It was the week that Old Big 'Ead of Nottingham Forest got the better of Celtic's Quiet Assassin in more ways than one.
A Battle of Britain football bout that saw two heavyweights go toe-to-toe in a scrap. At the end of the fight, Forest's Brian Clough had left Davie Hay's Celtic sprawled on the UEFA Cup canvass.
Clough had won on points- although, as we're about to recount, perhaps pints would be a more accurate description.
It is 39 years since the two teams fought out a draw in the UEFA Cup third round first leg at the City Ground. The match was shown live by the BBC on a freezing night in November when the playing surface was rock-hard.
The showpiece was almost marred by crushing at the packed Celtic end of the ground as some 6,000 travelling fans occupied the away end of the stadium.
The game was stopped until safety was restored as Parkhead club doctor John Fitzimmons tended to hurt fans at side of the pitch. Clough also grabbed a Celtic flag and launched it on the field during the stoppage as he remonstrated with Hoops assistant Frank Connor.
Clough wrongfully thought that hooliganism was to blame for the stoppage. On this occasion, he had misjudged events.
Former Celtic boss Billy McNeill (then of Manchester City), Alex Ferguson (of Aberdeen) and Jock Wallace (of Rangers) had all turned up to watch the match, which ended 0-0.
The goalless draw should have signalled swung the tie in Celtic's favour after the Hoops turned in a magnificent display against the former European Cup winners.
What Celtic and Hay didn't reckon on was the genius of Clough for the second leg, which took place in front of a sell-out 67,000 crowd inside Parkhead in December in what was the first Paradise sell-out since a European Cup quarter-final against Real Madrid three years previous.
Clough's midfield enforcer Ian Bowyer - a double European Cup winner with Forest - takes up the legendary story.
"This was very much an England v Scotland Battle of Britain match so the media gave it big licks and top billing," Bowyer told The Celtic Way. "The first leg was played on a frosty night in Nottingham and it didn't lend itself towards controlled football. It was a game where players viewed staying on their feet as a triumph.
"The second leg was different for many reasons and this is where Clough came into his own. Davie Hay owned a couple of bars near Glasgow Airport in Paisley. We stayed in Troon, our training for the Celtic match consisted of a walk around the golf course.
"On our coach journey to Parkhead, we passed a bar that had a sign saying Davie Hay's Bar and the bus ground to a halt. Clough being Clough, he took us all inside for a drink. He ordered 20 half-lagers, paid for none of them and told the young lad behind the bar to stick it on Davie Hay's tab. We all had half a lager each and that was that.
"It was classic Clough. It was a brilliant piece of brinksmanship, one-upmanship... call it what you will but it worked. The barman went straight on the phone to Davie Hay and he couldn't believe that Clough could be so brazen as to walk into his pub and charge a round of drinks to him. He was a force of nature."
Years later, in an interview with the Daily Record, Hay said: "The thing is everybody goes on about the time when Cloughy came to Glasgow for the second leg of the UEFA Cup tie and brought his team into the pub I had in Paisley at that time for a drink. It was assumed to be the frivolous act of a man who'd more or less given up on a tie that had been a goalless draw in England - but all of that was proof of his genius because there was a method in this apparent madness.
"I had said to Clough before we left Nottingham that anytime he was in Scotland he should pop in and see me at the pub - but I didn't mean while I was at Seamill preparing Celtic for the return leg! It was there that I got a call from my brother-in-law, Gerry, to tell me the entire Nottingham Forest team had descended on the bar. He asked 'What will I do?' so I replied 'Give them a drink and charge it to me'.
"Brian had taken the trouble to find out the pub was very close to Glasgow Airport and he knew his gesture would be misinterpreted as a lack of confidence."
The reverse psychology worked as Forest defeated Celtic 2-1 in Glasgow's east end. Second-half goals by future England standout Steve Hodge and Colin Walsh were enough to put paid to the Hoops' ambitions in Europe for another year despite Murdo MacLeod grabbing a consolation strike with 10 minutes left.
As Clough matter-of-factly put it at the end: "It was a lovely game." Some four decades on Bowyer echoes those sentiments of his old mentor.
"Winning football matches is an occupational hazard," he said. "That is what Brian Clough's team did - we won football matches.
"When we arrived at Celtic Park the locals were baying for some blood and that is totally understandable. It was quite lively, let's just say that, but it was a great night for Forest.
"It was a lovely game for us, as Clough said, because not many teams go to Celtic Park and go 2-0 up to kill a European tie stone dead. We were so relieved the game did become lovely for us after that.
"Having drawn the first game 0-0 in Nottingham we all thought we were going to have our hands full but we were comfortable on the night and once we scored two we knew Celtic weren't going to score three.
"I remember Paul McStay was tipped as the next big thing for Celtic and Scottish football but we did a job and nullified him on that occasion. I actually have still got the Celtic shirt that I swapped with Graeme Sinclair from that game that night."
Despite emerging with a fairly routine victory, Bowyer still rates Parkhead among the upper echelons of footballing stadia.
"For me, it is between Celtic Park and Anfield as to what was the best atmosphere at an away ground," he added. "I used to love going to Anfield, I loved playing in that arena. You cannot rival those two grounds for the atmosphere and the aggression of the crowd as well as the intimidation factor that lesser players probably couldn't handle.
"Those are the two that were the toughest to go to and play football. I'm pleased to say I got results in Europe at both Celtic Park and Anfield."
The man whose shirt Bowyer left Glasgow with, Sinclair, reckons that rather than being outthought in the build-up it was simply a case of job half-done from a Celtic perspective and that the Hoops just failed to turn up at Parkhead.
"I remember the first game - it was freezing and the match was played on a rock-solid pitch," Sinclair said. "We drew 0-0, which was viewed as a great result for us, but a wall collapsed and the Celtic fans spilt onto the pitch at one point and the game was halted for a lengthy delay.
"In actual fact, we played very well down in Nottingham and should have won at the City Ground by at least three goals and this was against a team who three years previous were European champions.
"I also remember Ian Wallace came on as a substitute in the first leg. I had played with him at Dumbarton so was a former team-mate of his. I nodded to say hello to him but he totally blanked me, looked right through me. I was playing for the opposition so I just shrugged my shoulders. He was also driving a Rolls-Royce at that time!
"Unfortunately Forest did a number on us at Parkhead in front of 67,000. We were confident after the first leg as we really performed well that night when all the talk before the tie was that Clough's men were the red-hot favourites and the whole Battle of Britain thing got ramped up a notch.
"Forest probably thought they would win because they were an English First Division side but Celtic definitely made them and Clough sit up and take notice of us after the first leg.
"They had a lot of decent English players back then. Viv Anderson, Ian Bowyer and Garry Birtles all played - and they had won the European Cup for a start - but then you had rising stars like Steve Hodge in the team too.
"I feel we could have possibly gone all the way in the 1983 UEFA Cup and achieved something special. The Celtic teams that I played for in the 80s had a great camaraderie and some decent results. Teams do need a bit of luck at times, especially in Europe, but we did not get our reward from a cracking first-leg display against Nottingham Forest and paid the penalty at Celtic Park."
Forest would reach the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup that season only to lose to Anderlecht, who themselves were defeated by Tottenham Hotspur in the final.
However, in the ensuing years, it turned out that the referee had been bribed during the Nottingham Forest versus Anderlecht tie. During a 1997 court case, the Belgians admitted paying the Spanish referee Emilio Guruceta Muro.
That contributed to depriving Bowyer a crack at winning a full set of UEFA winners' medals and Clough a chance of winning a third European trophy.
The now 71-year-old, who scored the winner in the 1979 European Cup semi-final against Cologne, said: "I would have loved the chance to complete the full set from all three competitions. I was lucky to win the European Cup-Winners' Cup with Manchester City as a teenager [in 1970] then I won two European Cups with Nottingham Forest.
"I was deprived of the chance to get a full set because of the Anderlecht refereeing bribing scandal and debacle. There was no way we were winning that game against Anderlecht. That was naughty."
Naughty? That's one word for it. Although you get the feeling that Bowyer summed it all up succinctly and exactly as Clough may well have done.
While the fallout from Anderlecht was no laughing matter for Nottingham Forest some 39 years ago, Clough's team did have the last laugh on Celtic in Glasgow's east end.
It's a safe bet that if Old Big 'Ead were still alive today then he would raise a glass to toast the anniversary of yet another famous European win for Forest.
A glass? It would surely be a half pint of lager, wouldn't it? And knowing Brian Clough it would probably be Davie Hay footing the bill again.
READ MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR:
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here