The footballer John Robertson, who has died aged 72, was a star talent for Nottingham Forest as they won successive European Cup finals in 1979 and 1980. Provider of the cross for Trevor Francis to head the winning goal in the first of those matches, he scored the winner himself in the second.

A world class left-winger in his prime, with dazzling dribbling skills, Robertson was the creative heart of the Forest team and the fulcrum of many of their moves. He was once described by their manager Brian Clough as a “Picasso” of the game, such was his artistic flair. He was generally considered the best player Forest have ever fielded, and one of the finest British footballers of the second half of the 20th century.

From something of an ugly duckling, Robertson developed into an elegant swan under Clough’s motivational leadership as Forest progressed from obscurity to greatness in double-quick time, epitomising the way in which the charismatic manager and his assistant, Peter Taylor, could uncover and burnish qualities in previously under-appreciated players.

During his main spell at Forest, from 1970 to 1983, Robertson also won the First Division Championship and two League Cups before moving to Derby County, after which he returned briefly to Forest. Later he embarked on a successful coaching career with his old Forest team-mate and friend Martin O’Neill, who used him with success as an assistant manager at Wycombe Wanderers, Norwich, Leicester, Celtic and Aston Villa.

Born in Viewpark, on the outskirts of Glasgow, Robertson was the youngest, by some distance, of the three children of Hughie, a coalminer, and his wife, a biscuit factory worker. Brought up in nearby Uddingston, he went to Hozier secondary school, where he played age group football for Lanarkshire, Scotland and Drumchapel Amateurs.

Attracting interest from scouts at Nottingham Forest, he accepted an offer to join the club as a 15-year-old amateur in 1968, having just finished school. Living in digs in Nottingham, he took on a supplementary job as a messenger boy at a printing firm until he was signed as a full-time professional, making his debut at 17 in the First Division against Blackpool in 1970.

Forest had been doing relatively well in the top flight up to that point, but their fortunes began to fade around the time Robertson joined, ending with relegation to the Second Division in 1972. For five seasons they remained in the second tier, where despite his great promise Robertson struggled to make an impact, dropping in and out of the side while developing a reputation for laziness, sullenness and a general lack of self-belief.

However, the arrival in 1975 of Clough and, a bit later, Taylor, led to a sea change in Robertson’s fortunes. With characteristic hyperbole, Clough described Robertson at that point as a “scruffy, unfit, uninterested waste of time”. Nonetheless, he saw potential in the underperforming 22-year-old, who became his all-time favourite player. Clough and Taylor swiftly managed to uncover the best of his talent, including by switching him from central midfield to the left wing.

Stocky and not especially quick, Robertson was able to make up for his lack of burning pace with a sharp footballing brain, wonderful footwork and a consistently good end-product in the form of accurately flighted crosses into the penalty box. From 1976 onwards he became a linchpin of the side, playing 243 consecutive matches at one stage.

With Robertson finally hitting his straps, Forest were promoted to the First Division in 1977, securing the League Championship the following season by a comfortable margin, having also won the League Cup final 1-0 against Liverpool in a replay in which Robertson scored from a penalty.

After he picked up another League Cup winners’ medal the following year (a 3-2 victory over Southampton), in the European Cup campaign of 1978-79 Robertson made a decisive intervention in the final in Munich against Malmö, skinning two defenders to reach the byline before delivering a perfectly looped ball to the back post, where Francis stole in for a header that led to a 1-0 victory.

Defending their title the next season, Forest again won 1-0 in the final, this time against Hamburg in Madrid, where on 20 minutes Robertson cut in from the left to curl a right-footed shot past the goalkeeper for the winner. Earlier in the competition he had showed great fortitude after his brother, Hughie, and sister-in-law Isobel were killed in a car crash; he attended the funeral shortly before the first leg of the semi-final against Cologne, yet managed to stay focused enough to score with a diving header in a 3-3 draw.

After the high points in Europe, Forest experienced a gradual falling away in achievement, and in 1983 Robertson left Clough to join Second Division Derby, who were by then being managed by Taylor – a signing that fuelled a longstanding rift between the two former managerial partners and did little to profit Robertson, who had two uninspiring seasons there, disrupted by injury. He went back to Forest – and Clough – in 1985, but was unable to last much longer.

As a Scotland player Robertson had made his debut in May 1978, subsequently playing one game, against Iran, at that year’s World Cup finals in Argentina before appearing in three matches in a rather more successful World Cup campaign at the 1982 finals in Spain. He made the last of his 28 international appearances in 1983, while at Derby.

Robertson ended his career playing non-league football with Corby Town, Stamford and then, as assistant player-manager, at non-league Grantham Town, who were managed by O’Neill. The connection between the two endured, and after a period as landlord of the Greyhound pub in Aslockton, Nottinghamshire, from 1990 onwards he spent two decades in tandem with O’Neill in management.

Robertson’s warm, self-effacing personality and generosity of spirit made him a popular, trusted coach and a well-liked figure in general. An astute judge of players, like Clough he preferred a simple approach to coaching that was unclouded by mystique. With O’Neill his chief triumphs were to bring Wycombe into the Football League in 1993, to win the League Cup twice with Leicester, in 1997 and 2000, and to help Celtic to three Premier league titles, in 2001, 2002 and 2004. He retired while at Aston Villa in 2010.

In his final years Robertson was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

He is survived by his second wife, Sharyl, and their children, Andrew and Mark; by a daughter, Liz, from his first marriage, to Sally, which ended in divorce; and by two granddaughters, Jess and Phoebe. Another daughter, Jessica, from his first marriage, died in 1996.

• John Neilson Robertson, footballer, born 20 January 1953; died 25 December 2025