John Robertson obituary: Nottingham Forest was ‘the Picasso of football’

Robertson played for Scotland at schoolboy and youth level before joining Forest as a teenager in 1970. He had failed to make any impact until Clough’s appointment, but the great manager saw something he could nurture.

Clough wrote in his autobiography: “Rarely has there ever been an improbable-looking professional athlete… a scoundrel, an unfit, an uninterested waste of time… but something told me he was worth persevering through and becoming one of the best players I have ever seen in football.”

He also wrote: “If I ever felt a little coloured, I’d sit beside him. I was compared to Errol Flynn. But give him a ball and a yard of grass, and he’ll be an artist, Picasso our toy.”

Clough was loved by Robertson, who said: “I knew he loved me but I loved him. I wouldn’t have had a career without him.”

Robertson made 243 consecutive appearances between December 1976 and December 1980, and despite successive big-time signings such as England goalkeeper Peter Shilton and Francis, Britain’s first million-pound footballer, he was the player who made Forest tick.

For all the talent elsewhere, Robertson was the fulcrum for Forest.

In Forest’s first season in the Championship under Clough in 1977–78, Robertson not only played a vital role in winning the title, but also scored the winning goal from the penalty spot against Liverpool in the League Cup Final replay at Old Trafford.

Clough was not the only one to recognize Robertson’s importance, as former teammate Martin O’Neill said: “He was the most influential player in Europe for maybe three-and-a-half to four years.”

“He was like Ryan Giggs but with two good feet,” said Forest captain under Clough, John McGovern.

All this despite Robertson admitting that he does not have the pace and cannot tackle.

However, Clough was unfazed by what Robertson couldn’t do, preferring to give him license to focus on what he could do. It was the perfect footballing marriage between manager and player. Two separate personalities working in harmony.

In a famous interview before the 1980 European Cup final against Hamburg, who had England captain Kevin Keegan in his team, Clough was asked about the possibility of German right-back Manfred Kaltz keeping Robertson quiet.

“We’ve got a little fat man who’s going to turn it upside down,” Clough said. “Very talented, highly skilled, unbelievable outside left.”