Last weekend Derby County sacked manager Nigel Clough, who is probably better known around the world as 'Son of Brian'.
Nigel Clough
His late father would certainly have had something to say about the abrupt nature of the sacking from the same club with which he had so much success as a manager from 1967-73. Up to that point Clough Jr had been the longest-serving Championship manager, with more than four years at Pride Park.
Nigel is not one to drift from job to job. Prior to his Derby appointment in 2009 he had been Burton Albion manager for more than 10 years, guiding the non-league club into League Two.
Somewhat alarmingly, he is the 50th manager out of the 92 clubs in the Football League, to have lost his job in the last 12 months.
Although results at Derby had not been brilliant, with major financial restrictions he had done well to establish the Rams as a middle-of-the table club, finishing 12th and 10th the last two seasons. Derby were 14th when Clough was dismissed, after a 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest last weekend.
The immediate reaction to Clough's dismissal by fans was one of shock. "Disgraceful" and "disgusting" were two popular observations and a poll by the local newspaper showed only 26 percent of its readers thought the sacking was justified. An online petition was started entitled "Clough in, Board out."
Former Derby skipper Robbie Savage called it a "diabolical decision", while fellow BBC pundit Leroy Rosenior said he was absolutely flabbergasted.
Derby didn't waste any time announcing a replacement in the form of former England and Middlesbrough coach Steve McClaren, which suggests the decision to dump Clough had been made some time earlier.
However, the new boss can feel satisfied after his first day's work. Watching from the stands, McLaren saw his team slump to an embarrassing 4-1 half-time deficit at home to Ipswich. At half-time, he marched into the dressing room, gave a stirring pep talk, made a couple of substitutions and saw his team fight back to salvage a 4-4 draw.
McLaren has also been careful to say the right things, praising Clough for his efforts.
"What I want to do here is to put a Derby team out that excites the fans. We want to get the fans excited because they are the most important people," the new manager said.
It sounds good, but unfortunately it is unlikely he can extract exciting football from his current squad. So it comes down to whether his American bosses are prepared to splash the cash, something they werent prepared to do with Clough.
When Nigel was managing Burton, his father suggested that his son might not be tough enough.
"I'm fed up with hearing people say what a nice, fine lad he is," said Brian. "He doesn't get that from me. You have to be prepared to be unpopular and tell people things they don't want to hear."
On another occasion Brian observed: "He's not as bright as me despite his A-levels... everybody likes him, so there's obviously something wrong."
Despite his father's comments, Nigel can be equally thick-skinned and brutally honest. His public criticism of players has landed him in trouble with the FA.
After Tomasz Cywka had a very poor game for Derby, Nigel commented: "He is an extremely inexperienced and not very bright footballer - he can go back to Wigan, or wherever he came from."
After being criticised for this public outburst, Nigel replied: "I don't regret naming players. I more regret playing them."
When he was appointed manager at Derby in 2009, Nigel's orders were to slash the wage bill and rebuild the team. He proceeded to do just that, but the reality was that slashing the wage bill meant you lost your best players. The team wasn't helped by suffering an extreme number of injuries.
In his playing days Nigel enjoyed a successful time as centre-forward at Nottingham Forest, under his father as the gaffer. Brian never called him by his first name at the club, always referring to "the No.9." Even so it must have been extremely difficult for Nigel playing when his father was the boss, with the inevitable "daddy's boy" syndrome.
During his time at Forest Nigel scored 131 goals, the second highest in club history - the Forest record is held by Grenville Morris who scored 217 goals between 1898-1913.
Nigel was greatly appreciated at Forest and the Irish band, The Sultans of Ping FC, dedicated a song to him entitled Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass, taken from a quote by his father about ex-Forest winger John Robertson.
After Forest, Nigel moved on to Liverpool and then Manchester City but was hampered by injury and eventually joined Burton Albion as player-manager in 1998.
Inevitably the events of the past week have had Derby fans talking about the time more than four decades ago, when Nigel's father transformed a struggling Division Two club into England's League champions in 1972.
Brian was particularly proud of winning the title with an unfashionable club and a very small squad.
"Whichever team wins the league championship in the next 20 years, none of them will have as hard a job as we had," he said. "We did it with 12 players. Those London bums can't explain it."
That's a piece of Derby history that no one can take from the club.