IT was a warm teatime in early May 1967 and with my pal, Rams winger Nigel Cleevely, I was strolling towards a local match on Rykneld Rec when Granville Sandford, a supporter well connected with the Derby board, called us over.
He had some news: the Rams were about to sack manager Tim Ward.
That Saturday, the directors selected the team for the last game of the season, against Plymouth Argyle at the Baseball Ground, and we wondered who would pick the next line-up, for the start of the
1967-68 season.
We didn't have long to wait.
On May 15, it was announced that Brian Clough had taken over.
For the first time in their history the Rams would have an assistant manager, in the shape of Peter Taylor who I'd got to know when he managed Burton Albion.
I was excited by Clough's appointment. He had first come into my consciouness back in the late 1950s when he was a prolific goalscorer with Middlesbrough.
He was already a controversial figure. Despite rattling up 204 goals in only 222 games for Boro, he was capped only twice for England.
Even in those days the FA were frightened of Brian Clough's reputation.
An abrasive character, he had proved so unpopular as Boro's captain that the players signed a petition demanding that he step down. Tellingly, the only one of his teammates who refused to put his name to it was Peter Taylor.
So when he came to Derby, Clough's reputation as an awkward cuss was already well established. I thought that we might be in for a roller-coaster ride. So it turned out.
The first Rams manager I clearly remembered was Harry Storer, himself a colourful figure who was never afraid to call the proverbial spade a shovel. But even Storer paled beside Clough.
Storer's successor, the quietly spoken Tim Ward, was about as far removed from either as it is possible to imagine, and so what happened next really was like a blast of fresh air sweeping through the dusty old Baseball Ground.
Before long Derby County had a manager who was a national figure, one who made newspaper headlines and appeared on television.
After he famously predicted that, whatever else happened, the Rams would finish higher than in the last season under Ward, and then they proceeded to end up one place lower, supporters were not worried. They could see great changes afoot.
The following five years were the most exciting times in Derby County's story.
Those of us brought up on tales of players we'd never seen in action – Carter and Doherty, Crooks and Duncan, Barker and Cooper – suddenly had our own legends to talk about.
For the first time in a generation the town – because we were then still a town – of Derby was alive with football talk.
People spent half the week discussing the previous match and the other half looking forward to the next one.
League champions? European Cup? It hardly made sense.
When Real Madrid were on their way to winning five European Cups on the trot, Derby County were playing Gateshead and Southport in the Third Division North. Now the Rams were going into the same hat as the Spanish giants.
My own dealings with Brian Clough were few – when we were first introduced he misheard my name and forever after that called me "Tom" – but behind the brash exterior I detected a shy man who compensated with bluff and bluster.
Above all, for me he will always be the greatest football manager who ever lived.
Just thinking about those days still quickens the pulse.
