Former Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cotterill has told talkSPORT that Nigel Doughty was the best chairman he worked for.
The 54-year-old was speaking on Jim White’s show on Thursday afternoon (28/03; 12:10)
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Cotterill swapped Portsmouth for Forest in 2011 following Steve McClaren’s sacking and oversaw a 19th placed finish for the Reds.
He told talkSPORT: “When someone like Nigel Doughty comes calling, a great man, you don’t turn that down.
“Frank Clark was the chairman, Mark Arthur the chief executive and Keith Burt was there too. They were all great people. Nigel was always around there though, he watched all of our games.
Cotterill was the man in charge of Forest when Doughty sadly passed away at his home in February 2012.
The former boss believes that the late owner would have got the Reds back where they belong.
He continued: “It was a difficult period for everyone following his passing.
“We simply had no money. I had to sell Patrick Bamford to Chelsea and Wes Morgan to Leicester just to keep us afloat.
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“Forest were the love of Nigel’s life though and I have no doubt that he would have re-engaged with the club at the end of the campaign and got the club challenging for promotion.”
At the end of the 2011/12 campaign Cotterill bit the bullet following the arrival of Fawaz Al Hasawi.
He doesn’t recall his one meeting with the Kuwaiti businessman too fondly.
Cotterill continued: “I met with Fawaz down in London. We spoke about plans for the season, players I’d like to sign and he said ‘yes, that’s great’.
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“I left thinking it’d gone pretty well and then 24 hours later I received a call telling me that I had been sacked, so that was that.”
Fawaz Al Hasawi appointed Sean O’Driscoll as the club’s boss and Cotterill was consigned to the history books.