and saw more of Brian than anyone else for ten years.

"It is terribly sad."

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