Remembering Brian Clough ten years on

"I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business, but i was in the top one."

Ten years has passed incredibly quickly since football lost one of its biggest ever characters and my club Nottingham Forest lost the man who undoubtedly put it on the map.

Many Forest supporters will probably be able to tell you exactly where they were at the moment they heard the news of Brian Clough's passing on the 20th September 2004. I certainly can. I had just started at university. I had been in Leeds a matter of days, and a fairly insignificant welcome session ended with me recieving a text message telling me the news. I remember nothing at all about the hour in the room which preceded it, but I will take that feeling of reading that text to the grave. I could take you to that room now. My biggest regret to this day as a Forest fan was that I couldn't get back to Nottingham for the game against West Ham, the first at the City Ground since Clough's death. I watched the game on television in a Horsforth pub, with tears in my eyes at the significance of the moment. We won that match, but just eight more wins all season meant that we were relegated at the end of the season. Those were dark days for the team but we seem to be finally back on track; top of the Sky Bet Championship on the tenth anniversary of that sad day.

Last Sunday the club began its period of marking the anniversary with the game against Derby County. It seemed fitting that the fixture gods had brought together the two clubs with which Clough will always be most associated. He is arguably the reason why the rivalry is so fierce between the two sides of the stretch of the A52 which now bears his name. The game itself wasn't particuarly memorable, they rarely are, apart from a few flashpoints, but the afternoon was never going to be about 90 minutes of football. The minute's applause after ten minutes was observed by fans of both the clubs which Clough loved so much, and save for the three idiots that invaded the pitch during the second half, all in attendance behaved themselves and respected the man and the occasion. It was a timely reminder that while Nottingham Forest and Derby are rivals, we're not enemies. I am glad I was there to pay my respects.

You don't need me to tell you about Clough. We all have our stories and memories of him, even those of us who never met him or even saw any of his Forest teams play. My Dad once asked him for a handshake at East Midlands Airport following a European away game. Clough replied "course you can, big fella". I must have heard the story a thousand times, but the enthusiasm is still there when my dad tells anyone who will listen as if it made his life.

There will never be another manager like him. There will certainly never be an opportunity for a club like Nottingham Forest to rule Europe twice, certainly not without billions of pounds of investment.

Stuart Pearce has led us to the top of the table, and although we're only seven games into the league season, it's difficult not to think of how fitting it would be to mark such a significant year - it's also the club's 150th anniversary in 2015 - with promotion back into the top flight. There's a long way to go, but you just never know.

Sky Bet Championship prediction 2014-15

The new season is back and so is Behind The Goal. It's the third season of your favourite football blog. Thank you for reading my posts last season, or if you are a new reader, welcome aboard.

The Sky Bet Football League kicks off this weekend, and as always, the race for promotion should be hotly contested. No fewer than 18 of the 24 clubs have played in the Premier League at some point, and a similar number will head into the campaign with genuine hopes of troubling at least the play-off places in the spring.

The three teams relegated last season are all in pole position to bounce straight back, with none of those sides having to make drastic changes. Fulham, Cardiff City and Norwich City will be in the mix and ought to finish in the play-off places with little fuss. All three of them will fully expect that they can bounce straight back via automatic promotion.

But of those, it is Fulham who are most proving that the parachute payments from the drop can now fund a promotion campaign rather than protect a club against further demotions, as has been the case in the past. Felix Magath's men will now be led by last season's Championship top scorer Ross McCormack, who moves to Craven Cottage for a second-tier record £11 million. He threw goals in for fun last year in an average Leeds United team, and he should continue where he left off, and my opinion, help the Cottagers bounce straight back to the Premier League in style.

Of last May's beaten play-off teams, Wigan Athletic are best placed to challenge again, although Derby County and Brighton and Hove Albion also have retained the squads needed to go close. After last season's poor start, not helped by their Europa League campaign, Wigan rallied to a top-six finish, and were unlucky not to beat Queens Park Rangers in the semi-finals. A better start, and maybe Uwe Rosler will get the Latics back this time.

As for my club, Nottingham Forest, to say this last week before the big kick-off has been a rollercoaster ride is somewhat of an understatement, and possibly worth a blog post longer than this one all by itself. In a nutshell, the controversial sales (and loans back) of Jamaal Lascelles and Karl Darlow to Newcastle United paid for the transfer fees of Michail Antonio from Sheffield Wednesday, and Britt Assombalonga from Peterborough United, the latter for a club record fee of in excess of £5 million.

Those additions, plus the recruitments of the likes of Matt Fryatt, Michael Mancienne, Lars Veldwijk and Chris Burke make us far stronger in depth than last year, when we limped home in a disappointing 11th place. Wishful thinking maybe, but a play-off place is the least I expect this season. I will play safe and not put us any higher than 6th though. I daren't predict we will finish above Derby County, although there will be very little separating both teams this time around. I'll be at the City Ground on Saturday  for Stuart Pearce's first game as manager against Blackpool; needless to say the atmosphere will be something special as a genuine club legend returns.

At the bottom, I am hardly going out on a limb in tipping Blackpool for the drop. What has been allowed to happen at Bloomfield Road is a disgrace, and the fans deserve better than to enter a league season with barely more than eleven players to play in it. Newly promoted Brentford may find the step up one too far, and can Charlton Athletic defy the odds with another late season revival? Possibly not, given their manager Jose Riga left, ironically to Blackpool, and they have a newcomer to English football in charge in the shape of Bob Peeters. Their young squad may just lack the quality to get over the line this year.

Last season I correctly called two of the relegation places, and I was right in predicting Queens Park Rangers' promotion, although I did think it would be automatic. In the interest of fairness I should also point out that I had runners-up Burnley down in 18th place before a ball had been kicked, so it's not all doom and gloom if I put your team towards the bottom.

Here is the BTG Championship table prediction:

1. Fulham

2. Wigan Athletic
3. Cardiff City
4. Norwich City
5. Derby County
6. Nottingham Forest
7. Ipswich Town
8. Blackburn Rovers
9. Brighton and Hove Albion
10. Middlesbrough
11. Reading
12. Wolverhampton Wanderers
13. AFC Bournemouth
14. Bolton Wanderers
15. Watford
16. Birmingham City
17. Leeds United
18. Rotherham United
19. Huddersfield Town
20. Sheffield Wednesday
21. Millwall
22. Charlton Athletic
23. Brentford
24. Blackpool

Where do you think your team will finish? Have I got your boys in the right place? Whether you agree or disagree leave a message or Tweet me @adamgray50