Don't feel the need to do things because you have to make amends for something decades ago when you were a child. Do it because you want to, because you're a good person, and then realise you are that person. You won't believe what you're reading at times, but as the chorus reaches it's crescendo you'll feel every pang of how the author felt. Craig also witnessed Clough’s descent into alcoholism, accelerated by his experience of the Hillsborough tragedy (Forest were playing Liverpool the day dangerous overcrowding in two terrace “pens” led to 97 Liverpool fans being killed). “I saw someone I loved deeply start to decline. But if anything he became even more protective with me.” In 1993 Forest were relegated and Clough retired. He was only 58 but he looked like an old man, his eyes dulled and distant, his cheeks reddened and blotched by alcohol. And with Covid having disrupted so much of life, last year at this time rather than the usual >1000 books usually coming out at this time, there were only around 250 books published. I walk up the drive and tell Brian, who marches out, looking for the man. For the next three days, there are journalists and photographers in the garden.

He is doing so by using the proceeds to raise money for boys like he was. He has already given much of the book advance to charities supporting the teenage homeless and victims of domestic abuse. "Some good is going to come out of it which is very nice," he says. The media publicity is in the hands of the publisher. I've had lots of offers/requests but haven't been able to commit yet.This story is incredible. As a younger forest fan I only hear of Brian in stories told to me and this is by far the best one. What a lovely man he was and what a brilliant way to tell it from Craig, you can hear the regret he lives with in the way parts of the story are told but I’m sure Brian knows you were sorry and he’d have loved this story being told by you. Thank you for sharing this brilliant story. I love Brian Clough, he was the Forest manager when I was growing up. I might romanticise my childhood memories but he was one of the best things to happen to the club. Nowadays, he says, the only true happiness he gets is from following Nigel Clough around the country, watching whichever team he’s managing. Now Nigel is at Mansfield, with Simon alongside him as chief scout. He doesn’t talk to the Cloughs when he goes to the matches; he doesn’t even tell them he is there. “Brian used to say, ‘You’re either loyal or you’re not’ and for a while I was not. The only way I can show him I’m loyal now is by following Nigel. I love any club he goes to. I immerse myself in it.” It's only 8 points to the play-offs. Doesn't matter if we're 20th having lost three times as many games as we've won so far. I fancy us now that Hughton's gone.

I started it 16 years ago, but could never finish it,” Craig says. “The final chapter was too difficult.” Gradually, as the story unfolds, I begin to realise why. Or maybe it will come when he can see how the money raised from this book is helping others. Children just like him whose lives were transformed with an act of kindness.They said he had just done it for publicity and it would not be happening again." But they were wrong. When discovered by the Clough family, it was handled delicately. The authorities were not involved, there was even severance pay. Brian has a rifle for shooting pheasants, although it has yet to be fired at anything. Now, he threatens to use it on those milling around outside. For those few days, he retreated totally into himself. He was as quiet and as alone as I ever saw him. Those days will be the start of his being dragged down by alcohol. This is a fantastic read, I found it to be very well written and a very personal and open account of Craig's Bromfield's incredible story.

It is a study in society. The haves and have nots. It's a story of love and what it means to have it or not have it as a child. It's a story of belonging, escape, believing in magic and miracles and fate and whether you can ever truly escape where you are created. It was a tough upbringing. "I never felt safe in my own home." His father, technically his stepfather, would beat his mother and had been a somewhat notorious figure. "He did not exactly make it easy on himself or us by becoming a drug dealer," says Craig. Soon enough, he was sitting in the dugout with Clough as Forest won two more League Cups. “Imagine what it’s like for someone to come from where I came from and suddenly be in the dressing room at Wembley on Cup final day, and to be surrounded by heroes,” Craig says. “I had goosebumps. The players made me feel like I was part of the team. I felt like a little king.” How do you follow life with Brian Clough? I thought I wanted success, money, a great house, and none of it’s filled the hole Even now, he follows Nigel's teams with a passion, having switched his support from Burton Albion to Mansfield when he moved clubs. He goes to games home and away. "It is my weak way of showing I am loyal when I was not loyal as a kid," he explains. years ago I posted a thread about a book I've written and while I expected it to be published MUCH sooner, due to challenges (too many to go into) it's finally coming out on November 4th.The boys would be sent out begging, telling strangers they had to walk 12 miles to see their grandmother because they didn’t have the bus fare. At the same time, their parents brought them up to be polite and respectful (partly because it enabled them to manipulate strangers better). Clough knew nothing of this. “I didn’t tell him how bad life was,” Craig says. “I never told him Dad was a drug dealer.”

If you know a Forest fan aged 30 or older, buy them it for Xmas. If you know a football fan, buy them it for Xmas. If you know someone who thinks they are in a rut and life will never change for 'someone like them' buy them it for Xmas.....you get the idea.....But before all that this is a story of hope where there had seemed to be none. A tale of two urchins, Craig only 11, asking for a penny for the Guy as Bonfire Night approached, only to stumble upon the Nottingham Forest team at their hotel preparing to face Newcastle. Be Good, Love Brian has got everything – love, friendship, laugh-out-loud comedy, football, and a heart-breaking betrayal. Craig Bromfield's feel-good story about Brian Clough's life changing generosity ends up something akin to a modern-day Shakespearian tragedy” – Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian Over to the left, in the Leppings Lane end, Liverpool supporters are being lifted over the fences or being helped up to the second tier of the stand. The game comes to a standstill. If Brian hadn’t done what he did,” Craig says now, “I wouldn’t have had a life, because I would have been in prison.” We made him laugh’: Craig Bromfield (left) and his brother Aaron with Clough at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground. Photograph: SWNS