Derby County entertain Peterborough United in the Championship. It’s not a match to have the television executives slavering but then the occasion is not just about the football.
The pre-match handshake will bring together the younger generation of two football legends. In the black and white corner is Nigel Clough, the Derby manager and son of Brian; wearing blue is Darren Ferguson, son of Sir Alex, the Manchester United boss and most successful English league manager ever.
Both are young, modest, gifted and have benefitted from some handy genes.
Yet both have reached the moment their paths will cross in very different ways.
Clough junior had 10 years as a non-league manager at Burton Albion before leaving in January with the Brewers poised for promotion to take over at Derby, the club his father took from nowhere to a league title and European Cup semi-final in the early 1970s.
He enjoyed a football career playing at the highest level with England (winning 14 caps), Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Liverpool. His successful grounding as a manager saw him rebut several approaches before the lure of Derby, his home town club and the one which remained strongest in the heart of his father, proved too strong in the end.
Ferguson, who is six years Clough’s junior, failed to hit the heights his potential promised, despite him being able to boast a Premier League winners’ medal with Manchester United.
It might not have been so; at United he was a regular until injury forced him out for two months. When he returned, he found his spot in the side had been filled by a certain Frenchman called Cantona.
He spent the rest of his career in the lower leagues at Wolves and Wrexham before, like Clough, turning to management at an early age.
Unlike the Rams’ boss, however, who has placed great emphasis on building slowly, Ferguson’s career in the hot seat has been short and explosive.
Taking his first job at Peterborough two and a half years ago, he has led them to immediate and back to back promotions playing the kind of football steeped in the Manchester United way.
Less than three years after wallowing in the lower reaches of League 2, he has got the Posh one season away from playing in the Premiership.
On the face of it, the clubs are worlds apart. Peterborough’s average gate last season was 7,000, as opposed to Derby, who regularly sold out at over 30,000.
London Road holds none of the playing allure of Pride Park.
While Peterborough are entering unchartered territory at Championship level, they are on a role and will enter the new season brimming with confidence; whereas Derby, after that catastrophic Premiership season, battled the spectre of relegation last year and are still desperately seeking a way forward.
What both managers share is their fathers’ ethos of, to paraphrase Brian Clough, playing the game the way it should be – namely passing it around on the ground, so it ought to be pleasing on the eye.
In front of 33,000 spectators there should be little to separate the teams on Saturday afternoon and the battle of wits between two of the game’s brightest young minds will be crucial.
Ferguson v Clough: Generation 2 should prove a fascinating encounter.
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