Craig Bromfield was a ‘ragtag’ youngster when the legendary football manager changed his life by inviting him into his family. So what went wrong?
• Read an extract from Bromfield’s book here
Craig Bromfield stands on the steps of Sunderland’s Seaburn beach, staring into the past. “It was 9.30am on a Saturday, freezing,” he says. “My brother Aaron’s in the sea just in his pants and I’m running along here, backwards and forwards, thinking I’m the bloke off Chariots of Fire. Then Aaron gets out and runs up these steps, waving at me, and Brian’s just walking along here with his entourage.”
He didn’t know who Brian Clough was. But Aaron explained, Craig approached him and it changed his life. The date, 20 October 1984, is etched in Craig’s mind. He was 11, Aaron was 12, and Clough was a legendary football manager and former player. As a manager, he had achieved the impossible twice – first with Derby County, then with Nottingham Forest. He had taken these two modest clubs from the old second division to champions of football’s top tier for the first time in their respective histories. Then, in 1979 and 1980, he went one further, winning the European Cup in successive years with a Forest team composed largely of rejects and has-beens.