Peter Taylor - With Clough, By Taylor

T he voice of Brian Clough has been likened to the sound of rending calico, but it can also be as rousing as a bugle call and change peoples lives, as it did mine in the autumn of 1965.

Holiday postcards excepted, I hadnt heard from Brian in four years until he telephoned my home and came straight to the point.

Ive been offered the managership of Hartlepools and I dont fancy it. But if youll come, Ill consider it. Then he banged the phone down.

Can there ever have been a more offhand summons to football glory? For that was the birth, or rather the conception, of a partnership destined to win the League Championship for both Derby County and Nottingham Forest, to spend millions of pounds on players while smashing transfer records, to win the Football League Cup twice, to win at Wembley and to win the European Cup twice. Enemies dubbed us the Kray twins, an insulting label in which the only grain of truth is the twin-like affinity of our views on how to run a successful club; we have fought, argued and even split up for a couple of years, but have never differed on this basic conviction.

The phone call about the job at Hartlepools, however, caught me in a quandary, for I was already a successful manager with Burton Albion in the Southern League. I had just moved into a bungalow with my wife Lilian and our children Wendy and Philip; I had a three-year contract at 34 a week, as well as a perk of 7 a week for coaching at a high school. The club were top of the table and recent winners of the Southern League Cup when Brian rang; because he hung up without giving me time to speak, I had to call him back and explain the position.

Ive only had this three-year contract for a few days and Im very proud of it, but at the same time Im mad keen to get into the Football League. Can we meet halfway and discuss it? He said, Ill see you in York. We settled on the Chase Hotel by the racecourse; I went with Lilian and he arrived with his wife, Barbara, and their young son, Simon, in his arms. He wasnt the spruce, boyish Brian Clough I had known at Middlesbrough. His face reflected a dreadful year in which he had been sacked as Sunderlands youth coach and warned by medical specialists that he must never play serious football again.

No one knows how hard that hit me, he confessed later. I went berserk for a time, drinking heavily and being hell to live with. He didnt need to tell me. I saw the drink in his thickened features and realised he had reached a dead end in his career.

His testimonial match later that month was expected to raise at least 5,000, but money would not cure his problems. He needed work, even at such a hopeless club as Hartlepools. I dont fancy the place, he said. Still less do I fancy the man who is offering the job. But I cant go on as I am.

Brian was recommended to Hartlepools by the former Sunderland and England inside-forward, Len Shackleton, the north-east sports columnist for the Sunday People. The directors had been convinced by Shackleton that their club would run better under two bosses, and he then persuaded Brian to approach me.

Shackleton had hit upon an idea that had been in my mind for years; the belief that two men the right two could build up a club quicker than one. Brian and I complemented each other; we got on well together and were particularly alike in wanting results quickly.

Youll be my right hand, said Brian. Not an assistant manager, more a joint manager, except that they dont go in for titles at Hartlepools and well have to disguise you as the trainer. The other bad news is that they cant afford to pay you more than 24 a week.

It meant dropping 17 a week, enough then to pay the mortgage on a house. I would be dropping in status from manager to trainer. It meant running out with the sponge on match days, a job that I dislike. It meant going against the advice and wishes of my wife and closest friends, who wanted me to stay at Burton where, if my cup victory was followed by promotion from our division of the Southern League, I would be qualified for a Football League club of my own.

Yet, against all logic, I promised Brian, Ill come. We shook hands on it, and thats how we started.