The last time I saw Brian Clough in the flesh – and sadly there were not enough of those occasions in a work capacity – he went through a routine that the football writers who used to cover his patch and spent their working lives in the forcefield of that personality will know well.

It was a December day, 2003, in Burton-on-Trent and what we did not know at the time was that the cancer was already inside his body. His knees were causing him discomfort and he looked older than I remembered. Yet there was still that overwhelming personality. “The eyes have it,” as Pat Murphy wrote in His Way. “Those hazel eyes may have become a shade rheumy, but they could still flash at the merest hint of weakness or a perceived character defect. Testing you, always probing, looking for vulnerable areas.”

There was the raised finger, if necessary, for added effect and a tongue, you just knew, that could shake your bones if you said the wrong thing. He wanted to know who I worked for, could I spell, did I have O-levels and, son, get yourself a haircut, and in those moments it would be a lie to say your heart is not racing. Your palms are sweaty. Your mouth is so dry it feels as if you have swallowed a cup of sawdust. And yet, there is also that rare appreciation of being in the presence of authentic greatness.

The 10th anniversary of his death is later this month and it pains me that the stories of his drinking cover the final acts of his career like a black drape. A man’s life has to be judged in the full and Clough’s legacy should not just be measured by his European Cups and all the other trophies. It was the charisma with which he did it, with his own set of rules, and the way he mesmerised everyone in his company, to the point that Clough in his pomp could probably have sauntered up to the gates of the White House and persuaded whoever was on the door to let him in.

If you missed those years you should dig out the clip of him verbally jousting with Muhammad Ali on that 1973 episode of The Big Match and wonder how many football managers would have the wit and presence to bring the greatest of them all to declare: “Clough, I’ve had enough!”

Search for that famous interview with John Motson when Clough, straight off the squash court, provides nine minutes of television gold, much of it at the expense of the man sitting opposite him. Or the footage of the Calendar Special on the night he was fired at Leeds United and his boyish joy when he realises he has got under the skin of Don Revie, doing his absolute best to avoid eye contact in the next seat. Clough, leaning in, even gets in a brilliantly condescending “good lad”. The 40th anniversary is on Friday and that programme, Goodbye Mr Clough, just gets better with age. “Leeds had to get someone who was slightly special,” Clough explains to his predecessor. “Now, I don’t want to sound blasé or conceited …”

Next weekend, the supporters of Nottingham Forest and Derby County will rise to their feet, in the 10th minute of their Championship match, to remember the man whose name now takes the 15-mile stretch of dual carriageway between the two cities. Many will pull on green sweatshirts for added effect and it would not surprise me if they plan something similar at Middlesbrough and Sunderland as well. Clough scored 251 goals in his 274 league appearances for the two clubs and was still reminding us about it on that wintry day when he arrived, unannounced, at one of his son Nigel’s press conferences and turned it into a lecture about how he was sick of hearing how nice Clough Jr was when, as the old man knew very well, every manager occasionally had to use his elbows.

Steve Bruce can testify to that, bearing in mind the story he tells of standing in a public lavatory, zip down, at one function, then becoming aware of a presence behind him, and suddenly taking a whack that knocked him into the urinal. The voice behind him was familiar: “Young man, that’s for kicking my Nigel as many times as you did. Now carry on …”

Matt Dickinson’s biography of Bobby Moore, The Man In Full, is published this week and contains another piece of vintage Clough, at his seductive best, sweet-talking West Ham’s skipper into wanting a transfer to Derby, then turning up at Upton Park demanding to see Ron Greenwood and pulling up a seat as if he owned the place. Greenwood was too diplomatic to protest as Clough left the room to get a drink. He did not come back for 20 minutes. “I’ve been looking around the place,” he cheerfully announced on his return. “Isn’t it lovely?”

That was one of the occasions Clough did not get his way and, many years later, he gave Moore a package. Inside was a tablecloth made of Nottingham lace and a handwritten note: “It was a tragedy we could never get together.”

The mind also goes back to a night in Miami before the World Cup and a leaving do for Mike Ingham, the BBC’s chief football correspondent. Ingham went through all the usual thank you messages but the story he lingered on went back to 1979, of how his father had knocked on Clough’s door in Quarndon one Sunday morning to inform him that his son was moving from the local radio station to London.

Clough used to be fiercely protective of anyone getting past his front gate but recognised the paternal instincts, invited him in and recorded a taped message in a This is Your Life-style cassette. It included a promise that he would always help this young commentator in his new role and Ingham recalled how he put it to the test eight years later after Forest had won at Arsenal in the FA Cup. This time it was Ingham knocking nervously at the dressing-room door. Clough had already turned down Match of the Day and every other request. “I waited a few moments and then a finger snaked around the door to usher me in. He hadn’t forgotten.”

With Clough, everyone who has encountered him tends to have a story and, if they are told accurately, it is almost always with him disarming whoever else was involved, whether it be with charm or one of those devastating one-liners. Sir Alex Ferguson once described him as “the rudest man in football” (admittedly, a bit like Billy Connolly complaining that someone swears too much). The Manchester United manager once tried the same trick as Clough with West Ham and turned up at the City Ground trying to sign Stuart Pearce. Clough drew the curtains, put his feet on the desk and sent a message that he was watching the cricket.

It is just a pity his memory seems to have been tarnished by the acceleration in his drinking. Nobody could deny either that his reputation never fully recovered from Alan Sugar’s accusation, in a court affidavit, about brown envelopes at service stations. Clough did invite Sugar to say it without the benefit of privilege but the former Tottenham chairman waited until his 2010 autobiography and the suspicion stuck to Clough in the way fog clings to the river Trent. Perhaps that is why the campaign for him to be knighted posthumously never really got anywhere. But if football managers should ever qualify for knighthoods, the same applies to Clough as it does Bob Paisley: neither should have been overlooked if Ferguson’s could be rushed through after his first European Cup.

Would he have succeeded in modern-day football? I asked that question to Ian Edwards, the Forest correspondent back in the day on the Nottingham Evening Post, and he was adamant Brian would have found a way. One thing for certain is that it would have a been a lot of fun finding out, in this era of super agents and far too many Sam Longson-types. Clough, one imagines, would also have had plenty to say about the England team, what has gone wrong and what needs to be put right. But then again, he always did.

Defoe left in limbo at Toronto with a small fortune and big regrets

When Jermain Defoe signed a highly lucrative deal at Toronto FC I questioned whether all the money on offer had blurred his priorities, bearing in mind anyone who knew how Roy Hodgson operated realised it would almost certainly end his chances of playing in the World Cup.

To say it was received badly in Toronto would be an understatement. Darren O’Dea, their former captain, said it showed a lack of understanding of Major League Soccer and the Toronto Sun produced a double-page spread – Got it wrong, Eurosnob! – in which their columnist Kurtis Larson seemed extremely put out that I had not made more of their other players. “There’s nothing about Gilberto, Dwayne De Rosario or Michael Bradley,” he noted. “With that in mind, there was never a chance he would mention Justin Morrow or Jackson.” And he was right. I didn’t mention either Morrow or Jackson.

Toronto’s perennial struggles since their formation in 2006 had prompted so much ridicule that one of their own journalists wrote that the FC must stand for “Futility Club”. This season there has been an improvement but not enough to stop their coach, Ryan Nelsen, being sacked last week and Defoe spent transfer deadline day in England hoping his new employers would accept one of several bids that came in, with QPR and Leicester City particularly keen.

Toronto refused to let it happen and now Defoe is stuck in a league where he no longer wants to be, barely eight months after arriving. Toronto insist he remains “100% committed” even though Tony Fernandes, the QPR chairman, has confirmed Defoe wanted the deal to happen. In January, he will push again for a move. The Toronto Sun is blaming the English media for cooking it all up (even though the first reports of Defoe’s unhappiness came in The Canadian Press) and it is never a good look when journalists insist on holding pompoms.

“To be clear, Major League Soccer isn’t close to being on par with the Premier League,” Larson wrote. “We don’t need to be reminded.” So we got there in the end. Defoe went for the money, to an inferior league, and has made a small fortune out of it. Hodgson has never been to see him and never will. But we knew that in January. “Without doubt, the lowest point of my career,” Defoe said after being left out of the World Cup.

Moore’s treatment remains a mystery

The book on Bobby Moore, mentioned above, comes highly recommended and, even now, it is not particularly easy working out how on earth England’s World Cup-winning captain ended up being so badly ignored by the game in his latter years that he eventually found work at the Sunday Sport, slap-bang in its ‘Gazza’s Face Found on White Cliffs of Dover’ days, and then joined Capital Gold Radio, travelling the country with Jonathan Pearce for £150 a match.

His friend Jimmy Tarbuck recounts telling Peter Swales, chairman of the FA’s international committee, that Moore could be an ambassador for English football, in the same way that Pelé was for Brazil and Franz Beckenbauer for Germany. The reply probably sums it up: “Are you serious?”