He is a man of distinction with a foot planted firmly in the hall of fame at two football clubs desperate to rise again towards previous dizzy heights. Frank Clark will be sitting within St James Park come the opening day of a new Premier League season on August 6 to witness his two old clubs Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest lock horns in expectation.
Clark is bound for the Moncur Suite amid the upper echelons of SJP as a specially invited guest of his former Magpie skipper Bob Moncur while also doubling as a figurehead with Forest living as he still does on the outskirts of Nottingham. Where his loyalties lie will gnaw at his very fabric because he is proud of his record with both clubs.
And so he should be because Clark won the European Fairs Cup with United - the last major trophy they captured way back in 1969 - and later the European Cup itself at Forest. As grand a double as you are likely to find given that both clubs have fallen spectacularly from those dizzy heights over many, many barren years.
Consider if you will the respective records this most reliable of full-backs born on the south side of the Tyne at Highfield achieved in a playing career of distinction and longevity. With Newcastle United Clark played a stunning 486 competitive games between 1962 and 1975 lifting the Second Division championship (1965), Fairs Cup (1969), Anglo-Italian Cup (1973), collecting an FA Cup runners up medal (1974), Texaco Cup (1974) and Texaco Cup again (1975).
A free transfer saw Brian Clough sign him for Nottingham Forest where Clark clocked up 156 league and cup appearances (75-79) winning Second Division promotion (1977), Anglo-Scottish Cup (1977), First Division championship (1978), League Cup (1978), League Cup again (1979), First Division runners-up (1979), and ultimately the European Cup (1979).
Quite, quite unbelievable for a player supposedly finished when thrown out of Newcastle - a little reminiscent of when double FA Cup winner Ronnie Simpson was axed after nine years a Magpie playing almost 300 games but rose to even greater glory claiming the European Cup of 1967 as a Lisbon Lion with Celtic and being awarded his first Scottish cap at the age of 36 years and 196 days.
Appropriately Clarkie's final game of a long career was at the very pinnacle - the European Cup final against Malmo. Though he still had a year left on his Forest contract and Cloughie wanted him to stay Frank was 36 years of age and Sunderland's newly appointed manager Ken Knighton approached him to become his assistant so it was back to the North East.
Yet the Newcastle-Nottingham thing was far from over for Clark after he hung up his boots. He went on to manage Forest, become their chairman, and finally an official ambassador. Not many complete the full set.
If he won gongs with Cloughie then he did it on his own too being crowned the League Managers Association Manager of the Year for 1994-95 when Forest finished third top of the First Division behind Alan Shearer's Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United qualifying for the UEFA Cup where Clark reached the quarter-finals the following season. Throw in the sideshow of having won the FA Amateur Cup with Crook Town at Wembley, become assistant manager of Sunderland, and Manchester City manager, and the depth of his experience is enormous.
However as Frank prepares to return 'home' to NUFC with so many memories flooding his mind he remains steadfastly positive about his feeling towards both clubs. "I'm often asked which of my European medals means the most and everyone expects me to say my Forest one because it was the Champions League," Clark told me, "but I can honestly say with hand on my heart that I value my Fairs Cup one just as much. They have equal value in my mind.
"The Fairs Cup was a terrific achievement for a club which had never played in Europe and it still hasn't been achieved by a Newcastle side so I am hardly going to undervalue it. The United fans have never forgotten us. In fact various anniversaries down the years have seen more celebrations on the Tyne than the Trent. Take the 50th anniversary of our 1969 victory - I went with a host of our lads to Budapest to attend a series of reunions with the Ujpest Dozsa players."
Clark will return to his old stamping ground in a week's time marvelling at the similarities between miracle workers Eddie Howe and Steve Cooper. "It's uncanny really," smiled Frank.
"Both clubs were dead in the water early last season - Newcastle failed to win in their first 14 matches while Forest took one point from their first eight games which made them both a knocking bet to go down. Seven defeats out of eight with no victory told its own story for Forest.
"However like Newcastle they changed manager and just as Eddie Howe galvanised fans with a momentous run of results in 2022 so too did Steve Cooper at Forest. He brought together supporters and players in a way which looked impossible. They won an incredible 27 of 45 games after Steve's arrival to turn impending disaster into glorious fulfillment."
Promotion after a 23-year exile from football's top table elite was achieved with a momentous victory over Huddersfield in the Play-off Final at Wembley with ex-player, manager and chairman Clark sitting in the crowd. Frank knew Steve Cooper's dad Keith, who is a former referee, but had not met Forest's new boss until Cooper junior started popping into the Thursday Club of legendary European Cup winners to listen to the host of fabled stories over lunch.
Clark was - still is - part of that in-crowd along with the likes of John Robertson, Garry Birtles, John O’Hare and Colin Barrett. Both clubs have raided the transfer market this summer as they attempt to build for a season of substance.
However while United have so far brought in Nick Pope and Sven Botman along with signing Matt Targett permanently, Forest have gone berserk reinforcing their Championship squad with no fewer than 11 signings: Taiwo Awoniyi (Union Berlin) £17m, Neco Williams (Liverpool) £16m, Moussa Niakhate (Mainz) £13m, Omar Richards (Bayern Munich) £10m, Lewis O'Brien and Harry Toffolo (Huddersfield) £10m combined, Giulian Biancone (Troyes ) £9m, Brandon Aguilera (LD Alajuelense) £855,000, Wayne Hennessey (Burnley) free, Dean Henderson (Man United) loan, Jesse Lingard (Man United) free.
"Despite all the deals Forest haven't actually got the same financial clout of Newcastle who will be pushing on for a top half finish," maintained Frank. "For Forest a significant part of the rebuilding would be staying up which promoted sides often find difficult."
Frank Clark is equally as popular with Newcastle fans as he is with the Forest fraternity and he will return to our boundaries at the beginning of December to do a special chat show with me in Tynemouth. By then the dye will probably be cast for both United and Forest in their seasonal quest for improvement.
Who will be the happier? I know where I'm looking.
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