'I've met Mikel Arteta once... his team beat us 9-0!': NIGEL CLOUGH on his Mansfield side's FA Cup clash with Arsenal, living in his dad's shadow and how his dog Bobbie motivates the team

The spring sunshine is out at Mansfield’s training ground and Nigel Clough is walking down the stairs with a big brown dog in his arms. Bobbie – a nine-year-old Hungarian Vizsla – is Clough’s most steadfast companion as he pushes deep into his 28th year in management.

‘Bobbie is here all the time,’ says Clough. ‘She is great for the players’ mental health, and mine. The PFA have actually commended us for using her. The injured players walk her and some of the others too. She isn’t great on these stairs, mind, so I give her a hand.’

Clough hasn’t kept count and the official figure is devilishly difficult to find but he has now managed in excess of 1,500 games, more than his famous father Brian. ‘He did win a few more trophies than I have,’ is Clough’s take on that one.

Much has changed in football during his time at Burton (twice), Derby, Sheffield United and now five-and-a-half years at League One Mansfield. As Clough prepares to host Premier League leaders Arsenal in the FA Cup on Saturday the financial gap between the top flight and the rest is greater than ever.

‘It would be nice if they would help us a little more,’ says Clough.

But fundamentally, the very bones of it all haven’t altered. It’s about people and getting the best out of them. To that end it’s about creating an atmosphere that offers players an opportunity to relax and thrive.

Nigel Clough at Mansfield's training ground with his dog Bobbie. Clough's team take on Premier League leaders Arsenal in the FA Cup on Saturday

'In our recruitment, the character of a player is a massive part,' Clough says. 'It was one of Dad's founding principles and it's one of mine too'

The squeeze is on at Mansfield right now. Despite winning at Sheffield United and then Burnley in the Cup, Clough’s players have not won in the league since January 17 and sit just five points above the relegation zone.

It is making Clough nervous but as he sits with his allies of three decades - brother and chief scout Simon and assistant manager and former Nottingham Forest team-mate Gary Crosby - in their office at Mansfield’s smart modern facility, you wouldn’t know it. The T20 cricket is on the big TV. Bobbie hovers – awaiting life’s next great adventure – in the corner.

‘This job is completely about managing people,’ Clough tells Daily Mail Sport . ‘You're still trying to get players to run through a brick wall for you. And it’s harder now because they're not always naturally inclined to do it. It’s generational. Anybody in any business – say the building trade – will tell you the same.

‘In our recruitment, the character of the player is a massive part. I know it was one of Dad’s founding principles and it’s one of mine too.’

In these days of micro-managing, Clough is a bit of a throwback. You wouldn’t find a dog in any modern coaching manual, nor some of the 59-year-old’s other methods. But instinct remains an important tool. At tier-three level – where players earn more modestly – money and its associated vices are not necessarily the problem. Other, rather more fundamental, issues can be at play.

‘At the moment it’s about babies,’ smiles Clough. ‘I think we have about 30 children among the squad. So the biggest challenge is getting the dads home after training.

‘I will ask: “Are you going to go home?” and it’s “Yeah, I'm just finishing my lunch. I'm just gonna go in the gym.” “Go home!”. “Yeah, but it's really hard work when I go home”. “Well, yeah it is. But it’s also important. So go home!”.

‘Seriously, I've never known a squad want to stay overnight for games as much as this one. It makes me smile.’

'Our biggest achievement was staying in League One last year,' says Clough. 'I still get called names when we don't win - that's part of the job, but it happens less here because our fans know our history'

Mansfield are 16th in League One, five points above the relegation zone. 'I just wish we had another five or six points,' says Clough

Clough was a young father when he took his first job in management, at non-league Burton Albion in 1998. His son Will is now an academy coach at Peterborough and his daughter Helena works in Manchester.

‘There was only one job going in the Football League back then and it was at Leeds of all places,’ laughs Clough. ‘I mean, they were never going to give a bloke called Clough that job again were they? So I went to Burton as player-manager and ended up staying nine years and playing 200-odd games.

‘My dad was still alive for the first few years but he didn't really get it, you know? He used to say, “I'd won championships by this time” or whatever and I was there (in non-League) looking after my kids. But I wouldn't have swapped those years for anything.’

After Harrogate manager Simon Weaver, Pep Guardiola and Saturday’s opponent Mikel Arteta, Clough is the fourth longest-serving manager in the country. His years have brought some success – FA Cup runs and promotions – and no little wisdom.

‘Everything's so structured in football now,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure that’s always best. We will say to the players that if you don’t want to do the warm-up then don't do it. You know what works for you. Be ready for three o'clock.

‘I mean, Stuart (Pearce) and I never went out at Nottingham Forest. He'd smash a couple of balls against the wall and I would read the programme. I played with John Robertson, maybe my dad’s greatest player. Yet he might be having a fag at half-time.

‘It's so sad that Robbo has passed. What a man. I found out at his funeral that he played 243 consecutive games. Imagine that. These days they say we can't play Sunday-Thursday. Robbo was not the greatest physical specimen but Dad and Peter (Taylor) just gave him belief.

‘You see all these players strutting around now looking immaculate with the tattoos. John was the complete opposite but had more ability and character than most of them put together.’

Clough says walking his dog Bobbie, a nine-year-old Hungarian Vizsla, is 'great for his players' mental health'

Louis Reed celebrates his goal that knocked Burnley out of the FA Cup at Turf Moor in the fourth round

An avid reader – he has just found Martin Amis’s Money ‘a bit strange’ – Clough has no interest in scrolling through social media but nevertheless takes his phone to bed with him every night.

‘I have to leave it on because if a player has a problem, I really need to know,’ he explains. ‘If there’s a problem at 2am, I would like to know about it by 2.15am. I can help. It’s my job. And yeah, it has happened on a couple of occasions.’

A pastoral figure as well as a coach, Clough has always been able to see bigger pictures in life quite naturally. After beating Burnley in round four, he skipped what could have been a celebratory post-match press conference to go and talk to his children. Meanwhile, he was in Nando’s with his wife Margaret when the draw for the next stage was made.

‘I wasn’t interested in watching it,’ he says. ‘I would find out at some stage.’

Now, though, the focus is real. On Clough’s watch and under the 16-year stewardship of owner John Radford and his wife Carolyn, Mansfield have been transformed. The team was 22nd in League Two when Clough arrived. After one Wembley play-off defeat, promotion was secured automatically in 2024. Season ticket sales have doubled over the period.

‘When you win at Burnley and you have 3,500 there and you see what it means to them, well that’s perhaps justification of why you do the job,’ Clough says. ‘Then Arsenal are coming here and it’s brilliant. But our biggest achievement was staying in League One last year. I still get called names when we don’t win and that’s part of the job, but it happens less here because our fans know our history.

‘All people want us to do in this town is keep the team in League One. That is what really, really matters. In my first season I recall losing 2-0 at Northampton and we were rubbish. Hadn’t won for ages. Under pressure. The next game we drew with Port Vale and they gave us a standing ovation.

‘I haven’t forgotten that. These people matter to us. I just wish we had another five or six points right now.’

Clough – a beautiful attacking footballer for Forest, Liverpool, Manchester City and England – has history with the FA Cup. His Sheffield United lost a semi-final to Hull in 2014 but it’s memories of 1991 that trouble his soul. He was a 25-year-old Forest forward and his dad was the manager on the day Paul Gascoigne’s double assault on Gary Charles and Garry Parker left him with a ruined knee but only a yellow card. Gascoigne’s Tottenham won 2-1 in extra-time.

Clough was a beautiful attacking footballer for Forest, Liverpool, Manchester City and England

Paul Gascoigne receives treatment after injuring himself in the 1991 FA Cup final, where Tottenham beat Clough's Forest 2-1

‘Gazza was an exceptional talent but that doesn't excuse those tackles,’ says Clough. ‘He should have been sent off for the first one, which would have meant we'd have possibly gone on and won and he wouldn't have done his knee with the second one. It would have saved his career.

‘It was one of the worst challenges you'll see. Horrific. The referee (Roger Milford) didn’t do his job.

'We only got to one FA Cup final. So did my dad. That was our chance. I get it said to me all the time that dad never criticised referees. I mean would you really want to know what he thought about them? We would be here a while.’

Clough will turn 60 later this month and the chances are this will be his last job. Asked why he still does it, he says he doesn’t know. Some mornings, when his knees are stiff and the season feels long, he asks himself the same question and wonders if he would rather be walking Bobbie along a beach in Norfolk. But never for long. Harder to shake are the painful parts. Being sacked by Sheffield United, for example.

‘You hate to see a manager sacked, but you can understand it sometimes,’ he reflects. ‘But there's other times when you think, “Hold on a minute” and Sheffield United was one of those. And that's still hard to take a decade later.

‘You block it out as much as you can. But it's always there. I will never be over it.’

Nigel played under his dad Brian at Forest for nine seasons, winning the Leage Cup twice

Clough played for his father at Forest for nine seasons and wouldn’t change it. It must have been less easy to follow a great into management. It’s not an easy question but I put to him that it sometimes may have felt as much a burden as a blessing.

‘I don't know… I think that's for others to judge,’ he replies.

Have you felt it, though? ‘You are born with it, you know,’ he says. ‘That's your name so yeah, you're aware of it all the time. When you're growing up and Mike Yarwood does an impression of your dad on Saturday-night TV, that probably means that he’s one of the most recognisable people in the country.

‘So, you know, it leads to an element of a dysfunctional upbringing at times. I think that's probably a fair assessment. Yarwood was doing Edward Heath, Harold Wilson, Dennis Healey and Brian Clough.

‘We were protected from it as much as possible by Mum and Dad but I don't know how that has affected things going forward. It’s hard to say, isn’t it? I know he did his best. He certainly did with holidays because he never took us anywhere exciting! Nobody found us in the Scilly Isles!’

Clough Snr died in September 2004 at the age of 69. ‘Yeah, 21-and-a-half years now,’ says his son without pause. ‘I just wish the grandkids had more time with him.’

Much has been said and written about the famous Forest boss over the years, not all of it accurate. Books by those who claimed to have known him. A film that blurred fact into fiction. All has been noted with Clough’s major concern being that it upset his late mother Barbara. ‘That wasn’t easy to see,’ he says.

Without doubt some of what his father did – some of his values – have bled into his own career. It would be strange were it any other way. ‘I try and look after players like he did,’ he reflects. ‘And I laugh when teams arrive hours before kick-off. At Forest we would get there at 2.15pm. Dad didn’t want you just sitting thinking about the game.

‘Sometimes it got tight. We would be on the M1 in traffic and Dad would be asking Albert the coach driver if he would get a fine for driving down the hard shoulder.’

Clough with Daily Mail Sport's Ian Ladyman at the Mansfield training ground. 'I enjoy working with the staff and also the players in the moments I don't want to strangle them,' he jokes

Clough would have liked the Forest job but declined an offer in 2017. In recent years he has tried to ease the load. Management is not easy and you will not find him at the training ground for 12 hours a day.

‘Some do that but I don't know what they find to do,’ he says. ‘If we have a particularly tough run of games and travelling, then I'll take a day off. I'm very happy to leave the staff to look after things. My dad used to do it. We used to go to Torremolinos in February half-term. He would miss a game.

‘It was for the family but also so he could get his head out of football for a few days. I don't think these days they would have the courage to do that. It would be, “Where is Pep?”.

‘But I saw an old highlights programme and my dad wasn't there for the game. And then the commentator Brian Moore says they were 38 games unbeaten or something. That always helps.’

Clough and his players will need to be fully present this weekend. He has only met Arteta once. ‘He was assistant to Pep when I took Burton to Manchester City in the Cup,’ he smiles. ‘We lost 9-0.’

More seriously, he worries about the game he will soon leave behind. ‘The big clubs will say they care about us,’ he says. ‘Well, put your money where your mouth is then. They control 85 per cent of the money and bring most of that in, but they still have a responsibility to the pyramid.

What if Premier League players gave up five per cent of their wage and allowed it to help further down? Do you think they might survive? They might just be all right.’

'I've told the wife I may push through to 2,000 games but she says I'm on my own. So it won't be long now and when you know your time is reduced, everything becomes more important and special'

And with that, our time is done. Bobbie needs a proper walk and her owner is off to watch a game at Burton, as it happens. It’s been a re-energising and life-affirming two hours. More broadly, Clough thinks he may understand what has driven him on for 25 years a little further down the line.

‘Maybe I will find an answer when I am sitting on the beach somewhere,’ he says. ‘I’ve told the wife I may push through to 2,000 games but she says I’m on my own. So it won’t be long now and when you know your time is reduced, everything becomes more important and special.

‘I enjoy working with the staff and also the players in the moments I don’t want to strangle them!

‘You know, without Saturday afternoons it would be quite a nice job. Somewhere between 3pm and 5pm it can tend to get ruined.’