Larry Lloyd fell victim to Bob Paisley’s grand Liverpool plan – then proved him wrong

In the autumn of 1977, Larry Lloyd, who has died aged 75, broke a bone in his foot while playing for newly-promoted Nottingham Forest. As cover, the club manager Brian Clough bought David Needham from Queens Park Rangers. And, with Needham outstanding at the heart of the defence, Forest’s astonishing rise continued unabated, their victory role in Lloyd’s absence including a 4-0 win at Manchester United. But the moment Lloyd was fit, Clough put him straight back in the team.

“You may wonder why I did that,” the manager said to Needham in front of the rest of the players. “You’ve done brilliantly. And you’re a lovely lad. In fact if I had a daughter, I’d be delighted if she ended up with you.”

Then he pointed at Lloyd. “But him, he’s a f------ b------.”

Voted on several occasions as Forest’s hardest ever player (“I wasn’t that hard I was just clumsy at times,” he once insisted), for five years Lloyd acted as Clough’s unabashed enforcer on the field. As the club won the league title, two League Cups and, gloriously, two European Cups, he was the uncompromising rock around which the defence was built. Never mind that the pair did not get on personally - Lloyd maintained that the manager’s refusal ever to compliment him on a performance irked him to distraction -theirs was a magnificent, silverware-bedecked sporting relationship. And it was one, he often reflected, that would never have come about had he not made a fuss about being overlooked at a previous club, Liverpool.

He had arrived at Anfield from Bristol Rovers as a raw 20-year-old in 1969. Bill Shankly quickly promoted him to the first team and by 1973, when he played every minute of every game in a season in which Liverpool won the league title and the Uefa Cup, he was an integral part of the team. The following season however, when he was injured, Phil Thompson was promoted in his place. New manager Bob Paisley, preferring the more accomplished passing of Thompson to Lloyd’s blunderbuss manner, kept the newcomer in the side even when the stalwart was fully fit. Lloyd was not happy. “I threw my toys out the pram,” he once admitted. And demanded a transfer.

Always shrewd in the market, Paisley sold him to Coventry City for a club record £260,000. Such a huge outlay was it, Coventry were soon in financial trouble and sought to offload their pricey new recruit. At which point, in came Clough. He was looking for an experienced, tough, no-messing defender. But with Forest then sitting in the middle of the second division, it was not an easy sell. Though, as Lloyd later reflected, Clough was “a very, very clever man.” And, after an initial loan spell, the manager persuaded the defender to sign for the club by way of offering him a new washing machine. With the new white goods plumbed into his home, Lloyd signed up and turned up at the Forest training ground, where he was accosted by one of the laundry staff. “Are you Larry Lloyd?” he was asked. “Well, you’ve just cost us our washing machine. The manager sent two blokes down to take it round to your house.”

It was worth the investment. Despite being the most fined player of Clough’s era (he was once docked two weeks wages for punching Peter Osgood in a fog so thick the referee missed it; the manager didn’t) he was a towering presence in the team. His best performance, he always reckoned, was against Hamburg in Forest’s second European triumph. He was so good, in 1980, by now in his thirties, he was recalled to the England side nine years after earning his first three international caps. It was not an auspicious return: England lost 4-1 to Wales, and he never played for his country again.

The following season, though, he was told by Clough he was getting too old for Forest. But by way of compensation Clough agreed to talk up his potential as a manager, mentioning in several interviews that he could become a top boss. As a result, he was offered a job at Wigan as player manager. Though it was something of a climbdown. As he recalled, he played in the Intercontinental Cup final in Tokyo and the following Saturday, played for Wigan at Rochdale.

But he was a success at Wigan, leading them to promotion to the third tier. His abilities caught the eye of the board at Notts County, then in the top flight, who invited him back to the banks of the Trent. However his Forest connections meant he never won over the fans and, with County relegated, he was soon let go.

He stayed in Nottingham however, buying a couple of pubs and a night club, and turning out as a highly opinionated pundit for local radio. After a spell living in Spain, where he invested successfully in property developments, he returned to the city and was a regular at Forest home games, feted by fans who recalled his part in the glory days.

“People often ask me what was my biggest regret in the game,” he once said. “And I suppose I should say it was a massive mistake to kick off at Liverpool. But then if I hadn’t, I’d never have gone to Forest. And that’s where I had the time of my life.”