Nigel Clough’s dad, Brian, won almost everything in football as manager of Nottingham Forest. Old Big Head, as the now-departed Cloughie liked to call himself, brought league championships and the European Cup to Robin Hood’s relatively modest city.
But the closest he came to the FA Cup was that bizarre 1991 final against Spurs when an over-excited Paul Gascoigne crocked himself in the first minute and Forest lost 2-1.
If there is a football heaven, Brian will have been looking down at his son’s Burton Albion at Old Trafford on Wednesday, hopeful of a shock in the great tradition of the FA Cup.
Sadly, it was not to be. Despite a training ground fall-out between horse-faced Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and Portuguese show pony Ronaldo during the week, and a nasty 3-1 defeat against Manchester rivals City last weekend, Sir Alex Ferguson’s men cruised to an emphatic 5-0 victory.
And the Clough fairy tale is over for another year. Perhaps for all time, given Burton’s Conference credentials.
Guiseppe Rossi (who struck twice, with Louis Saha, Ryan Giggs and Kieran Richardson completing the scoreline) and Gerard Piqué, two young United foreigners, did most of the damage, leaving Fergie purring: ”They were the big plusses for us,” before conceding generously that Burton had ”come here with a more positive attitude than most of the European teams. A lot of them come here and bore the pants off us.”
So much for the magic of the cup. Still, the evening before we saw Reading, leading the race for Premiership promotion, overcome West Brom though Middlesbrough sunk Nuneaton 5-2.
The big positives, though, had come in the initial third-round clashes a fortnight ago — Leyton Orient booted out Fulham and Leicester were too much for Spurs. If only the Premiership were as unpredictable.