OF ALL THE man-of-the-match awards Andy Reid received in 290 appearances for Nottingham Forest, only one sticks in his mind.
Those early years at the City Ground, when he broke into the first team at 18 and had the world at his feet, remain vivid.
His debut came 20 years ago this November and, while so much else filled a playing career that lasted until he hung up his boots after a second spell by the River Trent as a 34-year-old in 2016, sharing a stage with the legendary Brian Clough has never left him.
Even if he was the butt of the joke.
“He could do what he wanted whenever he came down to the ground for a match,” Reid tells The42.
“He decided on this occasion that he wanted to present the man-of-the-match award and I was the one who had got it from the sponsors.
“I had done okay in the game but missed a couple of decent chances. I ended up in one of the lounges in front of around 300 people.
It was just me and him on the stage. He took the microphone and said: ‘Son, you’re a good player, you remind a little bit of John Robertson… but you are nowhere near as good as him and you never will be’.”
Clough wasn’t done.
“He said: ‘I just have one little piece of advice for you, son. Stop watching Jonny Wilkinson, he’s actually supposed to kick it over the bar, you’re job is to get it underneath and in between the posts’. The whole place erupted after that,” Reid recalls fondly.
“All I could do then was take the award and say ‘Thank you, Mr. Clough’.”
Nottingham is the city where Reid has made his home. His playing career took the Dubliner to London — Tottenham Hotspur and Charlton Athletic — and to England’s north east with Sunderland, before eventually he found his way back to Forest after brief spells at Sheffield United and Blackpool.
Nottingham is where he and his young family — he had been due to get married in Ibiza this summer – are isolating on lockdown as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on normal life.
So he is home, surrounded by family, and while he cannot see some of his closest friends, it will be Nottingham Forest that binds them when restrictions are lifted.
The filmmaker Jonny Owen, who produced the masterpiece ‘I Believe in Miracles’, a documentary about Clough taking the club from Division Two to back-to-back European champions — is part of Reid’s close knit circle.
As is Owen’s partner, the actor Vicky McClure, who is perhaps best known at the moment for her role as Detective Inspector Kate Fleming in ‘The Line of Duty’.
“I love his company. He is a great, great guy and they are fantastic people. Every time we are together it is brilliant. I am so happy with the success the film brought Jonny,” Reid continues.
“It’s not like you say ‘my mate made this film’ but then turn around and say ‘but it’s not really that good’. It’s a fantastic piece of work.
It’s a phenomenal story, too, and the hairs on the back of neck stand up watching it. Seeing a player like John Robertson, he was an absolute genius, fantastic, the best player to have played for the club by a distance.”
Reid’s job now is to help shape the stars of the future for Forest. He is on the coaching staff with the U23s but it is safe to assume that when he began his journey to becoming a fully licenced coach on his course with the FAI he never imagined Instagram and Zoom becoming key tools.
However, with England on lockdown as the world fights against the spread of Covid-19, they are essential. Combining his role with that of head coach of the Republic of Ireland U18s was seen as the main challenge for Reid at the start of this year.
Matters have taken on an altogether different path in the face of a worldwide pandemic.
Forest gave players time off to come to terms with what is happening around them but over the next few weeks they will be kept stimulated by various exercises and drills that will be posted to a private Instagram page each night and then carried out the following morning using the conference call app Zoom.
“First of all, we have a responsibility to ensure that their mental and physical health is correct. But it is also important that they have something positive to focus on,” Reid insists.
They are footballers and footballers need football day in day out to keep them in check and keep them focused. When you don’t have it that becomes a problem.
“I know from my own experiences, when football is taken away it can begin to play tricks on your mind. That is why we have a psychologist involved in the conversations.
“We have to try and find a balance. These are young men between the ages of 18 to 22, they are starting to become more mature so we can’t treat them like kids.
“When we give them drills to do using Instagram and Zoom, it’s important that they are engaged and stimulated by it. It’s not like you are dealing with children who you can tell ‘this is what you do, go and do it’. We are preparing these players to play in the first team so they have to be ready for that.”
Reid admits he battles with ‘an internal conflict’ between the desire to win games and the greater good of helping players on the cusp of a breakthrough to develop as they should.
He recalls a job interview with former Forest boss Aitor Karanka when he told the Spaniard that winning ‘was also important’ for a young player’s development.
“He turned to me and said: ‘winning is all that matters’,” Reid says. “And that is where he was coming from as someone in charge of the first team.
“We have to get players ready for those demands but there are other factors that are also important when players are younger.”
Reid is reminded how is own youth coach at Forest, Paul Hart, would get the best out of him, as well as Brian Kerr and Noel O’Reilly with Ireland.
“It’s important to know who you are dealing with and treat them accordingly. That comes from personal relationships you build with players. It doesn’t mean that you are laughing and joking all the time,” Reid insists.
What I am talking about is having a good understanding of the players and them trusting you. Brian, Noel and Paul really understood me and what was best to make me tick. Everyone reacts differently.
“Paul Hart used to wind me up. He knew I played better when I was angry, especially when I was younger. I had a real stubbornness. I would do it to spite him and really show him.
“Now I feel a real sense of responsibility that I want to be able to help produce successful players for Forest and with Ireland. Players can relate to what I have been through in my career and I hope I will be able to get across to them the right messages so they are prepared for what is needed.”
That is where Reid elaborates on that ‘internal conflict’. “You want to win and do well, you want the lads to play really well and have that winning feeling,” the 37-year-old begins.
“You never go onto any pitch and think ‘yeah, I’ll be happy to lose 4-0 here today’ but if you can look back and say that a defeat like that really hurt four or five of your players and helped drive them on to be successful, that they realised they never wanted to have that feeling again, well then that is part of the learning process for them.
“That is when you can say some good came from it because at U18s and U23s, winning is not everything, but it is still very, very important for the players.”
And it’s not hard to realise why. “It’s because we need players who are ready and mature enough to go straight into a first-team environment and able to make an impact,” Reid explains.
“We as coaches, and the players, need to understand that the first team are looking for ready-made players. Managers have such a short life span that they don’t have time to bed players in for two, three years.
“Their jobs don’t last that long. They want players that are ‘bang, ready to go’. That’s the challenge working with young players. Getting them ready for those demands.”
The ones who make it will then be only too happy to be the butt of the joke collecting man-of-the-match awards.
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