A blog entry by Rich Fisher

With a few months having passed now since it was first unveiled, you could be forgiven for thinking that the novelty of having a statue of Brian Clough in the middle of Nottingham might by far have started to wear off.

Happily though, that seems to be far from the case.

As far as I can tell, the statue seems remains very much a focal point of our city centre.

Whenever I walk past the statue, there are always people stopping to admire it or have their photo taken with it – regardless of the time of day.

And with people knowing that I was involved in raising the money for the statue, I rarely seem to go more than a week without people raising the subject – and never more amusingly so than this week, when I received an email from my great pal Romana McCallum.

“We were in town last week,” her email read, “and there was a march taking place to protest against what’s happening in Gaza.

“We walked a bit with the protestors – only it turned out that the march concluded not in Market Square as we expected, but at the Cloughie statue!

“It was so weird -some kids were carrying little coffins, and they started laying them at the foot of the statue. I got a photo on my phone of all the protestors gathered around the statue, and it looks like Cloughie’s leading the protest! Thought you'd appreciate it…”

If you’re reading these ramblings on my blog at www.softbulletin.co.uk, you can see Romana’s picture below.

Needless to say, I’m sure Cloughie himself would have been more than happy at the idea of aiding such a cause – after all, the man always was one to support the causes of life’s downtrodden!

Amusing though as Roman’s snap and email were, the most exciting thing that’s happened lately in relation to the Cloughie statue as far as I’m concerned is the fact that I recently become the owner of my own miniature version of the statue!

As you may or may not be aware, a limited edition of 1,000 of these miniatures - which are made out of stone - went on sale just before Christmas.

Approximately six inches high and mounted on a plinth, they are priced at £100 each, with all profits going to charity.

Now £100 is of course a fair old amount of cash to stump up in these current times of penny-pinching. Happily though, I personally didn’t have to dig deep at all – because as a ‘thank you’ for all our hard work in raising money for the statue, Nottingham City Council presented myself and the other members of the statue with a complimentary miniature each.

It was a nice gesture – and having been presented with my miniature shortly before kick-off prior to Forest’s game against Plymouth Argyle the other week, it meant that myself and the guys that I sit with were able to have ‘mini Cloughie’ join us for the duration of the match!

Again, if you’re reading these ramblings on my blog at www.softbulletin.co.uk, you’ll be able to see a snap of the great man below, surveying his former empire.

And I’d like to think he’d have been pretty pleased with what he saw, as Forest chalked up a comfortable 2-0 win against Plymouth out on the pitch.

Word is that there are less than 100 of the miniatures left available to purchase – so if you’re interested in buying one, you’ll need to move quickly!

You can find out full details by clicking here.

My miniature now stands proudly on my mantelpiece – though given its size, there have been some waggish suggestions that it could also be deployed very effectively as a toilet roll holder..!

A blog entry by Rich Fisher

I must say, I’m not really one to dwell on the past too much. I’m very much a ‘here and now’ sort of person.

However, today has seen me spend a good few hours reminiscing about old times – and it’s all thanks to my great friend Superkev…

For those of you who don’t know him, Kev has been a really close friend of mine ever since we met at uni back in 1998 - a much simpler time of my life, when the world seemed to offer few worries other than where the next bottle of vodka was going to come from!

Of course though, life moves on, and I think my uni pals and I have all grown up quite a lot over the last decade or so.

All of us have responsible jobs. Most of us have mortgages.

And as if those things aren’t scary enough, some of the others have got married - while some of them have even started knocking out kids!

For the record, Kev ticks all four of the aforementioned boxes – with him and his wife Becky having become proud parents last year to a little boy called Oliver.

Though he bears a slightly disconcerting resemblance to the baby that gets kidnapped by David Bowie in the film ‘The Labyrinth’, Olly is absolutely adorable. What’s more, he’s also possibly the only baby on the planet who absolutely loves pickled onions!

Now Kev has decided to start putting together a photo book for Olly - so when he’s a bit older, he can start finding out about his daddy’s life story. And this is what led to my little jaunt today down memory lane…

Kev and I, you see, used to present our own radio show!

Admittedly, this probably sounds far more exciting than it actually was!

Basically, our student union used to have its own radio station called ‘Shout FM’ – and somehow, back in the year 2000, Kev and I ended up spending a few months presenting the breakfast show every Friday!

Going under the banner ‘The Mullet Breakfast’, our show used to basically consist of us talking nonsense and playing music for a couple of hours. The student union had a proper radio studio and stuff, which we presented our show from, and it was all pretty ace for the first few weeks.

We used to have all sorts of daft features like ‘MC Hammer song of the week’ – and I seem to recall a particular ripple of excitement among our listeners when we announced on air one week that Will Smith would be popping into the studio for an exclusive chat.

Of course, we neglected to clarify that the Will Smith in question was actually Kev’s dad – whose name is actually William Smith!

There was also a fringe benefit to being involved in Shout FM, in that the station used to get sent CDs by record companies of pretty much every new album and single that was released.

The idea here was that these all remained in the studio, forming the basis of a library of music for presenters such as Kev and I to have at our disposal. Suffice to say though, being cash-strapped students, Kev and I used to shamelessly help ourselves to anything that took our fancy!

Being a bit of a squirrel, I still actually have a box of cassette tapes somewhere with recordings of all of our shows.

Listening back now, it’s all pretty cringeworthy.

But hey, not many people can say they once had their own radio show!

Sadly though, our enthusiasm for doing the show quickly began to wane – largely because all the other people who worked for the station were a bunch of complete tools.

One of them was a self-important eejit called Phil.

After one show, this hamster-faced wanker actually had a go at me – due to the fact Kev and I had neglected to play a song that had been on the station’s playlist for that particular week… something that he, as the station’s self-styled ‘head of music’, was responsible for drawing up.

Now Kev and I had had good reason for not playing the song in question – namely, the fact that it was ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ by Toploader, and therefore an unspeakable crock of shit.

Not wanting to put any noses out of joint however, I promised Phil that we’d atone our sins by making sure we definitely featured ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ on our very next show.

And that we did – yes, the next instalment of ‘The Mullet Breakfast’ featured a sound recording of me microwaving on full power Shout FM’s one copy of ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’!

Ultimately though, the one thing that killed our enthusiasm for doing The Mullet Breakfast, more than anything else, was the fact that no-one really listened to Shout FM. And so our fledgling broadcasting careers came to an end when, one week, we both went out and got really, really pissed the night before we were due to do our show – and drunkenly decided between us that we simply wouldn’t bother turning up the next day!

So that was that really…

All these years later though, the experience of doing my own radio show is one that I look back upon fondly. And evidently, so does Kev – as going back to the book he’s putting together for his son, he rang me the other day to ask if I had any photos from our stint on the airwaves.

This led to me going up to my mum and dad’s house, and digging out a box of several years of my old photographs.

Of course, you embark on this sort of mission thinking that you’ll quickly rifle through and find the snap that you want. Inevitably though, you end up getting completely sidetracked, as you unearth other photos that jog your memory of things that haven’t really thought about in ages.

Holidays that you went on. Ex girlfriends that you used to love. Nights out that you went on. Hairstyles that you’d rather forget!

It’s been quite emotional actually – and a reminder that it can be nice to wallow in a bit of nostalgia every now and again.

The only snag is that the photos that I was looking through were all from an age long before the advent of the digital camera – and so now I’m going to sit and laboriously scan all of the bastards..!

A blog entry by Rich Fisher

As a nation, we’re pretty good here in the UK at certain things.

For instance, despite us being a pretty small place in the grand scheme of things, our fair isles have given the world a disproportionately large amount of amazing pop music.

We’ve also produced some pretty good authors over the years too. And it goes without saying that we’re world-beaters when it comes to complaining about the weather!

On the flipside though, there are also of course a fair few things that, as a nation, we’re generally a bit crap at.

We are, for instance, useless at football penalty shoot-outs.!

But if you have to pick out one thing where we are particularly spectacular in our uselessness, then our lack of proficiency in speaking foreign languages would surely be the runaway winner.

Being a fairly average Brit, I’m just as bad as the next person on this score.

A bit of German, and that’s your lot.

And it’s kind of embarrassing really – particularly when you visit a non-English speaking country and find that most of the locals are able to speak our language flawlessly.

Hopefully though, times are starting to change.

For people of my age, learning languages in school was something that didn’t start happening until we started secondary school. And a lot of people would argue that this was simply too late for us to ever have stood a chance at making a decent fist of learning another tongue.

Today though, more and more children in British schools are starting to learn languages at a much younger age. And this is certainly something that’s happening at the school where I work.

At my school, Spanish has for some time been the preferred foreign language – and efforts are being made to give it a much higher profile in the classroom.

Specifically, myself and most have the other teachers have all begun having Spanish lessons! And the stuff that I’ve learned so far is something that I’ve already started to put into place.

Most days now, for instance, I now register my class in Spanish – which means I get to hear 30 little voices all going “Buenos dias, Senor Fisher!” every morning!

What’s more, we are also going to be having a couple of actual real Spanish people spending some time in our school over the next four weeks!

Both of them are trainee teachers over in Spain - and are coming to our school on placements as part of their course.

Now being a large school, we get students coming in all the time. It’s not that big a deal really.

For me though, the arrival of the Spaniards is quite significant – because one of them will actually be living in my house for the duration of his stay here in Nottingham!

Yes, when the students’ placements were first arranged, myself and my colleagues at the school were offered the opportunity to earn a bit of extra cash, by taking on the role of host.

I duly volunteered – not just for the cash, but also because I thought it would be quite an interesting experience having a random Spanish person living in my house for a month!

And I’m about to find out whether that will indeed prove to be true – because Miguel arrives in just a couple of hours!

Now obviously, I haven’t yet met Miguel. However, we have been communicating with each other by email - and with him being well into both his music and his footy, I’m quietly confident that we’ll get on famously!

In terms of my obligations as Miguel’s host – well, in addition to obviously providing him with a roof over his head, I also have to feed him!

And this will be quite interesting – because unlike me, he’s a fully-fledged meat-eater!

Suffice to say I can’t really expect him to ‘go veggie’ for a month just to fit in with my own dietary whims - and as such I’m going to have to remind myself how to cook meat… something I haven’t done since I gave it up eight years ago.

Still, should be fun!

Another thing that should also be fun is initiating Miguel in the ways of Nottingham.

With wanting to be as good a host as possible, I’m keen to ensure he gets as much as possible out of his stay – and so assuming he’s up for it, I will definitely be making time to show him some of my favourite places.

Now at this point, you could be forgiven for suspecting that the mental list I have in my head will consist pretty much entirely of a list of ‘tourist attractions’ – Sherwood Forest, Nottingham Castle, and so on.

However, that is not really the case.

No, wherever I happen to be in the world, the well-beaten tourist trail is not something I tend to find myself gravitating towards. Because as far as I’m concerned, the best way to get a feel for any place is to simply mooch around – and to experience the places where the locals go.

So here is my list of the ten places that I think epitomise the Nottingham that I know and love – which I may or may not end up dragging my Spanish guest along to at some point over the next month.

And I don’t know what this says about me, but most of them are places that are very much about eating, drinking and being merry..!

1) The City Ground

Home, of course, of the mighty Nottingham Forest. In the emails that Miguel and I have exchanged, he has already expressed interest in going to watch a match. Being a Real Madrid fan though and thus accustomed to watching some of the greatest players in the world, I dread to think what he’ll make of the Reds…

2) The Lincolnshire Poacher

In this increasingly bland world, the Lincolnshire Poacher is a great example of a classic, unspoilt British pub. It’s totally unpretentious, and always full of interesting characters. There’s even a ‘book exchange’ in one of the back rooms, where you can help yourself to a free book providing you promise to bring another one back in exchange next time you come. Oh, and their cheese board is sensational!

3) The Left Lion

Giant stone statue that’s a popular meeting point right in the very middle of Nottingham city centre. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s it is about the Left Lion that’s so magical, but to me it somehow epitomises Nottingham. It’s also a fascinating ‘people watching’ spot. If you’re standing by the Left Lion waiting to meet someone, the chances are that at least two or three other folk will be doing the same. And it’s good fun speculating who each person might be waiting for. A friend for lunch? A first date?

4) Rock City

Music venue that’s played host to gigs by pretty much anyone who’s anyone in the world of music. Nirvana, Oasis, Radiohead, David Bowie… you name them, and they’ve played there. The floor may be sticky and it may be sweatier than Meat Loaf after a ten-mile run - but when it’s rammed and one of your favourite bands are on stage playing a blinding set, there are few better places on earth.

5) The Mogul-e-Azam

Tremendous curry house. As well as providing fab food at decent prices, the Mogul is run by some of the most charming people you could ever wish to meet. But above all of that, the Mogul’s unique selling point is the fact that there’s a high chance of seeing an amusing C-list celeb in there – as it’s a favoured eaterie for people performing at the Theatre Royal, which is just over the road. My own past visits have seen me dining in close proximity to rock band The Magic Numbers, and also the dude who played Joe Mangle in Neighbours! Most random of all though was the time when I got chatting to a bloke dining at an adjoining table who turned out to be the drummer for Girls Aloud’s live band! He was quite a tragic character actually, spending most of the conversation bleating pathetically about the fact that no-one who went to Girls Aloud’s gigs really gave a rat’s ass about whether or not his drumming was actually any cop. Get a grip, mate – personally, I’d be more than happy to be paid good money to stare at five such fine arses for two hours a night..!

6) The Rescue Rooms

Rock City’s baby brother, situated just next door. Like Rock City, ‘the Rooms’ (as it is known to regulars) is a venue to go and see live bands - but it also has a bar where you can simply sit and talk rubbish all night. My favourite thing about the bar is the fact that there are shelves and shelves of really dodgy old vinyl LPs that you are allowed to flip through. Hours of fun..!

7) Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem

Allegedly the oldest pub in Britain, and absolutely brimming with character – mainly because the majority of the pub is actually a series of interlinked sandstone caves! Always full of real characters too, not least ‘The Fish Man’ – a local legend here in Nottingham, who wanders from pub to pub selling pots of prawns and other such goodies from a basket!

8) Victoria Kebab

Being someone who doesn’t eat meat, it might seem strange that I’ve chosen a kebab shop in my top ten. However, Victoria Kebab does do a ‘veggie’ kebab – and so to meat-eaters and veggies alike, this place is something of a Mecca for anyone seekiug late-night post-beer food. Unlike a lot of kebab shops, where you kebab will simply be shoved into a pitta bread, the dudes at Victoria Kebab make your bread fresh from dough in front of your eyes. I love going here so much that if I ever have a daughter, I’m going to call her Victoria!

9) Cosy Teapot

Brilliant greasy café just down the road from Nottingham’s main railway station, which ticks all the boxes of what you expect in a ‘proper’ café. Yes, that means chipped mugs, squeezy ketchup bottles that are slightly crusty round the top… and best of all, the fact that you can go in there and ask for a coffee and simply get a coffe - as opposed to being offered a twatuccino with a million different permutations! The food also spot on as well – the Cosy Teapot’s doorstep toast in particular s legendary…

10) The Cheese Shop

Tucked away up an alleyway in the middle of Nottingham, this place is a hidden gem. Yes, as the name suggests, it’s a shop. That sells cheese. And cheese only! What’s not to like?!

A blog entry by Rich Fisher

Being someone who’s always had a very well-developed sense of mischief, I’ve always loved a good practical joke.

One of  my very favourite ever pranks took place a few years ago, when I found myself submitting an online application, in my brother Al’s name, to change his name to Ricardo Scimeca – in honour of a particularly rubbish footballer who happened to be playing for Nottingham Forest at the time!

The UK deed poll office actually took this application deadly seriously. Indeed, with me having entered all of Al’s contact details, the first thing he knew about it was when he got a  phone call at work from them, asking for his credit card details so they could take payment to process his name change. Amusingly, they apparently got quite arsey with Al when he he told them he knew nothing about it, and that he must have been victim of a practical joke.

Poor Al seems to be a popular victim for pranks. In another memorable incident, our mate Russ once put a small ad in ‘Loot’ stating simply ‘Dog-sized hamsters for sale’, along with Al’s mobile number!

For about a year afterwards, Al’s voicemail greeting was “Hi, I can’t get the phone, please leave a message. Oh, and if you’re ringing about dog-sized hamsters, I’m afraid to say that the ad. In Loot was left as a joke – and I’m afraid to say that dog-sized hamsters probably don’t exist..”

That said, Al isn’t always the victim!

No, I once also once a key instigator in a prank that saw a friend of a friend answer his phone one day - to find MC Hammer’s manager on the other end of the line!

Yes, a mate and I had happened to stumble upon MC Hammer’s website – as you do! – where we discovered a form that you can fill out and submit to make enquiries about booking the Hammer for a personal appearance!

Sertiously, I’m not making this up!

If you don’t believe me, click here!

These days the Hammer apparently does weddings, bar mitzvahs, supermarket openings… you name it!

Naturally, my mate and I couldn’t resist filling out the form – and having decided that a friend of my mate would be our chosen victim, we duly entered his contact details. And yes, within a few days, this friend duly answered his phone – and promptly found himself speaking to Hammer’s manager, who was keen to speak to him about an enquiry he’d supposedly submitted about potentially wanting to book Hammer to appear at a religious conference he was supposedly organising!

Needless to say, as with Al and the UK Deed Poll office, the friend of a friend was completely bewildered and had no idea what was going on.

Oh how we laughed!

Of course though, when you’re the sort of person that has been known to play practical jokes on people, you have to be prepared to be to take the retribution that will more often than not be dished out.

And at this point in the tale, I would like to introduce a great friend of mine – the lovely Miss Rachel Emily Hardy…

Rach and I have known each other for the best part of a decade – and just over a year ago, I pulled off a humdinger of a practical joke at her expense.

Well, that’s not strictly true. It was not so much a practical joke as a surprise. But nevertheless, it was a surprise that almost made her wee herself with shock!

Now being of a very similar age to myself, Rach, like me, is very much a child of the ‘Britpop generation’.

However, rather than having had her feet firmly planted in either the Blur or Oasis camp, Rach’s big love was, and still is, The Bluetones – a band who are probably best known for their classic jangly pop hit ‘Slight Return’, which reached the giddy heights of number two in the charts way back in 1996.

Rach would like to try and convince the world that her passion for the Bluetones is entirely for musical reasons – however, I can exclusively reveal her interest in the band is far more to do with the fact that she fancies the pants off their singer, Mark Morriss.

And so it was that I suddenly found myself, in September 2007, with an unmissable opportunity.

Basically, I was staying down in Sussex for the weekend at my great friend Andrew ‘Lothario’ Best’s house – and on the Sunday afternoon, we decided to go along and watch a charity football match that was taking place in a village near Andy’s house, starring a variety of minor celebs.

 And you know what’s coming next.

Yes, one of the ‘minor celebs’ was Mark Morriss!

And yes, I duly cornered him, handed him my mobile phone, and got him to phone up Rach to say Hello!

Needless to say, this was a moment Rach had been dreaming of since her teenage years! Inevitably though, far from the sultry seductive temptress she would’ve probably hoped to have come across as, she was so shocked that all she managed was a high-pitched shriek and a groupie-ish “Ooh Mark, I love you!”

Naturally, Rach has been vowing revenge ever since. And while it’s taken her a while it’s taken her a while, I think she may have just managed it!

You see, Rach and me talk quite a lot. And the other week, I happened to be having a bit of a moan to her about the wretched state of my love life.

Now Rach is usually a fantastic listening ear. On this occasion however when I was chatting to her, I made a fatal mistake – by mentioning a story I’d read a few days previously in a national newspaper, about a man who was so romantically inept that his friends set up a Facebook group to try and find him a girlfriend.

“What a loser!” I’d laughed…

Alas though, I am now officially as much of a loser. As Rach duly went away and seized her chance to finally get her own back for the Mark Morriss phone call – and promptly set up a similar group for me!

Oh yes…

With her having always addressed me by the pet name ‘Fishcakes’, Rach has fittingly Christened this group ‘The Search to Find Fishcakes a Girlfriend’!

The page for the group features a brief description of myself and a photo, and Rach is now on a one-woman mission to get as many people as possible to join - the idea being that each member delves into the recesses of their brains, and tries and think of anyone they know who might be well-matched with yours truly.

I can’t quite believe it’s come to this..!

But fair play Rach, you’ve well and truly got me back!

And who knows – if I can put my own humiliation to one side for just one moment over being presented to the world as a desperate loser, we can’t rule out the possibility that Rach’s group may actually bear fruit!

Stranger things have happened.

Alas though, the only real response from the group’s membership so far has been someone saying they have a gay male friend who would be very interested in me having seen my photo – so I’m not exactly holding my breath..!

A blog entry by Rich Fisher

Well, I’m pleased to report that I’ve officially survived my first week back at at work after the Christmas holiday!

And what’s more, having expected it to be a painful experience, I actually really enjoyed it!

It’s not particularly original, but over the week I had my class doing a fair bit of work about New Year’s Resolutions, and thinking about what they want to achieve during 2009.

Naturally, this got me thinking a fair bit about my own hopes and dreams for the coming months. And indeed, 2009 is quite a big year for me in a certain sense – as in October, I’ll be turning 30!

Hitting this milestone itself is not something that particularly bothers me.

But one thing I’m a bit scared by is the fact that my brother Al has got a surprise lined up for me.

Now I have no idea what this surprise is - all I know is that I’ve been told to keep free a particular Saturday in October!

Of course, this could all be entirely innocent.

However, I very much bloody doubt it, because I laid on a bit of a surprise when Al himself turned 30 last year* - and he’s been vowing ever since to wreak spectacular revenge on my 30th!

Watch this space I guess..!

But anyway, other than gritting my teeth and enduring whatever ritual humiliation that Al has planned for me, what are my plans for 2009?

Well my answer to that question is ‘not a lot really’!

A bit boring, I know!

However, it’s what I desperately need, after all the events of the last few years.

As most of you will probably be well aware, the three year period from the start of 2006 to the end of 2008 saw me not only change career, but also travel round the world twice… and spend hours upon hours too helping raise money for a statue of my hero Brian Clough.

Needless to say, this has all been incredibly exhilarating.

But frankly, it’s been exhausting too – and my body, mind and credit cards have all been screaming out for quite some time for a bit of a rest!

Now knowing me, those could of course be famous last words!

Indeed, I seem to remember saying something similar in the run-up to 2008 – only for my mate Ed to suddenly pop up and go “Hey Rich, fancy spending the summer attempting to drive all the way to Mongolia in a really shit car?”!

However, I am going to try really hard to keep head down and embrace the humdrum in 2009.

That said, I have got one challenge on the cards – and now seems as good a time as any to make this public!

Enter my great friend Charles Fox…

Now Charles and I have known each other for over a decade, and we have a lot of things in common. We both like music. We both have a passion for travel. And most tragically of all, we both squandered two years of our precious lives doing a BTEC National Diploma in Media at FE college in the late 1990s.

However, the bond of friendship that Charles and I share is cemented on one thing more than anything else – the fact that we both have Really Shit Hair.

Okay, so let’s keep this in perspective. There are, of course, far worse afflictions that life could have flung at us than having Really Shit Hair.

Like any type of terminal disease.

Or being born in Derby, even!

But nevertheless, Charles and me are both cursed with the sort of barnets that are impossible to tame. If either of us ever let our hair grow for any more than a couple of months, there is only one outcome – an absolutely terrible buoffant.

But what has this got to do with the challenge that I have on the cards?

Well, Charles lives in London these days - and back in October 2008 I went down to visit him there for a couple of days.  

And one night, after we’d quaffed a small lake of wine, we inevitably began drunkenly lamenting our Really Shit Hair!

And in that strange way that you seem to stumble upon the secrets of the world when you’re really really pissed, Charles and I were suddenly struck by a huge epithany.

Ultimately, we decided, the two of us are basically stuck with having Really Shit Hair – like it or not. So instead of moaning about it, why not try and turn a negative into a positive – by embracing it?

To cut a long story short, the night ended up with us shaking hands and agreeing to go head to head in a bouffant war!

Yes, the two of us are both going to see how long we can go without having our hair cut – and see who cracks first!

Nearly three months on, both of us are still hanging on in there. I caught up with Charles over Christmas for the first time since we made our pact - and like me, my buoffant rival is showing no sign whatsoever of breaking just yet!

The two of us even posed for some photographs with us eyeballing each other, in the style of two boxers facing off at a weigh-in - see below..!

Of course, it is still early days yet – the critical period will be when the two of us hit the really awkward ‘frizzy’ period… which I would say is due sometime around March.

Again, watch this space I guess..!

* If you want to see photographic evidence of the surprise I arranged for my brother on his 30^th, just click here.

A blog entry by Rich Fisher

Most people who know me will be aware that I spent a fair bit of time during 2005 and 2006 helping to raise money for a statue of the late great former Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough.

Over an 18-month period, £70,000 was raised. And that money was duly spent on commissioning a lasting tribute to my hero – which now stands proud in Nottingham city centre!

Of course, it’s hard really to have all that much perspective on something that you’ve been heavily involved in.

However, with a couple of months having now passed since the statue was unveiled, I’ve began to feel lately that I can take a bit of a step back and look at it with relatively neutral eyes.

And I don’t mean just the statue – I also mean all of the hard work that led to its existence.

Looking back, I think the whole campaign to raise the money for the statue actually makes for quite a remarkable story.

So many bizarre and random things happened that you could write a book – and in fact, someone just has!

Yes, the one person who got the ball rolling with the statue in the first place was a chap called Marcus Alton – who for years has run the non-profit making tribute website www.brianclough.com

Marcus had, for several years, been running a campaign to get Cloughie a Knighthood.  Sadly, this was unsuccessful. However, Marcus was unperturbed – and decided that, if a Knighthood wasn’t possible, then a statue certainly would be.

He duly assembled a crack team of volunteer fund-raisers – me having been one of them.

The rest, as they say, is history – and it’s a piece of history that you can now read about for yourselves, what with Marcus having just had a book published telling the whole story of both the Knighthood campaign and the statue.

Titled ‘Young Man, You’ve Made My Day’, I’ve actually just finished Marcus’s tome myself – and it makes for a tremendous read.

I’ve actually just finished reading it myself.

I must say, it’s quite a strange experience to read a book that mentions yourself quite a few times – and strange as it may sound, I was actually slightly nervous with the turn of each page, worried that I might find myself portrayed at any moment as some sort of hapless eejit.

Happily though, this proved not to be the case. I merely came across in Marcus’s telling of the story as a slightly eccentric scruffbag who likes stalking celebrities and meeting strangers in car parks.

Which obviously, is pretty much bang on!

Joking aside, if any of you want to know more about the book and find out how to get hold of a copy, then simply click here.

And no, before you ask, I’m not on commission or anything – in fact, all of the proceeds from the book are actually going to charity..!

A blog entry by Rich Fisher

Like a lot of folk, this week has seen me return to work, after having had a fair bit of time off for Christmas. And even though I’ve only been back on the primary education battleground for a mere couple of days, the holiday is already starting to feel like something of a dim and distant blur.

It was a belter though!

If you’ve visited my blog site lately at www.softbulletin.co.uk, then you may have already seen two lots of photos that I uploaded showing what I got up to over Chrimbo.

The first batch of snaps were from Christmas Day, which I spent up at my parents’ house. And it was great to spend some quality time eating, drinking and being merry with my fellow Fisher folk.

One thing that’s always great about Christmas in my family is the giving and receiving of gifts – because if I say so myself, we’re all pretty damn good at present buying.

As per usual, all of us received lots of cool stuff – the overall highlight for me being my Aunty Barbara’s presents to myself and my brother Al.

Yes, we were each presented with a radio controlled cars – me the A-Team van, and Al the Knightrider car!

Naturally, despite the fact that Al and I are 30 and 29 years old respectively, we immediately went haring out onto the street outside - in order race our new toys like a pair of big kids!

And then, when we eventually stumbled back inside, we discovered that it was easy to balance a box of chocolates on the roof the A Team van – meaning they could be passed around everyone in the room without anyone actually having to get up.

Genius..!

A great day then – and I haven’t even mentioned the final icing on the cake, which was of course the long-awaited return to EastEnders of legendary Albert Square badboy Nick Cotton!

So that was Christmas Day then – what about the rest of the holiday?

Well as well as having a good rest and catching up with lots of friends I hadn’t seen in a while including Sam, Sanjay, Charles, Binni and Sarah, Boxing Day saw me observe one of the festive season’s most noble traditions.

Yes, I refer of course to going along to the City Ground - in order to freeze my spuds off and watch Forest lose!

And lose they did in style, getting thumped 4-2 by Doncaster Rovers!

That said, it was actually still a memorable afternoon – for two reasons.

First of all, the comprehensive nature of the defeat saw the powers-that-be at Forest finally do something that they should’ve done months previously – yes, they sacked the club’s idiot manager Colin Calderwood.

The second reason meanwhile was all to do with something that’s become a bit of an annual festive tradition down at Forest in recent years – or at least on the row where Al and me sit.!

Now being long-standing season ticket holders, Al and me have sat in the exact same seats at the City Ground for the best part of a decade. And there’s a good reason why we’ve stayed put.

Let’s just think for a minute about what it means when you take the plunge and buy a season ticket.

Essentially, you’re making a commitment. And as with any commitment, you’re essentially taking a big risk.

Not the risk of laying out over £400 and only getting crap football in return.

For us Forest fans, that’s sadly not so much a risk as a given these days.

No, the risk when you buy a season ticket is all to do with that fact that you are condemning yourself to spending a whole season sitting in the same seat

The chances are that a lot of the people in adjacent seats have done exactly the same – and so there’s every chance that you could end up having to spend a whole season sitting next to someone who’s a complete knobhead.

Or has really bad breath!

Happily though, fate has smiled kindly on Al and me as far as this conundrum goes - as have some great characters on our row, who also all renew the same seats year after year.

This ensures we can go along to the match knowing that we are guaranteed some great banter – and never more so at the nearest match to Christmas, which is when the annual festive tradition that I mentioned a while ago takes place!

This tradition started quite a few years ago now, when one of the guys decided to bring a load of mince pies to the match, and passed them down the row for everyone to enjoy!

With rancid burgers being usually about as good as it gets at the footy in the culinary stakes, these naturally went down a storm!

And so it was that the annual festive tradition was born - with mince pies now brought to the match every year, along with all sorts of other festive goodies!

In fact, it’s all become slightly competitive over the years – with every Christmas seeing us all doing battle to see who can bring the silliest festive offering!

A couple of years ago, I’m pleased to report that I recorded a spectacular victory by bringing along a massive Yule Log - complete with disposable plates, cutlery and napkins!

This year meanwhile, I decided to bring along a box of crackers!

You have to make your own fun when you’re a Forest fan..!

Saying that, the aforementioned sacking of Colin Calderwood has seen a drastic upturn in fortunes for Forest since Boxing Day. I eulogised in the previous blog entry that I wrote about the tremendous start the Reds made to 2009 by beating Manchester City in the FA Cup.

Forest also recorded an impressive win in the league away at Norwich a couple of days after Boxing Day, in their first game since Calderwood got the boot.

Now whenever Forest play away at Norwich, it’s a match that I usually go to – as I have some great friends out in Norfolk…and it’s always a good excuse to go and catch up with them.

This season however, I gave the trip to Norwich a miss – because I too busy dressing up as George from Rainbow!

Yes, the day of the game was also the 30^th birthday of Stephen Kearney - my great friend over in County Antrim in Northern Ireland. And to mark this momentous occasion, Stephen’s brother Mickey decided to arrange a surprise fancy dress party for him!

Of course, all the best fancy dress parties have to have a theme. In this case, it was ‘children’s TV characters of our youth’, as a tribute to the fact that Stephen has actually been known since his childhood as Zippy – as in the legendary character from Rainbow - to pretty much everyone who knows him!

This being so, my decision as to what to dress up as was easy.

It simply had to be a Rainbow character!

And how often does life present you with a justifiable excuse to dress up as an effeminate pink hippo?!

And so it was then that, having successfully found a local fancy dress shop that had a George outfit for hire, I found myself boarding a plane to Belfast wearing a furry pink bodysuit!

Naturally, I got some strange looks – but hey, wearing my outfit rather than stuffing it into a bag meant that I escaped having to pay Easyjet’s extortionate prices for checking a bag onto one of their flights!

Happily, the party was fab, with loads of people having really gone to town with their outfits.

I think my photos probably pretty much speak for themselves!

And any night where you get so drunk that you wake up the next morning lying in the back of a meat delivery van – as I did! - has got to be regarded as a spectacular success!

The meat delivery van in question was one belonging to the business run by Zippy’s family – a small empire of butchers shops.

Given what they do for a living, it will come as no surprise when I tell you that I get all sorts of abuse off the Kearneys for the fact that I don’t eat meat!

Indeed, I guess my friendship with Zippy and his family is quite an improbable one really.

That said, my veggie ways gave me an amazing opportunity to do something to make Zippy truly happy on his birthday.

For years, you see, Zippy has always gone on about how much he’d love to see me eat some meat. And sothe night after the party, when a few of us went out to dinner, I decided to bite the bullet and order a medium-rare sirloin steak – which I proceeded to devour in its entirety!

And as Zippy sat next to me observing this spectacle, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man look so happy..!

My bowels, of course, were somewhat less happy the following morning – but hey, that’s the price you pay sometimes for great friendship..!