I don’t remember ever being quite so un-excited by the prospect of a Derby. Never mind actually going, bothering to go to a venue to watch the fare on telly wasn’t even a given. I think the whole experience is best summed up by Just Lambert on Twitter, who poetically wrote: ‘Derby v Forest is like two drunk tramps fighting over the last chip.’ Quite. Have we over the years been over-bothered about this local rivalry and taken our collective eyes off the bigger prize? Too happy to just be better than Derby? I don’t know…
Firstly though, a bit of perspective on the importance of it all, as Twitter explodes with continuing Forest-rage, in a week in which ex Birmingham City player Sam Oji died at the age of 35 and Afghan Youth International Zaki Anwari, age 19, fell to his death from the undercarriage of a US plane at Kabul Airport. Desperately sad.
CTFC were showing the match on the big screen before their own encounter with Cambridge City, so that was where I headed. There seems little point re-hashing other people’s thoughts on this one or even giving much of a report. Forest were dire in the first half, less dire in the second and the two tramps shared that last chip. 1-1. Gaeton Bong stress-tested my “if you can‘t say something nice…” motto to breaking point. To be fair to him, this is a guy who was told there was no place for him in the Summer, whose position will be filled by new loanee Max Lowe from now on. In response to this, Bong would seem to have decided to completely reinvent what it is to be a professional footballer, reinventing the game itself perhaps, with a display today most kindly described as, errr, different. Conversely, centre half Scott McKenna had his usual solid game and it was great to see Joe Worrall back, holding Forest together against what we must remember is a diabolical Derby side with a hopeless manager too. (No offence to any Rams reading this - I totally accept that we’re just as diabolical and have an equally hopeless manager. See previous post for me being really sickeningly nice about DCFC too!). Young Brennan Johnson fired home the late equaliser, no doubt making ex-tricky Dad, David, a very proud man indeed. Lovely. Less lovely, Craig Forsyth’s horrible stamp on Philip Zinckernagel in the first half, which must be worth a retrospective look at by the EFL.
So, to the CTFC match. Cambridge City have had an interesting history. As a kid, I remember they always seemed to be up for election to the League, when that was how it worked. Somehow, Cambridge United, historically a smaller club, got there first. Indeed, City had turned down joining the League in 1938, nobly wanting to keep hold of their amateur status. That place was taken by fierce rivals Ipswich Town. Whatever happened to them? City had a ground capable of holding well over ten thousand and a home attendance record of over 12,000 v Leytonstone in 1950. Even a redeveloped ground in the 80s had a capacity of 3,000 with 700 hundred seats. From 2010, a number of ground shares took them out of the city itself and a new stadium, projected capacity 3,000 seats, is currently under development in Sawston.
City put out a team of strapping lads today, in what turned into a feisty encounter. In fact, I get the impression that feisty is going to be the defining word for the Millers in this blog. If the ref, as rumoured to have been heard admitting before kick-off, really did have a steaming hangover, he was in for a tricky afternoon.
The first half was end to end and entertaining enough. Both sides had chances to score more than once and Carlton ‘keeper Kieran Preston made two impressive saves. The ref made some perplexing decisions, perhaps in need of a half-time hair of the dog. City’s somewhat, shall we say ‘talkative’ skipper, perhaps sensing the lack of control, did his best to get an opponent sent off with a vicious haranguing of the ref over a stamp that never was. Can‘t be doing with that.
Joy Division over the tannoy at half-time though, which was nice and cheerful! CTFC rapidly becoming the club John Peel would have supported were he a) still with us and b) not a Liverpool obsessive.
Carlton took the lead in the 61st minutes with a close-range header from Nat Watson, barely two minutes after City had hit the bar. City pressed for an equaliser and it seemed their chance had come with a penalty in the last ten minutes, but MOTM Kieran Preston went the right way to make a great save.
A shocking over the top challenge led to a proper ruckus and City’s Max Ryan being sent off. Cue angry scenes all round - players, coaching staff and fans.
Final result, once everyone had calmed down, 1-0 to the still unbeaten Millers.
It was nice to meet Gary ‘Boatsy’ Clarke after the match for a chat about the Forest-1FC Koln connection, which seems to grow and grow with each passing season. Gary, who does a lot to support Carlton, had noticed my 2020 Karneval home shirt and showed an interest. More on that, the Forest-Effzeh thing, not my shirt, in a post soon…
Elsewhere, a 5-0 trouncing for Arsenal at Man City only reinforces the feeling that it absolutely is just all about the money now. Maybe everyone’s getting hacked off with it. Only 22,000 at the BBG for Derby-Forest. Even given the pitiful states of both, you‘d surely expect a sell-out?
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