Nottingham Evening Post feature writer Oonagh Robinson has her own personal memory of an encounter with Brian Clough — and the day she turned him down for a date. On the first anniversary of his death, she remembers her encounter.

I was working as a reporter for the Evening Post back in the early 1990s and happened to be on a 2-10pm shift when someone was needed to try to speak to Cloughie at his house in Quorn at the time of the "bung" scandal and the subsequent court case.

A colleague had been sitting outside Cloughie's house with a photographer for days waiting to get his comments on the case, and on this afternoon he had been called back home so someone had to take over from him.

I pointed out to the news editor that I knew absolutely nothing about football and hadn't been following the case, so I might not be the best person for this job. But I was the only one available and I was assured that we "probably wouldn't get him anyway".

I turned up and took over the stakeout with photographer Trevor Bartlett. I kept going up to the door and knocking, but Cloughie's daughter always answered and said he wasn't home.

This occurred several times and finally, we tried again. Cloughie appeared and I told him who I was. I said: "I don't know why they've sent me, I don't know a thing about football." And that seemed to do the trick, he was as nice as pie ... and then when he found out his old friend Trevor was also waiting in the car, we both got invited in, cup of tea, the works.

He was as charming as anything and gave me some great quotes to use ... well, he had been totally exonerated of all charges, so that probably helped.

He tried to persuade us to come to the pub with him for tea too, but we had to decline as we had to get back to the office and put the story through for the next day's front page. So my claim to fame has always been that I turned Cloughie down on a date.

Footnote: The "bung" scandal surrounded the transfer of Teddy Sheringham to Tottenham Hotspur and a remark made in the High Court by Tottenham's then chairman Alan Sugar. He alleged that Spurs boss Terry Venables had once said Brian Clough "liked a bung". Venables denied it, but the mud stuck. The FA decided there were no grounds for a disciplinary hearing.